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Case clerk: AlexandrDmitri (Talk) Drafting arbitrator: David Fuchs (Talk)

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Behaviour on this page: Arbitration case pages exist to assist the Arbitration Committee in arriving at a fair, well-informed decision. You are required to act with appropriate decorum during this case. While grievances must often be aired during a case, you are expected to air them without being rude or hostile, and to respond calmly to allegations against you. Accusations of misbehaviour posted in this case must be proven with clear evidence (and otherwise not made at all). Editors who conduct themselves inappropriately during a case may be sanctioned by an arbitrator or clerk, without further warning, by being banned from further participation in the case, or being blocked altogether. Personal attacks against other users, including arbitrators or clerks, will be met with sanctions. Behavior during a case may also be considered by the committee in arriving at a final decision.

Arbitrators active on this case

Active:

1. AGK
2. Courcelles
3. David Fuchs
4. Elen of the Roads
5. Hersfold
6. Jclemens
7. Kirill Lokshin
8. Newyorkbrad
9. PhilKnight
10. Roger Davies

Inactive:

1. Risker
2. SilkTork
3. SirFozzie
4. Xeno

Recused:

1. Casliber

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Additional statements

Comment by completely uninvolved Thryduulf

I have not been involved at all in this dispute, indeed I wasn't aware of it's existence until just now. However it doesn't surprise me in the least, nor does the appearance of certain names in the list of parties (most notably Tony1, noetica and Born2cycle) having encountered them in similar warring over article titles and similar MoS issues over the years - see for example WP:ARBDATE, hyphens/dashes and the history at Talk:Yogurt (the latter dispute given a good précis at WP:LAME#Yoghurt or Yogurt).

If accepted this will be at least the third arbitration activity regarding applying the manual of style to the encyclopaedia at large, following Date de-linking (case) and Hyphens and dashes (motion), with a large crossover involved parties. Given this, I think that the committee should at the very least consider investigating the broader issue here of the interaction of consensus at MoS pages (often involving only a relatively small number of users) vs "local" consensus of editors at affected articles, especially when they weren't aware of the discussion. Thryduulf (talk) 10:27, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Comment by uninvolved Masem

This feels like a repeat of the Date Delinking case all over again, and represents a persistent problem at MOS that I observe but see no immediate means for correction, in that the named editors in addition to others form a small clique that, though their editing actions, seem to suggest that have full power and control over the MOS and reject any attempt to change MOS away from that. This is not to say that what they want the MOS to say, at times, doesn't have consensus nor that others don't agree with them; furthermore, some of these editors based on what we know are probably some of the best people to discuss the implementation of a MOS. However, it is the air of authority, and the lack of any ability to compromise on a different approach that makes trying to suggest changes or improves to the MOS an extremely bitter affair, if those changes are contrary to what this niche group believes is best. I will note that sometimes, these are started by editors with their own chip on their shoulders against the named editors here, and that certainly doesn't start the discussion in a positive light, but this case, here, I believe, is one where absolutely no type of personal vendetta was intended by the changes and yet these editors are power-playing their "position".

That said, its an extremely difficult situation to be remedied through WP's processes. As Sarek notes, because it involves numerous editors, no one single RFC/U can do this justice, and issuing a block at this time seems completely pointless. What would be best if there was a way for ArbCom to assess the situation, explain and detail why it is undesirable and harmful (if they find it as such), and issue warnings adn recommend future remedies should those editors excise this type of behavior again. --MASEM (t) 13:18, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Comment by uninvolved Fetchcomms

This has to be one of the lamest disputes ever. The MOS is not worth wasting hundreds of hours of users' time arguing over. I support consistency, but I support WP:DGAF more. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 15:29, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Comment by involved Enric Naval

The behaviour of some of the participants has been more than wanting. In August 2011 a new female editor specialized in dogs scrambled her name and left wikipedia very shortly after Tony left her several insulting and condescending messages. Ironically, at that time the Foundation was discussing the low ratio of female editors. He also left a general message in the talk page. In his first edit he had blindly mass-changed the article, breaking interwiki links, and tagged three times for copyedit the entire prose of all the article because of the name lacking a hyphen, he didn't leave any explanation in the talk page beyond complaining about the hyphen removal.. The editor removing the tag complained in Tony1's talk page, and Tony1 reverted as "vomit" and "more vomit".

When I confronted Tony1 here, he didn't find any problem with his behaviour, and he said that he couldn't be blamed for the departure because the editor didn't make explicit reference to him when departing.

