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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Chunky Rice (talk | contribs) at 05:29, 25 January 2010 (→Concern about your motion: well...). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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Wrapping text around tables

Hi Kirill, happy new year!! Hope you and your loved ones are well. I'm facing a problem at Iranian Air Force. I'm attempting to insert a units/bases chart but it is set to stay in the left-hand side of the column, and I cannot force text to fill up the rest of the column. Can you help me or point me to someone who can? Kind regards from Aotearoa, Buckshot06 (talk) 08:37, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

I've aligned the table so that the text wraps around it, but I'm not sure how well the end result really works. You might want to consider moving "Jane's Sentinel Estimate of Units 1993" into the table itself as a header and adding an outer border; otherwise, the heading isn't really attached to the table. Kirill  16:36, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Thank you very much

...for both the barnstar and your advice and guidance throughout the process. Both were/are greatly appreciated :) EyeSerene 14:48, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

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Concern about your motion

Haven't you learned something since your last resignation? Backroom dealing and ignoring the community are not acceptable on Misplaced Pages. ArbCom is elected to resolve disputes, not to govern by fiat. "Unsourced BLP" is not a criterion for speedy deletion, though "Attack page" is. Your motion reflects a poor understanding of these circumstances. Jehochman 15:56, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Oh, and before you think about moving this concern to my talk page, I'll say please don't do that. I'm familiar with the various tactics arbitrators use to deflect criticism. Jehochman 15:57, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

The results of last month's ArbCom elections, would indicate that Kirill has the community's trust, and that he is not the one here needing to learn a lesson.--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) (talk) 17:06, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Please read my argument, just added there. You are moving much too fast. DGG ( talk ) 17:20, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

I've been wondering what you meant by that, are you wanting to ignore BLP then, or ??? ++Lar: t/c 22:07, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Not for long if he keeps acting this way. Jehochman 18:19, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

And what do you mean by THAT? ++Lar: t/c 22:07, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

The community is in favor of change on the BLP issue. I don't think it's unreasonable for ArbCom to recognize the tension and compel the participants to continue their campaign in a more measured way. Cool Hand Luke 18:59, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Motion passed! Good on ya. It was almost like, no, can it be... leadership and responsibility? You've done a very good thing.Bali ultimate (talk) 19:10, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't think the motion does that. I think it exonerates out of process deletions and encourages admins to disregard objections. Jehochman 19:19, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, you're interested in process, not in the persistence of tens of thousands unmaintained, unsourced BLPs for years, and are opposed to bold action to behave like responsible adults. That was already clear.Bali ultimate (talk) 19:41, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

JEHochman, come back when you have a workable alternative proposal to solve this problem that has been accepted by the community. Just about any of the ones being floated at the RfC work for me. But stop sniping at people who are actually trying to solve the problem instead of policy wonking. If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. Lead, follow, or get out of the way. ++Lar: t/c 21:58, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Check the timestamp on my proposal at Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Biographies of living people. (About five hours before your snipe.) Jehochman 00:45, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

As of this writing your proposal there appears to be the one that's garnering the most supports and the widest margin of support, among those proposals that are concrete and that acknowledge there is a problem. So, bravo! Glad you came up with it. But you have also been sniping. Needlessly. ++Lar: t/c 17:28, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Lar, how can you honestly say this?

"JEHochman, come back when you have a workable alternative proposal to solve this problem that has been accepted by the community"

You have shown that you have absolutly no respect for consensus by your behavior yesterday.

Three year old policy:

Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced—whether the material is negative, positive, or just questionable—should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion.

Jack Merridew's reversion:

Contentious Material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced—whether the material is negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable—should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion.

Jack Merridew's reversion version is the one you protected the page on at 02:13, 21 January 2010. From 03:55, 21 January 2010 to 03:35, 21 January 2010 you deleted several articles against established consensus on the page you just protected, now you are lecturing JEHochman on consensus?

