Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests

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A request for arbitration is the last step of dispute resolution for conduct disputes on Wikipedia. The Arbitration Committee considers requests to open new cases and review previous decisions. The entire process is governed by the arbitration policy. For information about requesting arbitration, and how cases are accepted and dealt with, please see guide to arbitration.

To request enforcement of previous Arbitration decisions or discretionary sanctions, please do not open a new Arbitration case. Instead, please submit your request to /Requests/Enforcement.

This page transcludes from /Case, /Clarification and Amendment, /Motions, and /Enforcement.

Please make your request in the appropriate section:

Arbitration Committee proceedings
Request name Motions Initiated Votes
Persistent WP:IDONTLIKEIT behavior in WP:NCROY discussions   10 May 2024 0/6/0
[edit]
Open cases
Case name Links Evidence due Prop. Dec. due
Venezuelan politics (t) (ev / t) (ws / t) (pd / t) 20 Apr 2024 04 May 2024
[edit]
Recently closed cases (Past cases)
Case name Closed
Conflict of interest management 13 Apr 2024
Mzajac 7 May 2024
Request name Motions  Case Posted
Amendment request: Conduct in deletion-related editing none (orig. case) 30 April 2024
Clarification request: Palestine-Israel articles 4 none (orig. case) 13 May 2024
Amendment request: Article titles and capitalisation none (orig. case) 13 May 2024

No arbitrator motions are currently open.

Current requests

Hemanshu

Initiated by Ryan PostlethwaiteSee the mess I've created or let's have banter at 18:48, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Involved parties

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Statement by Ryan Postlethwaite

I'm requesting that a motion be filed to desysop Hemanshu. For many months there's been issues with his communication, or lack of it. He's been edit warring on 2012 sporadically and this led to an RfC on him being filed. At this RfC, 16 people supported a desysopping due to severe lack of communication with no dissenting views. We all know that communication is important for administrators and in the last three years, I can't see a single talk page or meta page edit from Hemanshu despite serious concerns about his editing being raised. I don't believe that a full case is required, simply a motion desysopping him due to behaviour not befitting that of an administrator with a caveat that he can get the tools back by appeal to the committee or by going through an RfA. Note, he's currently blocked and the clerks should look at his page for a statement. Ryan PostlethwaiteSee the mess I've created or let's have banter 18:48, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment to Vassyana

Hemanshu had been blocked for one week for exactly the same edit just eight weeks ago. With no discussion or talk page edit he comes back and starts the edit war again - that's disruption and certainly block worthy when he's been blocked for exactly the same thing before, the same edits in fact. I personally probably wouldn't have blocked for that long, but the previous block was one week and he came back and made exactly the same edits so I was always going to match the previous block for it (which wasn't overturned). Please don't turn this into my conduct - I'm always more than happy to reverse blocks if someone disagrees, and even if this was a bad block it's certainly not arbitration worthy. Ryan PostlethwaiteSee the mess I've created or let's have banter 11:54, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by MBisanz

I originally brought this case as in October as Request_for_desysop_and_block_of_administrator_Hemanshu. At the time arbcom felt there was no case to take and an arb advised opening an RFC. An RFC was opened with an overwhelming (I think unanimous actually) consensus to desysop. Since the RFC closed, Hemanshu has returned to the same activities that resulted in the first RFAR filing and the RFC. All attempts to communicate have failed and clearly there is nothing more the community can do, as it is of very strong consensus for desysopping, even though enwiki lacks a community driven desysop. I concur with Ryanposs' suggestion of a desysop by motion. MBisanz talk 18:54, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Response to Sam

This deletion [1] of his user talk page was made while he was blocked, which is generally discouraged for non-retiring editors.

These reverts were made using administrative rollback [2] [3] which is generally discouraged and which arbcom has found in the past to be an abuse of administrative privileges.

Further, failing to discuss administrative actions like these has been found in the past by arbcom to be grounds for desysopping and is currently reflected as such in the administrator conduct policy. MBisanz talk 19:26, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Response to Vassyana

The edits Hemanshu made were the exact same edits that resulted in 24 hour and 1 week blocks by WJBscribe, I suspect the community would have had no problem is Ryan had merely indef'd Hemanshu quietly, based on the unanimous consent of the RFC. A one week block followed by a second one week block for the exact same reason is generally in line with, if not a generous application, of the blocking policy. MBisanz talk 22:38, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Nick

The view of the committee in the past has been that poor communication and a reluctance to explain their actions are traits that are undesirable in an administrator [4]. Nick (talk) 22:56, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Daniel

Although I'm sure all our new arbitrators are aware of it, the motion to desysop CSCWEM was based off a very similar set of facts. Daniel (talk) 23:45, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

To be clear, and you can move this somewhere else if you like: CSCWEM regularly issued a large volume of blocks, a number of which were questionable. His refusal to communicate had a direct impact on his role as an administrator. Different from this case in that respect. Avruch T 00:03, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Hardly. Deleting user talk pages while blocked without a deletion reason, or refusing to justify it, is just as bad. Daniel (talk) 00:09, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Master&Expert

I agree that desysopping Hemanshu is the best course of action; not only because of a lack of communication, but also because he's been out of touch with Wikipedia and its policies for quite some time.

