Misplaced Pages

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Another talk page

I'm sorry, but I'm not interested in repeating myself again and again, especially when everyone involved has already clearly made known their position and thoughts. Forgive me if I'm being rude, but another talk page is not needed now, and I fail to see how it would help at all. -- Ned Scott 06:16, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I also don't see how informal mediation is going to be helpful, if we weren't able even to file the request for formal mediation without edit warring on the RFM page. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 21:58, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I wonder how that RFM was supposed to work? It seemed like simply taking the TV-NC discussion and moving it over to the RFM page. What was the point? Were we supposed to be waiting for something? It seemed like people were already making decisions and moving in a direction I strongly disagreed with - and a mediator hadn't even shown up yet! —Wknight94 (talk) 22:25, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I believe that if the mediation had been accepted, a mediator would have taken a look at the situation and tried to find a compromise solution acceptable to all parties. I don't know if such a solution exists, but it would have been good to find out under official sanction. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 02:40, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Statements

Announcement

• I would like all statements by Satuday if you can - Mediator

Statement by Wknight94

Rather than go into detail about the guideline at WP:TV-NC and WP:D or how Wikiprojects are not to be viewed as splinter groups quietly compromising the standardization of the overall encyclopedia, I'll focus more on the fact that the actual discussion on those subjects has already been done. To my knowledge, the conflict started with a failed move request at Talk:Fire + Water in mid-September. It moved briefly to Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Lost/Episode guidelines in late October before the now-infamous poll was started at WT:NC-TV (it is currently viewable at Misplaced Pages talk:Naming conventions (television)/Episode title RfC#RfC Episode Article Naming conventions. Ned Scott (talk · contribs) publicized the poll at several spots including two places under WP:RFC, and . The poll started as one question with three choices. It evolved into a two-question poll with the first being support or oppose and the second question being a choice between one option or another. Unfortunately that evolution happened while the poll was ongoing. Was the poll executed well? Not exactly. Was it flawed to the point of being meaningless? Definitely not. The results of the first and more contentious question of the poll are plainly visible - 26 supporting the notion that the naming convention should be the same as the general policy - 7 opposing saying that exceptions should be allowed and written into the TV-NC guideline. The meaning of the oppose votes in particular has come into question but clearly the majority of the people involved saw no reason that television episodes shouldn't follow the same general guidelines as the rest of Misplaced Pages. What followed was an endless stream of arguments for invalidating the poll. They included sockpuppetry, incivility, intimidation, etc., but no evidence of any of those affecting the poll itself was ever presented. IMHO, the most persuasive argument was the changing of format and wording during the poll. While I encouraged those who felt that way to look for people who might feel their vote was invalidated, that idea was summarily ignored. So I pursued that avenue myself in a section which can now be found at Misplaced Pages talk:Naming conventions (television)/Episode title RfC 2#Looking for anyone who objects to the last poll. I contacted all 25 of the 26 people (excluding myself of course who supported the first option of the poll and asked them to please respond if they thought they were misrepresented by the original poll. Not a single one of them said they were. To me, that basically ended the discussion. The rest has been repetition and incivility from both sides with side A asking a question, side B seeming to ignore the question, side A becoming irate and uncivil, and finally side B chastising side A for being uncivil. Round and round and round with few variations. That one side is 10 people and the other side essentially two people (with only one attempting real communication) makes the so-called dispute even more ridiculous. That alone should make consensus pretty clear. No matter how it's been sliced, the issue keeps coming up more than 3-to-1 - and yet the 1 keeps on. Any way to kill this thing would be greatly appreciated. —Wknight94 (talk) 04:08, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Each day that goes forward from the ANI assault on Yaksha is another day that the entire wiki process has been subverted. Frankly, I'm surprised someone further up the food chain hasn't said something about this fact by now. Allowing one person to bring the entire system to a halt is a travesty. At the very least, Elonka needs to establish when she's lifting her supposed ban on page moves. Even if she had everything she wanted, there are still basically no documented exceptions to the TV-NC guideline (save the flimsy Star Trek exception). I believe she has it in her mind that, since some of the episode article groups were already improperly named, that means an exception was discussed and agreed on by some group. (She's even claimed at ANI that such a discussion had happened once - a claim which thusfar has proven to be 100% false).

