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Initiated by Gigs ( talk) at 20:22, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Case affected

• Date delinking arbitration case ( t) ( ev /  t) ( w /  t) ( pd /  t)
• Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Date delinking#Supplemental motion regarding User Lightmouse

Clauses to which an amendment is requested

1. 7.1) Lightmouse is indefinitely prohibited from using any automation whatsoever on Wikipedia.
2. 8) Lightmouse is limited to using only the account "Lightmouse" to edit.
3. Supplemental motion: "Nonwithstanding remedies #7.1 and #8, Lightmouse (talk · contribs) is permitted to use his Lightbot (talk · contribs) account for a single automation task authorized by the Bot Approvals Group. "Automation" is to be interpreted broadly to refer to any automated or semi-automated tools whatsoever."

List of users affected by or involved in this amendment

• Gigs ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (initiator)
• Lightmouse ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Confirmation that the above users are aware of this request

• [1]

Amendment 1

• Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Date delinking#Supplemental motion regarding User Lightmouse
• At this point I do not trust Lightmouse to use automated tools and take complaints seriously, and think that his sanction should be extended to an indefinite ban on all automated and semi-automated editing.

Statement by Gigs

Lightmouse has engaged in high speed semi-automated editing without BAG approval in apparent violation of the previous sanctions, such as: [2] [3] [4] [5], as a small sample. These edits drew several complaints as to their accuracy and appropriateness, including feedback from myself of a general nature, before I realized that Lightmouse was under ArbCom sanctions. This is documented at: User_talk:Lightmouse/Archives/2010/October.

There are several currently pending BRFAs:

1. Wikipedia:BRFA#Lightbot_7
2. Wikipedia:BRFA#Lightbot_6
3. Wikipedia:BRFA#Lightmouse
4. Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approval/Lightbot_5

Note that the sanctions limit Lightmouse to a single BAG approved task, so it is unclear to me what action BAG should take regarding these BRFAs. Rlevse approached Lightmouse asking for an explanation of the apparent violation, but now that he is gone, I'm not sure if anyone is following up on this. I am asking for an official response from ArbCom in order to bring clarity and closure to this, regardless of whether my amendment is accepted.

My involvement in this is limited to relatively brief conversations last month on WT:MOSNUM and on Lightmouse's talk page urging him to take complaints about his semi-automatic editing much more seriously. Gigs ( talk) 20:22, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Additional comment by Gigs

To clarify, the sort of dismissive behavior that I observed on WT:MOSNUM and Lightmouse's talk page is what prompted my concerns. (i.e. [6] [7] [8]) This is exactly the same sort of behavior that lead to the sanction in the first place. Editing rates peaking at 5-8 edits per minute on systematically selected alphabetized articles surely does not fall under "manual editing". The editing stopped 2 weeks ago only because Rlevse approached Lightmouse and asked for an explanation of the apparent violation. Gigs ( talk) 18:30, 12 November 2010 (UTC) may have been mistaken about causality 23:09, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

I notice that Lightmouse has just opened up two additional BRFAs for Lightbot.

• Wikipedia:BRFA#Lightbot_8
• Wikipedia:BRFA#Lightbot_9

Regardless of the nature of the current requests, Lightmouse disregarded sanctions while carrying out those thousands of AWB edits under the Lightmouse account. The sanctions reflected a general lack of ArbCom faith in Lightmouse to conduct semi-automated and automated operations in a non-disruptive fashion, which is why they were not constructed more narrowly. Lightmouse is effectively asking BAG to assist him in violating those sanctions by filing multiple BRFAs that would violate the sanctions if approved. This does not inspire any more faith in my eyes. Gigs ( talk) 02:30, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Statement by other editor

{Other editors are free to comment on this amendment as necessary. Comments here should be directed only at the above proposed amendment.}

Statement by Ohconfucius

I'm baffled too, but no more so than by this amendment. AFAIK, Lightbot hasn't been in operation for over a month now, BAG has been unresponsive to repeated requests for the bot. Lighmouse himself hasn't edited in two weeks, some 48 hours before Vanished 6551232 ( talk · contribs) (aka Rlevse) posted his message on Lightmouse's talk page. Prior to those two weeks, I see nothing "high speed", just some 'normal' (by that, I mean manual) AWB actions at an average rate of 50 edits per hour to remove overlinked common terms ( hour!, kilometer!!, minute!!!, ) and some years. -- Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 15:29, 12 November 2010 (UTC), amended 02:18, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

In response to Gigs' "additional statement", I combed through Lightmouse's contributions history for the last 2,600+ entries. Therein, I noticed nothing incompatible with the editing speeds achieved for human-supervised AWB usage. I examined in excess of 50 edits, and found that rarely did each edit contain more than one or two changes, such as removing wikilinks to days of the week, years, and other common terms such as 'week', 'day', 'hour', 'second'... which I note is firmly endorsed by WP:Linking. There were occasionally more changes, which included insertion of '{{ convert}}'. As for the complaints on LM's talk page... Rifleman complains here that Lightmouse has been systematically removing repeat links, implying that he should be careful not to disturb his misleading piped links notwithstanding; once again WP:Linking is firmly on Lightmouse's side. The diff used above of the post from pdfpdf clearly shows Gigs was aware of the belligerence of pdfpdf, who not only expressed his displeasure of having the {{ convert}} foisted upon him in articles he had on his watchlist, calling them "non-consensus changes" (viz: "'If you think square kilometres are confusing, just remove them.' - For heavens sake! We are NOT your mother nor your housemaid nor your servant. YOU made these non-consensus changes. YOU fix them!!"), he repeatedly replaced the message despite its removal by the owner (and by me, a talk-page stalker) insisting it wasn't uncivil – I would actually call it harassment even though LM was firm but always polite with visitors to his talk page. -- Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 14:20, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Kingpin13

Speaking somewhat as a member of the Bot Approvals Group, I firstly apologise for the slow progress of BRfA recently, there's only really been about three active BAG members approving bots over the past month. As I understand it, the previous case banned Lightmouse from making any semi- or fully-automated edits from any account. The amendment then permitted him to make some from a single account, Lightbot. The only edits explicitly approved by BAG were 50 trial edits, all of which are listed here, to be made from the Lightbot account, this was approved by Mr.Z-man ( talk · contribs) here. The edits linked to by Gigs clearly show Lightmouse using the AutoWikiBrowser (a semi-automated tool) on his main account. This is very clearly disallowed by the ArbCom remedies ([emphasises added] "Lightmouse is indefinitely prohibited from using any automation whatsoever on Wikipedia", where "automation is to be interpreted broadly to refer to any automated or semi-automated tools whatsoever", amended by " Lightmouse ( talk · contribs) is permitted to use his Lightbot ( talk · contribs) account for a single automation task"), it was made abundantly clear in the amendment that the only account which the ban from using automation was lifted on was the Lightbot account (but the edits Gigs have issue with came from the Lightmouse account). In addition to this problem with the accounts getting muddled, the edit summaries used by the bot and AWB, are in my opinion, not clear enough (for example, the Lightbot edits do not make it clear that they were approved trial edits). Besides which, this clearly was not a dry-run/userspace test - it was a live run, with changes being made to the Wikipedia namespace mainspace. - Kingpin ¹³ ( talk) 09:39, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

In regard to John's message below. He appears to be misunderstanding what I'm saying. Lightmouse defended the bot edits as a trial. Unapproved bot trials may only be made in the op/bot's userspace. Often (but not in general) it is indeed preferable for trials to be made in mainspace. But only when approved by BAG at BRfA, which provides a review of these edits. As to Paragraph two of his comment, I wasn't referring to the trial approved at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approval/Lightbot_5, I made clear that that was the only approved trial, and linked to the edits made under that approval (I made this clear because it seems ArbCom wanted an update on what BAG had actually approved). My issue was with "the edits linked to by Gigs". Lightmouse claims these edits were also a trial. However, they were unapproved; without peer review; made in the mainspace; came from the Lightmouse account (this wouldn't generally be a large issue, as they were semi-automated, however this account was banned from making any semi-automated edits by ArbCom (this ban has not been lifted - it's only had an amendment made regarding the Lightbot account). In addition, considering the kind of edits made and the number (see Anomie's link) they should have been performed on a separate account even without the ban in place (see WP:AWB#Rules of use 2)); and in a large quantity - clearly not a suitable trial). Also Anomie makes similar points to mine below, and I agree with his statement. - Kingpin ¹³ ( talk) 14:03, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

In reply to Kirill below: That is correct, the only edits approved by BAG were 50 trial edits under this BRfA. Per se, any other edits do not have BAG approval, including those listed ( [9], [10], [11] [12]) and in-fact any semi/automated edits made from his own account, such as 4853 out of 5000 edits listed here. In addition, BAG wouldn't be able to approve these edits anyway (the AWB edits from Lightmouse's main account), as doing so would be overruling ArbCom - Kingpin ¹³ ( talk) 06:32, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

In general, it is preferable for trial runs to be made in mainspace, as was done here. [Note: mainspace, where articles reside, is not the same as "Wikipedia namespace".] Mainspace trial edits are preferable simply because they include (obviously) the full complexity of article text. Mistakes in edits in mainspace, if limited in number (as will be the case for trial runs) are easy enough to reverse. It's much better to find mistakes during a trial run, even if a few articles have errors until corrected, than to find errors when a bot goes live and is doing thousands of edits. Moreover, my review of Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approval/Lightbot_5 shows no indication that the trial run was supposed to be done anywhere other than mainspace - in fact, there was some discussion regarding how the fifty articles (for the trial run) would be selected in order to best test the bot. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 13:58, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Anomie

The only mainspace edits approved by BAG are the 50 trial edits for Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Lightbot 5, linked by Kingpin13 above. These 50 edits are not at issue; the issue is with the thousands of AWB edits made from the User:Lightmouse account and the fact that it seems impossible for Lightmouse to perform these edits without engendering controversy. I don't know whether the controversy is due to the edits, Lightmouse, or a combination of the two.

WP:Bot policy also allows for non-disruptive edits to the bot's or operator's userspace, and "limited testing of bot processes without approval, provided that test edits are very low in number and frequency, and are restricted to test pages such as the sandbox". Edits to live articles do not qualify for either of those two exceptions; if it were necessary to test on "the full complexity of article text", articles could be copied to a sandbox for editing or AWB could be run and the diffs viewed without actually saving the edits. And several thousand as a "test" is right out.

I also note that the issue of edit summaries was raised in Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Lightbot 4.

From what I've seen of his actions since Lightmouse's ban expired, I for one do not trust him not to repeat the same behavior that originally led to his ban. Immediately upon expiration of his ban, Lightmouse applied for the exact same approval that caused so much controversy the first time around. And it seemed every attempt to clarify and limit the request was met with an attitude of "I shouldn't have to do this", unclear or overbroad "clarifications", and language that seemed ripe for later wikilawyering. He also took up his task using AWB, despite not receiving approval as directed by ArbCom, and the claim here that Lightmouse thought he could make thousands of edits as normal work around his 50-edit trial on Lightbot 5 that was already completed a month earlier or any of his other requests that have not been approved for trial at all is patently ridiculous. Requests 6 and 7 are much more appropriate in scope, but at this point my AGF is expired. Anomie ⚔ 17:48, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Further discussion

As I understand it, the Lightmouse account can be used with automation relating to units of measurement. Coren said the expectation was “it would cover the ‘’normal’’ work around a 'bot’ task: That includes the usual dry runs in user space, the test runs okayed by BAG, and whatever minor tweaks are generally included in a single bot request”. I’ve done tests in accordance with this. BAG has been unable to respond for weeks if not months.

If I've misunderstood the situation, I'd be grateful for more clarity.

I'd like to correct the false impression that "The editing stopped 2 weeks ago only because Rlevse approached Lightmouse and asked for an explanation ...". I was told by one editor quoted in this discussion to "get a life" and sworn at (details not pleasant), well I do have a life outside WP which took priority over WP. I stopped editing articles on 28 Oct. Rlevse wrote a note on my talk page on 30 Oct. The event didn't precede the cause.

I'd like to correct the false allegation that I was 'dismissive'. From time to time, an editor will say that I shouldn't add metric units, in circumstances that aren't documented anywhere on WP guidance. Or they want me to add a different format/unit of their choosing. I always try to be polite. But sometimes the debate becomes circular or is entirely subjective. I may invite editors to take WP style issues to the WP style talk page, or I may take it there on their behalf. That's an attempt to be helpful and inclusive. Where I say that an editor is free to remove a metric unit or change it, I'm not 'dismissive', quite the reverse. I'm trying to collaborate and add calm.

I hope that helps. Lightmouse ( talk) 11:44, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm grateful for the comment by BAG. It took two and half months to get approval for a 50 edit trial for the simple task of adding unit conversions using the Lightbot account. We've had a further delay of a month and a half waiting for comment on the trial. The trial edits were a success. The normal course for bot applications is that feedback about a first trial results in another trial. It's pleasing to see that this Arbcom case has given me the feedback that BAG would prefer a different edit summary, I'd be happy to amend that. While waiting for this bot to get approval, I've created more bot applications so that preliminaries can be dealt with now. I know that the workload for BAG and Arbcom is high, here the two entities have to collaborate on a bot application and the delays are inevitably longer. I think I'm being patient on an application that is technically quite simple and (where trialled) has been successful. I'd be grateful if BAG and Arbcom can find a way to move this application forward. Lightmouse ( talk) 11:35, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Tony1

Just a few observations:

• It's all very complicated, probably even for experts.
• BAG is seriously understaffed—to the point of being dysfunctional, it seems to me. We need to concentrate on revamping it in 2011.
• As an observer, I found Anomie's contributions at one of those BAG applications by Lightmouse to be a bit negative and almost personal in its tone: I don't understand why.
• Kirril, the diff you have pointed to: I may be wrong, but it's the kind of manual edit I'd make if using automation. Is LM restricted from removing links to years and to items such as "hours" (twice), which presumably were performed manually? Tony (talk) 08:20, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Clerk notes

This section is for administrative notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Any objections to this being archived? NW ( Talk) 20:23, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Arbitrator views and discussion