Dicklyon then tried a "compromise" by inserting the hyphen anyways, after Tony1 failing to subvert the result of this RM . This keeps happening all the time, this small group of editors supporting each other, and trying every excuse to cram their preferred version into articles and into MOS pages. This sort of behaviour burns out good editors, like User:Kotnisky (as commented in JCScaliger's statement).

In this other complain you have Tony1 telling an expert that he doesn't know how to spell names in his profession. Several editors disagree and say that the edit is mistaken, and against reliable sources. Tony1 refuses to change his mind, Dicklyon changes the rest of the article anyways. After this RM failed, Tony1, Dicklyon and Noetica(*) kept badgering in the talk page, trying to force the renaming anyways, rebuffing all arguments by expert editors that were familiar with the sources. Small examples of the usual problem: a small group of determined editors edit areas where they have no expertise, and rebuff the advice of experts and the usage in reliable sources. Expert editors give up in despair and stop trying to correct articles in their area of expertise. I suspect that this causes a slow and semi-invisible bleeding of expert editors.

(*) (Tony1 asked Noetica to participate, but he didn't have time) Tony1 later commented him that it was a disease and Noetica said that it was a "shleeping giant", which means clumsy and stupid person)

On the other "side" of the capitalization and proper name arguments, we have User:Born2cycle, who has caused GTBacchus to leave, see User_talk:GTBacchus#Why_I.27m_leaving. I'll leave others to comment on this one.

I'm sure that we can find many more editors who have either retired or completely given up on editing MOS pages. --Enric Naval (talk) 20:28, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Comment by uninvolved roux

Anything which gets the denizens of MOS to finally understand and accept that MOS is a guideline and thus not enforceable by any stretch of the imagination is a good thing. Anything which makes them finally shut up and stop their insane nitpicking is a good thing. If that takes an Arbcom case, so be it. → ROUX ₪ 20:45, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Comment by uninvolved Beyond My Ken

When guidelines are followed slavishly, with no allowance for deviation or experimentation, they are no longer guidelines, they are absolute rules. Since Misplaced Pages was made ex nihilo, if what was wanted was absolute rules, that's what would have been created – but, instead, we have guidelines, and the spirit of Misplaced Pages lies in treating them as such, as guidance and not as dogma. We need to allow them to breathe, to live and grow and, if necessary or desired, to evolve; but evolution cannot happen unless change is permitted, and change cannot happen if every time someone tries something very slightly different, their efforts are automatically snuffed out by those wielding the guidelines as if they were absolutes.

Comment by uninvolved Johnuniq

I have occasionally attempted to work out what the dispute was about, but have always been driven away by the pointless walls of text. I am posting to thoroughly endorse the excellent comment by Greg L above, and implore Arbcom to follow Greg's proposed solution (despite how that would infringe the human rights of those involved!). Johnuniq (talk) 03:50, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Comment of distantly concerned 67.119.12.141

Copied from clerks' noticeboard by Alexandr Dmitri (talk) 09:07, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm not involved with this TITLE dispute, but I tangled with some MOS zealots a while back who were using MOS guidelines about units of measurement for computer data (WP:COMPUNITS) as a POV-pushing tool in mainspace. I ended up dropping out and leaving incorrect information in articles on purpose, shrugging it off as another case of "someone is wrong on the internet". Everything said by Enric Naval, Roux, and BMK is true. I found myself wishing for an even more drastic solution than Roux's, like demoting MOS from "guideline" to "nonbinding suggestion" (though I'm not claiming that's really a good thing to wish for). It looks like the case will be accepted; I hope the scope is wide enough to address the issue named by Thryduulf, about the extent to which the MOS cabal can impose its preferences on the rest of the encyclopedia. Note there is an RFC/U about Greg L here. 67.119.12.141 (talk) 08:56, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Comment from very slightly involved Mangoe

I happened to find out about this case through a user page watch on someone else, but examination of the issues leads me back to this issue popping up in the Christianity WikiProject in the form of a flat statement from one of the participants, followed by an RFC to put all Christianity article names in lowercase on the authority of the MOS by the same editor. I became slightly involved because, in the course of making preemptive moves, they also reduced a collective title to singular; I did manage to get that somewhat undone, but at the cost of a merge discussion which is still being consumed by the capitalization argument.

I've stayed out of the capitalization discussions, so don't count me as significantly involved. I would like to state, however, that having been hit by several of these mass change campaigns over the years, they are very disruptive and set off a lot of ill-will. It's too easy to WP:BOLDly make a mess which, if the change fail, takes a lot of tedious effort to clean up. The time has come to expect people to get some consensus first before going ahead.