If she thinks a complete reversal of the guideline is possible, she's given no supporting evidence. The only evidence I see is a poll that finished at 26-7 and several WP:RMs that have been even bigger landslides. Even minus the "vote blockers" and other people she so unkindly grouped, the WP:RMs have shown a clear independent consensus with only one dissenter (User:JeffStickney) that I am aware of. Outside of a guideline reversal, is she expecting that all page moves should stop until hundreds of discussions are held, each involving some representative from each television project or show, and only then can Misplaced Pages continue as a wiki?

Elonka's suggestion to allow Wikiprojects to have a greater say in matters than editors outside the Wikiproject is counter to the policy WP:OWN. No individual owns an article and no group of editors or Wikiproject owns an article either. Per WP:PROJ, Wikiprojects are just groups of articles and groups of editors that collaborate on those articles.

The property of projects which is most important to this discussion is that they are not closed. Anyone can add their names to any Wikiproject and *poof* they're in the project. That alone makes Wikiprojects devoid of any power to enforce anything that the general community doesn't agree with. People in the general community could just make themselves part of the project and then they would have as much weight as anyone else in the project. Even if such revolutionary legislature were to be introduced to establish this kind of project power, that discussion should not begin at the TV-NC page of all places. —Wknight94 (talk) 01:59, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Jay32183

I simply cannot understand why this issue has dragged on so long. The naming convention was perfectly in tune with the general disambiguation guideline except for a mention of Star Trek doing things differently. It was discovered that the original reason for this was that pages for Star Trek episodes that had not yet been written had been linking incorrectly, eg a blue link to a different article rather than a red link. The original proposer of that says that is no longer true since almost all of the pages have been made and additional stated that as long as the redirects were working it wasn't any burden on the Star Trek editors if the pages were moved to follow the standard disambiguation guideline. So it shouldn't be a problem that the staement was removed from the guideline to make it perfectly conform to the disambiguation guideline. A number of new reasons to disambiguate without a naming conflict came up but were demonstrated as insufficient. Consistancy was the first, but when logically extended it would require every article on Misplaced Pages to be disambiguated. Then came context, which would only serve to replace the functions of the leads and the categories of the articles since the links are all piped in situ anyway. Third was precedent but consensus can change and being the first to do something "wrong" doesn't make it "right", even if it goes unnoticed for a significant time. Then came the "WikiProject consensus" argument, which is based entirely on the idea of closed groups if it is being used as a defense against a larger, more diverse group coming in attempting to change that consensus. When asking for further explanation from those who wanted exceptions, I was usually responded to with one of the previous comments with their flaws already pointed out or a refusal to answer the question with an insistance on talking about how flawed the poll was, even though the poll did not make a binding decision and no one had said that their feelings on the matter had been misinterpreted. It seems to me that the matter should have already been settled, so it has been very difficult not to become frustrated with certain editors. Jay32183 20:49, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Anþony

Step backward

I don't see any reason for this to succeed when formal mediation is likely to fail. I will not be participating. –  Anþony  talk  05:02, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Statement by PKtm

General disgust

I'm not going to go on and on about my reasons, but I just wanted to say that this long, bitter, very personal and abusive debate has soured me completely on Misplaced Pages, and I am drastically reducing my editing as a result. The whole thing is a tempest in a teapot, on a trivial issue, yet I see people behaving as if it were a debate on abortion or something. Admin behavior in particular has been scandalously bad, even expanding into very personal issue-unrelated side attacks that are clearly meant vindictively (just one example, here). Throughout this conflict, I didn't even state my position (which I hadn't decided yet), yet I got lumped into one side, and comments were directed at me as well (e.g., here). Bullying. Shame on Misplaced Pages and shame on the participating admins for not defusing this situation and (in at least one case) for escalating it repeatedly. -- PKtm 16:29, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

