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I suppose it is rather meanginless to note that WP:MOSNUM does not sit on its own, as since its protection the edit warring has continued by the involved parties at Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style (links) as of Feb 2nd: , . So my above comment should probably be phrased as "I would hope any remedies would include some sort of path to long term unprotection of all date-related MoS pages. MBisanz03:16, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
"Temporary" injunction
The injunction in this case has been in place for nearly three months. This might be acceptable if it was limited in application and affected only the parties to the case. However, it is incredibly broad, applying to "all editors" and affecting edits that are extremely common. Despite that, I doubt it's well known to everyone it might affect, or that it's been adequately publicized. Although the stated dispute is about the use of bots and scripts, the injunction has now been enforced against someone who is not using any such tools, is not a party to the case, but is simply going about normal systematic editing that isn't particularly about date links, even though they happen to come up (kind of hard to avoid, actually). So I'd like to ask, why is this injunction staying in place so long with no apparent progress on the case? --Michael Snow (talk) 16:27, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
I'd make it clearer what is meant by "mass" to avoid hitting people acting in good faith, for example: "Until the case is closed, any editor adding or removing links to year articles and/or day-of-the-year articles from more than n distinct articles within an x-hour period may be blocked." I'd go with n = 24 and x = 168, but any reasonable values would do. --A. di M. (formerly Army1987) — Deeds, not words. 18:52, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
As Michael eloquently points out, the block in the case he noted above is entirely unfair – this is clearly collateral damage which should not occur. The injunction should only have been applied to automated linking and delinking by the parties only, plus User:Tennis expert in view of the evidence here. Its application/enforcement (or not, as the case may be) has resulted in more drama and harm than it was ever meant to prevent, and should be lifted. Ohconfucius (talk) 01:57, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
While I can understand your frustration, I just don't see what is so urgent about delinking dates. I absolutely cannot understand why, when someone has been informed that a temporary injunction exists, why it is so absolutely necessary to continue to delink all dates in the articles which he visits. It beggars belief that he feels that it is so crucial for the survival of wikipedia as a whole, that it is worth violating an arbcom injunction. Additionally, if the outcome of this arbcom is as you hope, then his edits will be performed in about ten seconds by lightbot. So the edits have saved about ten seconds of server time and wasted the time of everyone involved, including the person who delinked the dates. This is why my sympathy is extremely limited. AKAF (talk) 07:10, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
There is nothing particularly "urgent" about cleaning up the date autoformatting mess or inconsistencies and illogical choices of format in any particular article. But it is urgent that our transition from amateur to professional standards continue apace, and the broader programs of such cleaning up are significant to the transition. This is why the wikignoming efforts of editors such as Colonies Chris and the skilled and sensitive development of bots and scripts by editors such as Lightmouse are so important to WP. The temporary injunction needs to be lifted for a host of reasons, among them that we can get on with the job. The community has discarded the creaking old date autoformatting system that was hastily introduced without consensus in 2003, and there is something of a landslide at the RFC for the relevance-related linking of date-fragments.
