Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 15:45, 20 February 2006

Proposed temporary injunctions

Userbox creation stopped

1) That userboxes (however they may be defined) are, until the close of this case, not to be created. Any user creating a user box will be warned, and persistant creation of boxes despite this warning may results in blocking. Any user box created may be speedily deleted regardless of it's content, with the proviso that this deletion be noted here. This injunction does not affect normal editing of existing user boxes.

Comment by Arbitrators:

It is pretty clear that the issue is not userboxes but objectionable userboxes. This blanket injunction would apply to all userboxes, even such harmless and fun ones as {{user rainbow}}. Actually the issue is the relationship between Tony Sidaway's actions and userbox policy as it existed at the time of his actions. Fred Bauder 15:43, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

I see no pressing need here. Userbox creation per se was never the issue; moreover the rate of new userbox production has reduced greatly. From some 2000 in January, the rate has fallen to about 600 in the first two weeks of February, comparable with the rate for December. The immediate issue here in my opinion is reproduction of deleted content, so an injunction on recreation of deleted templates might be useful, but I hardly think it's necessary at this stage. I also share Lar's reservations on whether it could ever be workable. --Tony Sidaway 03:22, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

• This seems like a reasonable idea iff paired with a hold on deletion as below. - brenneman 01:23, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
• Is this really a workable idea? I'm just asking! I see the desire for balance but I think since anyone can create templates, enforcing a project wide hiatus on creation of boxes may be problematic. FAR more users can create things than can delete them. Also as written it's rather unclear. Does it mean that for example I can't do any new uses of {{user}} {{userbox}} on my user page? ++Lar: t/c 02:54, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Userbox deletion stopped

2) That userboxes (however they may be defined) are, until the close of this case, not to be deleted. Any admin deleting a user box will be warned, and persistant deletion of boxes despite this warning may results in blocking. Any user box deleted may be speedily restored regardless of its content, with the proviso that this restoration be noted here. This injunction does not affect normal editing of existing user boxes, which may be required for existing "clearly divisive" user boxes.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Extremely gross or disruptive material may be deleted. This includes userboxes. The controversy involves the middle ground where the userbox is arguably disruptive but not obviously so to everyone. Fred Bauder 15:54, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Again I see no pressing need. There is no massacre of userboxes; indeed they're being created at many times the rate at which they're being deleted. Let us not permit the philosophy of Chicken Little to color our decisions. --Tony Sidaway 03:34, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

• Just asking for a cease fire, paired with the injunction above. - brenneman 01:23, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
• this also seems tough to achieve. who defines "clearly divisive" ?? ++Lar: t/c 02:54, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
  • That's actually pretty much the point. Since we can't agree on what "clearly divisive" is, treat them all the same and {{sofixit}}.
    brenneman 21:58, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

• Only about 10% of userbox deletion is controversial (see User:Physchim62/Userboxen or the deletion logs), and userbox deletion accounts for only 0.5% of total deletion. This proposal is way too severe. Physchim62 (talk) 14:02, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Tony Sidaway banned from editing these arbitration pages

4) A quick analysis of the edits to date to these pages:

Editor                       Count     %
Tony Sidaway                    56    54%
Tony Sidaway m                  19    18%
Aaron Brenneman                 12    12%
Haukurth                         6    6%
Lar                              4    4%
Johnleemk                        2    2%
Johnleemk m                      2    2%
Physchim62                       1    1%
SCZenz                           1    1%
Aaron                            1    1%
Grand Total                      104

Comment by Arbitrators:

Actually if anything going on for far too long would not be a point in Tony's favor... you think we like to read this stuff? In any case, no, not workable. Though I would prefer it if any refactoring was left to a clerk not involved in the case. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 03:31, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Proposals and comments by the parties are encouraged. Fred Bauder 16:21, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Kudos to Crotalus. He's writing the encyclopedia. ---Tony Sidaway 03:21, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

I'm tempted to quote "wikipedia is not a soapbax" but it's very clear that allowing the editor with the most free time to carve requests for arbitration into their own image is not good for the encyclopedia. Let Tony get a mediator, or put suggested edits to this page on his talk, or any method that will allow the floor to be yeilded to other participants. This should not be about who is able to yell the loudest and longest. - brenneman 22:33, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Um, what? Tony's a party in this arbitration. He has to be able to comment on the case, add evidence, and so on. Or do I misunderstand which pages you're claiming he's not allowed to edit? -- SCZenz 22:39, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Come on, Aaron :) You've got to allow the guy to edit pages in his own case even if he is unusually prolific. I've got to admit, though, that I'm mentally awarding points to Crotalus for filing a case and then completely ignoring it in favor of editing articles on US coinage  :) Haukur 22:45, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