• Awaiting statements from Lightmouse and/or BAG; I'd appreciate it if someone could clarify whether Lightmouse has BAG approval for the edits he's making. Kirill  ^{[talk]  [prof]} 02:34, 12 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Kingpin13: If I understand your statement correctly, the edits cited by Gigs ( [13] [14] [15] [16]) were not approved by BAG? Could you please confirm whether my understanding is correct? Kirill  ^{[talk]  [prof]} 02:13, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Tony: I'm not pointing out the edit as being problematic in and of itself; as you say, it looks like a reasonable thing to do. However, the conditions under which Lightmouse was permitted to resume using automated tools were very clear: whatever he does with them must be approved by BAG beforehand. My concern is that this isn't taking place, and that Lightmouse is essentially using automation without any oversight whatsoever, which is exactly the scenario that led to the original restriction on his editing. Kirill  ^{[talk]  [prof]} 19:25, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
• Awaiting statements and join in Kirill's request. Newyorkbrad ( talk) 14:40, 12 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Thus far, I'm not convinced that action by us is needed, but I'm still open to further input. Newyorkbrad ( talk) 00:41, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
• Per Kirill and Brad.   Roger ^talk 08:33, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
• Also not seeing that action is required at this point. Risker ( talk) 01:01, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
• Lightmouse, now that Kingpin13 has confirmed that the edits cited by Gigs were not approved by BAG, could you please comment on why those edits do not contradict your ban? Shell ^babelfish 14:22, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
  • It's my understanding that the edits were permitted, as I mentioned in my comment above. I'm not sure if you saw that. I was worried that this wasn't clear enough so I made more than one request for clarity on the point.
  • I'd like to correct the false assertion that the current requests are "exact same approval that caused so much controversy the first time around". The big fuss and Arbcom case was about several editors removing Date links and other editors objecting. Nobody wishes to go through that again. The current BAG application relates to adding conversions to units, a popular task which would be tedious if done by hand and has had consensus throughout.
  • I've been accused of having an attitude of "I shouldn't have to do this", unclear or overbroad "clarifications". I don't have such an attitude. If the crime is failing to understand a question or failing to be understood, then all of us on this page are guilty. If Arbcom and all of us are going re-examine the 6 weeks of questioning prior to a mere 50 edit trial about converting feet and miles, then it will be a waste for all of us.
  • The debate about adding conversions isn't difficult yet has gone on for 4 months now with very little comment from BAG. I know they're busy but I'm at the back of the queue. I'm making a formal request that instead of debating it here at Arbcom, we debate it at BAG.
  • I hope that helps. Lightmouse ( talk) 17:50, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
    • Lightmouse, can you please explain how your edits here are related to unit conversions? Kirill  ^{[talk]  [prof]} 00:38, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
• I have to admit that, in Lightmouse's defense, BAG has been unable or unwilling to handle his requests fairly and reasonably swiftly. This may be due to under-staffing, or understandable (if unadvisable) reluctance to handle a potentially controversial matter; but it does seem to be as though his requests were not handled normally and that his work has stalled because of it. It's not so much that his requests have been declined more than that the goalposts to them being okayed have been moved. —  Coren  ^(talk) 14:28, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
  • That may be the case, though I'm not clear whether it's a problem only LM's requests are experiencing, or a more general backlog issue. In any case, I'm not sure what we can do here other than perhaps pulling together a group of bot experts to review arbitration-related automation questions separately from the normal BAG process. Kirill  ^{[talk]  [prof]} 19:25, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
    • In response to Kirill's question above, some detail in edits are manual. Furthermore, the scope is not merely 'unit conversion'. It's just simpler to say 'unit conversions' because that's easier for most people to understand and is mostly what it does. The scope (and activity) has since 2008 explicitly included removal of links to common units. The hour is a plain english term and a common unit. Can we get to an end point in days rather than adding more months of delay? Trying to help. Lightmouse ( talk) 13:49, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
      • Let's try and cut through this: Arbcom doesn't want to be BAG by proxy, BAG doesn't want to be Arbcom by proxy. The months are passing by and justice delayed is justice denied. It seems to me the best way out of this impasse is to have a decision at Arbcom level: I propose right here, right now, to delete "7.1) Lightmouse is indefinitely prohibited from using any automation whatsoever on Wikipedia.". Frustrated, but still trying to be positive. Lightmouse ( talk) 17:58, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
        • Wait, I don't see anything to suggest it would be a good idea to start ignoring 7.1, especially since this whole thing was triggered by you breaking the prohibition. I think it's all the more reason to have it more actively enforced. There's no question (in my mind) over if you violated the restrictions: you very clearly did. Personally I think what needs to happen is the supplement is reverted, and we go back to how things were before. - Kingpin ¹³ ( talk) 18:59, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
          • I for one fully agree with what Kingpin13 said. Anomie ⚔ 20:20, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

That may not have been clear, let me try again. Arbcom doesn't want to be BAG by proxy, BAG doesn't want to be Arbcom by proxy. The months are passing by and justice delayed is justice denied. There are lots of articles in need of gnoming edits and we're not adding value by months of occasionally-hostile debate or silence here and in BAG. It seems to me the best way out of this impasse is to have a decision at Arbcom level: I request Arbcom deletes "7.1) Lightmouse is indefinitely prohibited from using any automation whatsoever on Wikipedia.". Lightmouse ( talk) 19:20, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Lightmouse, if you want to make that request, you should do so as a separate amendment request, not buried here. You might want to wait a few weeks before doing so until this committee is fully staffed with the new group of arbitrators. Newyorkbrad ( talk) 20:02, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

OK. Thanks for letting me know. Lightmouse ( talk) 20:10, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

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Involved parties

• NuclearWarfare ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), filing party
• EdJohnston ( talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

• [17]

Statement by NuclearWarfare

In Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Armenia-Azerbaijan#Remedies, a number of editors were placed on 1RR/week for 1 year. In Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Armenia-Azerbaijan 2#Remedies, they were then placed on the equivalent of supervised editing for the topic area. A later motion authorized discretionary sanctions, but noted that it did not affect the old remedies.

A number of editors to this case have been listed on Wikipedia:Editing restrictions as being on "Revert limitation, Probation, Civility restriction" indefinitely. My (and Ed's) question is this: does the 1RR/week still apply? I would think no, but I am not sure. NW ( Talk) 15:16, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Editing restrictions updated. NW ( Talk) 17:36, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Statement by EdJohnston

If the committee agrees that there are no 1RRs still in effect, except those applied due to enforcement action, then I believe that the entries in WP:RESTRICT for the users placed on revert parole by name in WP:ARBAA#Remedies should be removed. For example, the entry for Atabek/Atabəy, whose case was recently discussed at WP:AE#User:Atabəy. That entry shows him to be indefinitely restricted, which appears to be a mistake. EdJohnston ( talk) 23:37, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Statement by Jehochman

My edits were clerical in nature. I was merely transcribing info from all the old cases to the new WP:RESTRICT page that User:Kirill Lokshin had created and which I populated with content. It was not my intention to create any new restrictions or expand any existing ones. Jehochman ^Talk 16:50, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Clerk notes

Arbitrator views and discussion

• Based on a plain reading of the remedies in the first case, the revert paroles were to expire as of 1 April 2008, and I don't see that the expiration dates were changed or removed in the subsequent rulings. There may, of course, be revert restrictions in place that were created via discretionary sanctions. – xeno ^talk 15:49, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
• Agree with Xeno. Obviously if {{ Armenia-Azerbaijan enforcement}} was placed on their user talk page and logged, they would be subject to 1RR per week, but otherwise the restrictions expired April 2008. PhilKnight ( talk) 19:40, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
  • Further to EdJohnston's statement - I think it was this edit which made the relevant change? If that is the case, I guess we should ask Jehochman for his input. PhilKnight ( talk) 03:42, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
    • Thanks to Jehochman for his statement. I don't think a motion or anything further is required, apart from modifying Wikipedia:Editing restrictions. PhilKnight ( talk) 17:05, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

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Initiated by jps ( talk) at 16:58, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Case affected

Pseudoscience arbitration case ( t) ( ev /  t) ( w /  t) ( pd /  t)

Clauses to which an amendment is requested

1. Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Pseudoscience#Generally_considered_pseudoscience
2. Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Pseudoscience#Questionable_science

List of users affected by or involved in this amendment

• Joshua P. Schroeder ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (initiator)

Confirmation that the above users are aware of this request

Amendment 1

• Current wording: Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Pseudoscience#Generally_considered_pseudoscience reads "16) Theories which have a following, such as astrology, but which are generally considered pseudoscience by the scientific community may properly contain that information and may be categorized as pseudoscience."
• Suggested rewording: Replace the above principle with: "16) Theories which have a following but which are generally considered pseudoscience by the scientific community may properly contain that information and may be categorized as pseudoscience."
• Precedent: Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Pseudoscience#Modified_by_motion
• Rationale: singling out "astrology" is problematic and essentially a content ruling which is beyond arbcom's remit. Problematic aspects of this finding include: 1) indicating that astrology is a "theory" which it certainly isn't in the sense of a scientific theory, 2) insinuating by negative association with a previous principle that astrology is somehow not "obvious pseudoscience" which is a highly questionable proposition. Removing the specific example corrects these problems.

Statement by jps

Rationale for the amendment is made above. jps ( talk) 16:58, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Ludwigs2

Alternate wording of this amendment. see my comments under amendment 2 below for explanation and discussion:

Suggested rewording

16) Theories which have a following in the lay public but which are generally considered pseudoscience by the scientific community may properly contain that information and may be categorized as pseudoscience. -- Ludwigs2 19:40, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Amendment 2

• Current wording: Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Pseudoscience#Questionable science reads "17) Theories which have a substantial following, such as psychoanalysis, but which some critics allege to be pseudoscience, may contain information to that effect, but generally should not be so characterized."
• Suggested rewording: Replace the above principle with: "17) Theories which have a substantial following but which some critics allege to be pseudoscience may contain information to that effect."
• Precedent: Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Pseudoscience#Modified_by_motion
• Rationale: singling out "psychoanalysis" as "questionable science" and declaring a class of subjects that "should not be characterized" in defiance of reliable sources which say otherwise are both problematic assertions and essentially content rulings which are beyond arbcom's remit. Problematic aspects of this finding include: 1) indicating that psychoanalysis is a "science" which it is not generally considered to be — not even a "questionable" one. It is, rather, a technique that offers a perspective on human behavior, theory of mind, and modes of dysfunction. 2) insinuating by negative association with a previous principle that psychoanalysis is somehow not "obvious pseudoscience" which is a POV that attacks the perspective of such luminaries as Richard Feynman who outlines his argument in favor of psychoanalysis being a pseudoscience in Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!. Removing the specific example corrects these problems. 3) The final directive, that these kinds of proposals and ideas "generally should not be so characterized" is a vague and unhelpful directive that has caused problems with editors debating whether a topic is truly "pseudoscientific" or merely "questionable science" — a meaningless and terrible game that puts the focus on trying to read the tea leaves of arbcom decisions rather than looking at the most reliable sources and trying to decide from them what the mainstream academic understanding of a subject is. In practice, this ruling is ignored by editors at, for example, list of pseudosciences because it is so contrary to Wikipedia's content policies and guidelines ( example discussion). I propose that the easiest way to resolve this apparent contradiction is to amend the ruling so that it no longer makes claims to content adjudication and instead returns editorial control of pseudoscience characterization to what reliable sources say on the subject.

Statement by jps

Rationale for the amendment is made above. jps ( talk) 16:58, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Mangoe

I'm not a participant in the original case, but I am a regular at the fringe theory noticeboard. Personally I tend to favor examples, but if we have precedent for omitting them, so be it. I do not think the last clause should be dropped through amendment, however. In the case of psychoanalysis it seems to me that the article needs to reflect the mainstream viewpoint and express Feynman's criticism as that of a dissenter (assuming of course that this situations still obtains-- but if it didn't there wouldn't be any pressure to use this as an example). Mangoe ( talk) 17:33, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

There are plenty of reliable sources that show that Feynman's critique is close to the mainstream academic understanding of psychoanalysis. I just used his critique as an example. jps ( talk) 20:30, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

While I prefer Ludwigs2's wording I don't think I would interpret the consequences of following it so stringently as he holds. In general for a subject of some controversy there is reason to mention the controversy in the lead. In the cases in question, there is some difference, however small, between a field which has always had trouble gaining general academic acceptance and another field which once enjoyed some degree of respect but which is now falling out of favor. As it appears at this instant it seems to me that the lead for parapsychology is up front about the controversy, and those testifying against it seem more relevant as authorities. Looking at the material in psychoanalysis is a lot more problematic, not the least of which problem is the considerable space devoted to criticisms from philosophers. If we had some solid sources from psychologists saying "look, we tried this stuff, and we now think it's a bunch of hooey" it would be a lot easier to class it as old, dead pseudoscience.

There's a content issue here of exactly how similar the two cases are. My sense of what's in the articles now is that they support calling the one pseudoscientific better than they do the other, but that there's some possibility of finding better material for the latter. In the case of string theory there is a lot of doubt being expressed but surely not to the same degree; the lead of that article is up front about the dispute but does not go so far as to elevate those doubts to the level of calling the theory discredited. I feel that we have more of an issue which can be dealt with here about specifically the wording of article leads. My interpretation of the various versions is that none of them which has been proposed here would forbid any use of the word "pseudoscience" in a lead; as I see it the issue is in expressing the consensus and how disagreement relates to it. Even if the line between them is not always sharp, I think we need distinct cases where there is general agreement that a matter is pseudoscientific and where there substantial opinion which has not been accepted as consensus. Mangoe ( talk) 21:12, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Ludwigs2

This is problematic. Why should even a noted scholar like Feynman be used on wikipedia to critique an entire field of scholarship for which he has no special training or expertise? He is a physicist, not a psychologist or a specialist in the philosophy of science, so the most he's qualified to say is that psychoanalysis is not good physics (which I think we all already knew). We're not talking about UFO technology here: psychoanalysis is a valid field of research in its own right, and if it's going to be critiqued it should be done so by professionals in the relevant research area. Feynman is not even close. This is precisely the kind of thinking we do not want to encourage.

The sticking point, I think, is in the ambiguity of the phrase Theories which have a substantial following... which is used in both sections. The 'substantial following' of psychoanalysis is of a different character entirely than the 'substantial following' of astrology. Clarify that, and I think the problem resolves itself more cleanly. so, I'll offer the following as a counter-suggestion:

Suggested rewording

17) Theories which have a substantial presence in academic scholarship should not be characterized as pseudoscience, but may contain scholarly critiques which refer to them as pseudoscience.

I would interpret this to mean that Feynman could be used on the psychoanalysis page, but only in the body (not in the lead), and only properly contextualized as a debate about the rigor of psychoanalysis' methods. I've added a parallel revision to the other amendment request above. -- Ludwigs2 19:35, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

This is a reasonably good formulation providing it says "... in current academic scholarship" as there are cases where pseudoscientific ideas have enjoyed academic favor prior to their rejection. Mangoe ( talk) 20:06, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

(please move if this is the wrong place to comment) I understand the concerns about overly weighting minority critiques, but the same rationale Ludwigs2 uses to dismiss Feynman's characterization of psychoanalysis could also be used to argue that famous critiques of parapsychology do not warrant mention in the lead of that particular article. The problem with Ludwigs2's proposed wording is, as I see it, that what constitutes a "substantial presence" in "academic scholarship" is very difficult to gauge. To wit, there are far fewer academic psychologists willing to go to bat for the scientific legitimacy of Freudian or Jungian theories than there were in the past, and the number of true psychoanalysts employed in the academy is most-assuredly steadily dropping (they're a minority in psychology departments these days, which is ruefully acknowledged by the psychoanalysts themselves). At what point do we as editors decide that the pendulum has swung enough to include the characterization of a subject as being pseudoscientific in the lead? This, I think, is NOT something that the arbitration committee should be deciding. It's something that informed editors need to decide after considering the sum total of the reliable sources on the subject. Trying to legislate this treatment from on-high is just inviting an additional conflict over the semiotics of arbcom decisions. If a hypothetical featured-article writer wants to improve our article on psychoanalysis and makes an editorial decision to deal with the academic critiques of the subject in a single sentence in the lead, why should their hands be tied by an arbitrary arbcom content ruling? jps ( talk) 20:12, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Hey, I didn't create the content ruling - that was here before I joined the project. I just think that if arbcom is going to indulge in a content ruling regardless, they ought to do it correctly.

As to why your hypothetical editor should have his hands tied... My belief on this matter is that any topic that has active, productive, ongoing work in the scholarly world is precluded from being pseudoscience by definition for the time frame it is active in the scholarly world. Each community of scholars gets to decide for itself what is and what is not 'scientific' for its field - that's the way it works in the academy - and so long as the field itself is accepted by the greater academic community, wikipedia should not be implying that it is somehow less than scientific. That does a disservice to the scientific world as a whole (where does wikipedia get off telling the scientific community that a field they currently accept as valid is actually pseudoscience?) Scientists are allowed to sneer at perceived methodological flaws of other disciplines, obviously, but wikipedia cannot present that as truth without without running afoul of a large number of academic scholars who happen to be in that other discipline. And yes, this is retroactive. Parapsychology can be considered pseudoscience now but for the brief period it was actively investigated by reputable scholars, it was science. Psychoanalysis may (probably will) eventually reach a stage where no scholars take it seriously, and anyone who practices psychoanalysis after that can safely be considered a pseudoscientist, but as of now it's still a valid area of scholarly research and deserves to be considered a science.