You have absolutly zero credibility lecturing anyone about consensus. Ikip 22:05, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Oh hi Ikip, I thought your wife took your password or something? I think you're confused, you need to walk the history, someone turned up on my talk page talking about edit warring, so I (knowing I'd not edited that page recently (ever?)) went and protected it. As usual, it was protected at the Wrong Version. I didn't even notice who edited it last or what state it was in. But I see someone else edited through protection to flip it. Oh well, I'm not going to worry about it. Normally you are supposed to insist that it needs to stay the Wrong Version but I just don't really care all that much about someone editing it that way. But is this the right page for that? Why don't you pop by my talk page if you want to harangue me about something. ++Lar: t/c 22:20, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

I, too, am concerned about the motion - primarily due to it's lack of clarity. It seems to simultaneously endorse and condemn the practice of summarily deleting unreferenced BLP articles. I don't really care which way you decide, but you need to make it absolutely clear which it is. Otherwise, you invite further escalation in the conflict as people on both sides of the dispute push the boundaries in order to determine exactly where those boundaries are. -Chunky Rice (talk) 23:04, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm open to issuing clarifications, but I'm hopeful that the recently opened request for comments—which I'm happy to see is proceeding smoothly—will make further statements from us unnecessary. There won't be a need for anyone to push boundaries once the community comes up with a better way of proceeding with the resolution of this issue. Kirill  00:42, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Well... I guess this is where I say "told ya' so." And the new RFAR isn't the only incident of people assuming that they have carte blanche to force their interpretation of policy over all other opinions, citing your poorly worded motion. Please take the opportunity to clarify - or you could again just sweep it under the rug and hope for the best. -Chunky Rice (talk) 05:29, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Jehochman, in response to your original inquiry, the core role of the Arbitration Committee—in many ways the very reason why it exists—is to examine a dispute that is brought before it and to determine whether the editors involved conducted themselves in a way that is compliant with Misplaced Pages policy and community practice. That is precisely what we have done here—no more, no less. The rest, we leave up to the community.

You are, of course, entirely welcome to disagree with my judgement on whether the actions involved here complied with policy. Ultimately, however, the community has given myself and my colleagues on the Committee the responsibility for making that decision; and it is a responsibility I do not take lightly. I will not shy away from making the decision I believe to be the right one merely to make myself more popular in certain circles. Kirill  00:39, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for responding. For whatever reason the motion does not talk about the behavior of the editors exclusively. As I read it, which might not have been your intention in writing it, the motion says "carry on chaps with the speed deletions". No, there is no CAT:CSD criteria that allows such an action, and the community is expressly against it. ArbCom cannot overrule the community. Would you and Lar please review my proposed resolution at Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Biographies of living people and comment if you wish. I think my recommended approach has far and away the most support. It would be helpful to retract or rewrite your motion, as the current version serves to confuse the matter. Jehochman 00:45, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

That's not the way that I see the motion. It says that the deletions of old, unsourced BLPs was in accordance with BLP policy. ArbCom is charged with interpreting policy when judging editor/admin actions, and have done so effectively here. Cla68 (talk) 00:50, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

I think I once argued for exactly this thing at CAT:CSD and was shot down. The community has not been silent; they oppose speedy on these grounds. I think we should give PROD some teeth and say that users may not remove prods, especially en masse, without stating a valid reason. Jehochman 00:54, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

I think that's fine. I think your idea at the RfC, if current trends continue, will pass and become policy. If it doesn't, however, I believe the Committee is making it clear that mass deletions of old, unsourced BLPs will once again be justified and IAW with current BLP policy. Cla68 (talk) 00:58, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

And thus our judiciary seizes executive power from the people; and the first act of our new totalitarian regime is to issue amnesties to anyone who breaks the rules in support of its policies. Bravo, Dear Leader Kirill! When shall I expect your militia of above-the-law supporters to teach me the foolishness of dissent? Hesperian 04:48, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

It is probably worth noting the the BLP-related views of most of the arbitrators, particularly those most recently elected by the community, were very well known before their election. Looking at Kirill and Coren's prior votes in arb cases on BLPs and their vote on this motion subsequent to re-election, it follows the same form. If it is the arb's fault for passing this motion, it is also the community's fault for electing people who it knew would do such a thing. Can you really say the community could not have expected to see such a motion coming from Kirill, when he drafted a very similarly toned remedy at WP:BLPBAN prior to his election? Or the exhortation at Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration/Obama_articles#Biographies_of_living_people that BLPs must have sources, which was passed by Wizardman, Rlevse, Coren, Roger Davies, and Kirill. Acting like this finding came out of left field by an Arbcom that hid its intentions until the last moment denies the prior actions of the arbs. MBisanz 05:00, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