I believe we should take notice of this Wikimania address by researcher Dr Bill Wedemeyer, Faculty of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Michigan State University, who conducted an extensive study of the quality of (mainly) scientific articles on WP. One of his conclusions is the significance of bots etc. to improving our article quality and MoS compliance (I think it's around 30 minutes in). Tony(talk)07:48, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
It's a volunteer project and thus there is no deadline. The only two places that we need to act fast are with respect to copyvios and with respect to BLP. The entire reason this case exists is that people felt MOS compliance was a high urgency task - it is not. --MASEM (t) 12:36, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
(od) This injunction has served its stated purpose, but in light of the recent WP:DATEPOLL, is now simply an impediment to what should be normal editing. I understand that there is no deadline, but have to ask what the conditions for lifting this injunction are? The arguments above simply seem to suggest that the passage of time is required. If so, then how much time? Does it improve the encyclopedia to stop the wishes of the community being carried out? If removing deprecated date links improves the encyclopedia, then WP:IAR would surely trump this injunction right now. Any contributor can point to the poll results as consensus for their removal of an irrelevant date link. I understand that ArbCom may take an arbitrarily long period of time to consider other issues in this case, but the injunction does not depend, per se, on the outcome of those other issues. Can anyone explain how to propose a motion that the injunction be lifted? --RexxS (talk) 13:49, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
While I would agree that the consensus is clear on how we should link dates, we certainly have not resolved how this should be carried out. After all, one of the issues here is specifically about how the consensus position on linked dates should be carried out. Many people were (and are likely still) opposed to using a bot to delink all dates indiscriminately, as Lightbot does, when the consensus specifically allows for certain relevant dates to remain linked. -Chunky Rice (talk) 14:24, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
Consensus actually appears to have shown that relevant date links need to remain — how few or many that is remains to be seen. Regardless, if bots and scripts are ultimately going to be let loose on the article base to remove the dates that were purely for autoformatting and are not relevant — which would seem to be the most efficient solution — dates that should not be removed need to be protected in some manner before that happens. That same mechanism for protection would also keep them from getting removed in subsequent sweeps of the bot. In my mind, this is the most important item to be addressed through this arbitration. Mlaffs (talk) 15:06, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
I already "protected" the relevant link from the dab page MM to the article 2000 (however clumsily). Assuming that bots won't touch chronological articles, I think that job's finished, unless you can give any other instances of a link to a year or day-month article that's actually relevant? --RexxS (talk) 15:21, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
All that has to be done is to create a template what should be used to wrap and protect dates that should be linked, giving editors say 2 weeks to apply it (those that are concerned about date linking will be well aware of it), and then let Lightbot loose on any unprotected date in other articles. This may require that the date be a bit more formalized in the template arguments to make it look like anything but a date so that Lightbot can run without modification (and probably the easiest solution). Yes, there may be some dates that should be kept in articles that are not watched or maintained by those with date linking interests, but it can also be corrected in the same manner with the template. --MASEM (t) 17:26, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
There's a basic misunderstanding here: the proposal is that Lightbot should unlink only tripartite dates (that is, date autoformatting alone), not date fragments for which the consensus did indeed settle on a relevance test, albeit a strict one. The Lightbot task is framed as narrow in scope, to keep it technically simple and uncontroversial, to be applied broadly. This is a much stricter application of Lightbot than previously performed. Tony(talk)17:02, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
Moreover, the screening criteria his bot uses seems rather sophisticated. In a test of 40, randomly selected articles, his bot had 0% error in leaving alone articles like 1985, which are allowed to have linked dates, and it had 100% success in catching dates like the date in the second paragraph here in Parkfield-San Bernardino earthquake. We have also proposed that Lightmouse can have his bot go through—say—a hundred articles and wait for feedback. If an editor responds with “why is my precious link now black instead of link-blue”, we can direct them to MOSNUM. But we might also find that Lightbot fouls up with captions or some unforeseen issue (this is just an example). Lightmouse can tweak and then process, say, a thousand articles. This ramped approach is quite conservative and should be uncontroversial. It’s easy enough to hit and write to Lightmouse. Lightmouse can provide a “contact me” link in the edit summaries. Greg L (talk) 17:17, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
Thank you for clarifying, Tony. I agree that removing the linking for such dates is uncontroversial. I'm only concerned that a lifting of the injunction prior to the resolution of this case also opens the door to delinking of all kinds which is just a recipe for more drama. -Chunky Rice (talk) 17:54, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