As I've said before, the entire range of fringe science conflicts on wikipedia boils down to two species of editors who both drastically misunderstand what science is. On one hand there are editors who are overly-enthused about improbable possibilities and think all such deserve to be called science; on the other, there are editors who seem to believe that 'science' can be defined as an abstract universal against which everything can be measured. Both approaches are wrong-headed. We shouldn't be trying to determine when something starts or stops being a science - if the status of a field is not patently obvious from the way scholars deal with the subject, then we should gracefully maintain the status quo (keeping unaccepted fields as unaccepted and established fields as established until scholarship makes things clearer). -- Ludwigs2 21:24, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Further discussion

Statements here may address all the amendments, but individual statements under each proposed amendment are preferred. If there is only one proposed amendment, then no statements should be added here.

Statement by yet another editor User:Rocksanddirt

This sort of amendment is the sort of legal nitpicking that is not really important to the management of en.wikipedia. While singling out certain types of groups in the final decision is not the best practice, amending the decision two or so years later is also not the best practice. I think those on the committee would be better to spend the precious time they devote to committee activities to work on real disputes and problems within the community. -- Rocksanddirt ( talk) 17:34, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

(Please move this comment if it should be placed somewhere else.) There are real disputes regarding these rulings that are ongoing on various pages. For example, Talk:Acupuncture has active editors insisting that these arbcom rulings are relevant to discussions of categorical labeling. In the past, the fact that the committee chose to make a content ruling such as this has emboldened editors to edit war with the claim that they are carrying out arbcom's commands. jps ( talk) 17:47, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Statement by User:Vassyana

I think ArbCom should not revise their findings. Instead, just state that it was an understanding of the policy at the time, not a binding directive independent from established policy; direct editors to WP:FRINGE and WP:NPOV rules that are binding now. Wash your hands of the content matter and be done with it. Vassyana ( talk) 20:49, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

With respect, I don't think it's possible to wash ones hands of the content matter when there's always at least one genius editor who will be using that as a basis to push their silly POV much to the frustration of everyone else. It's a select few decisions that seem to have this issue, so it's better to just remove those mentions for everyone's sanity; the effort it takes to remove the content decisions compared to the time dedicated to explaining why that is out of date and not binding is quite a bit less in the grand scheme of things. Ncmvocalist ( talk) 01:30, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

What about what I quickly drafted out below? Vassyana ( talk) 00:17, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I wouldn't oppose it because it might reasonably work on the future dispute (and a way of handling them). However, I cannot actively support it as a removal serves more than that. The first reason is similar: a removal of that bit (per the request) would prevent an unnecessary (and what ought-to-be resolved) future dispute as no genius would be able to play around with the fact that the content matter has been removed altogether. The second is to ensure consistency as I remarked below - if Steve Smith was in a position to serve the rest of his term, I'd expect him to be consistent in the way he dealt with principle 15). The final reason is important: the fundamental and simple rule which has not really ever changed - AC does not and should not decide content, be it then or now. That it may have been their understanding/knowledge/example of how our policies worked at the time and that it was done with the greatest of intentions is really not good enough to keep it in my opinion (the same goes for saving an ego, or because it's too time-consuming to add 4 tildes in support of a similar proposal to principle 15). The amendment request was caused by the then-AC's "throwaway remarks" as some users charitably might call them, so it would seem unnecessary for the Community to have to address problems with individual AC decisions (particularly content issues) in its policy/guidelines or for AC to try to keep it in its decision...this is especially given that the now-AC apparently agrees, and, is in a position to resolve the issue through relatively simple procedure - removing the issue altogether. Though again, I wouldn't oppose your suggestion; just that I'd actively support removal. Ncmvocalist ( talk) 16:44, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Well given that Fred seem to have noticeably been absent when similar issues have arisen, I don't see what the incentive would be for him to pop up and say "yes, that's not really what I meant in the long term - cut 2006's now-obvious-and-spotted mistakes from the decision". I don't see a reason why we can't proactively deal with the issue; why wait for the genius to pop up when that's what this amendment request seems to want to avoid based on past experience? If I wasn't busy in July, I'd have advised you to deal with these at the same time as when principle 15 of the decision was being dealt with. This just becomes weird and inconsistent if you're making amendments a few months ago, but now you want to say some parts of the decision aren't binding anymore.... Ncmvocalist ( talk) 01:47, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I wasn't around in July. I've been absent most of the year. I'm around now and the discussion caught my attention. I don't see why there would be any conflict between the removal of certain examples and the idea below. I just don't see it as a priority and it does concern me somewhat that it would be reinforcing the letter-law use of ArbCom decisions, but it's not in opposition to my rough suggestion. Either way, I think it is important to de-emphasize ArbCom case law wikilawyering and emphasize the extant, mature community policy. Personally, I believe if an admin runs across someone playing those hairsplitting games, they should take care of that problem. If I run across a case on ANI or AE, that's what I intend to do, even if it is just providing a fair warning that lines are being crossed. That's all my opinion of course and you're welcome to grab a few salt grains with it. Vassyana ( talk) 03:34, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Indeed; either way is better than none of the above. We're in particular agreement about handling that problem. Ncmvocalist ( talk) 09:09, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

How would you phrase such an edict, Vassyana? It needs to be incorporated into the finding so it can be referred to. jps ( talk) 13:54, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Something like, "X and Y from Decision Z are not binding policy. The Arbitration Committee recognizes that the community has rules in place to deal with this topic area. Editors should refer to the Neutral Point of View and Fringe Theories policies and noticeboards (NPOV, FT) for current guidance, per community norms." Probably not perfect, but I think the gist is clear. Vassyana ( talk) 00:17, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Enric Naval

Remember that the case is linked at the top of many talk pages, in huge orange boxes that list the guidelines described in the case, like, for example, Talk:Astrology.

It's like a ghost that keeps haunting the pseudocience-related pages. Fix the ruling. Or pass a motion for a disclaimer, like Carcharoth says. Just do something that disables the danged thing. -- Enric Naval ( talk) 17:18, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Statement by JzG

Giving an example is illustrative and not "singling out" in any especial way. Astrology is a simple and unambiguous example of pseudoscience, this is not a content ruling as that has been established for a very long time in the articles on astrology. Guy ( Help!) 19:52, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Fred Bauder

I think we need to develop two guidelines:

• Regarding use or attempted use of principles drawn from arbitration decisions as policy. In the founding days of the Arbitration Committee the principle was adopted that arbitration decisions were not precedent, much less policy. They incorporate within them restatements of policy, in this case based on only the broadest general principles. Using links to this case in lieu of an editorial guideline reflects the poverty of the community's policy making procedures, fine in theory, but often not carried through. The decision filled a vacuum; but as the years go by and there is a failure of decision making by the community, it is being asked to serve in place of considered community policy. It is the use that is wrong, not its specific language.
• The questions raised in the pseudoscience decision should be addressed by editing guidelines developed by the community which addresses them.
  • Actually Wikipedia:Fringe_theories#Pseudoscience should serve. It incorporates the principles from the decision in a usable way, although I think removal of clear specific examples makes it less clear than would be optimal.

If the community is unable to collaboratively craft, by consensus, if possible, needed guidelines they should expect arbitrary decisions, which this arguably was, to continue. If that is the case alternative methods of developing guidelines need to be considered. User:Fred Bauder Talk 03:14, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

With respect to unfounded beliefs: There are numerous reliable sources that many people believe, and act, on information for which there is no reliable source. User:Fred Bauder Talk 19:26, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Statement by other user

Clerk notes

This section is for administrative notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Arbitrator views and discussion

• I would likely have supported these changes (and a number of others) if I had been an arbitrator when the Pseudoscience case was decided in 2006, but I am not convinced that any infelicities of the wording are doing any actual harm some four years later. (I'd reconsider this conclusion if there were a showing that the wording is being thrown in people's faces as pretermitting legitimate content or categorization arguments.) Perhaps it would be sufficient if I and other arbitrators observed here that the examples given in the decision do not constitute binding rulings by the Arbitration Committee. Perhaps Fred Bauder, who wrote the decision, would care to offer his perspective on the matter. I'd also like to welcome my former colleague Vassyana, who has commented above, back to this page. Newyorkbrad ( talk) 01:29, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
• I tend to concur with Vassyana. It's four years later, and the community has moved this along; we're not in the business of reworking what is now the community's guideline, and that the community is certainly at liberty to update as it feels appropriate. Risker ( talk) 02:42, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
• I think the best thing here is to simply remind everyone that examples in decisions are just that: examples. They are, by definition, not exhaustive or definitive. While they might have been helpful to clarify things at the time, they are not binding. —  Coren  ^(talk) 16:38, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
• Rewriting such as this should only really be done within a new case, though I am aware that we have engaged in rewriting previously on this very case (as mentioned above by the filers). See here. I also think what I said previously on an earlier clarification request applies: "I've always been uneasy about the practice of quoting ArbCom principles in policies, especially very old principles [...] please don't ask ArbCom to participate (from RFAR) in the editing of policy [...] Carcharoth (talk) 23:27, 7 July 2009 (UTC)" and also what Newyorkbrad said at about the same time: "There are several paragraphs of the Pseudoscience decision that venture more closely to content or policy rulings than would normally be found in one of our decisions. [...] Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:12, 9 July 2009 (UTC)" Given that last quote, it might be useful to pass motion to add a disclaimer, similar to what Vassyana has proposed above, to the case. But to then avoid further messing with what is now a very old case. Carcharoth ( talk) 23:42, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
• If someone is consistently using ArbCom remedies to "win" content disputes, it's most likely that behavior that needs addressed, not the ruling. Shell ^babelfish 20:37, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
• Concur with Vassyana. That case had a number of content decisions I would have outsourced to the community, which looks like what we have now with Wikipedia:Fringe theories. Not thrilled with using psychoanalysis as an example, as it is rather an egregious one. Hence, shall we draft a motion along Vassyana's entry and vote? (I'd say principles 3, 6.1, 6.2, 9, 9.1 and 11, FoF 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10.1, 11, 12, 13 and 17) Casliber ( talk · contribs) 21:25, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
• PS: Do folks think we need specify these content findings in the motion? I think yes as it reduces ambiguity and firmly pushes folks in the one direction to find answers/consensus. Anyone want to add or subtract any? Casliber ( talk · contribs) 21:39, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Actually I do not think that this should result in an amendment at all, and instead should be closed. There's nothing really to amend here unless we're going to rewrite the entire decision, and I do not think that is a reasonable outcome. Risker ( talk) 21:55, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

• Much per Newyorkbrad, if there are concrete examples that these findings are being actively misused in current content disputes, then some amendment or motion may be required. These findings strayed closer to ruling on content than I am comfortable with, but it is generally understood that committee decisions neither set precedent nor create policy; they merely interpret existing policies and guidelines. Agree that a reminder of this and a reference to current guidelines on the matter should be enough to counter any argument that is based on these 2006 findings. – xeno ^talk 18:26, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
• Agree with Coren - it was only an example, not a binding content decision, and also with Risker - this should be closed. PhilKnight ( talk) 02:06, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

---

Initiated by Jayjg ^(talk) at 02:35, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Case affected

West Bank - Judea and Samaria arbitration case ( t) ( ev /  t) ( w /  t) ( pd /  t)

Clauses to which an amendment is requested

1. Remedy 11.3.4 Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/West Bank - Judea and Samaria#Jayjg restricted

List of users affected by or involved in this amendment

• Jayjg ( talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) (initiator)

Amendment 1

• That Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/West Bank - Judea and Samaria#Jayjg restricted be lifted.

Statement by Jayjg

It's been a year and a half since I was topic-banned from the Israel-Palestine area. I'd like to request that the ban be lifted per Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/West Bank - Judea and Samaria#Lifting of restrictions.

I've reflected a lot on the reasons for the ban, and I can see now that I wasn't collaborative enough in my approach. I was too quick to revert, and too judgmental about edits I disagreed with. I apologize to the Committee and community for the role I played in the events that led to the ban, and I hope I've learned the appropriate lessons from it. I would very much like to contribute in the I/P area again: I have knowledge of the topic that I believe would help to resolve disputes, I'm very familiar with the content policies, and I believe I could make useful contributions that would benefit the encyclopedia.

The "Lifting of restrictions" section of the case mentions looking favorably on participation in the featured-content process. During the last 18 months, I've written and brought a series of articles about synagogues to FA and GA status: First Roumanian-American congregation, Temple Sinai (Oakland, California), Temple Israel (Dayton, Ohio), Congregation Beth Israel (New Orleans, Louisiana), and Congregation Beth Israel-Judea. Another article I wrote, Temple Israel (Memphis, Tennessee), is currently an FA candidate achieved FA status this week.

During the same period, I've participated in dozens of FAC reviews (e.g. [18], [19]), assisted User:Nableezy in improving Al-Azhar Mosque with a view to helping it gain FA status in future, and written over a dozen DYKs. I’ve also helped out at AfD, closing hundreds of AfD discussions, and at RS/N, where I’m the fourth highest contributor.

The topic ban has caused a few problems. For example, I was unable to take part in the FAC of the only other synagogue GA ( Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Hurva Synagogue/archive1), because the synagogue is in Jerusalem, even though I was solicited to do so by FA Director SandyGeorgia. [20] [21] The FA nomination ultimately failed. Similarly, the Israel FA went through a Featured Article Review, and was delisted in June. I was the fourth highest contributor to the article, but was unable to help it retain its FA status. There are other articles I would like to bring to FA status, but certain aspects of them touch broadly on the I/P debate, so I’ve been unable to.

I can assure the Committee that, if the ban is lifted, I will stick very closely to the content and behavioral policies on those articles, as well as the additional ARBPIA restrictions, and will endeavor to ensure that my input there is only constructive. Jayjg ^(talk) 02:35, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

@Carcharoth: Regarding FAC reviews, here are some other examples: [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] [30]. I think my participation at FAC (and edits to FAC articles) have generally been appreciated; one FA author, for example, posted on my talk page "Thank you very much for your in-depth comments. It's reviews like these that make me want to come back to FAC. :-)" Another posted just 3 days ago "José Paranhos, Viscount of Rio Branco is now a Featured article! Jayjg, thank you very much for taking your time to review the article and for your helpful and constructive participation.". Regarding RS/N, I've made almost 800 edits to the page; here are some examples from this month: [31] [32] [33] [34] [35] [36] [37] [38] [39]. Jayjg ^(talk) 01:32, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

@Carcharoth: This appeal has so far been blissfully free of the usual partisan drama, but I suppose we all knew that couldn't last forever. :-) Sure, contact anyone you like. Jayjg ^(talk) 01:00, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

@PhilKnight: I am now, thanks, but I wouldn't have violated this restriction and guideline even if they hadn't been formalized. Jayjg ^(talk) 20:21, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Statement by jd2718

Jay's appeal is well-reasoned. But I also recall the difficulties that led to the restrictions. And I also recall that there were significant difficulties that did not make it into an arbitration. Forgive me for the lack of diffs and facts and dates - I'd like to express reservation, not opposition, and hope I will be allowed to do so without going into detail. Perhaps the restriction could be partially lifted, or phased out, or some other formula that would give Jay substantial immediate relief, but also provide a transition? Jd2718 ( talk) 00:00, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Cla68

As everyone is probably well aware, the Palestine/Israel topic area is, arguably, the worst topic area in Wikipedia with regards to POV-pushing, partisanship, incivility, wiki-lawyering, refusals to collaborate and cooperate, and revert warring. A look at the current ArbCom enforcement page shows that this is still the case. When Jayjg was editing that topic area, not only did he engage heavily in many of these behaviors, he often assumed a leadership role, perhaps because of his standing as a former arbitrator and possession of special admin privileges such as checkuser and oversight, in promoting and giving credibility to that kind of behavior. Thus, he may deserve much of the blame for the negative tone that still afflicts those article talk pages.

In his statement above, he appears to gloss over his actions that caused so much trouble for so long in the topic area. He doesn't address whether, as rumored, he participated in a mailing list cabal to coordinate efforts to control article content in that or other topic areas, or why he chose to push a particular POV in those articles instead of striving to uphold the NPOV policy, which should be the default approach of all Wikipedia editors.