One (hopefully last) follow-on remark to this. I was promptly (as I expected, frankly, given the history on this) attacked for the above post by one of the key participating admins in the ongoing dispute, here, who called the above "unsolicited hit-and-run allegations". Case in point. I'm outta here. -- PKtm 19:50, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Your generalities and quotes out of context are not helpful in the least. You leave a message like the one above and then, rather than discuss the policy issues I raised or discuss the options to have someone else address them in my place (points that I raised in my first response to you which you managed to not include here), you respond by essentially telling me to leave everyone alone and then "I have nothing further to say to you on this matter". I don't know if this little exchange was meant to be some session of cathartic venting but I call it attempted hit-and-run. —] (talk) 20:32, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Please remember we are here to solve a dispute not deal with personal issues. WikieZach| talk 23:24, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Elonka

The core issue of this dispute, though seemingly about how to name television episode articles, is actually about control. One side feels that the guideline at Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (television) should be enforced as "policy", and they're sweeping through Misplaced Pages, forcing thousands of pages to new names. The other side in this debate feels that a guideline is a recommendation, and that actual naming conventions for a particular set of articles, should be decided by the editors that are involved with that series (such as with a WikiProject).

The dispute has been further escalated by the fact that some of the editors in the "enforce it as policy" group are posting multiple times per day, and have organized a "voting block" to overwhelm other editors in their path. Bad faith tactics include incivility, personal attacks, stalking, and harassment.

The actual naming issue is about how to name episode articles, specifically about when they can and can't use a suffix such as "(<seriesname> episode)". One side says Disambiguate only when necessary. The other side says, It depends, let each WikiProject decide what makes sense for their articles. For example, Star Trek has been using their own system for a long time (see Category:Star Trek episodes). However, the "voting block" group of editors is disruptively setting up rapid kangaroo court re-debates, and then using their claimed "consensus" to disrupt those categories.

Who the players are

• An "NC Gang" of editors who are adamantly against any kind of compromise, against mediation, and against running a new poll. They refuse to acknowledge that there is good faith opposition, and in some cases have been escalating the matter with unethical tactics:

Wknight94, Ned Scott, Ace Class Shadow, Yaksha, Milo H Minderbinder, Serge Issakov, Jay32183, BlueSquadronRaven

• The "WP:DAB" crowd. They feel strongly that disambiguation guidelines should be followed. They're not (as) militant about it, but, through either unawareness of the unethical tactics by the above group, or quiet acceptance of it, they seem to be allied:

Anþony, Brian Olsen, Josiah Rowe, Chuq, Radiant!, Nohat, Shannernanner, Wikipedical

• The "Let the WikiProjects decide" group:

Elonka, MatthewFenton, Riverbend, Argash, EnsRedShirt, PeregrineFisher, Huntster, TobyRush, JeffStickney, Tango, Cburnett, plus a couple other editors at the Village Pump, who haven't specifically participated in the NC debate because it's too much of a mess.

Elonka's recommendation of how to proceed

1. An immediate moratorium on moves and move requests, by either side in this debate, to reduce the sense of urgency that's just escalating tension.
2. Good faith civil communication via a mediator, to come up with consensus wording for the guideline
3. Running a survey. When I talk to outside parties, one of the most common complaints I hear back is that the situation is "Too complex." A clearly-worded survey would help clarify exactly what's being discussed, so that interested parties could indicate their opinions in a structured environment.