He had just made this edit to his talk page, in case anybody was interested. Master&Expert (Talk) 06:09, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment from Deacon of Pndapetzim

Now that the "age of motions" appears fully to have dawned, what is the point of having a full case? He's got almost no edits since October. Regarding this and desysopping ... see the point made by Sam Blacketer. Anyhows, arbcom doesn't tend to remove admin rights from people because they're in a few unholy content disputes. I know that today a new bunch have come in, but previous arbcom members have been reluctant to remove adminship for such minor and easy to deal with offences. It would be impossible for it to do so anyways, as if the bit were removed for all but a select group of righteous non-editors there wouldn't be enough admins. What is it they call it when a bunch of Chimps attack and kill a fellow Chimp? That's what this looks like. He's just came to the attention of the wrong people and has no network of bffs. Scores worse than this out there! Please to the new group, don't let your first action to be a totally embarrassing overreaction that could haunt you later. With the Age of Motions, he can be desysopped quickly if he ignores some more moderate remedy any one of you is free to propose now. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 06:49, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by {Party 2}

Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by non-recused Clerks.
Arbitrator should note this. - Penwhale | Blast him / Follow his steps 06:37, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (4/3/0/1)

  • Comment - I see a single block and five deletions by Hemanshu in the whole of the last year (I have not investigated them to see if they were good). The problems complained about would seem to cover ordinary editing rather than use of sysop powers. It has not normally been the practice to desysop users if they are edit-warring; it is normally only misuse of sysop powers which results in desysopping. Sam Blacketer (talk) 19:18, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - There's a clear sentiment to remove Hemanshu's sysop bit, it appears at first glance to be a fairly clear-cut matter, and it is something only ArbCom can handle as a practical matter. However, arbitration requests expose all involved parties to scrutiny. It seems more than a bit excessive to block a sporadic editor for a week for one revert over WP:LAME-worthy disagreement about article formatting. Considering the usual (lighter) sanctions for much more substantial (in terms of content) and disruptive edit warring, it gives the strong appearance of punitive blocking. I'm more inclined to open a case than to act through a motion, if for no other reason than to avoid the appearance of a tar-and-feather party. I will wait for responses to my concerns and from Hemanshu before moving to accept a motion or open a case. Vassyana (talk) 20:13, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Accept, unless this is resolved through voluntary resignation, noted as a possibility by Carcharoth. Vassyana (talk) 13:59, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Accept, provisionally, in a full case; lack of communication from an administrator is, in my eyes, one of the most problematic behavior the bit can engender. The committee has historically taken a dim view of unresponsive admins, and I am inclined to agree. Hemanshu may yet make a statement here or, failing that, have an opportunity to respond in a full case. Additionally, the opportunity of a full decision will allow the committee to formally set down the criteria by which unresponsive administrators will be evaluated. — Coren (talk) 21:40, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    (As a note, if the motion to desysop below passes, the case is obviously mooted and this changes to a reject). — Coren (talk) 06:39, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - Wait to see if Hemanshu responds. Lack of comms from an admin is very disconcerting. The crux of the issue here is him, so unless more evidence arises to show an issue(s) with others, I'd take this by motion vice full arbcom case. — Rlevse • Talk • 23:32, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Hemanshu says he doesn't care if he's blocked and/or desyssoped and asked his account be deleted. I told him it is impossible to delete an account. I really don't see what a full case will accomplish here over a motion. — Rlevse • Talk • 14:21, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Reject in favor of motion to desyssop. See explanation below. I've also explained to Hemanshu on his talk page that he can ask for a rename and continue editing or use WP:RTV. — Rlevse • Talk • 19:57, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Accept per Coren. John Vandenberg (chat) 00:39, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Accept. Wizardman 02:57, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Note that if someone wishes to create a motion instead of a full case they can go ahead and do so, based on the comment Hemanshu left, although my accept remains for now. Wizardman 15:25, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - even though Hemanshu has commented on their talk page, still awaiting further developments. May not need case or motion, but some sort of motion seems most likely to deal with this the best way. Carcharoth (talk) 06:24, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • In light of this edit, suggest discussion takes place on Hemanshu's talk page to explain the options (and that account deletion can't be done, though various options approaching that are available) and ascertain exactly what is wanted (including confirmation of desysop), followed by unblock to allow voluntary departure. Carcharoth (talk) 07:00, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Side comment
  • I also note Mbisanz's link seems wrong, unless something's gone wrong with the edit histories. Ah. MBisanz added an anchor to a diff link. I knew he couldn't be "The Enchantress Of Florence"! :-) Some of us have the "show the whole page below the diff" option disabled in our preferences. So a diff shows only the diff bit and nothing else, so the anchor doesn't work. An anchored oldid version would work for everyone, such as this. Should have realised what was going on there. Carcharoth (talk) 06:31, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Decline I think that ongoing events are likely to make a full case unnecessary. Agree with Deacon of Pndapetzim, that most likely this situation can be handled with a motion. FloNight♥♥♥ 19:42, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Tending towards decline as it looks like he is resigning. Given burnout, maybe the quickest way to deal with this is a 3 month desysop (as he is asking) after which he can apply to the committee to get it back if he feels like coming back. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:30, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Motion to desysop Hemanshu

There are 17 active arbitrators, so 9 votes are a majority.

1) As evidenced by Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Hemanshu, the community has lost its confidence in Hemanshu as an admin. His failure to communicate in an effort to address concerns is also disconcerting, as is his being blocked three times in the last few months. Admins need to be held to a high standard and retain the confidence of the community. Therefore Hemanshu is desysopped.

Support:
  1. Support — Rlevse • Talk • 20:05, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Support. In general, I am not in favour of voluntary desysop + request restoration of sysop from committee. Given the comments on the users talk, I would oppose a motion for that in this specific case. The committee has enough to do without shackling another user to us. RFA is the appropriate venue for desysoped users to regain the confidence of the community. John Vandenberg (chat) 21:12, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  3. It would have been better for everyone had he voluntarily resigned; but there's no sense in waiting indefinitely for this. Kirill 23:07, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  4. He shouldn't even be given a voluntary option. Easy choice imo. Wizardman 02:19, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  5. I'm afraid that, after a clearcut RFC/U such as this, any voluntary desysop would be under a cloud anyways. — Coren (talk) 06:35, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  6. It seems pointless to delay the inevitable. --ROGER DAVIES talk 06:45, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose:
  1. No evidence has been presented of significant problems relating to use of sysop powers. Sam Blacketer (talk) 23:44, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Abstain:
  1. Before we do a desysop, I want to clarify with Hemanshu if he wants to make a voluntary request to remove his sysop access and then take a wikibreak. This is possibly what he intended to happen when he made the request for his account to be deleted. If he wants to make the desysop request himself, but does not know how, then we can assist him. FloNight♥♥♥ 20:27, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  2. I think the above is reasonable. Voluntary plus 3 month layoff minimum plus request from committee if returns. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:32, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    On his talk page he says he doesn't care if he loses his bit, but that could just be his frustration, and this all presupposes he communicates with us. Even so, a voluntary desyssop does not deal with the problems that led to this RFAR and those issues would need to be made very clear to him if he does this voluntarily and then wants it back. — Rlevse • Talk • 20:38, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Waiting for next set of responses from Hemanshu (if any). Clerks should arrange to monitor his talk page until the block expires. If, when the block expires, editing resumes without response, or there is no further response after the block expires, then I would support a desysop, unless this motion passes first (which I wouldn't oppose). Carcharoth (talk) 00:06, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Per other abstainers above. I would prefer to wait a few more days to try to see if this situation can be resolved in a more dignified fashion, given that no emergency exists. (In relation to another of my colleagues' comments, I would also prefer that the term "under a cloud", in the context of Wikipedia disputes, should not be used.) Newyorkbrad (talk) 08:28, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