That being said, however, he is admitting that he was wrong, apologizes for his actions, and promises never to do them again. He has also helped out extensively at a noticeboard and contributed featured content. In short, he has done exactly the things an editor should do to merit removal of arbcom sanctions. I'm not sure what more could be asked of Jayjg to better earn serious consideration for removal of the sanctions. Cla68 ( talk) 08:37, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Comment by Supreme Deliciousness

Why hasn't Jayjg commented on this: [40] ? -- Supreme Deliciousness ( talk) 10:59, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Statement by other editor (2)

{Other editors are free to comment on this amendment as necessary. Comments here should be directed only at the above proposed amendment.}

Further discussion

Statements here may address all the amendments, but individual statements under each proposed amendment are preferred. If there is only one proposed amendment, then no statements should be added here.

• I'll comment here, as I'm not a member of ArbCom until the start of January. Anyway, I guess you're aware of the of the WP:WESTBANK naming convention? Also, you should be aware the entire set of articles are covered by 1RR. PhilKnight ( talk) 16:15, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Jayjg, thanks your reply. I support the lifting of these restrictions. PhilKnight ( talk) 19:25, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
• Ditto me - Jayjg's behaviour is exactly what I presume is/was expected WRT this ruling was supposed to apply to. Hence I'd support lifting (posting here as I am not on duty till January but was involved in original case) Casliber ( talk · contribs) 11:10, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Clerk notes

This section is for administrative notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Arbitrator views and discussion

• My first thoughts here is that I would be willing to lift the topic ban (with the appropriate caveat that it will quickly be replaced if there are further issues here.) However, before I would entertain a motion, I would like to see other statements. SirFozzie ( talk) 20:18, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
• Jayjg, could you give a few more examples of FAC reviews you have participated in and also some examples of 'reliable sources noticeboard' discussions where you felt you made particularly helpful contributions? On a pedantic point, it is FA delegate, not director. Carcharoth ( talk) 23:54, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Jayjg, thanks for the extra information I asked for. I will ask the other arbitrators to have a look as this as well. One more thing - given what SirFozzie said above, would you be happy with us asking the clerks to ask others to comment here, including some of those you have mentioned? Carcharoth ( talk) 03:05, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
• I would have no objections to lifting the topic ban. Shell ^babelfish 20:36, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
• Barring any other comments, I will propose a motion in about 24 hours to lift the topic ban. Risker ( talk) 03:21, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Motion

There being 18 active arbitrators, the majority for support of the motion is 10.

In view of his compliance with Remedy 11 of the West Bank - Judea and Samaria case, the editing restrictions placed on Jayjg ( talk · contribs) in that same case are lifted effective at the passage of this motion. Jayjg is reminded that articles in the area of conflict, which is identical to the area of conflict as defined by the Palestine-Israel articles case, remain the subject of discretionary sanctions; should he edit within this topic area, those discretionary sanctions continue to apply.

Support

1. As proposer. Jayjg has complied with the expectations of the Arbitration Committee and (by extension) the community in participating in the development and improvement of many articles, as well as in community-driven processes to support content improvement, and he has done so while working within the consensus model of participation. One hopes that Jayjg will be able to translate these experiences to his participation in the Palestine-Israel area of editing, should he choose to return. Risker ( talk) 02:05, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
2. I applaud the way Jayjg has argued that the topic ban removal will allow him to contribute to the encyclopedia in ways that were prohibited before. That is the best reason to lift a topic ban: a supported argument that the sanction is no longer preventing harm to the encyclopedia, but is now actively preventing its improvement. Jclemens ( talk) 02:19, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
3. Shell ^babelfish 02:21, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
4. Jayjg has shown that he understands the problems that led to the restrictions being put in place, accepts that the behaviour was not conducive to a good editing atmosphere, and undertaken not to make the same mistakes again. Some editors have expressed reservations, and I hope that Jayjg will take these concerns on board: but everyone broadly agrees that removing the restrictions would be a net benefit. Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry ( talk) 02:43, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
5. John Vandenberg ^{( chat)} 04:26, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
6.   Roger ^talk 04:28, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
7. as detailed above. Casliber ( talk · contribs) 05:37, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
8. as detailed previously, Jayjg is aware of the issues in the area, and I'm glad to be able to lift this. SirFozzie ( talk) 06:16, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
9. PhilKnight ( talk) 14:18, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
10. Kirill  ^{[talk]  [prof]} 14:52, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
11. In light of Jayjg's assurance that they will be editing in a collegial fashion in this area. – xeno ^talk 17:49, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
12. Although I was recused on the original case, the reasons prompting my recusal do not really apply to this motion, and I feel able to participate. Support per Risker, Jclemens, Chase me, and Xeno. Newyorkbrad ( talk) 22:26, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Oppose

Recuse

Abstain

Motion adopted. Clerk to post and notify. Newyorkbrad ( talk) 17:20, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

---

---

Initiated by   Will Beback  talk  at 01:49, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:

• Will Beback ( talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) (initiator)
• Scott MacDonald ( talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Statement by Will Beback

Does an ArbCom decision made four years ago have precedence over current policy? Specifically, does Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Badlydrawnjeff#Summary deletion of BLPs override Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons#Summary deletion, salting, and courtesy blanking? If so, do all ArbCom decisions nullify community-written policies indefinitely?

The context of this question is that Scott MacDonald has been deleting sourced articles on the grounds that they are inadequately sourced, with no apparent effort to improve them and without notifying anyone, in violation of both WP:BLP and WP:SD (IMO). He cites Badlydrawnjeff as justification. At least two of the articles did not qualify for deletion under those policies: Swami X and Jerry Mezzatesta. Scott has indicated that he will continue doing so unless the ArbCom tells him otherwise.   Will Beback  talk  01:49, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Note: This is not a request for any enforcement nor for any determination of a policy violation. I am simply asking which text takes precedence: WP:BLP or Badlydrawnjeff.

• To Cla68: The ArbCom policy gave a general principle. The current policy fleshes out that principle with some additional requirements, including a requirement to try to fix the article and a requirement to initiate a discussion after the deletion. The question is, if there is a conflict between a current policy and an ArbCom decision made four years ago takes precedence, which takes precedence?   Will Beback  talk  02:08, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

• To Scott: I respect the authority of the ArbCom. The decision they made four years ago is a definitive interpretation of the policy as it existed then. But I don't think that a four-year-old decision by nine people binds the community indefinitely. Is the community not allowed to adopt any policies that modifies Badlydrawnjeff by setting limits or imposing reasonable requirements on admins before and after deleting articles? Does the community set policy or are any parts of WP:BLPDEL which contradict or aren't included in Badlydrawnjeff void and inapplicable?   Will Beback  talk  02:26, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

• See also: User talk:Scott MacDonald#Swami X User talk:Scott MacDonald#Bonnie Bleskachek and User talk:Scott MacDonald#Incorrect use of G10   Will Beback  talk  02:45, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

• To SirFozzie: I'm asking for this clarification to find out if a four-year old ArbCom decision binds admins instead of a current policy. The details of Scott's deletions aren't relevant to that question. No evidence is required to determine which page has precedence. That said, my specific concerns are that he made little or no effort to improve the articles before deleting them, that were not so bad they they had to be deleted outright (as opposed to just deleting the under-sourced material), and that he should have initiated discussions following the deletions. Those are all part of BLP but not necessarily of Badlydrawnjeff.   Will Beback  talk  03:45, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
• Also, I don't see anything in Wikipedia:Arbitration/Index/Cases/2010 that seems relevant to this matter. Was there a recent case that says Badlydrawnjeff trumps WP:BLP?   Will Beback  talk  03:52, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

• To SirFozzie: Are you saying that the ArbCom makes policy instead of the community, and that the ArbCom's current statement of the BLP policy is Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard#Motion regarding BLP deletions? If so, should we copy that text into WP:BLP and delete any text that disagrees with it?   Will Beback  talk  04:26, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
• Also, after that January motion, the community conducted a very large RFC. Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Biographies of living people/Phase I. The conclusion drawn by the closing admin in that (and the subsequent Phase II and Phase III) seems to be that the community has not supported summary deletions outside of policy. The BLP policy has been amended to cover summary deletions since then. My question is whether that current policy is superseded by Badlydrawnjeff, or even by the January 2010 motion. If it is, does the ArbCom have the general power to nullify community-written policies?

• To Coren: WP:BLP adds details about how and when summary deletions should be conducted. That policy says, in part:
  • Biographical material about a living individual that is not compliant with this policy should be improved and rectified; if this is not possible, then it should be removed. If the entire page is substantially of poor quality, primarily containing contentious material that is unsourced or poorly sourced, then it may be necessary to delete the entire page as an initial step, followed by discussion. Page deletion is normally a last resort. If a dispute centers around a page's inclusion (e.g., due to questionable notability or if the subject has requested deletion) then this is addressed via deletion discussions rather than by summary deletion. Summary deletion in part or whole is relevant when the page contains unsourced negative material or is written non-neutrally, and when this cannot readily be rewritten or restored to a version of an acceptable standard.
• Does the ArbCom feel that it is unreasonable to ask admins to try to improve or rectify articles before deleting them, that it is unreasonable to say deletion should be the last resort used only for articles that can't be fixed, and that it's unreasonable to ask them to start a post-deletion discussion? If so, then I suggest those provisions should be removed from the policy in order to bring it into compliance with the ArbCom' old motions.   Will Beback  talk  05:26, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

• FWIW, all ArbCom candidates were asked about this exact issue in question #5 a month ago.
  • ArbCom and policies: Do you agree or disagree with this statement: "ArbCom should not be in the position of forming new policies, or otherwise creating, abolishing or amending policy. ArbCom should rule on the underlying principles of the rules. If there is an area of the rules that leaves something confused, overly vague, or seemingly contrary to common good practice, then the issue should be pointed out to the community". Please give reasons.
• Similar questions have been asked in past ArbCom elections.   Will Beback  talk  06:07, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

• From Wikipedia:Arbitration/Policy/Draft#Policy and precedent:
  • The arbitration process is not a vehicle for creating new policy by fiat. The Committee's decisions may interpret existing policy and guidelines, recognise and call attention to standards of user conduct, or create procedures through which policy may be enforced. Previous Committee decisions are considered useful and informative, but are not binding on future proceedings.
• If the ArbCom decides that its motions override WP:BLP or other policies then this section should probably be removed or altered significantly.   Will Beback  talk  07:04, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Note: There's no reason this needs to be decided immediately. Given all factors, it'd be fine to defer this to January. Maybe it'd be best to put his on the back burner to develop slowly.   Will Beback  talk  10:58, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

• To Tony Sidaway: This clarification request is not intended as a referendum on Scott's administrative work. It is simply a question of which text is the governing policy: the ArbCom's Badlydrawnjeff/January motion or the community's WP:BLP.   Will Beback  talk  23:15, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

To Newyorkbrad: There are, in fact, several significant differences between Badlydrawnjeff and the current BLP policy. I've posted the relevant passage above. For example, Badlydrawnjeff specifically says that admins should only delete if every single revision is in violation, a requirement missing from BLP. OTOH, BLP requires that the admin make an effort to fix the problem, that deletion is only a last resort for unfixable articles, and that a discussion should be started after the deletion. So the question remains - which of these texts takes precedence: a motion by the ArbCom or a policy written by the community.   Will Beback  talk  00:44, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

To SirFozzie: The issue that I'm asking for clarification about it being ignored by the ArbCom. I am not asking for a decision on Scott's administrative actions. I am not asking for the ArbCom's interpretation of what the BLP policy should be, or how BLPs should be handled. I am asking one simple question: which text takes precedence: the motion passed by the ArbCom or the policy written by the community.   Will Beback  talk  01:19, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Update: Although I have only been asking for a clarification of the policy (which hasn't been forthcoming), others have treated this request as being about Scott MacDonald's deletions. In that regard, Scott deleted today an article on a pedophile priest that had references to articles in the National Catholic Reporter and the Irish Independent, and a transcript of a documentary shown on the BBC. He called the article "poorly sourced" and deleted it out-of-process. When I asked him to undelete it he refused and threatened to block me. See User talk:Scott MacDonald#Tarcisio Tadeu Spricigo. I believe that Scott may have taken some of the comments here to mean that he has carte blanche to delete sourced articles without following either WP:BLP or WP:DELETE.   Will Beback  talk  03:56, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

• To Shell: Badlydrawnjeff is currently being used as a tool to "beat people about the head". That ArbCom motion passed four years ago. The BLP policy has been updated since then. The simple question, which the ArbCom seems unwilling or unable to answer, is whether the BLP policy written by the community is overridden by the ArbCom's old decisions. The default answer is that the ArbCom does not set policy and therefore Badlydrawnjeff and the January 2010 motion are not policy. WP:BLP is the policy. If I am incorrect in that assumption please say so explicitly.   Will Beback  talk  21:41, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

• To JzG: Scott refused to restore a sourced article that he deleted out of process. See Tarcisio_Tadeu_Spricigo. Note that there is a difference between a roadblock and a legitimate procedure to prevent abuses or mistakes.   Will Beback  talk  15:48, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

• To Cool Hand Luke: CHL is misinformed that Scott has always been willing to undelete articles upon request. (See above). When he has done so, it's been subject to his terms. If the ArbCom sets policy, the policy which would seem to be implied here is that admins may delete any sourced BLP upon their personal judgment, and may hold the articles hostage to their idiosyncratic views of adequate sourcing.
• If consensus doesn't normally exist on Wikipedia then we need to rethink the entire project. WP:CONSENSUS says: "Consensus is Wikipedia's fundamental model for editorial decision-making." Has the Arbcom abolished this policy?
• Wikipedia has policies, not "policy clouds". There is nothing in Wikipedia:Arbitration/Policy nor Wikipedia:Arbitration/Policy/Draft that says the ArbCom may issue fiat decisions binding on the whole community or the administrators. That is what Badlydrawnjeff and the January 2010 purport to do. If the ArbCom wishes to start making policies that bind the whole community or the admins then members should announce that intention and try adding that change to Wikipedia:Arbitration/Policy and Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines.
• The ArbCom exists to resolve interpersonal behavioral disputes. If individual arbitrators, or anyone else, think that WP:BLP needs revision then they may make or propose changes. That hasn't happened in regard to summary deletions, the text of which has been mostly stable for more than a year. Until they are changed, I would expect admins and other community member to follow WP:BLP and WP:DELETE [more or less] as written.   Will Beback  talk  15:48, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Scott MacDonald

I review hundreds of BLPs every month using various methods to hunt for unreferenced negative material. Mostly I simply remove the material from the articles when I find it, and there is not controversy.

Occasionally, when the violating material is basically the entire article, I delete it. My justification is found in the arbcom ruling:

Any administrator, acting on their own judgment, may delete an article that is substantially a biography of a living person if they believe that it (and every previous version of it) significantly violates any aspect of the relevant policy. This deletion may be contested via the usual means; however, the article must not be restored, whether through undeletion or otherwise, without an actual consensus to do so. The burden of proof is on those who wish to retain the article to demonstrate that it is compliant with every aspect of the policy. [41]

Of course, an administrator acting on their own judgement can be wrong - and I sometimes am. (I could point to dozens of horrible things I've uncontroversially removed using this policy in mitigation of any alleged errors. Although in truth I delete very few articles.) Be that as it may, when someone approaches me about any deleted bio, I am always open to finding a way forward. I've regularly undeleted articles where an established user has agreed to fix the violations, or I've userfied it. If the challenging user isn't satisfied, then we can always amicably take the thing to DRV for a wider discussion.

The discretion given to admins here is an essential tool in dealing with BLP problems. The principle is simple, if an admin judges there to be a problem, he may remove the material, and delete when necessary. The action is always open to challenge through discussion and review - but we err on the side of keeping the material OUT until either the deleting admin, or a consensus on DRV is satisfied the article can be restored. It is better that a few marginally notable BLPs are gone for a bit, than we weaken our already inadequate safeguarding against problematic material.