I agree that the injunction should be lifted. I've been afraid to touch any dates because of the way I was informed and warned about the injunction. (In short, I knew nothing about it and was immediately warned with the threat of blocking. I hear that someone else who had no idea about the injunction was already blocked as well.) I also don't know what the big deal is about using Lightmouse's script. The script shows you the proposed changes before it saves the page. I have a brain and I can simply correct any edits to dates that should not be delinked myself, before saving. Anyone using the script could do the same. I also wholeheartedly agree with Greg L's above proposal of how to test Lightbot. RainbowOfLight18:35, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
No misunderstanding on my part, Tony — just an absence of relevant information. I hadn't seen any discussion about a narrower scope for Lightbot, and so my comments were strictly a response to RexxS' suggestion that the injunction should be lifted. Assuming that the new scope would be removing linking in situations like ] or ], ] — where the purpose of the links is clearly for autoformatting — I'd be supportive of a limited suspension of the injunction for Lightbot only, in order to begin some live test runs as described by Greg L. I'm assuming, however, that in this stricter application, if it were to encounter a pair such as ], ], it would remove only the first link and not the second. If that assumption is incorrect, then my original concerns still remain. While the piped link clearly looks like broken autoformatting, determining intent is a lot trickier. As it links to what may be relevant information (depending on the context), I still don't believe it should be removed by automated process. Mlaffs (talk) 05:13, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
There has been discussion about the action plan at WT:DATEPOLL. There seems now to be a general agreement for bot action to remove the square brackets around full dates only (any date that contains the three elements, day, month, year, in whatever sequence or format) in instances of misformatted dates. At the same time, the bot would insert a space where it is missing from the raw text, and insert a comma where it is missing from the raw text in mdy format. Date fragments (linked years and linked day-months) would be left untouched. In this connection, work is being done to prepare a list of such instances where there are misformatted dates. Ohconfucius (talk) 05:51, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
Oh sure; of all the pages not to have watch-listed, I pick that one. Thanks for the link, Ohconfucius. I've paged through the discussion, and it looks good to me. I think I saw a suggestion about halfway through the page that piped date links be left alone — I can't tell for sure from your comments directly above whether that's been included in the planning or not. If not, I still have concerns. However, if piped links will be unmolested in this phase, then count me as a voice from the "other" side of this issue in support of the proposed go-forward plan. Mlaffs (talk) 15:14, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
The list of instances is a new page, so you can go easy on yourself. We have been discussing a more general approach on WT:DATEPOLL, but the specific recommendation came from our resident date-script expert. He will be joining the DATEPOLL discussion. Ohconfucius (talk) 15:27, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
Mlaffs: "limited suspension" of the injunction? Why? It was a temporary injunction and is no longer appropriate given the results of the RFC. Wikignoming to clean up dates and many other aspects of articles needs to resume as before the injunction, nearly four months ago. I can't imagine why you think the injunction should be merely "suspended". Lighbot will not touch piped links.
Chunky Rice: Have you read the results of the RFC? Tony(talk)
(outdent) With regard to “limited suspension”, I think Mlaffs is using phraseology that actually refers to going forward precisely as we are proposing. He wrote …I'd be supportive of a limited suspension of the injunction for Lightbot only, in order to begin some live test runs as described by Greg L . Then he wrote …then count me as a voice from the "other" side of this issue in support of the proposed go-forward plan. In this case, “limited” merely means that he supports the idea of lifting the injunction so Lightmouse can commence his conservative, stepped approach to getting Lightbot up and going as he tweaks his bot between successively larger runs.
Lightmouse wants controversy about as much as hole in his head. He can deal with technical issues pertaining to his bot all by himself. But the poor bastard will need help if an editor like you‑know‑who pops up who vehemently disagrees with the MOSNUM guidelines being implemented by Lightbot. Accordingly, the need for intervention by anyone from ArbCom might only be necessary if another editor were to set himself ablaze over how “delinking dates is evil and the last RfC was invalid” and files WQAs and ANIs against Lightmouse. If it comes to that, I’m sure someone on the ArbCom can figure out an expedient and efficient procedure to deal with that sort of thing—perhaps refer them to WP:Sucks to be you. Deal with it.
Nicely put, Greg. Tony, I just figure that if there's a plan being developed for Lightbot to do the work in an orderly manner, with pre-defined logic, then we should let Lightbot do it. If the edits all come from one source, with a consistent edit summary and a pointer to where to deliver reasonable, policy-based expressions of concern, then I'd hope to see a material decrease in the associated drah-ma. There will be hundreds of eyes — well, dozens at the very least — on these edits, and it'll be a lot easier if they all need to focus in only one direction.