--Elonka 20:35, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Ned Scott

Originally directed as a reply to Elonka's statement above:

Even if we let WikiProjects decide, WikiProject Lost does not have consensus in the first place. No one is saying that any group of editors, WikiProject or not, can not have input on a set of articles, or that exceptions cannot be made. Saying there is a side that "lets WikiProjects decide" is very misleading and doesn't properly represent the views of those not in your camp. I for one am a big WikiProject supporter, and have even argued for WikiProject-based exceptions in the past. I also like how you leave out most of the "disambig crowd" to make your side appear to have larger support (I believe some of the names you include are misrepresented, as well). -- Ned Scott 20:48, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

• Note I do not agree to participating in this mediation. The mediation case here is not likely to helpful, per many concerns (biased mediator, issues to be mediated are actually settled, mediation being used as a stalling technique, etc). -- Ned Scott 06:37, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Words from the Ace

ACS here. I didn't realize I was part of a "Gang". Do we all get an official color and such? How about...the green gang? Oh wait. That might be taken by a group of punks who fought The PowerPuff Girls. Maybe...the yellow gang? Nah. That makes us seem like cowards. I got it! The silver gang! Yeah. That's the ticket!

Well, not to imply anything, but I really have no idea what the heck Elonka means by "good faith opposition". What is that? Some sort of pseudo-religiouscrusader group? Certainly, it couldn't have anything to do with Misplaced Pages's recommendation that users assume good faith. The time for that has passed. Elonka and co. have repeatedly implied or outright stated that my "side/camp/gang" should be blocked. Heck, she's formally requested it! I'll admit that all parties have gotten hostile and perhaps inappropriate with each other, but I believe Elonka and co. have brought it on themselves.

While I wouldn't mind seeing all this come to an end, I doubt that it will until there is a definitive solution. Mediation was thrown out due the actions of people on both sides. One MatthewFenton (talk · contribs) did not even sign the mediation request, despite making non-productive comments on the talk page of that request or various other talks. Even if everyone had agreed, his lack of signiture would still lead to rejection. Further, Matthew has even made comments to the effect that he is following the guideline by opposing it. It's kind of funny, really. Elonka claims that there's a group of distruptive editors to which I am a member and those who do not denounce our actions are "against her"; however, here's this Matthew guy who she clearly supports pulling these bat-shit crazy stunts.

Ultimately, I fear blocking or some clear ruling in favor of one side over another will be the only thing to end all this. Should it be the former, I'd say Matthew's nonsensical actions and Elonka's abuse of policies, templates, guidelines, procedures, etc. are distruptive bad faith offenses. Ace Class Shadow; My talk. 22:50, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I denounce the farce, per this section and choose to no longer engage in attempted mediation. Ace Class Shadow; My talk. 03:00, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Josiah Rowe

Wknight94, JayJay32183 and Anþony have all made statements which reflect my feelings in the matter to one degree or another. I don't think that I could say anything more that would add anything productive, except to note that Elonka's description of the "players" is rather misleading. As Ned says, no one is saying that WikiProjects can't develop guidelines for matters within their own purview, only that if those guidelines come into conflict with general Misplaced Pages guidelines, the WikiProject should be able to explain their reasoning for any exceptions in a manner that is comprehensible and acceptable to non-Project members. And if, after discussion, a wide consensus of non-Project members feel that the WikiProject's guideline is a bad idea, the WikiProject should yield to the larger consensus.

Also, Elonka's "list of players" includes several individuals in "her" group who have expressed their views but have not participated in the conversation, but excludes the much larger group of individuals who have similarly expressed support for the current guideline but not engaged further in the debate.

I don't think that another poll on the guideline would be productive at this point, but it might be useful to treat the existing WP:RM requests as proxies for a guideline poll. Unless there are specific reasons why The Wire or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles should be treated differently from other television series, the current polls on WT:TV-NC are likely to reflect general opinions on the subject of television article naming. Perhaps, if these polls go the way that the Lost poll did, the opponents of such moves will recognize that there is, in fact, a consensus supporting them? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 23:24, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Serge

Elonka says this is about control. She's right. It's about whether a group of editors can name articles within a domain they are focusing on independent of general Misplaced Pages guidelines and conventions, and do whatever they want, or whether they're supposed to choose names in accordance to the guidelines (which includes having exceptions when required for good reason).