In the case in point. Will beback didn't agree with my deletion. Fair enough. However, what he then did was simply restored the BLP prior to our discussion. That's clearly not acceptable and could be dangerous - even if he was right here, he's not infallible enough to be reversing BLP deletions without discussion. (After the discussion, I restored the article myself.)

Worryingly, Will rejects arbcom's authority on this matter - but insists on the exact letter of the deletion policy being followed, in the way that he, rather than the Committee interpret it. I believe arbcom has given admins more discretion: because on balance the danger of bad BLP material remaining outweighs the minor loss of some debatable stuff occasionally being unnecessarily removed.-- Scott Mac 02:13, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

• To be clear. One of the negative BLPs I deleted did have some reliable sources - it also had deadlinks and unsourced statements. It would have been possible, on that occasion, to have taken a different view and repaired rather than deleted the article. As I said to Will when he brought it to me attention, I am always happy to admit mistakes and back up. The price of my willingness to make difficult calls on the margins is that occasionally I get it wrong. In this case, after discussion, and Will's indication he'd reviewed the off-line sources, I restored the article and improved it myself. My difficulty was with Will restoring it himself prior to any discussion, and with his demand that I stop using my judgement to delete BLPs. I have always been willing to make bold judgement calls and then listen carefully to any comments and objections - the mantra with debatable BLP material is: REMOVE - DISCUSS - REPLACE (where appropriate). In this one case it was appropriate.-- Scott Mac 09:19, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

• • Nutshell - 2 separable things: 1) My interpretation of policy is correct. Arbcom don't need to "clarify" anything, the admin discretion on poorly sourced BLPs is quite clear to everyone except Will beback. 2) The article in question may have had better sourcing that I gave credit for. Thus my deletion may have been mistaken or over-zealous. However, that was resolved on my talk page (and if it hadn't been belongs at DRV) - there is nothing to arbitrate here.-- Scott Mac 13:03, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Perspective. Slap me for my mistakes if you must, but surely Will et al should be more concerned with things like this and this (found my me just this morning) than with stalking my deletion logs looking for any mistakes on marginal articles.-- Scott Mac 14:28, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

@Carcharoth. I'm not sure what you mean. Naturally, I'd encourage as many people as possible to seek to identify and remove BLP violating material. The fact that I can pretty much guarantee to find a significant violation with less than 10 min looking speaks for itself. However, I'm not sure how I'd do that collaboratively. I'm not working through any backlog. If there were a queue of "BLP violating articles" to work through that would be a worry in itself. My MO is to use various metrics to search for unreferenced negative material. Once I've found it, there's generally little to discuss - I remove it. I salute those who systematically work through unreferenced BLPs and source them - but that's not by chosen area. I spent nearly a year searching the unreferenced BLP categories and removing negative material - I've now moved back to searching for offending material more widely. More people should do this, but I'm not sure how one does it collaboratively. For me it is simply a "seek and remove" mission. That's my contribution.-- Scott Mac 00:37, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Cla68

If the entire page is substantially of poor quality, primarily containing contentious material that is unsourced or poorly sourced, then it may be necessary to delete the entire page as an initial step. Current policy supports summary deletion of contentious material awaiting verification. So, any assertion that the past ArbCom decision is contrary to current policy is false. Cla68 ( talk) 01:55, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Tony Sideaway's fairly strong statement below on this matter. In my opinion, admins who don't seem to understand that we should err on the side of caution with regards to BLPs should be barred from further involvement with BLP articles. Cla68 ( talk) 00:40, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Lar

A review of Scott's talk page recently is quite enlightening, Will Beback gave the appearance of rules lawyering. In this case Will Beback gives the appearance of putting a false spin on this by suggesting that current policy and the cited precedent are not in harmony. Scott's analysis of how he is in full compliance with both the case finding and current policy is spot on. I ask that ArbCom swiftly and clearly affirm Scott so we need not waste more time and effort on this. As a bonus, please admonish Will for restoring BLP material without first discussing matters. ++ Lar: t/ c 02:32, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I too agree with Tony Sidaway's strong statement, as well as with Cla68's assessment of those admins who obstruct progress. ++ Lar: t/ c 05:24, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Cyclopia

I endorse the statement of User:Resolute on Scott talk page: But whether you like it or not, a fully fleshed cite to a newspaper article that is not online remains "fully compliant with every aspect of the policy". If you don't like that fact, go build a consensus to change WP:V. As an administrator, your job is to enforce policies as they are, not as you personally wish they were.

The only thing that worried Scott Mac was that references to negative statements were not directly accessible online. To delete an article on the suspicious that offline references are false is way beyond the standards that we require for BLP and it is a requirement not written in any policy. BLP requires the article to be fully verifiable and sources to be fully reliable, but it doesn't require, to the best of my knowledge, for them to be online.

In deleting the article and in arm-twisting with Will Beback about the restoration of the article, Scott Mac did not enforce BLP, because there is nothing in BLP that requires fully online sources. So we can be sure that an enforcement of BLP policy is out of the discussion. Scott Mac could have at most asked for confirmation of the sources' content at WP:REX if he wanted to be sure, and raise perhaps the issue at the BLP noticeboard to get some editor's attention: but even if both attempts yielded no result, in no way deletion of the article was proper.

I also want to personally note that this is only the last in a long number of attrition incidents between Scott Mac's overzealous interpretation of BLP policy versus the rest of the community. While a significant number of members of WP community are sympathetic with Scott Mac's reasonings and actions, it must not be forgotten that an at least equivalent, if not larger, number of members of the community -including myself- feel that firm enforcement of BLP policy must not become a regular jolly card for administrators to act regularly outside of policy. Such actions have a deep impact in the community by endangering the delicate relationship between admins and common editors, and making many editors feel that BLP overzealous application has a generic, negative chilling effect on editing and consensus-building. I recommend this essay as an interesting read on the subject. Scott Mac in particular seems regularly unable to understand that his own personal interpretation of BLP spirit and ruleset and his personal ethical weighting of BLP interests versus the other encyclopedia interests is not necessarily the only right one.

I hope ArbCom, while recognizing that Scott Mac acted for sure in good faith and with the best intentions, will warn Scott Mac that his own personal interpretation of BLP spirit and policy is not necessarily the only right one, and to confront the concerns of other editors on his actions less defensively and more collaboratively.-- Cyclopia ^talk 03:27, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Question from Timotheus Canens

Coren, in your statement that "BLP trumps consensus", do you mean the version that is viewable at WP:BLP, or the committee's view on what WP:BLP should be? T. Canens ( talk) 05:32, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Okay. First, can the committee give an up-or-down answer on whether the deletions at issue here are acceptable? I think no one here disputes the basic rule that unsourced or poorly sourced controversial or negative information must be removed; it's the applications that are generating the controversy.

Second, since you seem to think that the "general principle" is something separate from what is written in WP:BLP: if I were someone new to this whole BLP thing, where would I be able to find the documentation of this "general principle" that you are referring to? That is, if someone, who has never encountered this BLP business before (perhaps because they only wrote about, I don't know, moths?), wants to figure out if a particular action is consistent with the "general principle" you refer to, how can they learn about it? T. Canens ( talk) 20:18, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Resolute

Cyclopia already stated my position on Scott's talk page, and I suspect my opinion of the January 2010 motion is quite well known, so won't rehash that either. What is highly concerning here is that Scott has moved beyond his habits of attacking unsourced articles and has now turned his zealotry towards sourced articles. And he is using an ArbCom judgment that pre-dates the current WP:BLP policy. Coren - your statement is nothing more than the canned response I've come to expect, but the facts of this issue go beyond simply unsourced material. Scott is attempting to unilaterally re-write WP:V, WP:RS, WP:BLP and WP:AGF because he disagrees with how those policies are currently interpreted, and he is using an ancient ArbCom decision to justify it. Scott deleted an article that was sourced. It met BLP, V, RS. He deleted it anyway because *he* couldn't read the offline cites, and because *he* disagrees with these policies as written. To be blunt, this is borderline abuse of power. As someone who routinely spends time digging up offline sources and old newspaper articles to turn crap biographies into something valuable, this attitude is highly concerning to me, as I would hate to think my work could be so easily deleted because another admin simply disagrees with policy. Deleting unsourced negative articles? Wholeheartedly endorse. Remove unsourced contentious content, reducing an article to a sub-stub if necessary? Endorse. But to delete properly and sufficiently sourced content on a whim? Surely ArbCom was not so shortsighted in 2007 or January 2010 to believe this is a logical extension of those decisions. Reso lute 05:44, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

@TS, Lar and Cla68 - Administrators who show an utter disregard for Wikipedia's policies and community and who willingly choose to abuse both in the name of their zealotry should be regarded as incompetent, and lose their bits. BLP is not a shield that grants immunity from the consequences of that incompetence. Inappropriate deletions in the name of BLP are just as wrong as inappropriate deletions based on any other policy. Reso lute 14:34, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Nomoskedasticity

To emphasize Resolute's point: the material Scott deleted was not unsourced. It appears (though he hasn't answered my question to this effect) that Scott was simply unwilling to make the necessary effort to acquire them himself. The sources in question were entirely normal newspaper articles, and so there was not even a problem of "poorly sourced". Nomoskedasticity ( talk) 07:36, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Statement by 87.254.87.2

There's a false conflict being set up here between policy on the one hand and Arbcom's well established power to apply remedies that give additional enforcement options to administrators in areas in which Arbcom has identified problems. Arbcom have found severe problems in the area of BLPs. Arbcom have remedied this by giving administrators discretionary powers to act in supporting the policies requiring e.g. reliable sourcing of all contentious material, and the Foundation's mandate. That's the clarification. A review of Scott's and Will's particular actions might be warranted, that's something else entirely.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.254.87.2 ( talk • contribs)

Questions to Coren by Cyclopia

Given that the articles under debate were not (I repeat, not) unsourced, but that the sources were merely not immediately available online:

1. Could you clarify the meaning of your statement below in this respect?
2. Do you have anything to comment on articles that are fully verifiable and sourced but from offline sources, as apparently were the articles herein discussed?

Also, when you declare that "BLP trumps consensus"

1. Do you mean that every editor claiming BLP for an edit/action has a free card to do whatever they want disregarding every policy? Should I delete statements fully sourced but from offline sources in BLPs today, against all consensus of editors, would my actions be endorsed by BLP policy and ArbCom?

-- Cyclopia ^talk 11:12, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Question to Coren (and other arbitrators) by Cyclopia (II)

Thank you Coren for your reassuring answers. It is now clear that your statement is not an endorsement of Scott Mac's actions. Now, however, an unsolved point remains, that is, the problematic statement that "BLP (or any policy FWIW) trumps consensus".

1. If you declare that "BLP trumps consensus" and then say that "just claiming something is done to enforce BLP doesn't give a free pass" ; then, how can we distinguish mere claims of a single editor from genuine BLP enforcement? For, if BLP application does indeed trump consensus, in practice a free pass is given, since whenever I claim I am applying it, this gives my actions freedom from editorial consensus, and I can safely ignore any claim of my actions being not proper. Conversely, if the genuinity of BLP concerns are to be decided by consensus, then BLP application does not trump consensus but merely applies it. For example, this very RfClarification is basically done to build consensus around an action claimed in the name of BLP. So, actually, consensus seems to be queen. Could we clarify the relationship between BLP and consensus?

-- Cyclopia ^talk 14:51, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Statement by WereSpielChequers

Whilst Scot is to be commended for his removal of unsourced and poorly sourced BLP material, his attempted broadening of the definition of poorly sourced to include offline sources and deadlinks is more troubling. I would accept that if the editor who originally added that information had subsequently turned out to be faking their references then we should regard all of their offline sourced info as poorly sourced. But it is the way of the Internet for links to go dead or be hidden behind paywalls, and if we concede the principle that only currently clickable online sources can be treated as good sources then we do great damage to the pedia.

I appreciate that if we were to start getting vandals who assert fictitious offline sources then we would need to put measures in place for trusted users to check and mark such references as confirmed. But that would be a more logical route than to arbitrarily redefine offline sources as poor sources and start deleting such information. Ϣere SpielChequers 12:34, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Milowent

Epic breaching experiment fail. Mezzatesta was a rash and unnecessary deletion; obviously many folks are monitoring Scott's actions to catch these things. I traipsed through Will and Scott's discussion when it started, saw the deleted article via google cache, and quickly was able to verify that the content of the article was substantially accurate. All the bad news stories about the guy are among first hits on google. In the past, Scott has stubbed out articles like this, like he did with Anita Bryant here [42] on October 27. That move was also criticized and the article restored with sources, but it was no doubt a less drastic and much preferable move to outright deletion. We don't want to discourage Scott from removing truly unsourced contentious BLP content, but don't endorse this deletion.-- Milowent • ^{talk blp-r} 13:59, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Tony Sidaway

As far as I can tell Doc is quite happy to restore a deleted article whenever somebody undertakes to improve it to Wikipedia standards. Hounding him like this can only deter other willing admins from doing the right thing, and gives the general users the false impression that substandard BLPs are acceptable. -- TS 22:39, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

The problem, and it's a pretty obvious one over five years after Siegenthaler, is that we knowingly and perversely retain crappy articles that we're not prepared to maintain, on the subject of living people. Only arbcom can motivate us to resolve this problem, which has only grown since the principle of deletion was established in 2007. I will ask the new Committee to take this problem on as a matter of urgency. The community is not only failing in this primary objective, it's openly and vociferously thwarting reasonable attempts to mitigate the problem. -- TS 00:32, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

I think Carcharoth is missing the point really. The point about admin discretion in deletion is that it requires only one person (that's what discretion means). It scales because there's absolutely no reason why any other admin should not do the same (and indeed that's how speedy deletion works). Doc has tried working with others and can continue to do so at the same time as he takes the initiative in removing problematic articles. All admins should do this, not just Doc. If they don't, that isn't Doc's fault. -- TS 01:03, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Gigs

One of the major points of WP:V is that "the principle of verifiability implies nothing about ease of access to sources". This is a fundamental and important part of WP:V. We should not allow any concern, no matter how important, to override this principle. If we let this happen, we become a mere summary of public internet sources instead of an encyclopedia. The policy of verifiability is not a policy of verification. While I'm aware of breaching experiments which have exploited the fact that we AGF on offline and otherwise inaccessible sources, we must not let these rare exceptions drive our rules.

I share the concern of TS and Scott that we are allowing the creation and existence of thousands of articles that we are not fully able to maintain. I see this as a fundamental problem with our notability standards, the subject specific ones, which allow for articles to be created on subjects which have not drawn much or any biographical secondary source coverage. I don't think the problem with notability should be addressed through perhaps more expedient means of invoking BLP or perverting Verifiability standards, but rather we need to address that at the core. Gigs ( talk) 00:56, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

To clarify, I'm not saying we should retain exceptional claims sourced to dubious sources, especially inaccessible ones. I view our policies as minimum standards for inclusion, and subscribe to the ideas in WP:Editorial discretion. That said, I don't think we should let exceptions shape the rules. Gigs ( talk) 15:49, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Jayen466

Nothing to add to what Tony Sidaway said here, except my agreement. -- JN 466 03:26, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Statement by DGG

Though widely said , it is actually impossible that "BLP trumps consensus". First, the policy is in fact the result of the overwhelming consensus of everyone here about the general issue, arb com included. I do not think anyone raises an argument that BLP policy should be ignored or disregarded. Rather, there is disagreement about how to use it, and which of various wordings of it is official. How is BLP to be interpreted, except by consensus? The only thing that can be meant by the statement is that a local consensus that some element of BLP policy is to be interpreted in a particular way does not override the general consensus about how it is to be applied--for example, we cannot use IAR to decide that the need for reliable sourcing for negative BLP does not apply to a particular article.