On the other hand, if we lift the injunction completely right now, then the chance for consistency goes way down with everybody running every which way to link and delink based on their own interpretations, and the gnashing of teeth and wailing will almost assuredly begin anew. In the meantime, hopefully Arbcom will finish up with the case and deliver whatever statements about policy, the application thereof, and user conduct that it feels are appropriate, and then the injunction can be lifted completely.
Besides, the injunction was only with regard to date linking/de-linking. I'd be distressed if wikignoming to clean up "other aspects of articles" had been slowed down in any way. Heck, my iMac and I have been wikignoming our posteriors off. Mlaffs (talk) 18:39, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
I know of one such case where gnoming has come to a halt: Colonies Chris has been knobbled several times in his cleanup efforts because of the interpretation of the injunction. As an occasional gnome, I know it is extremely inefficient to run an AWB pass only knowing you need to do it again after the injunction; it's difficult to reformat 256 unlinked dates in an article and have to leave a small handful of dates linked. Ohconfucius (talk) 01:52, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
The injunction and auto formatting
As regards the latest RFC results, while it's true that the community seems interested in reducing the number of date links, they have not reached consensus on the issue of auto formatting. As auto formatting relies upon linking, I think it would be premature to remove the injunction and engage in mass removal of date links (and hence date auto formatting). —Locke Cole • t • c21:01, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
I already said the community doesn't want most dates to be linked, but that's irrelevant if the community isn't prepared to abandon date auto formatting. I also disagree with Ryan's interpretation of the way forward: I don't think it's appropriate to begin mass delinking (which would also effectively remove all the markup for auto formatting) when auto formatting hasn't been rejected. —Locke Cole • t • c21:45, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
I think we should leave Locke alone with his rather "unique" interpretation of the consensus. He didn't get it on 25 December 2008, it doesn't look like he's getting it any better on 13 April 2009. Ohconfucius (talk) 01:56, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
Wow, where have I seen this comment before.. oh right, it's the way you discourage people from working with me to try and win support for your "one true way". Go away. —Locke Cole • t • c11:38, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
I didn't ask that question, but thanks for continuing to attribute multiple editors work to me. It's flattering. No, those results are, according to Tony1 (talk·contribs), invalid because of the way they were phrased, remember? Besides, if we can fix the current system (which UC Bill showed we can in large part), I don't see the point in killing it. Further, if we remove date links of the coming year, and then a future auto formatting system is implemented that goes back to using the linking syntax, do we really want to have more bots going around relinking (and re-autoformatting) dates? The community supported "some form", which I take to mean a "working form". So let's fix this system and avoid all the unnecessary bot/script edits. —Locke Cole • t • c11:38, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
40% of the community supported "some form" of autoformatting. That is a minority view by any stretch of the imagination. Karanacs (talk) 13:51, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
My apologies, Locke, I thought you were part of the team that devised the second RfC in November last. Anyway, you and Tony are entitled to your opinions about the validity or otherwise of the RfCs, but I'm more interested in looking for things we can all agree on. Looking at the comments from those RfCs and from the recent poll, I am convinced that using links to format dates was the one autoformatting markup that was near-universally rejected. I really hoped you would be able to agree (once more) with that conclusion. The point in killing the current system is that folks don't want it. I understand that you feel if we delink dates now, it will make it harder to re-introduce some other form of date autoformatting in the future, but that probably is not so. Well-formatted, plain text dates (which is what we will have) are not at all difficult for a bot to recognise. Believe it or not, if the community at some point wants a new system of DA that doesn't use link markup, I'm sure Lightbot would set about that task, if required. Heck, I'd write one for you myself if you wanted. More importantly, I'd urge you to consider this: at some point, the community will be asking "After we made our views clear on linked dates, why are they still there in huge numbers?" It is commendable to argue your case; but at some point, the lack of support for that argument will put you in the position of a "blocking minority". My advice, for what it's worth: Accept that some battles will not be won and look for ways where you can move forward on common ground with all the other editors. Building this encyclopedia needs that approach. Sincerely --RexxS (talk) 00:01, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