When we take out minor edits, almost 70% of the contributions to this page are by a single editor. Does that seem healthy? - brenneman 23:03, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, the case is named after him. -- SCZenz 23:06, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

If it were unhealthy, there would surely be some bad stuff on this page requiring amendments or excisions. Look at the substance, not the style, of his edits. For all we know, Tony may just suck at using the preview button. Besides, as others have said, it's impractical to ban a party to the case from editing pages about it. Johnleemk | Talk 06:59, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

You gotta be kidding!? --MarkSweep (call me collect) 11:12, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

This will be unworkable. The main party in a arbitration case must have access to the Workshop, and so far I cannot see that Tony has been doing anything disruptive here. Sjakkalle (Check!) 15:50, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Updated metrics below. - brenneman 06:37, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

editor	 	   Total     Percent
Tony Sidaway 	 	145	43%
Aaron Brenneman 	40	12%
David Gerard 	 	30	9%
Nandesuka 	 	24	7%
Geni 	 	 	16	5%
SCZenz 	  		14	4%
...
Aaron 	 	 	1	0%
Ral315 	  		1	0%
MegamanZero 	 	1	0%
Dmcdevit 	 	1	0%
Grand Total	 	335	100%

Aaron Brenneman restricted from editing pages of this arbitration

Aaron Brenneman may not directly edit pages relating to this arbitration. He may edit on the talk pages of this arbitration.

Comment by arbitrators:

He's not a party, but it'd still be silly and unnecessary. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 03:33, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Proposals and comments by others is both permitted and encouraged. Fred Bauder 16:22, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

As a point of information, I was a party to the Webcomics case, post facto. I always join myself to cases in which I intend to contribute evidence. Around half of the findings of fact and one of the two remedies in that case were written by me, and many of the other findings of fact contained substantial text written by me. --Tony Sidaway 17:30, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

He's all over these pages trying to nail Tony on anything he can, substantial or procedural, large or small, even though not involved in the case himself. That's obnoxious but not an offense ... but when he seriously proposes that the defendant not be allowed to edit the case pages at all, that's past the point of being taken seriously. If he has a substantive issue, he should join the case properly. Else stop acting querulously - David Gerard 07:26, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Err, Ad hominem? If you'd like to point out a section below that you think is not relevant, or dispute the numbers above, please do so. If you'd like graphic evidence of what I'm referring to please see the 15,000 words in Webcomics/Withdrawn or the 23,500 at Webcomics/Workshop. First note that Tony was not a party to that case, and that many of the issues he raised were explicitly ruled out in the "accept" comments of the arbitrators, per your objections above. Then examine the breakdown on number of edits (excluding those marked as minor) for the webcomics workshop page below.

Now it's all fine for us to say "a person has a right to defend themselves" and "it must all be good stuff" but I'd suggest that there are many angles from which to tell the same story, and that by allowing a single editor to overwhelmingly dominate the editing we decrease the chances of hearing all sides.

brenneman 11:06, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Editor 	            Count	%
Tony Sidaway 		279	37.8%
Snowspinner 		60	8.1%
SCZenz 		        51	6.9%
Jtkiefer 		44	6.0%
Filiocht 		38	5.1%
Aaron Brenneman 	30	4.1%
Geogre 		        27	3.7%
Mindspillage 		26	3.5%
Kelly Martin 		24	3.2%
Paul August 		24	3.2%
Sjakkalle 		23	3.1%
Nandesuka 		18	2.4%
Dformosa 		14	1.9%
Pilatus 		14	1.9%
ClockworkSoul 		11	1.5%
Dragonfiend 		11	1.5%
Lar 			10	1.4%
Sean Black 		9	1.2%
216.234.130.130 	7	0.9%
Tabor 			5	0.7%
Cryptic 		5	0.7%
Fred Bauder 		4	0.5%
Fangz 			2	0.3%
66.101.59.18 		1	0.1%
Titoxd 		        1	0.1%
The Epopt 		1	0.1%
Total Result		739

You're missing something important here, Aaron. Tony didn't really get what he wanted out of the decision in that case. So you seem to have proved that how much he edits doesn't really matter. (To be even-handed, I should mention the fairly obvious fact that excluding Aaron from these pages is just about as nonsensical as excluding Tony.) -- SCZenz 17:55, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Proposed findings of fact

Tony Sidaway deletes the Catholic Alliance of Misplaced Pages project page

17) At 21:05, 24 December 2005, Shanedidona (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) created a page in Misplaced Pages project space called Misplaced Pages:Catholic Alliance of wikipedia. This page was avowedly intended: "for the purpose of rallying voting on articles about topics such as abortion. This is a pro-life group." This page was not compatible with the aims of Misplaced Pages and constituted an overt and conscious attempt at organized vote stacking. At 00:56 the following day, Aecis (talk · contribs) listed it for deletion.