In a sense, arb com does make the final interpretation of whether a particular individual has violated BLP policy, and to that extent, does interpret the policy. Presumably it can use whatever interpretation of policy it chooses to use. It could, for example, decide that someone insisting on a particular interpretation was being disruptive, and apply sanctions accordingly. But if this should be an instance where the consensus of the community had been that the person was not being disruptive because their interpretation was correct, this would be a matter of arb com substituting its consensus on interpretation for that of the community. It has the power to do so; that does not necessarily mean it ought to exercise it. We have not yet really had a case where arb com's interpretation of something and the community's interpretation came into direct conflict; if it ever should, presumably the community would resolve the conflict at the next arb com election if it should still consider the issue sufficiently important.

With respect to the specific issue, what we are really asking arb com to say here, is whether in its opinion Scott's interpretation of the rules for sourcing BLP was a reasonable one. (I assume they would not decide to support it even if they judged it unreasonable. ) Here's two examples of what I think would clearly be unreasonable: Suppose I did not read any language except English, and decided to remove every BLP where a significant or key part of the material depends on a citation in any language but English, on the grounds that they are inadequately sourced. What would be the attitude of arb com? Or suppose I remove all the articles where the online source is behind a wall that I do not have immediate ability to penetrate , on the same grounds?

My own opinion is that Scott's view here is equally unreasonable, and violates basic policy that Wikipedia is a comprehensive encyclopedia, by limiting it to what is available in the internet. It amounts to giving a free pass to whatever Scott thinks are reliable sources.

Further, suppose that the articles Scott deleted are taken to deletion review, and it is decided there that they should be restored. Can Scott delete them over again, on the ground that his interpretation of BLP policy on sourcing trumps any consensus otherwise? DGG ( talk ) 19:11, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Bearian

DGG as usual said what I would, but more succinctly. In any case, Scott can't just push his view of what is reliable. We all have to follow consensus. Bearian ( talk) 18:56, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Statement by JzG

Can anybody provide a concrete example of an article deleted by Scott which he has then refused to userfy, WP:REFUND or otherwise facilitate some form of fixup? As far as I see it, this clarification is an attmpt to place roadblocks in the way of removing crap WP:BLPs. However sincere the motives, crap BLPs are crap BLPs and we're better off without them. Ask any OTRS volunteer. Guy ( Help!) 01:45, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Statement by other user

Clerk notes

Arbitrator views and discussion

I'm disappointed that things have flared up again. My personal thoughts, both as an editor who's gone through multiple iterations of the BLP policy, and as an arbitrator... Wikipedia must take the utmost care in its articles as they can mislead or actively do harm. BLP articles are especially prone to this. The Arbitration Committee has specified time and time again in rulings (as recently as the beginning of this year) that the utmost care be taken with these articles, and mandated that editors and administrators take every reasonable precaution against doing unjustified harm with BLP articles.

So, my thoughts fall to the following point of evidence. Was the action taken to remove the un-verified (or inadequately verified), negative BLP information and as necessary delete the article (with no prejudice against recreation should a NPOV, sourced article be written) fall under the phrase "reasonable precautions" ? That's what I'll be looking at in this clarification request, and I would request that the parties and interested onlookers answer. SirFozzie ( talk) 02:49, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

@Will, Here is a 2008 case regarding BLP and the January 2010 motion that affirmed the deletion of unverified or poorly verified BLP articles as a reasonable action. SirFozzie ( talk) 04:20, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I wouldn't go so far as what you say.. the Committee knows that the community is deeply divided over the issue, as the care taken in those two motions state. Those are the facts on the ground. SirFozzie ( talk) 04:36, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

@Will's further comments: The onus is not on the person removing un-sourced or poorly sourced information, it is on the person wanting to put the information INTO the article adequately sourcing the info. In other words, So Fix It does not apply to the person removing the unsourced/inadequately sourcing (or deleting the article if it completely falls under the prior).. it's for the person wanting to retain the information/article to fix the situation. SirFozzie ( talk) 01:01, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

• The fact of the matter is that, in the end, BLP does and must trump consensus. While the efforts of the community in crafting a reasonably orderly manner of dealing with biographies of living persons that are "merely" unreferenced is to be commended, negative statements not supported by a reliable source must be summarily removed, and if the article as a whole is substantially negative and unreferenced then it must be deleted (provided there isn't a proper version in its history to revert to).

  The onus of providing references for a BLP lie on those wishing to keep it, not on those protecting the article subject (and the project) by removing unsourced negative material. —  Coren  ^(talk) 05:04, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

  • @Cyclopia: No, offline sources are just as good as online sources, if a little less convenient for verification (which is why it's preferable to point at online source when possible).

    To answer your second point, just claiming something is done to enforce BLP doesn't give a free pass— but I was answering the general question posed and not commenting on the precipitating incident specifically. Like any other policy, it can be abused or misapplied. —  Coren  ^(talk) 12:21, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

  • @Timotheus Canens: I mean to the general principle, but WP:BLP is clear there too: "Remove immediately any contentious material about a living person that is unsourced or poorly sourced [...] or that relies on sources that fail in some other way to comply with Verifiability." —  Coren  ^(talk) 12:29, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
• I think a point is being missed here: the claim that Scott MacDonald deleted articles because the sources were not available online for him to verify. I think this does need clarification, though on balance I agree that the approach Scott MacDonald takes is OK, as long as he does continue to discuss any contested deletions. Pointing to other clean-up work he does (e.g. the years-old BLP diffs he removed) makes a case for more people getting involved with that - Scott, have you tried to get a group of people together to adopt your approach and do more work than you could do alone? You could, for example, include people that had access to sources you might not have access to. The administrator discretion clause doesn't mean administrators have to work alone - they should still work with others as needed where needed, rather than rely too much on their own judgment. What tend to happen there is that admins end up in a 'defensive' mindset, which can be avoided if you work within a group steadily clearing backlogs. Carcharoth ( talk) 00:24, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Scott: My point was simple, "I spent nearly a year searching the unreferenced BLP categories and removing negative material - I've now moved back to searching for offending material more widely. More people should do this, but I'm not sure how one does it collaboratively. For me it is simply a "seek and remove" mission. That's my contribution." - you can still do that, but why not work with other people as well, unless you think you can do all this by yourself? Efforts such as the one you are undertaking have to scale, otherwise they make very little impact. Discuss with others how you find and remove negative material, and encourage more people to do what you do. It is possible that others will find ways to improve what you are doing, and discussions will reduce the chances that standards will diverge widely among those doing this work. Carcharoth ( talk) 01:22, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
    • @Tony (TS), my point was that Scot MacDonald could teach others the approach he takes (i.e. spreading good practice) and if while doing that, he comes to realise ways in which he could improve what he does, then the obvious things to do would be to change the way he does things (i.e. improve current practice). I'm not suggesting he avoid exercising discretion, but that he should work with others so they can develop the discretion he has (or realise why he applies the discretion he does). Or are you contending that all admins apply discretion uniformly and get the same results? Carcharoth ( talk) 02:59, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
    • @Will, it would be better to re-create such articles as NOINDEX'ed userspace drafts first, to discuss them with the deleting administrator, rather than recreating in articlespace and then having an AfD on it - Scott, is there a reason you created an AfD on this article you and Will are arguing about, rather than moving it to Will's userspace and suggesting the route of DRV before it is moved from userspace to article space? Carcharoth ( talk) 02:57, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
      • Also @Will, to the original question you raised, I would say that the community-edited page describes the policy, but that if the editing of that page moves out of line with prior ArbCom enforcement statements, then some new ArbCom statement may be needed, or (better), new discussions on the policy talk page. Carcharoth ( talk) 02:59, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

• I do not see any direct contradiction between the BLP policy and this Committee's decisions in cases such as Badlydrawnjeff. With regard to the appropriateness of outright deletion of problematic BLPs, this needs to be addressed on a case-by-case basis rather than through a uniform rule or practice. In general, deletion (rather than removal of particular bits of problematic content) is more likely to be warranted where the problems with the article are of long standing, they are serious (rather than more technical in nature), and where the notability of the article subject to begin with is borderline. Of all the BLP related priorities (and there are several), the greatest focus should be on article content that actually poses a threat of harm to the article subject. Newyorkbrad ( talk) 17:20, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

• Will, I think the reason that people are answering in this manner is because your request seems to indicate that you want a ruling on which specific wording should be used and plan to go beat people about the head with it. That's an overly legalistic view of policy (where wording often lags behind actual practice) and I think we're saying that it's just not a helpful approach to a complicated situation like this. BLP is not an all or nothing situation where one set of rules will aptly cover anything that could come up; it's very important here to consider the spirit of the policy, be willing to disagree and discuss things calmly. Shell ^babelfish 02:52, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Since I don't believe consensus normally exists on Wikipedia, I prefer the adage "BLP trumps all." I am a bit cynical about this request, like JzG above. I don't think there's anything that needs revisiting on Badlydrawnjeff, and I don't think this is a constitutional crisis. Like NYB, I believe the decision is consistent with the cloud of BLP policy. Articles with long-standing BLP problems are excellent candidates for discreet deletion.

If Scott is deleting sourced articles, as Cyclopia alleges, that seems like a problem. However, as Tony Sidaway says, Scott appears willing to restore any articles that will be improved; seems very reasonable to me. Cool Hand Luke 21:24, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

---

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Initiated by — Justin (koavf)❤ T☮ C☺ M☯ (per User:Shell Kinney) at 03:18, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Case affected

User:Koavf/Community sanction

Clauses to which an amendment is requested

1. Koavf is limited to editing with a single account.
2. Koavf is prohibited from editing pages relating to Morocco and Western Sahara, broadly construed. This includes talk pages, and other related discussions.
3. Koavf is subject to an editing restriction (probation). Should he make any edits which are judged by an administrator to be disruptive, he may be banned from any affected page or set of pages. The ban will take effect once a notice has been posted on their talk page by the administrator and logged below.

List of users affected by or involved in this amendment

None outstanding, but all users who commented at AN have been notified.

Confirmation that the above users are aware of this request

Note: these will be added after I have submitted this proposal, so that I can post a static diff of this page to the users' talks.

• diff at User talk:Fetchcomms
• diff at User talk:Swatjester
• diff at User talk:Jayron32
• diff at User talk:Ncmvocalist
• diff at User talk:EdJohnston
• diff at User talk:FayssalF
• diff at User talk:Explicit
• diff at User talk:Good Olfactory

Statement by Koavf

This has a long history and you can go down the rabbit hole following this from ArbCom to AN to user talk pages and back to ArbCom ( e.g.), but basically put: I have three editing restrictions noted above and I would like them lifted. My lengthier proposal and rationale from before are copied and pasted:

I am under a community sanction editing restriction with three clauses. I am:

1. Limited to editing with a single account.
2. Prohibited from editing pages relating to Morocco and Western Sahara, broadly construed. This includes talk pages, and other related discussions.
3. Subject to an editing restriction (probation). Should he make any edits which are judged by an administrator to be disruptive, he may be banned from any affected page or set of pages. The ban will take effect once a notice has been posted on their talk page by the administrator and logged below.

While I have had further blocks (including two in the past two years), these criteria have only been invoked once and subsequently overturned through a good-faith appeal. Five prior cases involved 1RR/3RR violations, including ones that were related to Western Sahara only in the broadest possible sense (e.g List of states with limited recognition.) It is possible that I have made some other small edits to articles related to this issue (I have made many edits since then), but I have not made any substantial edits to these topics, nor has any user complained that I have (including blocking admins.)

As I stated in my request for rollback re-institution, I am a reliable editor who has not recently engaged in edit-warring and is constructive in his edits. I have used my roll-back ability (as well as Huggle and Twinkle) to fight vandalism, I have made several thousands constructive edits, I have had articles promoted to FA status through my own work and collaboration with others, and if you speak with users who have known me over the last five years, you will find that I have been an increasingly thoughtful and trusted member of the community. I have helped new users and made several proper posts to AN/I and AN/V to help the community avoid edit-warring and vandalism. I feel like I have reached a level of maturity such that this edit restriction is not necessary in practice or theory; in the three years that it has been in place, I have become a much more sober-headed and constructive editor who is trustworthy. I do have a long block history, but note that there are other editors who have longer ones but have been recognized as reliable and helpful editors who no longer have editing restrictions--including editors who began as vandals.

In regards to the three specific restrictions:

1. I have never edited with another account and I have posted all of my anonymous IP edits on my userpage. The only checkuser investigation on me was closed as inappropriate.
2. I have respected this content restriction and have avoided Western Sahara-related topics with the exception of reverting vandalism and the most tertiary topics (e.g. List of United Nations member states, where I have not edited on the topic of Western Sahara in years.)
3. This restriction could still be placed on me at any time as appropriate, but--as noted above--it has only been invoked once and then rescinded.

I look forward to these restrictions being lifted in part so that I can be recognized as a trusted editor and in part so I can begin to edit Western Sahara-related articles again (the quality of which has generally languished for several years, as I was the only active editor on this topic.) Both my ability to edit and the quality of the encyclopedia will be enhanced by the lifting of these restrictions.

Statement by other editor

Statement by Fetchcomms

As I stated at the AN thread, I don't see any major issue with lifting the restrictions. Not sure what else I have to say; I was never involved in the original sanctions. / ƒETCH COMMS / 03:32, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

@NW, I'm not a clerk but I think I updated the template. / ƒETCH COMMS / 03:58, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

@Shell, I don't think it was consensus not to remove the sanctions as much as lack of participation either way. It might just because not many people are familiar with this case and Koavf's current activity. I interpret lack of input as "I don't care" over "status quo, leave them in place". / ƒETCH COMMS / 03:27, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Jayron32

Again, my opinion has not changed just like Fetchcoms. At the same AN thread above, I noted that I saw no problem with lifting restrictions 1 & 2. Restriction 3 needs to remain in place for some time while he his allowed to edit in the problematic area. While Koavf has remained in good standing when editing outside of the Western Sahara/Morocco area, we have no evidence one way or another how things will go once he starts to edit in that area. I think that keeping restriction 3 in place, for say at least another 6 months or so, will allow us to see if things go well. If they do, then we can recind that restriction as well. So my opinion is that ArbCom should look at recinding restrictions 1 & 2, and leave 3 in place for six months as a sort of "trial period" for editing the Western Sahara related articles. -- Jayron 32 03:46, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Further discussion

I've notified Sandstein of the discussion, as he closed the ANI thread. PhilKnight ( talk) 14:19, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, but I don't think I have much useful input to offer. I only closed the stale ANI discussion after there was no positive consensus to lift the restrictions (which meant that they remained in force by default) but not much community interest in maintaining them either. I suppose that gives ArbCom wide latitude to determine whether maintaining the sanctions is in the interests of the project. About that I have no opinion.  Sandstein  23:09, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Clerk notes

I...tried to updated Template:ArbComOpenTasks, but I couldn't figure out how to do so. Could another clerk take a gander at it? NW ( Talk) 16:51, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Arbitrator views and discussion

• In the absence of any commentary to the contrary, a week after this has been filed, I am hard pressed to think of a reason to deny this request, and would likely support lifting it. Risker ( talk) 02:29, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
• I'm not entirely clear where ArbCom were involved in the past here. If this is indeed within our remit to modify, I would have no problems with something like Jayron suggested above. Carcharoth ( talk) 00:08, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

• ArbCom competence For what it's worth, I posted here because I was told to post here. — Justin (koavf)❤ T☮ C☺ M☯ 15:45, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

• Since appeal to the community resulted in a consensus not to remove the sanctions just a few months ago, there's no obvious reason for us to disagree with that decision. If you'd like the sanctions lifted, you need to convince the community that you've resolved the issues. Shell ^babelfish 00:03, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

• Hardly There wasn't a "consensus not to remove the sanctions", there was simply no consensus to remove the sanctions. In point of fact, everyone who participated was willing to remove them (or stagger their removal), so the !votes were in favor of lifting it; there just weren't enough. And then I was told to come here--if you have a better place for me to take this, I'd happily do it. — Justin (koavf)❤ T☮ C☺ M☯ 18:03, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

• Now that NYBrad has pointed out where the sanctions initially came from, I also find I like Jayron32's suggestion for removing most of the sanctions and giving this a trial. Shell ^babelfish 20:39, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

• No issues with removing these sanctions; in fact, the complete lack of support in continuing the sanctions at the last community discussion makes me wonder why this was not addressed at that time. Sanctions that no longer enjoy the support of the community should be lifted, and there is no expectation of a supermajority of support for lifting two year old sanctions. Risker ( talk) 06:41, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
• As I read the history here, this was initially an indefinite block (not necessarily a ban), which was lifted subject to restrictions imposed by this Committee in 2007 (see Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Koavf). Thus, I don't see any issue with our authority to lift or modify the restrictions if we think such action is warranted. With regard to whether we should do so, my current inclination is to propose a motion either lifting the restrictions, or alternatively, suspending them a period of three or six months, with the intention of then lifting them altogether at that time if there are no significant problems. Newyorkbrad ( talk) 00:48, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
  • I'll offer a motion on this shortly after January 1st, when the new arbitrators are installed. Newyorkbrad ( talk) 14:31, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Please see motion below. Newyorkbrad ( talk) 22:28, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
• Following Sandstein's and NYB's comments, it seems ArbCom can undo the restrictions, and if this is the case, I agree with Jayron's suggestion. PhilKnight ( talk) 14:54, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Motion

The restrictions placed upon Koavf ( talk · contribs) in Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Koavf and in User:Koavf/Community sanction are terminated, effective immediately. Koavf is reminded to edit in the future in full accordance with all Wikipedia policies and guidelines.