Please read WP:CON, consensus is not a majority, nor is it determined through polling. We've concluded that the community rejects date links but is indecisive about date auto formatting, the path forward is to disable the links but keep the auto formatting, not throw away both. —Locke Cole • t • c02:07, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
File:Indiana.locke.svgThe “there is no consensus” argument. (*sigh*) You seem to be deluding yourself here (and everywhere else), Locke, that you can influence the ArbCom decision. What’s going to happen is going to happen. What are you going to do when the rulings come down(?), appeal to Jimbo? Everyone else but you understands that the community has spoken and this last RfC is just that: the last one on this issue. Please. Give it up; it’s over. Greg L (talk) 03:15, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
draft status
The draft that has been posted is not ready for voting. There are a number of aspects that need to be discussed. Specifically comments on the "Manual of Style" options will likely help arbitrators gain an appreciation of which option is more appropriate. Also, I will be notifying wikitech-l of the principles "MediaWiki developers", "System administrators", "Open source" and "Deprecation of MediaWiki functionality" - if they see issues with those principles, we can take them over to the Workshop and collaborate on them. John Vandenberg04:32, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Two concerns
Of concern is that the arbitrators cannot vote that the December RFC reaffirmed that DA is undesirable AND that there is consensus that dates should be delinked (contrary to the overwhelming vote in the RFC on bot usage and MOSNUM in December). This problem arises from the conflation of the two points in 3.2.
3.2) Two RFCs held in December 2008 reaffirmed that date autoformatting is undesirable, and that WP:OVERLINKing of dates is not desirable, however consensus has not been found on when dates should be delinked.
It is noted that the continual incivility of Locke Cole, instances of which were reported on the Evidence page, has been passed over. Perhaps this was inadvertent. Tony(talk)07:24, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Tony, you appear to have not seen the word "when" in proposal 3.2. There are a few sets of working notes that I am pulling together, so there are a number of omissions. John Vandenberg07:38, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
John, thanks for your response, and for drawing my attention to the word "when". May I politely request that "when" be more specific, since I took it to mean "in what circumstances"; now I see it could mean "the time onwards from which" or "what type of date or context in which a date occurs". May I also ask that there be no confusion among readers concerning whether (tripartite) "full dates" are the referent, or "date fragments" (such as month-day and solitary year items). Tony(talk)07:50, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
I will not attempt to clarify it, because the ambiguity in that proposed finding underscores the point being made. I wont mind if another arb rewrites 3.2 or adds an option, but the problem is that if the proposed finding does not appear to be an accurate description of the events, not all arbtritrators will be able to support it.
I do not believe we are able to find very much conclusive about any of the RFC, especially given the behaviour of the key players. You believe the RFCs laid clear the path for delinking. I do not believe that is true. Your belief that these polls gave you license to behave as you have is what got you into this mess. For starters, I do not hold your poll in high regard from a user conduct point of view, but there is limited value in detailing every user conduct issue in the proposed decision. Despite the underlying problems in the hows and whys of your poll, it only tried to demonstrate disapproval for "Years, months, days/months, and full dates should normally be linked" and the poll results dont even clearly demonstrate that!, much less demonstrate actual approval for any concrete scenarios where a link should exist, and where it should be removed. Unless you can show me something vaguely like an actual requirements specification being put to the community as an RFC, there is no clear definition of the desired changes or intended outcome. You continue to believe that there is. The more recent poll does a far better job of describing where the MOS would say MUST rather than SHOULD or MAY, but that poll wasnt conducted in December. John Vandenberg08:37, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Jayvdb, do you have an undisclosed interest in the outcome of this arbitration? Should you have recused yourself from any involvement? Before you answer, take a good look at the recusal statements from Carcharoth and Casliber and then tell me whether you have applied the same scrupulous standard to yourself.--Goodmorningworld (talk) 10:15, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Goodness no, not that I am aware of. Thanks for asking now that the decision is published. You cant read my scrupulous recusal statement at User:Jayvdb/recusal. :-)
I've never met Tony before in my life, nor have I met Casliber for that matter. I dont think Tony is an Azeri or Armenian or even Dutch (I didnt check this), and Tony is not a member of Wikimedia Australia as far as I know (yes, I did check).