Comment from uninvolved User:N-HH

Not involved in the specific topics under discussion, although I have been involved in debates at the wp:link talk page, mainly to contest the obsession some MOS editors seem to have developed with removing huge numbers of perfectly decent and relevant links from articles under the guise of "overlinking", often by automated process, with little apparent regard for context. As well as breaking other, more local, rules, often created to deal with politically sensitive real-world situations - and edit warring over it. I'm not interested in taking anyone to task over that, at least at ArbCom - and currently it's outside the scope of the case as framed - but it does feed into the wider problem.

The broader problem is that we have a needlessly complicated and bloated MOS, which is written and guarded by a pretty small group of people, who then use its provisions - as they choose to interpret them - to impose their preferences over the whole of Misplaced Pages. I mean, look at wp:dash. Why does a general-use encyclopedia, with thousands of amateur editors, and where it's actually quite difficult to include dashes in the editing function via most keyboards, have such incredibly complicated dash/hyphen rules? Most publications manage with just the basic distinction between a hyphen (for compounds, prefixes and date ranges) and en/em-dash (for "hyper-comma" separation in text). Has anyone seen the kind of absurdly lengthy argument having complex rules about when to use either a hyphen or an en-dash in compounds can cause? Not to mention all the "correction" work generated. N-HH talk/edits 18:28, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Jehochman

I agree with what David Levy has said, in general, though I know nothing about this specific case. Please direct the clerks to remove the names of parties who are not under scrutiny. It can be very stressful to be a named party in a case. Discretion should be used. Jehochman 04:21, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Collect

MOS is a set of guidelines. Its "enforcement" is not a content dispute, and is within the proper sphere of the committee.

Moreover, the heated discussions about strengthening the MOS status are an ongoing problem. I would therefore suggest that a simple motion by the committee would be quite ameliorative.

The Manual of Style consists of guidelines which are not mandatory for any editor to follow. The 'enforcement' of any such guideline is not conducive to a collegial editing atmosphere, and is thus deprecated by the Committee. Behaviour of editors which is non-collegial is a proper matter of discussion for this Committee, and for dispute resolution in general.

Thus also obviating the laundry list of editors given for this case as well. Collect (talk) 13:05, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved SMcCandlish

I too protest being "hauled before ArbCom" as a party, as David Levy put it. I request that I be removed from this case as a party, though I have no problem providing relevant information; consider me an expert witness. I have had no connection I'm aware of to the particular events raised in this case and am not certain I even know what all the articles are about. I gather that some of this has to do with editwarring about capitalization of things like "Virgin Birth" even when it's grammatically wrong to do so in many (not all) cases. While I've expressed an opinion on that before, and helped write the MOS section that says not to randomly capitalize doctrinal stuff simply because it's doctrinally important to someone, I have not been a party to any dispute about it and that section of the MOS has been stable for years. It was certainly never intended to prevent capitalization of "the Virgin Birth in Christian doctrine", but rather to prevent people capitalizing it everywhere, as in "lots of religions believe in Virgin Births", or capitalizing it when it's redundant to do so, as in "the Virgin Birth of Jesus". (If anyone doesn't understand why that's redundant, see User talk:SMcCandlish/Archive 62#MOS capital letters - religious doctrine, a thread about this started by someone in response to this ArbCom case.)

That said, I have been deeply involved in other capitalization disputes at talk pages on the Manual of Style, article titles, and naming conventions in the past, and consider myself essentially a WikiExpert on the topic and its history at this point. I would like to address as a commentator/expert witness/amicus curiae, not a party a pattern I discern of appeasement at our guidelines in response to outright browbeating by people who want to engage in capitalization practices reflected in extremely narrow specialist publications but rejected by all or nearly all reliable generalist sources. If the ArbCom broadens this case to include and directly address the concern I raise, then and only then would I consider myself a party.