As there are 18 arbitrators, a majority is 10.

Support:

1. There seems to be a consensus that these restrictions have served their purpose. I do see some division of opinion as to whether we should lift the sanctions outright at this time, or suspend them for a few months to make sure no problems develop before lifting them permanently. On consideration, my own view is that ample time has passed for an outright lifting to be reasonable. Newyorkbrad ( talk) 22:36, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
2. Risker ( talk) 23:12, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
3. Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry ( talk) 23:16, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
4. Personally would have preferred to have a probationary period, but my fellow arbs are right, Koavf should know that further issues will mean that sanctions are re-applied fairly quickly. SirFozzie ( talk) 00:53, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
5. Would have preferred to retain the 3rd restriction, however I agree with SirFozzie - if there are problems, the sanctions can be re-applied. PhilKnight ( talk) 01:26, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
6. Mailer Diablo 17:18, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
7. Kirill  ^{[talk]  [prof]} 21:39, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
8. No opposition to lifting restrictions. Koavf shoud be aware that sanctions will be reapplied tout suite if he fouls up. Elen of the Roads ( talk) 21:51, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
9. The restrictions have served their purpose. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^{( talk)} 04:17, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
10. Per SirFozzie. Jclemens ( talk) 05:35, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Oppose:

Abstain:

1. – xeno ^talk 14:26, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Motion adopted. Clerk to post and notify. Newyorkbrad ( talk) 17:21, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks I'm glad this is finally behind me. — Justin (koavf)❤ T☮ C☺ M☯ 05:00, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Did I miss something? User:Koavf/Community sanction, what Koavf wished to be lifted, didn't seem to be addressed at all. NW ( Talk) 05:37, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Jeepers. We (meaning mostly I) seem to have overlooked that there were both an ArbCom sanction and a subsequent community sanction in effect here. My intent was to lift all sanctions (we have authority to modify community sanctions, especially when community discussion is inconclusive), effective immediately, and I'd be glad to do this as a copyedit to the motion, but I will need to see if any other arbitrators object. This thread has been noted on the Arbcom-l list, so other arbs should be commenting. My apologies to Koavf for the delay. Newyorkbrad ( talk) 12:54, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

In my vote, when I mentioned the 3rd restriction, that was in reference to the community sanctions. Or in other words, I obviously didn't read the motion very carefully. Anyway, I agree with making an adjustment so it covers the community sanctions. PhilKnight ( talk) 15:45, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Copy edit is fine by me. Risker ( talk) 16:07, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

A couple of other arbitrators have also opined that a copyedit is fine, on the mailing list. Accordingly, I've made the change in the motion above. Let's consider the motion adopted as edited unless an arbitrator objects before the end of the day. Newyorkbrad ( talk) 17:14, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Enacting. NW ( Talk) 05:15, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

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Initiated by WhiteWriter ^speaks at 20:05, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:

• WhiteWriter ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (initiator)
• Alinor ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) - diff for notification
• DragonflySixtyseven ( talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) - diff for notification
• ZjarriRrethues ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) - diff for notification

Statement by WhiteWriter

Question about clarification of 1RR regarding Kosovo article, imposed in august 2009 by Nishkid64 ( talk · contribs).

This happened:

• Following the expired RfC on Kosovo article talk page, Alinor ( talk · contribs) followed the agreement, and re-include the 3 infoboxes. The talk page post and RfC was raised with 2 goals:
  • To finish article separation, or
  • To restore consensus version of the STATUS QUO, before 22 July 2010.

As we didnt get agreement about finishing separation, Alinor reverted status quo.

• ZjarriRrethues ( talk · contribs), without anyone's agreement, reverted Alinors inclusion of status quo, with that's not the status quo but a revert of the consensus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Kosovo/Archive_25#ICJ_verdict. As i understand it (and all other's in question, as far as i see), RFC shown that there was no consensus for changes in question, and that therefor, linked consensus was faulty and mislead. ZjarriRrethues for some reasons, disagreed with that.
• Alinor reverted Zjarri, with revert; consensus obviously changed/wasn't reached - we have just completed a 30 day RFC Talk:Kosovo#Kosovo_article_split and there is no consensus for the changes in your version
• Zjarri writes on Alinor talk page and that post, you who read this, must reread there. Alinor, active user since 2004, without a dark spot in his resigme, was blocked 3 days for 1RR by DragonflySixtyseven ( talk · contribs).
• Later, when Alinor was blocked, IJA ( talk · contribs) removed one infobox, with removed the useless extra infobox, all that information is included in other info boxes. No point repeating it., without talk page entry, again changing agreed status quo.

Without question who is guilty, who is not (that is pointless not, i think), my question is, what exactly is 1RR? First edit by Alinor, implementation of talk page RfC was, by some, just a revert, while for some others new edit, followed the talk page. We must see what can be done regarding this, and with that agreement, similar problems may be excluded in the future. With this flammable page, clarification will be very useful. So, what exactly is 1rr on Kosovo page? Should any entry with similar historic content be regarded as revert? Now new editors can know about that? Is this 1ER (1 edit restriction) instead on 1RR per week? All of this should have answer. All best, and, by the way, Happy New Year! :) -- WhiteWriter ^speaks 20:05, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Statement by ZjarriRrethues

• Kosovo is under 1RR per week. Alinor's violation was pointed out by Alinor himself Anyway, you may technically count these as '2 reverts in total' and I don't want to argue about such technicalities and others [43]. He was blocked per the sanctions placed by Nishkid64 on Kosovo.

• There is a consensus which hasn't been overturned since July 2010 [44] [45] and a few hours after he made the second revert, one of the regular Kosovo editors restored that consensus because there was no consensus about reverting to a pre-July infobox version or even a discussion about it. [46]. Alinor didn't implement any agreement/agree status quo/consensus but reverted to a version he considered correct, which caused other users to suggest reporting him to AE. As Alinor kept saying when he was making the reverts consensus changes, however, it doesn't change by reverting but through discussion.

• As the one who started this request for clarification WhiteWriter should bring difs that show there was an agreement for Alinor's reverts as this supposed agreement WhiteWriter keeps insisting on mentioning to justify Alinor's reverts isn't on the article's talkpage.

-- — ZjarriRrethues —  ^talk 20:22, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Statement by Alinor

• I have explained my position here: User_talk:Alinor#1RR_violation_on_Kosovo.
• The problem is that ZjarriRrethues continues to refer to a 26 hours discussion back in July 2010 that didn't involve wide input and didn't present all possible alternatives (they made an agree/disagree statements on only 2 options out of 7). As WhiteWriter explains and the RFC recently concluded shows there is no consensus for the ZjarriRrethues supported changes. I also find them as flawed for other-than-procedural reasons (the result is misleading for readers - and this was the reason I got involved in the first place - I was misled myself) - as explained in my post on my talk page.
• I was blocked for two edits that I made - first I restored the status quo before the ZjarriRrethues-supported-changes (that got implemented after a 26 hour discussion); second - after his revert I reverted back to the status quo. The first edit was result of the lack of consensus for the ZjarriRrethues supported changes (implemented 5 months ago and under discussion since that moment - I don't know if restoring previous status quo falls inside the 1 week 1RR rules). Alinor ( talk) 07:45, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
• I think that (if there is technical possibility) this block should be deleted from my block history - of course if the result of this procedure here is that DS made a mistake by blocking me in the first place. Alinor ( talk) 15:20, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Clerk notes

Arbitrator views and discussion

• Without comment on the wider issue, Alinor's first edit of 31 Dec 2010 represents a reversion of the article to 05:06, 23 July 2010 (in terms of number of infoboxen), and Alinor's second edit of 31 Dec 2010 is a repetition of that revert. If a user enters some entirely new content onto a page, someone else undoes it, and the initial user reverts them - that is only one revert because the initial edit was novel (and not essentially a revert to a prior state of the article). This does not seem to be the case here. – xeno ^talk 16:25, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
• Xeno's hit the nail on the head here; there were two reverts in this instance (i.e. it doesn't matter that one was a revert to something long ago). Shell ^babelfish 21:32, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
• Xeno and Shell are correct in their interpretation of the word "revert"; a change to any prior state of an article constitutes a revert. (The main caveat is that the edit must have been made knowing it was a change back to a prior state: one can imagine an editor making a change without realizing that he or she is in fact reinventing an earlier version of the wheel.) I do not see that any clarification of our prior decision is required here. That being said, for what it is is worth (which may be little), in this instance if I were the enforcing administrator I would likely have given a warning rather than a block. Newyorkbrad ( talk) 04:02, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
• I agree with the arbitrators above; there were two reverts. John Vandenberg ^{( chat)} 00:23, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
• I see two reverts as well. Strict guidelines for these pages have been instituted as a last resort after protracted disputes, and great care is needed for this reason. I am sorry about the blemish on your block record but I am not sure there is anything we can do about it. Casliber ( talk · contribs) 21:00, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

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Initiated by Short Brigade Harvester Boris ( talk) at 20:55, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:

• Short Brigade Harvester Boris ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (initiator)

• Other editors at Talk:Intergovernmental_Panel_on_Climate_Change. There are no concerns over conduct of a specific editor or editors; I have notified those participating in the article here.

Statement by Short Brigade Harvester Boris

Confusion has arisen with regard to the intent of Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Climate_change#Use_of_blogs_and_self-published_sources. Discussion (see here) centers on whether the provision regarding blogs and other self-published sources is meant to apply solely to BLPs (and especially to BLPs of individuals taking a contrarian perspective on the issue) or whether it was meant to apply more broadly. In the interest of disclosure my own view is the former; i.e., Arbcom's intent was to prohibit use of blogs in BLPs rather than to discourage the use of blogs more generally. Clarification of the Committee's intent would be helpful in keeping the situation from becoming more heated. Short Brigade Harvester Boris ( talk • contribs) 21:22, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Concur (strongly) in User talk:Scott MacDonald's comment below regarding scope. Short Brigade Harvester Boris ( talk) 21:44, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Query: I'm new to clarification requests. Will there be a bottom-line closing statement from the committee, or will things just sort of die out after arbitrators give their individual views? Responses so far have differed such that the situation has not been, in a word, "clarified."

To expand on this a bit: Several have commented on the use of self-published sources in BLPs. The request here does not center around use of blogs (or other self-published sources) in BLP material. That's not to be done; it's clear; we get that (or should get it). The need for clarification regards restrictions on the use of blogs and other low-rank sources on topics outside of BLP material. Short Brigade Harvester Boris ( talk) 17:16, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Statement by Scott MacDonald

I've no interest in Climate Change, but if this is to be limited to BLP (and I take no view on that), then I'm sure arbcom and Short Brigade would agree that it should be "BLP material" rather than simply BLPs. This is an important point, but should not be contentious.-- Scott Mac 21:42, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Ron Cram

I wrote the paragraph which has become the subject of contention. I did so with knowledge of the arbcom ruling Boris cited and in the belief the paragraph I wrote complies with the ruling. In my view, the intent of the ruling is clear - it is to make certain that blogs are not used in situations in which they might not be reliable sources. Blogs would typically be considered reliable when speaking about the blog proprietor and so would most typically only be used in articles about the blog or the blog proprietor. The ruling does not say this is the "only" use. Some blogs are written by notable people. Such is the case here. Roger A. Pielke is an ISI highly-cited climatologist. As the proprietor of the blog, there is no question the comments he has written reliably reflect his opinion. It is Wikipedia's policy that a blog post, even by as famous and well-respected researcher as Pielke, should not be considered a reliable source on the science itself. Fair enough. After all, there are qualified experts on both sides. But there is no way anyone can say Pielke's blog is not a reliable source for Pielke's opinion regarding his criticism of the IPCC. It is an unreasonable position for anyone to take. RonCram ( talk) 02:39, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

I think it is important to give arbiters feedback regarding the helpfulness of their comments. So far, Jclemons comment has been the most helpful and applicable to the situation. The criticism being contested is from Roger A. Pielke, taken from his blog. It is criticism of an organization, not an individual, so comments about BLP are not applicable to this request for clarification. Finally, the citing of WP:SELFPUB was helpful because I had not seen it before and clarifying because it directly applies. Actually, WP:BLOGS (just above SELPUB) also applies since Pielke is an established expert in the field. RonCram ( talk) 13:33, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Tijfo098

I'm glad I voted for Jclemens. He's one of the few who knows "teh rulz" these days. Tijfo098 ( talk) 02:43, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Jayen466

In addition to WP:SELFPUB, see WP:BLPSPS: "Never use self-published sources—including but not limited to books, zines, websites, blogs, and tweets—as sources of material about a living person, unless written or published by the subject". -- JN 466 17:02, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Statement by other user

Clerk notes

Arbitrator views and discussion

• Blogs, self-published materials, and the like are to be used as sources with great caution, especially when better sources are available, and especially in highly contentious topic areas, of which Climate change is the preeminent example for 2010. Blogs are particularly disfavored as sourcesw where their contents are negative comments about individuals. As Scott MacDonald observes, it is inappropriate to post an inadequately sourced negative statement about a living person (or anyone, really) in any article, whether or not the article is the BLP on the person. Newyorkbrad ( talk) 23:55, 24 December 2010 (UTC)
  • I can agree that a blog that is undisputedly written by one individual can be a reliable source in defining the stated views of that individual (as of the date of the post in question). A separate question is whether a view expressed only on a blog is sufficient important to warrant inclusion in an article; as to that, as much else, context is all. Newyorkbrad ( talk) 06:35, 25 December 2010 (UTC)
• The short of it is "No, this applies everywhere". This is a straightforward interpretation of both policy and practice regarding careful sourcing; the point is that it's all the more important to get things right in BLPs, not that subpar sources are acceptable elsewhere. Primary sources of the sort are difficult to use right, and of very limited scope, because they are not reliable sources. —  Coren  ^(talk) 00:27, 25 December 2010 (UTC)
• Agreed with those above, except I take a harder line. Blogs, self-published materials and the like are not usable sources, ESPECIALLY in highly contentious topic areas. SirFozzie ( talk) 03:59, 25 December 2010 (UTC)
• ... Except under the limited, narrow conditions of WP:SELFPUB, of course. That shouldn't normally be necessary to say, but the fact is, blogs can be useful in certain cases, such as to illustrate a BLP subject's own views, as expressed on his or her self-authored blog. Note that each of the five conditions of WP:SELFPUB must be met in order for the usage of a blog to be acceptable. To amplify Newyorkbrad's comment, I'm uncertain how a blog containing a negative statement about another person could pass point 2, "does not involve claims about third parties". (arb-elect, as of this point ...) Jclemens ( talk) 04:24, 25 December 2010 (UTC)
• I tend to agree with what Guettarda said here: " The ruling says "typically articles about the blog or source itself here". That means you could use Pielke's blog in Pielke's bio, or in an article about Pielke's blog. This is neither of those." I also agree with the point made by Arthur Rubin that the IPCC is not a BLP individual. Criticisms of organisations are a valid topic for articles about those organisations, but the criticisms need to be reliably sourced. Really, though, at the end of the day, editors working on these articles should be able to resolve differences like this without needing clarification from ArbCom. Was there not a noticeboard that you could have gone to first - one that deals with self-published sources, such as the WP:RSN? That would, I suppose, only work if those asking for clarification there held their tongue and didn't all pile in to repeat what they had said on the article talk page. Agree on the article talk page on a suitable phrasing for the question, ask the question, and then step back and let others have room to give their opinion. Carcharoth ( talk) 18:13, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
• In reply to Boris, it's my understanding that if the arbs conclude that a motion is necessary, then a motion is voted on. Otherwise, if arbs conclude that a motion is unnecessary, the arbs request the clerks archive the discussion. PhilKnight ( talk) 16:49, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
• SBHB: I think if you glue together the bits here, the general feeling is (as per Coren) we believe policy should be interpreted as "this applies everywhere" and (as per Carcharoth) whether or not a particular source is reliable is an editorial question, perhaps for WP:RS/N and not a question of an ArbCom motion. Shell ^babelfish 21:31, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