I couldnt give two hoots about date delinking - if it happens, I expect that it is done orderly; if it doesnt, I expect the bugs are fixed as developers find time to do so.
I dont think I have ever participated in any of the discussions about date delinking, and I doubt I have participated in many MOS discussions either. I've got my own fun and games with the Wikisource MOS - that keeps me more than entertain.
I did raise a related bug that seemed obviously useful: JavaScript control over the dates means that a lot of table sorting issues can be fixed. I raised it simply because it was an obvious bug lost in the big MOSDATE bug, and I thought it would be easily fixed it separated. I was also thinking about the terrible syntax under s:NYT, which we can discard due to the changes by Werdna, once I add a bit of JavaScript voodoo, when I get around to it.
In my own editing, I havent been consciously linking dates for a long time, because it is deprecated and I agree with many of the reasons for that deprecation.
I do like the idea of retaining the metadata in these date links, because I have occasionally used Whatlinkshere on year pages, seeking every mention of that year, and filtering the huge results via software based on my needs; it is annoying that I myself am participating in this metadata extraction method becoming increasingly useless for my non-editing needs; but there are always other ways of achieving the same result (like a SQL query on the database).
From a schema design viewpoint, my view is that this metadata does not belong in the links table among the other links that are important. I'd love to see some or all of semantic mediawiki added to Misplaced Pages, but not before it is easy to use.
In short, I can see all sides, and have no interest in this battle. But I can see no reason for the gross incivility and battlefield mentality being displayed in this situation.
The only possible reason I could recuse is due to being a professional software engineer, since this case does relate to one of my professions. I'm also heavily involved in library science and the research industry, which would mean I could recuse from almost all cases if tried hard enough to think of a reason - I would be happy to recuse from all cases and laze on a beach instead ;-) More seriously, if anyone does have serious concerns, please do raise them.
Yes, I'm also troubled by the omission of anything covering the canvassing by Tony1 and Lightmouse in the most recent date linking RFC (also on the evidence page). There's also nothing about the off-wiki coordination that's obviously been going on amongst Tony1/HWV258/Dabomb87/Lightmouse/Ohconfucius/Greg L (and perhaps others) to effectively steamroll discussions with their point of view as soon as they're started (I'm not certain, but as I recall a recent ArbCom decision frowned on this kind of behavior) or coordinate edit warring to try and induce editors not on their "side" to violate 3RR. I believe the canvassing shows a complete lack of good faith in the process, and taken in the context of the ongoing behavior shows an unwillingness to abide by community norms. —Locke Cole • t • c07:57, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Not only Locke Cole is being let off easy. The three ultra-hardcore warriors fighting against community consensus over dates, besides LC, are Tennis expert and Septentrionalis PMAnderson; the latter is continuing to attack editors opposed to him using the most vicious and hate-filled language but no mention of him in the Proposed Decision. It is just as I said on the Workshop page: the refusal by Tony1 and others to stoop to their accusers' level and go dumpster diving for examples with which to hang their opponents is being used against them. I lost my faith in Arbcom a long time, this just confirms me. I did not vote in WP:DATEPOLL because I knew what was going to happen.--Goodmorningworld (talk) 10:32, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Response to the draft template
Jayvdb: I responded to you very politely above, and was unprepared for such trenchant and unexplained criticism in your rejoinder.