The block does not stop him from using his talk page. — Rlevse • Talk • 00:08, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That's the point I was making. Your note on his talk page said: "Please read over the motion and commentary and comment at RFAR or here". He can't comment at RFAR while blocked, hence my comment about monitoring his talk page. There is no rush here. We can wait until it is clear what Hemanshu will do next (if anything). Carcharoth (talk) 01:42, 2 January 2009 (UTC) Refactored this bit under a discussion header to avoid messing up the votes.[reply]

Maria Thayer

Initiated by Rwiggum (Talk/Contrib) at 17:21, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Involved parties

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request`
Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Statement by Rwiggum

This issue began when G.-M. Cupertino reverted one of my edits to the article. The article is one of an actress, and my edit consisted of putting her filmography into a table format, removing what I felt to be ancillary information (including the number of episodes she appeared on for each television series and several DVD extras) and un-linking several non-existent articles. I later reinstated my edits. When they were again reverted, I took it to his talk page to try and discuss why he felt my edits were harmful to the article. He believed that my revisions removed important information, while I believed that such information was not necessary and hurt the visual layout of the page. This is not an isolated incident, either. On several occasions, the user has replaced tabled filmographies with direct copy-pastes from IMDB. 1 2 3 4

Since my very first interaction with him, G.-M. Cupertino has been largely hostile and unwilling to reach a common consensus. I have tried to work with him to get this issue resolved, but he has been extremely resistant to my attempts. He has also deleted all of my postings on his talk page, so here are the revision histories that make up the most complete versions:

[10]

[11]

[12]

[13]

[14]


Likewise, in addition to being openly hostile toward me, he has continually removed his postings from my talk page as well. Here is the most recent revision of that, in case he removes it again:

[15]

After my continual insistence that he stop deleting content from my talk page, he chose instead to vandalize it twice under an IP:

[16]

[17]

Throughout this entire process I have been civil, cordial and willing to work to a conclusion. However, G.-M. Cupertino has been hostile and unwilling to make an effort, and has continued making unconstructive edits with no regard for other editors and a general indignation to those who tried to help him. (I am not the first one to bring this issue to his attention). I simply ask the arbitration committe to help me bring this incident to a peaceful conclusion. Rwiggum (Talk/Contrib) 17:21, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Additional Note Another user has brought to my attention some more instances of G.-M. Cupertino's difficulties with others. (I tried to keep it to more substantial edits to the user's talk page, as G.-M. Cupertino has made several edits and additions to his posts. The full messages can be found here.)

[18]

[19]

[20]

[21]

[22]

Rwiggum (Talk/Contrib) 17:35, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Additional Note #2 Yet another user has come forward to express their frustration with G.-M. Cuperiono.

[23]

And the user also brings up a very valid point: It isn't that I feel that Cuperino's contributions are entirely worthless, on the contrary. A lot of these pages need filmographies. The major problem is his complete unwillingness to work with other editors to improve the articles. Rwiggum (Talk/Contrib) 17:37, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Additional Note #3 and Question It appears that I misunderstood the initial comment by Dismas on my userpage. He wasn't just directing me to his talk page and Cuperino's previous postings, but he was posting me here, to a user page he created to chronicle his dealings with Cuperino.

This leads me to my question: Now that the request for arbitration has been started, would it be too late to include him in this discussion? It seems as though he has quite a bit of insight into this situation as well. Rwiggum (Talk/Contrib) 22:15, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Additional Note #4 Dismas and Verdatum have been added as Involved Parties. Rwiggum (Talk/Contrib) 22:26, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Additional Note #5 It seems as though he's getting worse. He's taken to making personal attacks, [24] as well as removing some of the disputed content from pages wholesale. [25] [26] Rwiggum (Talk/Contrib) 14:59, 11 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Additional Note #6 Here are a few more: [27] [28] [29] [30] [31] [32] At this point, he has moved past unconstructive edits and into the territory of pure vandalism. Rwiggum (Talk/Contrib) 15:11, 11 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Additional Note #7 I apologize for making so many additions in such a short time, but he has now moved onto nominating all of the articles for speedy deletion, [33] in addition to continue removing filmographies. At this point it is clear that his edits are intended to be viscious and in bad faith, and if arbitration isn't the correct way to go about this, then I need to know what to do with him. Rwiggum (Talk/Contrib) 15:16, 11 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

UPDATE The user has been temporarily blocked for his edits: [34] Rwiggum (Talk/Contrib) 15:25, 11 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by G.-M. Cupertino

Statement by Dismas

I am not involved in the article for which this arbitration was started. I have however dealt with Cupertino on several occaisions. In almost every case he has been difficult to deal with.

When I put links to WP guidelines and policies into my edit summaries, he does not take the time to read those guidelines and policies. He has claimed that he doesn't have time to be reading pages of rules even when specific parts of policies are pointed out to him. I could understand if he didn't read every word of a particular guideline but he won't even take the time to skim them for relevant info. Although, somehow he has been able to hold onto the line at the top of every guideline that says that guidelines are not to be enforced on every page and are left to editor's discretion. He uses this excuse liberally to explain his edits. Due to having to re-explain guidelines to him, he now smugly inserts the word "mandatory" before every instance of using the term "guideline".