For fuck's sake, we elected a judiciary, not an executive. We make the rules; we set the reform agendas; ArbCom addresses behaviours. The community had every right to ignore the political views of the people standing for ArbCom, because they had every right to expect that our judiciary would stay the hell out of politics, like any self-respecting not-openly-corrupt judiciary does. This is Justice 101: you don't issue amnesties to people solely because you like the reform agenda they have put on the table. You don't decline to examine behaviours just because you share the political views that drive that behaviour. You don't prostitute your judicial neutrality for political gain. If the most you can say in ArbCom's defense is "you should have seen this coming", then they are indeed damned with faint praise. Hesperian 05:23, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

No, I'm saying this motion was a natural continuation of their prior findings and people shouldn't be surprised to see the exact same individuals make findings on the exact same path that they've been making them since 2006. MBisanz 05:27, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

If you say so. That it is unsurprising, to you at least, doesn't make it any less rotten. Hesperian 05:38, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

It's always surprising to see disruption "commended". When Ed Poor deleted VFD, it may have been for a 'good' reason, and it may have spurred reform (or, it may just have distracted from the ongoing discussion). Good or ill, the arbcomm didn't commend him. No reasonable member of the community would have expected the arbs to commend disruption. Your claims to the contrary are simply specious. Guettarda (talk) 05:57, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

(ec)You honestly think that most people who voted dug through their past decisions with an eye for things like this? Most people are here to write an encyclopaedia, not to peruse the minutia of arbcomm decisions. Regardless, the ruling may interprets BLP a tad more widely than the policy reads, but it's within the scope of a reasonable application of existing policy. It's one thing to say that information about living people needs to be reliably sourced. That's a given - everything in the encyclopaedia needs to reliably sourced. But that's a far cry from saying "all unsourced statements need to be deleted", and even further cry from endorsing disruptive behaviour by a select group...I'd say "of editors", but at least one member of that group has barely 500 mainspace edits in the last 2 years...so "editor" is a bit of an misnomer.

If you, as an editor, identify an article that needs to be sourced, the expectation is that you'd give it a shot. If you can't find sources, then you'd move to delete the article. It's quite another thing though to go on a deletion spree based on the fact that a bot had characterised them as unsourced. It's pretty safe to say that no attempt was made to check whether the bot was correct in its characterisation. (Betacommand found that 17,000 of the articles tagged as unsourced actually appear to have sources.) Deleting an article based on the judgement of a bot is unacceptable. But the arbcomm choose to "commend" that behaviour.

Why this ruling is problematic is that throws out the most basic ideas about the way this community operates. Collaborative work has always been key. This ruling throws out the principle of collaboration. It says that any editor or group of editors have a carte blanche to operate as the like, no matter how disruptively, if they secure the support of the arbcomm. That kind of approach stands in stark opposition to the way this encyclopaedia was built. And is maintained. The more you de-motivate editors, the fewer people you have to actually maintain the articles that have sources, but still, amazingly, manage to end up with damaging or misleading statements. On all levels, this hurts the project. Guettarda (talk) 05:54, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

The fact that Arbcom adopted an almost identical stance to both non-free images and copyright violations, and that both of those are well-known to any experienced editors, again shows this motion did not just drop out of the sky. Also, the community did re-elect the individual with barely 500 mainspace edits within the last month, so they knew exactly what they were getting when they voted. MBisanz 06:02, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Arbs with barely 500 mainspace edits? Really? Who? As for the rest of it - don't be ridiculous. Copyvios are like unsourced articles? What utter rubbish. Guettarda (talk) 06:12, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

I believe Coren was the arb with less than 500 mainspace edits in the last two years, and he was elected the first time and again in December by a community fully aware of that edit record. MBisanz 06:14, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

If I can behave like an utter twat, whilst working towards an agenda that the ArbCom likes, and be commended for it, then the question has to arise: what will ArbCom do if I behave perfectly, whilst working towards an agenda they don't like? Will I be banned simply for failing to align myself with their reform agenda? Does behaviour even matter any more? Or does your survival here depend on your ability to stay in policy step with the new regime? Hesperian 06:06, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

You know, come to think of it, that is exactly what is happening. People are out there right now, removing prods from unsourced BLPs, in accordance with policy, and I understand that some of them are in serious danger of finding themselves banned as disruptive. So here's your truth table:

		Behaviour in accordance with policy
		No	Yes
Outcomes promote ArbCom agenda	No	User is in deep shit.	User is in deep shit.
	Yes	User is commended	User is commended

There you have it. The data is in. Behaviour doesn't matter any more. If you want to survive in Misplaced Pages, you have to toe the ArbCom policy line. Hesperian 06:22, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Hmph, I didn't get my commendation yet for Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Sarah Palin protection wheel war, which fell into the lower half of that table. MBisanz 06:27, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Ah, but that was before ArbCom seized executive power and proclaimed an amnesty for supporters of their reform agenda. This is a new regime, my friend. Whole new vistas of policy violation lay open before you. Go for it! So long as you're doing ArbCom bidding, you can do whatever the hell you want. Hesperian 06:35, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Actually the bottom right probably should be "no comment". Hesperian 06:58, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

So this is a question for Kirill, and Kirill alone: Kirill, does behaviour still matter? Hesperian 06:09, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Of course behavior matters; people who behave well while pursuing agendas that arbitrators don't like are not going to be sanctioned merely because we don't agree with their ideas; and people who behave poorly while pursuing agendas that arbitrators do like have regularly been sanctioned, and will continue to be sanctioned in the future.

One issue here is that you're conflating "disliking" an agenda and believing it to be incompatible with the core mission of the project. For example, the idea that we shouldn't make statements about living people unless we can back them up is not merely a community policy; it is a fundamental quality of our being an ethically responsible publication. While a certain amount of disagreement on the precise methods we use to achieve compliance is expected, outright rejection of the underlying principle is not. The community does not have the authority to turn the project into a tabloid, no matter how much it may wish to do so, because that's simply not why Misplaced Pages exists; and, consequently, anyone whose agenda is turning Misplaced Pages into a tabloid is likely to find themselves rather unwelcome.

Having said that, the intent is not to beat everyone into submission. Personally, I would much prefer it if the community were to get sufficiently diligent about handling BLP issues that they never need come before ArbCom again; and, ultimately, that requires broad agreement for the methods that will be used to keep BLPs in adequate shape. But editors who obstruct progress for their own ends, who play games with biographies of living people, and who think that making a political statement about "inclusionism" or "deletionism" is more important than meeting our ethical obligations to those we write about are no longer going to be given free rein, as they have been for so many years. Kirill  07:09, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

You're conflating something too. You're conflating rejection of dreadful behaviour with "rejection of the underlying principle". Was that the choice for you?: Either reject both behaviour and principle, or endorse both behaviour and principle? Did it not occur to you that behaviour and principle are different things, and the role of ArbCom, a judiciary, is behaviour and behaviour alone? You guys are so busy pushing a policy agenda—something a judiciary has no right to do—that you failed utterly to do your job of examining behaviour. And then, to issue an amnesty, solely because you're glad this shit finally hit the fan!

<redacted> There's no point spreading the love all over your talk page. Do me a favour and scrape up an ArbCom response, or at least your own personal response, to Misplaced Pages talk:Arbitration#Corruption. Hesperian 07:50, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

(ec) You forget that the Arbitration Committee is not, and has never been, a judiciary body (although we have, at times, borrowed related terminology). ArbCom's purpose is not to provide "justice" in the absolute sense; it exists only to resolve editor disputes within the context of a project to write an encyclopedia, and every action it takes is ultimately meant to advance and uphold that fundamental mission. Trying to draw close parallels to real-world legal systems, while enlightening in certain situations, is of very limited use in others. Kirill  08:02, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

The separation of powers, especially the separation of judiciary from executive, is widely recognised as a fundamental principle of good governance; if you're not willing to import good governance from the real world, you shouldn't have nominated for ArbCom.

I think we're done here. Obviously it is beyond my ability to move you. If ArbCom truly thinks it has the right to dismiss bad behaviour with the ruling that "the end justifies the means", then I have nothing more to say to any of you. Hesperian 10:30, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

#switch help

Would you mind coming over here and helping me with some intricate #switch/#if stuff for a template? I'm still learning how all of it works, and these bits are still somewhat confusing to me. I appreciate your time. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:51, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Will do, shortly. Kirill  00:42, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

I think Portal:Speculative fiction/Selected works/Layout should do what you need now. Please look over the result and let me know if it needs additional changes, or if you need any other help. Kirill  03:10, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, that works like a charm. :) ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 04:12, 22 January 2010 (UTC)