In response, Shanedidona used the category system built into the Catholic userboxes and contacted over 40 users who were listed as Catholics and asked them to "please vote and/or tell other people to vote to keep this organization on wikipedia" . This was another overt and conscious attempt to influence the result of debate on Misplaced Pages by manipulating the proportion of committed Roman Catholics who were involved.

At 13:09, Extreme Unction (talk · contribs) reposted a copy of a comment by Aecis, the nominator, in which Aecis showed that every single keep voter in the debate had done so after being spammed by Shanedidona . At that time there was a clear consensus to delete the article. Tony Sidaway deleted it and announced this: "I have deleted this as "Not remotely compatible with Misplaced Pages's policy of neutrality." .

Over the following days the page was repeatedly restored by administrators who claimed that it was an out-of-process deletion, three times by Nandesuka (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), twice by Sean_Black (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), and once each by Fennec (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), Musical_Linguist (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), and Karmafist (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), and deleted eight times by Tony Sidaway, while the clear consensus to delete continued. The debate was finally closed after three days, at 01:39, 28 December by NicholasTurnbull (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), who also deleted the page.

During the debate, Tony Sidaway continued to discuss and defended his actions. ,,,,, saying:

"Campaigning of this type against our policy of neutrality must be stamped out ruthlessly, deleted on sight. In accordance with this I again delete this project page. There is a clear and insurmountable consensus to delete this, and even if there were not, it and every project page like it would still have to be deleted because of its conflict with that policy. Please do not restore this."

He also submitted his conduct to review by the arbitration committee, which rejected the case by (0/4/0/0) after seven days .

It is the position of Tony Sidaway that it was necessary to delete the page immediately because the debate on its deletion had already shown a clear consensus to delete, and the debate itself was being abused as a focal point for ongoing attempts to subvert the neutrality policy.

Those admins who undeleted the page indicated that they thought that taking unilateral action while the community was discussing the issue was disrespectful and against the deletion policy,, and because they Tony's actions were per se disruptive in the same way as edit warring and 3RR violations. It is the position of Tony Sidaway that the page clearly had not a snowball's chance in hell of not being deleted, and that the undeleters were process-wrangling for the sake of it.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

A factual account of circumstances pertaining to the deletion of the page. If these actions were wrong I should not be an administrator. It doesn't matter how often it was restored by others. The only cause served by its continued existence was as a rallying point for the creator of the original page, whose avowed intention and continued actions constituted the attempted manipulation of debate in favor of a particular point of view. But I've added the numbers. --Tony Sidaway 15:02, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

The comment Nandesuka is looking for is listed above :

Every single word is as true, relevant and consistent with our prime directive--the neutrality policy--as when I first wrote them in December last year. Nothing comes before the neutrality policy, ever. Not even consensus, and certainly not straw polls. --Tony Sidaway 02:18, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

I wonder about the tenor of Nandesuka's comments here. My deletions, he says, were viewed as "disrespectful" and "One can absolutely believe that the page should have been deleted, yet recognize that Tony deleted it in a particularly odious and disruptive manner." In the deletion debate, he said: "agree that there will certainly be consensus to delete this. That is a lousy reason to not let our consensus deletion process run its course" . Nandesuka seems to be very close to admitting that, in his three undeletions of this moribund page, which openly violated our most treasured policy and for which a strong consensus to delete was evident within hours of the nomination, he was deliberately disrupting Misplaced Pages in order to make a point about process.. If he thought there was no chance that the page would survive the debate (which seems obvious), he had no business undeleting it at all. --Tony Sidaway 04:40, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Karmafist restored it once, Fennec restored it once, Nandesuka restored it thrice, Sean Black restored it twice, and Musical Linguist restored it once while Tony Sidaway deleted it eight times.
It helps when forming these statements to be accurate in language, and to avoid weasel words like "repeatedly" wherever possible.
brenneman 14:58, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

• Tony was not alone in this. Many other people (on IRC and elsewhere) recognised that this group and the page had a clear purpose to push POV on Misplaced Pages. If Tony had not spared us the effort, many of us, including me, would have done the same thing. --Improv 01:00, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