He has been uncivil on many occasions, whether on my talk page or in edit summaries.

Only by having an admin intervene or get a third opinion, through WP:3O, have I been able to speed up the process of reaching an agreement with him. For a long time now, he's had an "admin for emergencies" listed on his talk page. As far as I have gathered, this admin at one time helped Cupertino out and has since been listed there. They seem to be one of the few people that Cupertino listens to.

Only by posting things to his talk page does he ever engage in any sort of communication and even then it's spotty. He doesn't seem to have learned that this is a collaborative project. Instead of reading an edit summary and asking what something stands for, why someone has reverted his edit, or why someone has tweaked an edit that he's made, he simply reads it, dismisses it, and puts the article back to his version. When going through the effort of getting him to realize that dates were not to be linked 100% of the time, one of his rants was about how some 'powers that be' made some changes to the rules and didn't make him aware. When the recent notice was put at the top of everyone's watchlist about the discussion over dates, I made sure to point out to Cupertino that he could have his say on the matter. When I checked the discussions just now, he had still not weighed in with his thoughts even though this was such a hot button item with him previously.

Due to the fact that I've had to deal with him in so many cases and have had to go to such great lengths, I felt that at some point things may come to arbitration with him. Therefore, I have been building a record, of sorts, of his actions. You can find this at a sub-page of my user page, here.

With all that being said, I do have to say that he is able to do a large number of tedious edits seemingly without any scripts. When they are good edits, it is a very good thing to see. I just wish that he was more communicative and more receptive to changes because then he wouldn't waste so much time undoing various things. Dismas|(talk) 19:34, 11 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Verdatum

I am not involved with concerns on this article itself, but instead regarding the actions of User:G.-M. Cupertino. I first had a disagreement with him in regards to the Kyra Sedgwick article. It resulted in in the following discussion [35], where he made Legal Threats, Personal Attacks failed to Assume Good Faith, failed to remain Civil, and acted as though he owned the article. The first argument, regarding WP:BLP, was resolved eventually, and the second argument, regarding Filmography, was eventually resolved through a compromise after making a request for a third opinion.

I found interacting with this user most off-putting. His correspondence were consistently in an aggressive tone (as seen in the above link). He overlooked requests for discussion, instead choosing to voice brief agressive arguments in the Edit Summary [36] [37]. I added messenges to his talkpage [38] [39], both of which were immediately removed by him, which as I interpret WP:TALK is alright, but it makes threaded discussion difficult. I scanned the user's contributions and found a general history of the same agressive argument style. I gave him the benefit of the doubt, assuming it was just a matter of a language barrier, and unfamiliarity with some guidelines and policies, still I continued to watch his talkpage, in case I could try to aid with any future altercations he might have with other editors.

Shortly there after, I was contacted by User:Dismas regarding concerns about this editor [40]. I believe that resulted in Dsmas opening a RFA/UC which was quickly closed for not yet being a last resort.

After noticing a long string of back a forth edits on User talk:G.-M. Cupertino‎, between Cupertino and User:Rwiggum on my watchlist, I glanced through them, and decided to drop Rwiggum a note about Cupertino's editing style [41].

Any other issues on the matter are merely practices I've witnessed in sporadically monitoring his contributions, but I'm not yet comfortable enough with this process to know what level of detail I should cover, and would mostly be redundant to the statements of the other editors involved. -Verdatum (talk) 23:50, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestion by uninvolved Sandstein

In view of G.-M. Cupertino (talk · contribs)'s comments at [42], noted by Kirill below, I suggest that this issue is most expediently resolved by indefinitely blocking G.-M. Cupertino for gross incivility and personal attacks, as well as threats of physical harm. An arbitration case is not required for this.  Sandstein  18:04, 13 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by uninvolved NVO

I "met" with G.-M. Cupertino (talk · contribs) only once on a subject not worth any quarrel. We did not agree then on notability issue, but, again, it is unimportant. However, I was bemused by G.-M. C.'s deletion of that discussion from my talkpage [43]. When this arbcom case popped up, I realized that this is G.-M. C.'s routine modus operandi that has been complained about by other editors to no avail. This arbcom case is an example of current "administration" failures. G.-M. C.'s incivility and 3RR violations had to be handled by admins way before. Where were the admins when they were needed? the first block of G.-M. C, ever, was effected by User:Orangemike after the arbcom filing. Contrary to what User:Sandstein said above, arbitration is required, because of the admins' failure. NVO (talk) 13:37, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by uninvolved Ncmvocalist

There are some real issues with this user's conduct; a clear lack of receptiveness to any sort of feedback, let alone community feedback. This reminds me of certain conduct I unfortunately experienced with certain other users (example) - though the conduct issues are somewhat different, it comes down to the same problem. The example nearly managed to let his disruption go unnoticed for a long period of time (nearly greater than 2 years) - I note that it was only after several community discussions, and an unfortunately horrible wait that the example recently received a 3 month block for a lack of receptiveness to community feedback, among a couple of other issues. However, the sense of disruptive off-wiki coordinated editing with certain other editors (example) was something that could not be addressed. Perhaps, one day I will have no choice but to make a request for arbitration on these examples...but that'll be another case for another day. Back to this case....

Fortunately, there is no sense of such disruptive off-wiki coordinated editing yet, and G M Cupertino's lack of receptiveness to feedback is more clear cut; as with his conduct issues. An RFC is likely to prolong the dispute more than necessary in this case. It would take more than a couple of community discussions to demonstrate that the conduct has not ceased before sanctions may be imposed - even though we are reasonably confident that regardless of how much we AGF, the conduct will recommence in the future. There is no doubt that it is one form of problem editing that has adversely affected other users contributions.