My participation has mostly been about the embarrassing rampant capitalization of the common names of organisms that has been creeping through Misplaced Pages like a disease, reducing our appearance as a reliable, professionally edited source. Why it matters is that capitalizing the common names of animal species is jarring, childish and illiterate-looking: "Smith's Rock Pigeon was eaten by his Domestic Cat, who choked to death, so he got a Dog and a two Goldfish instead." This has greatly worsened in frequency over the last couple of years in Misplaced Pages articles. I have plenty to say about that, and how and why this has been happening, if it seems relevant here, but really the facts are abundantly clear from the massive but not yet complete collection of evidence I've gathered at User:SMcCandlish/Capitalization of organism names in preparation for a major RfC or Centralized Discussion on the matter. I posted it but have since removed it as evidence in this case on the evidence page, because I think it is relevant only in a general principle way (i.e., certain tendentious editors are pushing very weird capitalization preferences against the clear consensus of the community, and the problem is demonstrably worsening as these entrenched special interests dig in). The particular nit-picky details of what so-and-so wants to capitalize in this particular case is honestly of less importance and interest in my view that the general attack on MoS and increasing WikiProject suggestions that it should be ignored with impunity and that projects should go on editorial strikes and other WP:POINTy histrionics just because they're not getting their way. I also want to be explicit that I have no opinion about any behavioral allegations and ad hominen argumentation being made by the parties here, other than I feel I must address the suggestions of WP:OWNership of MOS and AT/NC pages as a load of nonsense.

The Manual of Style and our policies and guidelines on article titles and naming conventions exist to create a baseline of style and grammar "rules" that make the encyclopedia editable without strife, provide a non-jarring experience for readers, and ensure that Misplaced Pages is as close to looking professionally edited for a general audience as possible, and to reduce conflict by providing consistent rules everyone can remember. Because offsite grammar authorities and style guides differ on various points, MOS cannot possibly make everyone happy about every single rule. But if they're consistent, we can agree to follow them (e.g., many don't think they really should have to stop at a stop sign or a red light if no other cars are present, but we generally agree to do so because that's society's consensus). The naming conventions are necessarily subordinate to MOS on style/grammar matters, regardless of policy vs. guideline labels. "It's just a guideline" is another long-standing argument to avoid, that even has its own page here. And MOS sub-guidelines are subordinate to the MOS, from which they have split over time; their purpose is to provide more detail and cover tricky cases, not contradict what WP:MOS says. Capitalization demanders have been ignoring both of these clear facts about how policy and guidelines work here, to advance personal agendas from soapboxes, instead of collaborate.

On what seems to have become an issue in this case before the ArbCom right now, MOS (and article title/naming conventions) regulars are resistant to change at MOS and AT/NC pages because such changes have fallout, across zillions of articles, and 99% of the time the changes sought do not represent common sense, or generalist real-world publication standards, much less Misplaced Pages site-wide consensus. They're almost always weird pet peeves, like trying to force everyone to read and write "Bald Eagle" because bird-watching field guides do so just to make the name stand out (or capitalize British rail job titles, or market analysis terms, or whatever the obsessed specialist can't get over). I have nothing against Noetica, Tony1, David Levy and other regular participants in MOS discussions, despite the fact that we can argue sometimes. They actually care about what it best for the encyclopedia. Not just their project or their favorite articles but the Misplaced Pages project as a whole, and don't usually push personal peeves. Like every page here, MOS attracts some regular editors and doesn't interest others. That doesn't make the regulars into WP:OWNers. Addressing the incorrect perception that MOS/AT are WP:OWNed, an accusation generally only ever brought by people who try to make willy-nilly changes or force a personal preference against piles of evidence they're wrong or being pig-headed, isn't really an ArbCom matter. MOS needs more participants, it's true, but ones who care about what is best for the general readership, not their oh so magically special WikiProjects, and who are willing to do the sometimes difficult, time consuming and even expensive task of figuring out what should be done (e.g., I've invested over US$200 in style guides, dictionaries and other reference works in the last year alone, specifically for the volunteer work I do on the MOS). MOS doesn't need some pseudo-judicial wrangling. ArbCom is barking up the wrong tree. MOS/AT/NC isn't being owned by anyone; it's being protected from weird special interest alterations often being pushed by intractable WikiProjects and other small groups of editors who do not believe they have to play by the same rules as other editors. PS: I've founded several WikiProjects and am not against them; they simply aren't sovereign entities and need to learn that. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 03:45, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Please re-write this in a more readable format. At this stage, we are looking for evidence submissions and workshop proposals. Lengthy statements are probably not going to be read. AGK 00:40, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

I cut more than half of it out. Good enough? I also removed nearly all the stuff about WP:BIRDS-and-the-MoS because it was thought to be tangential by some (on what basis, I'm not certain, since it's still rather unclear what the scope of this ArbCom case is). — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 03:37, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Clarification: Scope of this case

I would like to know what the scope is of this case from ArbCom - is it strictly over the recent Article Titles debate at MOS, or is it the MOS area in general? This has somewhat significant affects of who should be party to this and evidence to be presented. --MASEM (t) 16:21, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Recusal by Casliber

