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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by NuclearWarfare (talk | contribs) at 17:36, 5 January 2011 (→‎Statement by NuclearWarfare: +). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Arbitration Committee proceedings
Request name Motions Initiated Votes
Ongoing problems surrounding Yasuke   16 September 2024 4/0/0
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Open cases

Currently, no arbitration cases are open.

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Recently closed cases (Past cases)
Case name Closed
Historical elections 13 Sep 2024
Request name Motions  Case Posted
[[Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment#Request for clarification: Armenia-Azerbaijan 2|Request for clarification: Armenia-Azerbaijan 2]] none none 4 January 2011
[[Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment#Request for clarification: Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Climate change|Request for clarification: Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Climate change]] none none 24 December 2010
[[Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment#Request for clarification: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Badlydrawnjeff|Request for clarification: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Badlydrawnjeff]] none none 15 December 2010
[[Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment#Request for clarification: WP:ARBMAC|Request for clarification: WP:ARBMAC]] none none 3 January 2011

No arbitrator motions are currently open.

Requests for clarification

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification/Header

Request for clarification: Armenia-Azerbaijan 2

Involved parties

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

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)[reply]

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

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

Clerk notes

Arbitrator views and discussion

Request for clarification: Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Climate change

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

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

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)[reply]

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

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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". --JN466 17:02, 30 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]
    • 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)[reply]
  • 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)[reply]
  • 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)[reply]
  • ... 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)[reply]
  • 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)[reply]

Request for clarification: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Badlydrawnjeff

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

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


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)[reply]

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)[reply]
  • 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)[reply]
  • 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)[reply]
  • 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)[reply]
  • 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)[reply]
  • 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)[reply]
  • 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)[reply]

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)[reply]

  • 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)[reply]


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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

  • 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)[reply]
  • 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)[reply]

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. [2]

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)[reply]

  • 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)[reply]
    • 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)[reply]

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)[reply]

@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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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.--Cyclopiatalk 03:27, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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. Resolute 05:44, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

@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. Resolute 14:34, 16 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

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?

--Cyclopiatalk 11:12, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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?

--Cyclopiatalk 14:51, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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. ϢereSpielChequers 12:34, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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 [3] 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 • talkblp-r 13:59, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]
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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

Statement by Jayen466

Nothing to add to what Tony Sidaway said here, except my agreement. --JN466 03:26, 17 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

@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)[reply]
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)[reply]
@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)[reply]
  • 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)[reply]

    • @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)[reply]

    • @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)[reply]
  • 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)[reply]
    • 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)[reply]
      • @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)[reply]
      • @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)[reply]
        • 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)[reply]
  • 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)[reply]
  • 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)[reply]

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)[reply]

Request for clarification: WP:ARBMAC

Initiated by WhiteWriter speaks at 20:05, 3 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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

Statement by WhiteWriter

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

This happened:

As we didnt get agreement about finishing separation, Alinor reverted 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)[reply]

Statement by ZjarriRrethues


  • There is a consensus which hasn't been overturned since July 2010[5][6] 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.[7]. 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)[reply]

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)[reply]
  • 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)[reply]

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. –xenotalk 16:25, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
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