Based on my own experience with the above examples, this user's conduct will continue to be a problem, sometime in the future - unless there are measures in place to prevent it from happening. If the Committee is willing to provide long term solutions/sanctions (such as bans) for this sort of problematic conduct, then this case should be accepted - if ArbCom will only go to the extent of providing minor sanctions or admonishment, then this case should be rejected. Ncmvocalist (talk) 08:10, 15 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by non-recused Clerks.
  • Recuse from clerking duties on this case.
    In the course of my work for the Mediation Committee, I recently rejected a Request for Mediation pertaining to this dispute.
    AGK 23:35, 12 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • While this has passed 10 days without being accepted and hence could be removed as rejected, due to the impending start of the new arbitrators on January 1 and the recusals to that effect below, this request will be left for the first week of January for the new arbitrators to vote on it. Please do not remove this case from the page; anyone seeing a non-Arbitrator or non-Clerk removing this request under the 10-day clause should revert and provide a link to this comment. Daniel (talk) 05:14, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Update: The moratorium on delisting or opening Requests has been lifted, and the new Arbitrators are now fully voting. Requests may, effective immediately, be delisted per the 10-day clause as per normal operation procedures. AGK 11:13, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Recently an arbitrator has changed his vote, and as such, dismissal of this request should be delayed for more consideration, perhaps? - Penwhale | Blast him / Follow his steps 14:07, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, if you factor in CHL's one-week-in-the-future vote, this would be accepted on 1 Jan, assuming no one else votes. Right now, I'd say let this run til 1 Jan and take appropriate action at that time. — Rlevse • Talk • 14:12, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This is on track to be opened as Request for Arbitration/G.-M. Cupertino upon Cool Hand Luke's vote kicking in - I will be clerking it. --Tznkai (talk) 19:30, 28 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Tally will be at net 3, so is actually on track for rejection. New arbiters should get their votes in ASAP.--Tznkai (talk) 07:18, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Case is now on track for acceptance again. --Tznkai (talk) 00:47, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Some incoming arbitrators may choose to exercise their arbitrator power when the new year actually starts, as such, this request will still be kept for the first few days (if not a week) of 2009. - Penwhale | Blast him / Follow his steps 10:22, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (9/6/2/1)

  • Comment. At first glance this does not look as if the situation is ripe for an Arbitration Committee case. There may be user conduct issues, but it is not clear to me that others attempts to resolve the problems have been tried. Since Arbitration is the last step in dispute resolution, some preliminary steps need to be tried if they have not been done yet. See Dispute resolution for methods of to give users feedback. For example. Request for commentFloNight♥♥♥ 21:31, 10 December 2008 (UTC) FloNight♥♥♥ 21:37, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Any user with knowledge of the situation is free to add a comment to this request. FloNight♥♥♥ 22:19, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Reject. At this time, I see no evidence that Arbitration is needed to resolve this situation. Open an User conduct RFC. Even if the user conduct issue continue, I want to give the Community a chance to resolve the situation first. FloNight♥♥♥ 11:27, 12 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Awaiting more statements. There are very real conduct and civility concerns here, but per FloNight, it might be possible to address them short of arbitration. Newyorkbrad (talk) 00:39, 11 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • G.-M. Cupertino has stated that he has stopped editing in an area where his edits have proved contentious. I would appreciate an update on whether alleged problems persist with his editing in other areas. Newyorkbrad (talk) 16:28, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • I still would appreciate an update (from the filing party or others) on any recent developments. Having said that, if the voting remains as is I will be changing to "accept"; our refusing to hear a case that a majority of the committee (9 of 17) has now voted to accept would in my view be an unacceptable application of the already problematic "net four" rule. Newyorkbrad (talk) 08:20, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree with what has been said above, and would reject the request at this time. G.-M. Cupertino's refusal to participate in mediation is worrying. Nevertheless, there are other methods of dispute resolution available. I would recommend making a request for comments; see the instructions here. If that fails to reach a suitable outcome then arbitration may be appropriate. --bainer (talk) 02:12, 12 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Accept. The nature of the comments here suggest to me that a user RFC would not accomplish anything substantive; there are some concrete problems we can address here. Kirill (prof) 05:44, 13 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Accept a case dealing with G.-M. Cupertino's wider editing. Sam Blacketer (talk) 23:45, 13 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Recuse. I'm outta here too soon. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 00:06, 17 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Recuse, as with Josh, though I would urge the Committee to accept it. James F. (talk) 18:15, 17 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: Our newbie arb hats aren't fully on but we're being asked to comment...The failure of GMC to participate neither in RFC or here does not bode well for the success of a full arbcom case. Therefore, I ask a sitting arb to make a motion to deal with GCM. — Rlevse • Talk • 01:07, 22 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Accept given events of past several days and that GMC would likely not participate in an RFC. Rename case to GMC and look at broad editing and behavior issues. 12:14, 27 December 2008 (UTC) — Rlevse • Talk • 22:02, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Not-quite-Arb Motion? I echo Rlevse's comment and welcome a motion from a sitting arbitrator. --ROGER DAVIES talk 16:13, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • I think a motion would be inappropriate in this case because there has been no previous case and it does not seem to be an emergency. Opening a full case is often useful in disclosing the background and sometimes shows up factors which are not apparent from the statements. Sam Blacketer (talk) 16:24, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Accept. From the looks of it, all a user conduct rfc would do is have the same few people saying GM's editing is bad, then it'd be archived with nothing coming out of it. Arbitration seems the best course of action to look at the conduct issues presented. Wizardman 16:49, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Furthermore, a rename upon acceptance to GMC as opposed to Maria Thayer would be best. Wizardman 19:20, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      I concur with the propriety of a rename if the case opens. — Coren (talk) 19:40, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Accept as an RFC will seemingly achieve little. --ROGER DAVIES talk 17:03, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Accept; it would appear that an RFC will simply delay the inevitable landing of this case back on the Committee's role, and the matter is only likely to have grown more acrimonious by then. — Coren (talk) 19:14, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reject. I see no reason that this cannot be handled at the community level. I believe that there are admin who would be willing to block based on a sensible ANI report and few to none willing to unblock. There is no indication that blocking or otherwise sanctioning this user would be divisive to the community. As for the "admin failure", I see no evidence that this has been raised for administrator intervention. Rather than ask where the admins were when they were needed, we should ask: Where are the 3RR reports? Where are the ANI complaints? Where are the efforts to inform the project administrators that intervention was needed? We cannot expect administrators to be all-knowing and interject in situations that have not been raised in the venues they watch for such reports. Regarding the assertion that this would require a long process involving multiple discussions to resolve, I have seen absolutely no evidence that this is the case. Regardless, at least attempting a community discussion to impose sanctions should be a necessary prequisite to asserting that such a discussion would not work. This is exactly the kind of request that arbs should reject. For this sort of situation, we're the last resort to be used when all other recourses fail, not the go-to crowd for obvious sanctions. Vassyana (talk) 17:55, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • conditional accept. I suspect that Vassyana is right—I think the community could handle this. If they do so in the next week, I would consider the matter moot, and so my vote should not be taken as a sign that ArbCom has taken over the case. That said, if nothing happens in the next week, we should take it. Cool Hand Luke 22:41, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reject per Vassyana. Risker (talk) 05:23, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • I will say that I am unimpressed by this edit summary, directed at another editor involved in this request. Has there been any attempt at an RFC yet? Risker (talk) 03:19, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Accept per Kirill, Sam, Roger and Coren. I also agree with the renaming per Wizardman. -- FayssalF - Wiki me up® 17:04, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Accept I think we may be able to fine-tune a solution. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 23:50, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reject per Vassyana. John Vandenberg (chat) 00:49, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reject - there are severe concerns here, but this could easily be dealt with outside arbitration as pointed out by others. Carcharoth (talk) 06:45, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Clarifications and other requests