Ambiguity? You responded that I "appear to have not seen the word "when" in proposal 3.2"; when I asked for clarification, you said "I will not attempt to clarify it, because the ambiguity in that proposed finding underscores the point being made." Is ambiguity the purpose of the statement on which the arbitrators will vote? Does this give someone wriggle room to "interpret" this part of the judgement at the bottom? "if the proposed finding does not appear to be an accurate description of the events, not all arbtritrators will be able to support it"—That's not much good if there are few or no alternatives, and arbs just want an end to this. Why are knowingly inaccurate proposals being inserted in the expectation of their rejection?
Style and editing topics of RFCs mixed with "conduct"?
Jayvdb stated, "For starters, I do not hold your poll in high regard from a user conduct point of view". If I had known my motives in holding an RFC were going to be attacked on this count, I'd have defended myself on the Evidence page. But no scope was established. The choices offered to arbs appear to reinforce the partisan line of the date-link crowd at the time, which was hysterical that I dared to launch an RFC before theirs, and that I had expressed the proposals in the negative).
Are there rules against the timing and polarity of RFCs? If so, why are they not stated? Why I should be impugned for creating an RFC that produced clear results on the questions posed appears to be in service to the small band of users who vehemently objected to the results of the community survey.
Please assure me that "conduct" is not being wound in merely to drag the (style-based) RFC into the ambit of ArbCom, which deals only with conduct, and not with style. "I do not believe we are able to find very much conclusive about any of the RFC, especially given the behaviour of the key players." Is this again a mixing of RFCs on editor guidance with personal "conduct"?
Funnelling arb voting by "packaging" statements together
The accusation Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration/Date_delinking/Evidence#Tony1 disruptively creates his own RFC appears for the arbs to endorse under the proposal "The parties listed below have battled in the dispute over date delinking without forming consensus". Thus, if arbs vote to declare that no consensus was formed over date linking, they are forced to label my launching of those three RFC questions as "disruptive" as well. Has this "package" been slipped in because of strongly held personal views? I believe GoodMorningWorld was right to call into question whether you should not recuse yourself from the case. Due process says I should be informed publicly of the reasons you think for your accusation. It is not proper for one user's conduct to have any bearing on the interpretation of community consensus as it appears in RFCs; I'm unsure ArbCom should be making pronouncements on community consensus for particular matters: that falls outside its "conduct" scope.
One-sided choices.
Notably absent from the draft are any solutions that take note of the clear majority that is against date autoformatting and date-fragment linking, expressed again and again. Jayvdb appears to have skewed the choices for his fellow arbs all one way. For example, why is there no choice to simply lift the injunction and get on with moving on from DA, as was the clear feeling at the recent RFC and its talk page after close of the poll? Jayvdb's own prejudgements are more than a little obvious; ArbCom is being funnelled down a predesigned pathway.
ArbCom as language and style authority.
"11.2) The Manual of Style a set of standards for editing on Misplaced Pages. It consists of standards to be followed and guidance where no firm requirements have been developed. It should use terminology throughout that differentiates the two, such as using MUST and SHOULD respectively. Editors are expected to follow the Manual of Style."
Here, arbitrators are asked to vote on an area that is not behavioural, but is at the core of editing and style. The ArbCom policy, reinforced by the provisional draft of the new policy, says in very concrete terms, that ArbCom does not make judgements on content and style. Why does this proposal appear?
This is retrospective legislation that would force the wholesale rewriting of all of the style guides in terms of these two new imposed meanings. Third, "editors are expected to follow the Manual of Style", and "should" means that "no firm requirements have been developed". There will be chaos, since "should", by most people's definition, means should; that is, it is prescriptive. This foray into the uncharted waters of being a style and language authority starts with the disorganised; it will end in chaos.
What is the relationship between this proposal and Proposed remedies on "Mass delinking" (2.1/2.2)? Does ArbCom's new "MUST" and "SHOULD" have a bearing?
Bloat
Why are arbs asked to vote "yes" to such platitudes as "Edit warring is harmful", "WP works by consensus", and the "Optional styles" statement at the opening of the styleguides? ... Again. And again. And again. We know this; they're key policies and pillars. Please don't say "that's how judgements are made around here"; it's doing no good for ArbCom's reputation as a serious body. And what has "The desire to apply rules for the sake of rules must be suppressed" got to do with this case? It needs to be cut back to the core, which is all that matters. I'd be annoyed if I were an arbitrator.