  What Tony was alone in was in taking unilateral action in a way that a number of people in the community, including admins, viewed as disrespectful. In fact, you'll note that a number of the undeleting admins spoke out against the page, or voted to delete it. One can absolutely believe that the page should have been deleted, yet recognize that Tony deleted it in a particularly odious and disruptive manner. Nandesuka 01:45, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

This finding of fact seems like a bit of puffery to me. Tony did not delete the page seven times in three days because the consensus on WP:MFD was to delete; he deleted the page seven times in three days in in spite of the community consensus; as this very finding of fact acknowledges, Tony has made it clear that had the consensus in deletion been otherwise, he would have deleted anyway. Nicholas Turnbull, by actually closing the debate and taking action pursuant to the discussion provides a useful counterexample for how one can constructively ignore all rules, and yet still not seem to be treating the community consensus process with contempt. Tony seems to have simply been choosing to disrupt Misplaced Pages to make a point. Nandesuka 01:54, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

See, that's what I mean when I say above that you really aren't understanding WP:POINT - it's about doing things you don't want to happen to make a point - David Gerard 13:20, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Nandesuka undeletes Catholic Alliance of Misplaced Pages three times in the face of a massive consensus to delete

20.1) On December 27, 2005, during the course of the deletion debate Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Catholic Alliance of wikipedia, in response to what he perceived as ongoing wheel warring over an out-of-process deletion by Tony Sidaway, Nandesuka undeleted the page three times, at 20:15, 20:54 and 23:31 although, despite strong evidence of attempted vote stacking, there was already a massive consensus of 52 to 9 for delete and he stated at 20:17, in announcing his first undeletion, that "there will certainly be consensus to delete this," and reprimanded Tony Sidaway for "cutting short the debate."

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

It is up to the arbitration committee to decide whether you will be a party to this case.

I just don't see how anyone can say "there will certainly be consensus to delete this" and then undelete the page in question three times so that some debate can trundle on to a foregone conclusion. That's absolutely absurd. This isn't a debating forum, it's a working encyclopedia. Bin trash and get on with writing articles. --Tony Sidaway 04:55, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

I am not a party to this case, so I'm not sure what the relevance of a finding of fact including me is. However, to the extent you wish to include it, the summary is inaccurate, since "there will be consensus" is not the same thing as "there is consensus," and since you omit a number of relevant facts. I have tried to correct it, and you have cloned it above. Furthermore, the other admins who undeleted the article also acknowledged that it would likely be deleted. I think your motives here are fairly transparent. Nandesuka 20:48, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

You should surely assume better faith - David Gerard 23:39, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Tony Sidaway, Zoe, Doc glasgow and Carbonite delete the George Bush vandalism userbox template

18) At 19:42, 25 December 2005, Celestianpower (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) created a userbox template Template:User GWB with the wording "This user hates George W. Bush and wishes they didn't have to revert vandalism there." The name of the President was linked to the article about the President, which is one of the most vandalized articles on Misplaced Pages.

It is the position of Tony Sidaway that this was not only an unsuitable statement for a template but also amounted, through the transclusion mechanism, to multiple cases of incitement to vandalize the article in the manner of "Don't stick beans up your nose."

At 11:20, 10 January 2006, Tony Sidaway deleted this template as part of a group of attack templates which had been brought to his attention by Doc_glasgow. He listed them all for review on Misplaced Pages:Deletion review .

Over the next thirteen hours the template was repeatedly deleted, five times by Tony Sidaway, once each by Doc glasgow, Zoe and Carbonite, and restored three times by Jtdirl, and once each by Celestian Power, Dragons flight, DESiegel and Alai. The template was eventually edited to say "This user opposes George W. Bush and vandalism of his Misplaced Pages biography" without any link to the article.

Before, throughout, and after this incident, Tony Sidaway announced, explained and defended his actions , ,,,.,, and produced a gallery of the templates so that non-administrators could see what had been deleted .

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

A factual account of circumstances pertaining to the deletion of the template. If these actions were wrong I should not be an administrator. Again the number of times it was restored is immaterial. The template was an ongoing vandalism risk and needed to be killed immediately. But I've added the numbers. --Tony Sidaway 15:19, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Again, accuracy. Dragons flight restored it once, Celestianpower restored it once, DESiegel restored it once, Jtdirl restored it twice, Alai restored it once, and Jtdirl restored it a final time. Carbonite deleted it once, Zoe deleted it once, Doc glasgow deletd it once, and Tony Sidaway deleted if five times. To avoid mentioning these numbers explicitly and to use the more vague term "repeatedly" may unintentionally cause the casual reader to overlook the fact that Tony Sidaway deleted this template more times than the other three deleting admins combined.
brenneman 15:12, 15 February 2006 (UTC)