Shortcuts

Place requests related to amendments of prior cases, appeals, and clarifications on this page. If the case is ongoing, please use the relevant talk page. Requests for enforcement of past cases should be made at Arbitration enforcement. Requests to clarify general Arbitration matters should be made on the Talk page. To create a new request for arbitration, please go to Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration. Place new requests at the top. Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/How-to other requests

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No arbitrator motions are currently open.


Request to amend prior case: Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Footnoted_quotes#Special_enforcement_on_biographies_of_living_persons

Statement by Barberio

I ask for review of this case, in particular the Special enforcement on biographies of living persons remedy on the following grounds,

  • The process created by this has,
    • Generally been neglected in use by the majority of administrators, and has only seen formal use twice. [44] One logged incident could have been enacted under existing speedy deletion rules, and the other case resulted in escalation to Arbitration to be resolved.
    • Appears to have been used by a minority as grounds to threaten use of the process in warnings that were not logged on Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Special_enforcement_log [45]
    • Uses the term "Any and all means", which may be read to mean they may ignore all other standards, policy and expectations of administrator behaviour.
    • Despite several concerns being raised about the wording of the process/policy, change of it was directly barred on the grounds that it would require appeal to the arbitration committee as they held full ownership over it as a remedy.
  • The Arbitration Policy at the time of the case did not allow for such process/policy creating remedies. And the Arbitration Committee made no attempt to alter the policy to grant these extended powers.
  • An RFC on Arbitration Conduct had overwhelming opposition to allowing such process/policy creating remedies. Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Arbitration Committee

I would like an answer to the following questions,

  1. In light of the lack of correct use of the process, and it's apparent misuse in incorrect threatening warnings, should this process/policy be marked as "historical" or "failed policy" or allowed to continue?
  2. What was the intent of the phrase "any and all means" used, and on reflection was this wording appropriate?
  3. Did the Arbitration Policy allow for such process/policy creating remedies?
  4. Should the Arbitration Policy allow for such process/policy creating remedies?
  5. Can such processes/policy if created be fully owned by the Arbitration Committee with no ability for community review as with other processes/policy?
  6. What lessons if any should be taken in future arbitration committee conduct from this?

Note: I would appreciate independent answers from all active members of the committee, considering the importance of this issue. --Barberio (talk) 21:36, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I do not think it would be appropriate to allow the process/policy to stand if the issue has been 'punted' into the distance and review postponed until some unknown later date. If you can, please provide a specifict date that this 'review' will be conducted.

Otherwise, consider this an request to conduct this review immediately, or I will open an RfC on the topic and the community may conduct one. --Barberio (talk) 21:36, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A response to Statement by Daniel.

The results of the Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Arbitration Committee called for some pretty clear changes to the Arbitration Policy. I proposed that we put some of them to ratification at the arbitration vote.

However, I was promised that this was not needed because the committee had taken the call for change on advisement, and Wikipedia:Arbitration policy proposed updating would be enacted. So I withdrew on the understanding that the Arbitration policy would eventually be changed.

No movement had been made on that since October.

Yes, I am feeling rather "ticked off" at the Arbitration Committee for failing to follow through on promises of reform. And I am reluctant to accept promise now that they will look into it later.

I am prepared to state this... If this review does not happen in a timely manner then the issue should rightfully be removed from their hands. --Barberio (talk) 21:56, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

ps. I admire the irony of being told off for demanding immediate action, as well as being told of for trying to get problems with Arbitration addressed for A YEAR. --Barberio (talk) 22:08, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Response to Kirill. Yes, I am calling for amendment of the remedy. The questions asked are directed at identifying issues with the remedy and it's results, and how that would effect any amendment of that remedy. While the question of if the remedy as written was acceptable under the arbitration policy at the time is 'constitutional', I do feel it is an issue which needs to be addressed when amending it.

However, I am willing to drop issues of 'constitutional' scope, if I can have a binding promise of a date at which the ArbCom are willing to report to the community on reform. Unfortunately, the committee has a poor past record of responding timely to issues, and I can not help but feel that enough time was already given to respond during and after the RfC. So a deadline by which the committee will provide a report on how it will reform would be a great help to prevent distrust that the process will not occur at all --Barberio (talk) 23:43, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Judging from the votes, the Arbitration Committee is reluctant to give any indication that while they accept they should review this, they will not do so now, nor will they give any specified time at which they will do so, nor any fixed deadline by which they will provide a report. And it's odd that 'the new membership has only just arrive' is used as an excuse considering promises by candidates 'to hit the ground running', and that candidates could not be ignorant of these issues considering the public RfC.

So here's a direction...

Provide a report by April 3rd 2009 on the review of the issues involved. If I don't get anything back by then, I will restart the process to change the arbitration policy by notifying the foundation that we'll be having a ratification vote on the changes to the arbitration policy that were recommended during the RfC.