It's also about making decisions in Misplaced Pages, and how decisions are made. Wknight94 already addressed the survey issue, and I agree with what he wrote in his statement. In addition to that survey, and more importantly, we've had endless discussions that clearly indicate we have a supermajority that supports the view that exceptions to the broad naming conventions should only be made on a (individial article) case-by-case basis, and that wanting the titles for all the episodes of a particular TV series to look the same (all be disambiguated with the TV series name in parentheses whether they need to be disambiguated or not) is not a good enough reason to warrant contradicting the overall guidelines. This is essentially what the TV episode guidelines say, and this is what this supermajority wants them to say.

Elonka is not happy with this, and she appears to be trying to wiki-lawyer this thing any way she can.

I also strongly object to being lumped into this category by Elonka: "adamantly against any kind of compromise, against mediation, and against running a new poll. "

• I'm not against compromise! I'm all for a compromise. I just can't think of one that both sides would accept, nor have I seen anyone else propose one.
• I'm not against mediation. I'm here, for example. I also initially agreed to a formal mediation, but then turned it down when I realized that Elonka was using it in violation of WP:POINT to claim the guideline was in dispute and thus the moves should stop.
• I am not adamantly against running a new poll, and have said as much. I am simply opposed to repeating a poll that we recently held for no good reason. Again, see Wknight94's statement for why the claim the previous poll was "invalid" is not a good reason. If Elonka certified that she would stop pushing this issue if we had another survey, and she would abide by the results, I would gladly support it. --Serge 01:44, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Yaksha

Refusing to participate in this mediation, as per the reasons that i've outlined below

I cannot believe this is still going on

This just keeps getting bigger and bigger. I've read through these discussions once a week or so for the last several weeks and my cubemate wonders why I just laugh and shake my head. This Elonka lady is a dog with a bone. She will not let this go and she will argue and obfuscate until she gets her way. She should get an Oscar in the Portraying an Immovable Object Category. Yes, I know this is incivil and personal. I just think that she should turn her considerable talent for perseverence to something truly important*...

• Not that I don't think wiki is great, it is, I just don't think it should be a daytime drama

216.91.240.14 22:10, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikientertainment at its best

Without a doubt the worst intransigence I have ever witnessed. It's astonishing. In the real world, if one ascribed a cost to the time of good editors, admins etc. that has been wasted on this silliness, and delivered that in the form of an invoice to the responsible party, this behavior would stop! Maybe its time to deliver the invoice in WP currency!

Brunonia 22:26, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Refusal to participate due to the mediator's actions

I'm refusing to participate in this mediation. Wikizach, who's volunteered to take this case, is meant to be a neutral mediator who is supposed to look at the problem and help us resolve it. Instead, this individual's actions do not seem neutral at all.

Elonka posted a request for Administrator Intervention for those of us who where moving pages at WP:ANI on 3rd of December . On 6th December, she posted again to WP:ANI request me to be blocked for making the TMNT03 episode article moves .

But then, on 7th December (so that's AFTER elonka already posted onto ANI requesting for me to be blocked), Wikizach made edits to the talk page of various administrators with the message "If you are an admin, can you pleaase block User talk:Yaksha ? it has come to my attention that that user has made excessive moving of pages without consensus, WP:ANI shows a member of the MedCom agreeing with this request, thank you,"

It really bugs me that our supposed neutral mediator is trying a backdoor method of getting me blocked when open discussion on the WP:ANI didn't result in outside administrators endorsing the block. And trying to do so by using misleading statements - moves did have consensus, previous and ongoing Request Moves show that; and ^demon quite specifically said the medcom can't endorse/not-endorse the block.

I think everyone involved here needs to ask themselves whether they really think going through a mediation case with a mediator like this is going to solve anything. It seems like our mediator either has a grudge against me, or has already decided which side they're going to be on.