Lightmouse.
Why are arbiters voting for or against harsh sanctions against Lightmouse concerning bot use and accusations hurled around of wrong-doing WRT his previous accounts?
The specific supporting evidence (among the voluminous mass of it on Evidence and Workshop pages) is not cited in the judgement draft.
Bot- and account-use was established by neither filer nor ArbCom as part of the scope; if it had been, Lightmouse might have known he needed to specifically defend himself against what he may say are distortions and misinformed or malicious hearsay concerning on these matters.
He has had no opportunity to set the record straight, and without any statement of scope has been caught unaware.
There is no assertion in the judgement that the project has been damaged by Lightmouse.
As far as I can see, there is nothing in the proposed judgment so far to deal with the matter which is at the very heart of the dispute and will repeatedly cause other disputes in the future if something is not done to deal with it - how do we know (in a situation without unanimity) when we have consensus or not? Who decides, and on what basis, and by what process? And what is the point of saying that we must abide by consensus if edits made to enforce (and explicitly justified by) consensus decisions are treated as edit warring just the same as those which knowingly go against consensus? That is surely an untenable position. If you can't address these fundamental issues, then we won't have learnt anything from all this.--Kotniski (talk) 09:36, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
If a user ever finds that they are reverting or being incivil, and thinking to themselves "this is like the date delinking case; I wish the arbs had given us better guidance", that person has already gone to far, and should step away from the keyboard, go for a long walk (or otherwise occupy themselves), and either decide to a) walk away from the silly mess and do something better with their time, or b) stop reverting and/or being incivil and find a better approach to resolve the dispute, or go to dispute resolution.
The revert button is not a form of dispute resolution. The revert button is not an means of keeping consensus in the face of opposition by good faith contributors; the WP:BRD sequence only includes one revert.
The vagueness of "consensus" didnt cause this mess. One side became fed up of waiting for the developers to do something about this extremely important issue, and they took out all stops to force consensus, by any means possible. Sadly, the escalation has meant that a few people who were trying to simply keep order ended up engaged in this battle (if only briefly), and have been included in the FoFs and the remedies. I appreciate that this "All editors involved" approach is hard on them, and that is why there is a template for individual user remedies: if the arbitrators decide that the "All editors involved" approach is too hard on those who were not major players, we will replace the "All editors involved" remedy with per-user remedies, which will allow the remedy for each person to be fine tuned based on the level of their involvement.
My preference is to go with the "All editors involved" remedy and hand out a lighter option to them all (to clear the air), and have stronger user-user remedies for the people who engaged in the incivil behaviour that made this such a minefield. John Vandenberg10:37, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
What does this have to do with the developers? I'm sorry, but the facts here are just wrong. One side wanted to change something to make Misplaced Pages better, in a way which didn't require any developer assistance. They launched discussion, argued their points, got consensus (or thought they did), and went about implementing it. Others objected that there wasn't consensus, so: more discussion, consensus was again confirmed, implementation of the improvements continued. Other side still disputes the consensus, so they come complaining to ArbCom. How is this whole problem not caused by the vagueness of consensus? If the Arbs seriously think that this needed to have anything to do with the developers, then this is simply incorrect - it is the other opposing side who were urging the developers to do something new, in the (now confirmed) absence of consensus to do it.--Kotniski (talk) 11:28, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
More. The above shows just how disastrously out of control this case has got. It was impossible for any sane person (a category in which I deign to include myself) to follow everything that was going on here, because of the vast amount of unfocused verbal outpouring that was going on in all directions. Now I see that things are being accepted as facts that are simply not the case. If the discussion had been focused, we could have corrected them. But as in the whole date linking saga, the ordinary Wikipedian's voice has been drowned out by the well-orchestrated shouting, and we find ourselves disenfranchised and being accused of things that we have had no opportunity to defend ourselves against. --Kotniski (talk) 11:35, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