Yes. This is an ultimatum. I don't mean to prod you with sticks, this isn't a crusade, but it is direction that you can't keep saying you will 'investigate reform' without providing any. If you really can't provide some kind of report on reform in three months, then this issue is probably going to have to bypass you. --Barberio (talk) 04:13, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Daniel

I don't think threatening the Committee with an RfC if they don't do exactly what you want, right now, is either appropriate or an intelligent move. The community cannot overrule this motion, except by overruling each individual application of it, so a community RfC is pointless unless, of course, you simply intend to continue your crusade against the Committee which I have observed over the last year. Daniel (talk) 21:40, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

Arbitrator views and discussion

  • Request noted. I think an open review is needed here, though my views are that this is all to do with WP:ADMIN and arbitration and administrative enforcement, and not really to do with the BLP policy. So from my point of view, the question is whether to review this 'special enforcement' by itself, or together with reviews of other enforcement areas (such as arbitration enforcement). I also note Barberio's six questions, but am deferring specific answers until an actual review process takes place. Carcharoth (talk) 19:16, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Decline Will be included as part of Arbitration Enforcement review remedy, so I see no need for a special review of this particular enforcement remedy now. FloNight♥♥♥ 19:28, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • What exactly is being asked here? The title is "Request to amend" (emphasis mine), the first sentence asks for review, and the rest is a series of questions; Barberio, are you requesting a change to the ruling (and, if so, what is that change) or a general discussion about the constitutional role of the Committee? The former may be a matter of some urgency (although, if the ruling isn't even being used, I'm not sure why that would be); the latter is not, and a request for clarification is not a good venue for it in any case. If you're just looking for reform, we're working on it; poking us with pointy sticks, while no doubt entertaining, will unfortunately not make it move along any faster. ;-) Kirill 23:24, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Decline per FloNight. I will point out that over half of the current committee has taken office just over 24 hours ago. While this is definitely something that will be addressed, we have not had sufficient time (or attendance) to establish an agenda and timeline, and both must be somewhat fluid to allow for activity on this page. Risker (talk) 02:13, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Decline but with careful reasons:
    1. I was the single strongest opposer to the BLPSE decision, Barerio. I described it as a extremely worrying misjudgement since in my view it would not resolve the problem but escalate it. Even so, for me, it is within the remit of the committee:
      WMF and the community have both agreed BLP is crucially important and has very high standing as policy; both agree admins enforce policy. In a more and more pressing and difficult situation, Wikipedia Arbitration may lean towards the draconian to solve a communal problem. The concern was about resolving the perennial disputes over BLP enforcement, and the undermining of BLP. The decision was admins should apply the tools they have very hard indeed if needed to procure BLP compliance. Giving this a name ("special enforcement") does not change that this was an extreme version of ArbCom's usual role:- ie, that given a conflict, Arbcom's role is deciding the best way existing consensus-accepted policies apply and are interpreted in the situation, to good effect and for best benefit of the project. Admins have a wide scope of tool usage discretion within communal norms. Tool usage can range from "very gentle" to "very firm". In this case the answer was "Policy and norms are served best by using admin access very firmly indeed in the case of BLP disruption, and by setting enforcement measures to ensure they are able to use their tools to enforce policy fully". This was clearly felt by the Arbitrators to be situated well within existing policies (although clearly a draconian use for an exceptional problem), and I agree on that point, regardless of whether I personally do or don't support the actual decision.
    2. It is normal when saying something may be done a given way, or enforced (eg any sanction) for Arbcom to also spell out exactly how that should work - who may act, what guidance they have on acting, how enforcement should work, and so on. This formed the bulk of that ruling. Apart from the draconian nature of the matter being enforced, it's quite a usual type of content for a decision.
    3. Arbitration looks forward. It's clear there may be merit in revisiting this, but to pull the current view to pieces is not going to happen here. It's something one might do in reviewing the entire area of enforcement, which is a more rounded issue, and is likely to be looked at anyway, as FloNight and Kirill said.
    FT2 (Talk | email) 03:29, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Decline This is already high on the agenda for review in due course. The current arbitrators are reform-minded but most of us have only been in the job twenty-four hours and Rome, as they say, wasn't built in a day. --ROGER DAVIES talk 07:02, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Appeal by Everyking

I request that the ArbCom lift all the remaining sanctions applied to me under the case Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Everyking 3. The restrictions applied to me in this case were first applied in November 2005 and were expanded and extended in July 2006. In November 2007, some of the sanctions expired, but when I asked the ArbCom to remove the other sanctions in February 2008, it chose to uphold them (except for one restriction, which had previously been suspended and was formally lifted when I made that appeal). I do not wish to argue about the merits of the orginal case against me; the opinions held by myself and certain other long-time users (including some former arbitrators) regarding the case's merits are very different, and I don't want to stir up controversy by arguing an appeal on the basis of innocence. I merely ask the ArbCom to recognize that the sanctions serve no purpose at this time and lift them.