And although this may well be irrelevant, i feel compelled to mention that it was Elonka who personally requested for this particular Mediator to take our case --`/aksha 01:52, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

To quote Good ol' Gilbert, SON OF A BITCH! That's not cool at all. Ala Serge, Milo, Ned, Wiknight and several others at the request for formal mediation, I'm removing myself from this informal and possibly biased little "case". Ace Class Shadow; My talk. 02:56, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Wow, I didn't even see Yaksha's entry here since I was in the process of making my most recent edit. Wikizach, I think you've been busted, eh? What's up with that? It certainly seems like recusing yourself would be the least you could do, no? —Wknight94 (talk) 03:15, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I saw the Admin page, looked at the talk, then checked the contribs, and saw some wrong actions. I am sorry if I wrongly said those things about you. It has nothing to do with this case. WikieZach| talk 03:46, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

This case should remain at the first stage of mediation before it can proceed to the Medcom or it will be rejected again. If some issues can be resolved here, then you all have a better chance of getting it accepted. WikieZach| talk 03:51, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

This is interesting as a quote in a past dispute relative to good faith: '"Piotrus, I'm sorry, but to say that JohnK's comments were unclear because he didn't specifically "vote", is absurd. He's been one of the most outspoken opponents of your moves, from the very beginning. You need to re-review Misplaced Pages policies, specifically at Misplaced Pages:Consensus, especially the section entitled "Consensus vs. supermajority". Consensus is not built by voting, consensus is built by the opinions of the editors who are discussing the issue. A poll is only used as a tool to determine people's opinions -- it's a test. It's not a binding vote, where you can disregard someone's opinion because they forgot to bold a certain word. I also disagree with you that Dahn was "abstaining" as you put it. His words were clear that he supported English names, not Polish. --Elonka 23:42, 11 July 2006 (UTC. 68.14.1.77 04:54, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

The case wasn't rejected because we hadn't attempted prior mediation, it was rejected because we couldn't all agree to mediate in the current circumstances. Honestly, I'm unsure if mediation, formal or informal, is possible right now: especially with a mediator who appears to have "chosen sides" already (see here and here for further examples). Another mediator might have some success, but a mediator who does not have the faith of both sides has no chance. This is not a personal judgment of you, Wikizach — it's just human nature. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 04:18, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

It seems like he was attempting to stop disruption. thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 04:23, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

If you're referring to the page moves as "disruption", I think it's worth observing that since the two threads at AN/I, no admins have apparently thought they were disruptive enough to merit a block. ^demon felt they were unproductive to the previous mediation attempt — but that's not the same as disruption. And if you look at the links in my comment above, you'll see that Wikizach was showing his preferences long before anyone asked for Yaksha to be blocked. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 04:33, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

In addition, Wikizach was personally selected by Elonka as a mediator - the two of them worked together as participants in the Lost mediation she has refered to. Nothing personal against Wikizach, but I think in any mediation case the mediatior should be an uninvolved third party. --Milo H Minderbinder 14:40, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I am in agreement that a mediator should be someone who is accepted by the different parties. I initally contacted Wikizach because I'd seen him offer mediation services on someone else's talkpage, and because I'd never heard of him before and had no idea what his various biases were or weren't, so I was willing to roll the dice and go with an unknown. But if he's not acceptable, he's not acceptable. Would someone else care to suggest a different mediator, preferably someone who already has Misplaced Pages mediation experience? I could ask some of the mediators I've dealt with in the past, but, I've made my suggestion, and it's been shot down. So, next? I know that there are other people monitoring this discussion who have not participated, but might have mediation experience. Anyone want to volunteer, or offer a suggestion for a good neutral mediator? --Elonka 20:36, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I think that since the RFAr has been filed, and with so much bad will in the air, there's unfortunately not much point in trying to continue mediation. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 21:44, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

My mistake, I confused two editors. I'm withdrawing the comment above, please accept my apologies. --Milo H Minderbinder 22:24, 8 December 2006 (UTC)