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Initiated by T. Canens ( talk) at 01:03, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:

• Timotheus Canens ( talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) (initiator)
• Jack Merridew ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) aka Gold Hat ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) ( diff) aka Merridew ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Statement by Timotheus Canens

It has recently come to my attention that Jack Merridew ( talk · contribs) has been operating, and editing from, the account Gold Hat ( talk · contribs), in apparent contradiction with the terms of the 2009 amended unban motion ("User:Jack Merridew agrees to edit from one account only "Jack Merridew" on all WMF wikis with the exception of an additional bot account approved through the regular process"). When I asked him about it, he claims that arbcom is aware of the Gold Hat ( talk · contribs) account and has no issue with it. Can the committee confirm this, and if so, make suitable amendments to the restrictions? T. Canens ( talk) 01:03, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

@Roger: The restriction at issue clearly does not distinguish between disclosed and undisclosed accounts (otherwise there would be no need for the special provision for a bot). IMO it's not very helpful to call the violation "technical" simply because no harm was done. By analogy, we routinely block users editing in violation of a ban (site or topic) even if the contributions are good.

My point is that, if the committee is okay with these accounts (and I certainly perceive no problem with the edits of Gold Hat et al.), then it should either lift the restriction entirely or amend it to only prohibit illegitimate uses (though isn't that covered by WP:SOCK anyway?). But it isn't healthy to silently ignore restrictions that are still on the books. How are administrators supposed to figure out what restrictions should be enforced and what should be ignored? T. Canens ( talk) 14:57, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

@Coren: Ah, the elusive "spirit" again. A nice pattern, indeed:

1. Arbcom, apparently intending to prohibit only X, passes a broadly-worded restriction whose wording prohibits X and Y.
2. The user does Y, and an admin takes enforcement action because, after all, the restriction does prohibit Y.
3. The enforcing admin gets dragged before arbcom and berated for "overreaction" or "ignoring the spirit" or whatever by arbs.
4. Rinse, repeat.

No wonder so few admins do AE work any more. They really have to be masochistic to participate in such a system. Any admin enforcing an arbcom decision has to start at the words in that decision. There is no other place they can start at. When those words become so malleable that "one account X only" can mean "any number of accounts, as long as they are all declared", would it be surprising that people refuse to take the speaker seriously?

AE cases are bad enough when admins are actually able to rely on what arbcom wrote, and even then we have protracted threads with massive amounts of wikilawyering which no admin wants to close; but at least you have the words, and they can only mean a small number of things. When even arbcom's words cannot be relied upon, all you will get is exponential amounts of wikilawyering over what the "spirit" of a restriction is. Is the "spirit" of a topic ban to get the editor to completely disengage from a topic, or is it to prevent unproductive/tendentious editing only? Is the "spirit" a one-way rachet, so that it will only curtail the wording of a restriction, and not expand it? When admins deviate from the terms of a restriction to better serve its "spirit", they will be "biased" and perhaps "involved"; when they adhere to the way a restriction is worded, they will be "overreacting", and "biased" too.

The perhaps inconvenient fact is that AE admins are not responsible for fixing arbcom's oversights. If you think Jack's restriction has outlived its purpose (and I tend to agree), then lift it. If you think it should remain but was unfortunately worded, then amend it. As far as I know, Special:ReadMind does not exist, or even the more specialized Special:ReadMindOfArbCom. Arbcom communicates its instructions to the admins enforcing its decision with its words. It is not too much to ask those words to be something that admins can actually rely upon. T. Canens ( talk) 00:41, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Comment by Jack Merridew

{{sigh}} I said arbs, not all of ArbCom. This *has* been discussed with some arbs and last I was told, by John, was wait until mid-Feb. Guess not. Cheers, Jack Merridew 01:20, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Gold Hat's first edit was to an Arb's toy account, and that led to an email thread. Check your arb-list archives from late last July. I've also directly informed John via email. Look at Gold Hat's edits; he (ok, *I*) have had talks mostly with admins, 'crat's and admins with it. There are also assorted recent emails with a number of arbs about fulling lifting these restrictions. Also, I'm traveling, and am mostly focused off-wiki. Ask John and Cas about that. They know that story, too. Cheers, Jack Merridew 03:58, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

The recent email thread is named "Jack as the Beast". That one does not discuss Gold Hat, but is about what's next. It includes seven arbs and five non-arb admins, including a WMF-staffer ;) Cheers, Jack Merridew 04:04, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

And I'm funny ;)

Cheers, Gold Hat aka david 04:57, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

The ID Gold Hat has been rotating on my user page for a long time; it's also in User:Jack Merridew/Sock drawer, which is transcluded there, for all to see. It was created *by* my Jack account and appears in the usual log. Gotta go; off, Jack Merridew 06:08, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

@Roger, I'll email you, later today; I've already pinged Shell. And I'll work on being funnier, ok?

I'm fine with Tim having brought this here; the timing re my RL, is unfortunate, but he wouldn't have known that. His intent, methinks, is to clear this old mess up. I've said, many, many times, to earlier incarnations of this committee, to individual arbs, and to the wider community: More dispute resolution, less dispute prolongation. Obviously, I endorse Ralph's view; he understands me. I didn't canvas him or contact him over this, either.

So, another year of restrictions has passed, I've not been blocked, and I'm pretty well connected with many <del>of the Biguns</del><ins>appropriate advisers</ins> on this site. The point of the vids was illustrative; I know that piece very well, read it long ago; was *there* the night the barricade hydraulics locked-up (during the NYC previews). Restrictions in perpetuity are inappropriate; please lift them all. To not do so, makes me a target, a perpetual second-class editor, which is punitive, not preventative. <irony>The that seems to have brought this to Tim's attention, was me supporting the lifting of another reformed user's editing restrictions.</irony>

Cheers, Jack Merridew 17:21, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

• Note the stricken “ Biguns”, above; my intent was to state that I've been actively seeking appropriate advisers per

  • User:Jack Merridew is to seek out advisers to assist him in transitioning from a formal mentorship to unrestricted editing.

    As RexxS comments, below, I do want to put the name Jack Merridew and all of that theme behind me. And I need this committee's leave to do so.

    Also, Gold Hat is not my intended new user name^{(and I'm not fixed on a specific one, yet)} — it's a play on Stinkin' badges and the original version of Wikipedia:What adminship is not (It's been edit-out, since; it's a wiki)

    Sincerely, Jack Merridew 05:51, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

@Coren && Roger; we swapped Salmonidae of appropriate scale ;)

@Tim, I understand where you're coming from. This is ancient baggage. It's served as a honeypot, which has been useful. Enough. Happy New Year, Jack Merridew 01:38, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

• *cough* still getting the ABF. Sincerely, Jack Merridew 08:46, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
  • It gets better: Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Jack Merridew \!/ Jack Merridew 08:55, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
    • Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Jack Merridew/Archive#17 January 2011 — Gold Hat  ^diff ( talk) 09:08, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
      • User talk:Spitfire#Jack Merridew case — Made my day ;) Jack Merridew  ^permalink 09:15, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Statement by RexxS

Jack's ban was reviewed in November 2008 at Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Jack Merridew ban review motion and I'd recommend reading the discussion as background.

The result was that on 9 December 2008 Jack's ban was lifted subject to 8 conditions.

The motion to amend Jack's 2008 unban motion was agreed in December 2009, reducing the conditions to three, plus his agreement to them (which he agreed on 11 December 2009):

1. User:Jack Merridew agrees to edit from one account only "Jack Merridew" on all WMF wikis with the exception of an additional bot account approved through the regular process, and agrees to not edit using open proxies.
2. User:Jack Merridew is to seek out advisers to assist him in transitioning from a formal mentorship to unrestricted editing.
3. User:Jack Merridew agrees that the same as any other editor, he is to follow Wikipedia policy and guidelines, and follow dispute resolution processes to resolve editing conflicts with the understanding that misconduct could result in blocks or Community editing restrictions.

The third condition applies to all editors. The second condition has now certainly been met (at least in spirit). Jack has around 170 talk page watchers, and his talk page is often used as a "reference desk" for technical help – which Jack is always happy to give, as anyone can see from viewing it. I submit that Jack knows whom he can turn to to seek advice, and there is no reason remaining for any restriction on his editing.

Finally, that leaves the restriction to editing from only one named account. I know Jack has been considering a name change, to leave behind the baggage of the Lord of the Flies avatar, and the restriction would strictly need amendment to allow that to happen. Nevertheless, the important point is that Jack has spent the two years since his unblock contributing constructively and collaboratively. I see no suggestion that he is in any way likely to return to abusive sockpuppetry, and the two alternative accounts Gold Hat and Merridew have trivial contributions and are linked to Jack Merridew. Gold Hat has only made comments at places such as his own talk page, where the viewers are well aware that it's Jack – and who enjoy the mild humour resulting. If you like, it's a kind of echo of one of Jack's wiki-friends, Bishonen, who keeps a stable of humorous puppets to lighten people's wiki-lives.

I'd ask ArbCom to review Jack's contributions and interactions with other users, and to consider whether they would agree that unnecessary restrictions do no more than create a "second-class" user, drawing criticism for actions that would be considered harmless when done by another user. The current restriction is now over a year old, and I'd suggest that it's time to remove it. -- RexxS ( talk) 04:13, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Minor clarification

@Shell – The initial restriction placed over two years ago (one of the 8 restrictions from December 2008). HTH. -- RexxS ( talk) 11:41, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Statement by Ohconfucius

• I endorse what was written by RexxS above to lift the remaining restrictions. My interactions with Jack have been nothing but pleasant. Let's go with the spirit of the revised restrictions (and not the strict wording) - the quaint Gold Hat account is strictly frivolous and provides welcome amusement. -- Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 06:41, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Ahhh... "quaint" and "frivolous". How about this: every registered editor is hereby allowed to create several "joke" accounts apiece, flooding the wiki with "fake" users that have to be redirected to the actual owners to avoid any "confusion". That would be awesome!: and oh so conducive to building the wiki in a productive manner. "Inside jokes" about how every admin has socks, and how "n00bs" have no clue. "Biguns" and "littluns": "Us vs. Them". Want to shed the "Lord of the Flies" imagery? Close this "fekkin" thread already. And anyone who remotely suggests that T.Canens should actually be chastised for bringing this up needs a serious trout walloping upside the head. Nothing is going to happen here, so end it. Have mercy... Doc talk 07:16, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Statement by other user

Clerk notes

Arbitrator views and discussion

• First I've heard of any such thing. Jack Merridew, could you clarify what you're referring to? Shell ^babelfish 03:37, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
  • The mailing list is notoriously un-searchable, but I'll see what I can do there - it doesn't seem to have made it to the "list of alternate accounts we know about", but that does happen some times. Regardless though, we have a long history of allowing humorous alternate accounts - I believe the initial restriction was due to past inappropriate sockpuppetry, which doesn't appear to have reoccurred in the year since the restriction was put in place. Shell ^babelfish 05:24, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
    • Follow up to Timotheus Canens: Working in any kind of dispute resolution can be frustrating at the best of times. Sometimes though too much insistence on following the letter of the law can cause someone to miss the point of a policy/guideline/restriction. While policies have been able to grow over the years to give examples of times where thoughtful application is important (exceptions to the 3RR for vandalism and later for BLP), ArbCom restrictions tend to be very brief and somewhat stuck in the moment; understanding that moment and what the restriction was meant to prevent tends to be an important part of enforcing the restriction. Restrictions limiting an editor to one account are about stopping a problem whether it's sneaky sockpuppetry or logging out to avoid scrutiny - an account that clearly indicates its origin and isn't used nefariously doesn't really fall into the realm of what the restriction is meant to prohibit.

      It is a lot of work to take an in depth look at cases and understand what the restrictions are and why they are there; I deeply respect the admins who work at AE because of the time and effort they choose to put in to the project. I certainly don't think we'd expect them to develop mind reading on top of everything; I'm sure that anyone on ArbCom would be happy to answer questions about any cases or restrictions when they come up whether it's a formal request here or simply catching on of us in email/IM/IRC. Shell ^babelfish 14:44, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

• A couple of observations.

  First (mostly to Timotheus Canens), I see that the Gold Hat has been linked, via a soft redirect, to the main account since the day of the account's creation. So while there may be a technical breach of the restrictions, and while it may not have been appropriate to create the second account, it was clearly not created to deceive or evade sanctions or for a similar nefarious purpose (the intention of the restriction in this instance).

  Second (mostly to Jack Merridew), it seems to me an essential requirement of humorous accounts that the contributions are funny. Absent guidelines clarifying whether faintly droll fully meets this requirement, I am unable to recommend appropriate sizes and weights of applicable Salmonidae. However, as content issues such as this are essentially the community's bailiwick, not ArbCom's, I shall say no more.   Roger ^talk 08:35, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

  • @Timotheus Canens: thanks for the comments. I understand your frustration about the wording of sanctions and restrictions. Because it is difficult to foresee all the permutations, and to avoid decisions becoming too legalistic, the committee has traditionally written restrictions concisely and left interpretation down to the community. In the light of recent events, perhaps we need to review this. In any case, I would not criticse an administrator for acting on a good faith interpretation. All that said, I would probably support removal of the restrictions on Jack Merridew altogether at this point and will offer a motion if this view appears to have consensus.   Roger ^talk 04:39, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
• Recuse John Vandenberg ^{( chat)} 00:06, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
• A clearly identified "joke" account almost certainly does not violate the spirit of the restriction, which is about sockpuppetry. I'm not sure how wise it might have been to create the account, but I certainly think that viewing it as a breach of the restriction is — at best — an unwarranted overreaction. —  Coren  ^(talk) 16:00, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
• Recuse. I'll add a statement later. Casliber ( talk · contribs) 01:22, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
• Puzzled. I've not heard of this, but then, my tenure as an Arb is less than two weeks at this point, so I'm not commenting on the substance of the issue yet. T. Canens's point is well taken, however. At the very least, an enforcement action made in good faith based on the common-sense reading of a sanction should not result in any negative consequences for the admin making that call--the fault in such a disconnect probably lies with Arbcom, for one of several reasons, rather than the admin taking enforcement action. It's Arbcom's job to lift sanctions in a timely manner when they're no longer relevant or helping build an encyclopedia. Jclemens ( talk) 02:08, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
  • I don't think anyone is suggesting that there be negative consequences for any administrators here, and your point about people who rely on our decisions in good faith is well-taken. In fact, we have a precedent principle on it: " "An administrator or other editor who takes an action in reliance on a good-faith, reasonable interpretation of an Arbitration Committee decision should not be subject to sanction for that action." Newyorkbrad ( talk) 03:50, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

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