I just realised I am peripherally involved by way of being a wikiproject birds member and regualr participator in the perennial bird-name-capitalisation debate. Am happy to recuse on this point. Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:01, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Is that a recusal on the BIRDS point only? As far as I can tell, that was never really part of the case, until SMcCandlish showed up above and added it. It's a discussion that has been pretty orthogonal to what this case was opened for, involving mostly different people (though I am little bit involved, having expressed an opinion in a recent poll about that). Or perhaps it's a bit related to the complaints from the technical market analysis guy, who wants another birds-like exception for his area. More generally, I think we still don't know what this case is supposed to be about. If the arbs provide guidance in terms of what they intend to examine, we could perhaps do better at finding some relevant evidence. What's showing up so far is just everyone expressing their own pet peeves, it seems. And as several of us have pointed out, if it's supposed to address the turmoil at TITLE, it's missing a number of key participants. Dicklyon (talk) 01:32, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Arbcom case: Article Titles

• cross post from User talk:Hersfold (redacted)

I would just like to make a point of order about the respect for deadlines in the above Arbcom case. I note that evidence from Born2cycle has only just been submitted. It seems to me that his submission is hours late, based on the deadline of 14:30, 29 January 2012 (UTC) when the case was officially opened plus 14 days. Whilst he may argue that he may have been busy preparing the evidence, most other parties and bystanders submitted theirs in good time, and where necessary have revised their evidence in plain view of all other parties. I feel that admission of his rather voluminous evidence, and the apparent right given to him to redact it into "digestible" form, may be prejudicial to others involved in this case given the lack of scrutiny of his arguments and the lack of time for other parties to respond (given the deadline has now decisively passed and the tendency of most others to be respectful of the law and of other editors). Also, as B2C has in the past always endeavoured to have the last word, I would submit that such late evidence is an attempt to gain the upper hand with a last-minute "ambush". --Ohconfucius 06:19, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

• cross post from User talk:AGK (redacted)

I note that B2C's late evidence, which had been hatted as such, has been reopened upon his request. As I mentioned , I think this course of action is potentially prejudicial to others who have submitted their evidence in good time. I am aware that a number of the parties have not been active on WP since posting their evidence; one can assume that they may have been looking at the evidence up until the deadline, but not after. So I think that, in fairness, they should be alerted to the fact that late evidence has been allowed, and that they be given a right of reply to same should they wish it. I, myself, stopped my rebuttals of B2C's evidence because it had been disqualified. What should I do if I now wish to continue with my rebuttal? --Ohconfucius 01:56, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

It certainly is prejudicial. I'd like to hear from the arbs how they would like to proceed. If they intend to take any of B2C's complaints seriously, then I should have a chance to respond to them, but it's not clear where or when that would be welcome -- or even how to ask them. B2C has also said that he didn't think that the sockpuppetry by Pmanderson in CAPS and TITLE did any harm, while I thought it was a big part of the disruptive behaviours this case was about; I was waiting for a clue to clarify the scope of the case, but got none. Still in the dark. Should we focus on the TITLE policy change that B2C initiated, as B2C's evidence does? Or on his hatting of objections to it as "non-substantive"? What abut CAPS, is that gone now? Dicklyon (talk) 06:14, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Born2cycle has done more than tweak his word count, or "paring that I had to do per what the bot said" as he claims on AlexandrDmitri's and AGK's talk pages. At the end of his evidence statement, he has added a personal attack on me that was not in the original longer version. I'm not sure what his objection is — according to my reading of the rules, any editor is allowed to add evidence — but at this point, it's hard not to interpret this late addition as an attempt to intimidate. Neotarf (talk) 11:00, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

• Born2cycle has given a reasonable excuse as to why his evidence was submitted late, so it will not be removed. However, if any other party has a rebuttal of Born2cycle's submissions, please forward it to a clerk for addition. AGK 14:55, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

I will take you up on that. I have started to draft a rebuttal. Dicklyon (talk) 01:05, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

AGK, thanks again for offering to allow my rebuttal. My draft ran to about 1500 words, and in thinking how to condense it I realized I was letting myself be annoyed by these proceedings, and doing more than rebutting. I'm actually OK with how things are going now that Pmanderson is out of the picture and TITLE is unlocked and under discussion again; and B2C's evidence has nothing damaging enough to need to be countered, I think (his links tell the story more fairly than his commentary), so I think I'll just leave it alone. If the arbs want any questions answered, of course, I'm happy to cooperate. Thanks again. Dicklyon (talk) 16:04, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks to AlexandrDmitri for adding my answer to Born2cycle to the evidence page. Neotarf (talk) 20:14, 20 February 2012 (UTC)