These sanctions, although they have no practical effect on my editing, seriously affect my reputation as a Wikipedian; arguably they have made me a community pariah, and I feel that is deeply unfair. While I have been embittered by the imposition of these sanctions, I have continued to edit devotedly and remain firmly loyal to the project. I ask that the ArbCom restore me to the status of a Wikipedian in good standing and that there be no more official tarnish on my reputation. Everyking (talk) 03:44, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Responding to Avruch, the appeal restriction says that it starts at the time of the motion's passage—I have not made any appeal since then, so by my reasoning I should be able to make an appeal at any time. Only if I made an appeal (like this one), and it failed, would that restriction come into play. Everyking (talk) 04:23, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I need to discuss some other things here. First of all, some people are raising the issue of the one year appeal restriction. As I explained above, I have not used an appeal since the time that the appeal restriction was imposed and therefore I do not believe it would be fair to interpret that as barring an appeal at this time. The difference in interpretation, apparently, is: does the restriction mean that I have one appeal per year, beginning after one year has passed, or does it means that I have one appeal per year, beginning the date the motion passed? I don't believe the former is a reasonable interpretation.
Regarding Phil's statement: I was to stress, as strongly as possible, that I want absolutely nothing to do with him and would be perfectly content to forget his existence entirely. I have no objection to a restriction barring me from interacting with him per se; my only objection, which goes to the very crux of the case back in 2005, is that the restriction is applied only to me and leaves Phil free to say whatever he likes to or about me. From my perspective, it seems that applying sanctions to only one party endorses Phil's claim of "wikistalking", whereas a mutual restriction would be a neutral and fair arrangement that acknowledges that a certain two Wikipedians are better off ignoring each other. In fact, if I had to choose between a mutual restriction and no restriction at all, I would choose a mutual restriction—that is what I requested back in 2005, and that is what I would prefer now.
Phil's allegations about my off-site conduct are totally inappropriate. His blog-format short story about murdering people could be genuinely perceived as disturbing if one did not know the context, but I am happy to acknowledge that when the blog is understood to be fiction there is no basis for serious concern. About 18 months ago, I contacted Phil privately in hopes that we could set aside our differences, but he was not interested in doing that. Well, fine—as I stated above, I just want to be free of the stigma associated with a one-sided restriction.
I also want to state that I am insulted that Phil would blame me for something written on ED about him—we should not forget that I am also the subject of an ED article that accuses me of illegal conduct, and that article is primarily the result of the misrepresentations about me that were presented/promoted by Phil in the EK2 case back in 2005. If Phil wants to blame me for his ED article, let him take some blame for mine. Personally, I think ED is an abhorrent website that ought to be shut down, and I have repeatedly voted for the deletion of its WP article on the grounds that it is deeply offensive to Wikipedians. Everyking (talk) 00:48, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by A Nobody (talk)

I think that it is a new year and that we should give Everyking a new chance and fresh start. Thus, I support the request made above. Happy New Year! Sincerely, --A NobodyMy talk 03:48, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by User:Tony Sidaway

The sanctions serve as a deterrent. Lest those who would go to external sites and try to subvert Wikipedia should prevail. --TS 04:01, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by User:Avruch

I filed a previous appeal of this case, most of which can be found [here]. There was a previous motion as well.

While I specifically opposed this element of the passed motion, the language could be seen to bar review of this case until Feb 23 2009 (by limiting review of the case to once per year beginning the date of the motions passing). Avruch T 04:13, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

With respect to Carcharoth's request to Everyking that he stop "wikilawyering" the one year ban, it should be noted that two arbitrators have commented upon it with the obvious belief that this appeal violates that ban. Clarifying his own interpretation of the appeal restriction is not "wikilawyering." You're aware, I'm sure, that as an arbitrator you will encounter in nearly every case quasi-legal standards of writing and interpretation. This might strike you as wikilawyering, but that epithet is mainly relevant on article talkpages where folks involved in a dispute attempt to mechanically impose the details of their own interpretation of policy.

I sympathize with Phil - something similar, minus the Wikipedia context, happened to me. But even Phil does not directly blame Everyking either for the WR thread or what it led to. Everyking is not blameless, and no one (least of all Everyking) has claimed that. But years have passed without incident, and its time to move on. Arbitration should not result in a permanent scarlett letter for good editors with a checkered past. Avruch T 04:24, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

One last thing, to Rlevse: This particular appeal is unrelated to the prior confusion over seemingly conflicting passing motions. That confusion was cleared up. The only other thing I'd say is that the appeal restriction prohibited Everyking only, and others were and are free to make requests on their own initiative. Avruch T 04:30, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Acalamari

I have long believed that the sanctions on Everyking are unnecessary, and I am disappointed that they are still in place here in 2009. Everyking has made more than a grand effort to prove why the sanctions are not necessary, and his behavior over 2008 and 2007 has been, in my opinion, excellent. I do not believe at all that Everyking would spend a long time improving, only to do something to get the sanctions re-instated. He has devoted a lot of his time to building the encyclopedia, and has contbributed more to here than most other editors have done, so it's clear he has the best of intentions at heart.

I should also note that, regarding Everyking's actual standing in the community, he was nominated for adminship in August of last year, where he received 66% support (note that this RfA was supported by a then-new arbitrator; and opposed by a current, and also a now-ex arbitrator). In addition, there were several people who opposed/went neutral that, while they didn't yet believe he was ready to again be an admin, they complimented him on his work, his overall improvement, and many did trust him as an editor. Based on this, I believe that Everyking is in good standing within the community, and that the sanctions on Everyking were further marginalized by the community input there. While the issue of the sanctions cannot be based on that RfA alone, I should mention that it was a chance for the community to judge Everyking, and at least two-thirds of the community support him.

As I said, I do not believe that Everyking would work hard to get his sanctions removed, only to do something to have them re-instated. I am still strongly of the opinion that removing Everyking's remaining sanctions will be beneficial to both him and the encyclopedia. Acalamari 20:17, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by User:Phil Sandifer

I've avoided commenting on this issue on-wiki the past few times it has come up, but memories appear short, so I'll make this note public.

Two and a half years ago, on Wikipedia Review, there was a thread that led to somebody - I do not know who - calling the police near where I live with a complaint that I might be murdering homeless people. This resulted in my being subject to harassment and invasion of privacy by the police. In the course of the thread, it was speculated that it would be possible to either drive me out of my PhD program or off of Wikipedia.

Everyking was an active participant in this thread, regaling it with speculation on my mental state.

These efforts - which have continued past this thread - have genuinely painful consequences for me, including the first Google hit on my name - found whenever a prospective employer or one of my students Googles me - is a libelous ED page stemming largely from the results of the thread Everyking was an active participant in.

This, combined with the fact that Everyking's prohibition against commenting on me stemmed from the fact that he was aggressively wikistalking me. And that since that prohibition was put in place, he has constantly attempted to get out of it or have it weakened.

I request that the arbcom does not lift this prohibition. I do not care about the others, however, I request that, given the extreme toxicity of his past actions with regards to me, this basic level of protection for me be extended. I would further ask that the arbcom render this matter closed and to be reconsidered only by Jimbo so that I do not have to, every few months, worry about whether this much-needed protection is going to be brought to an end.

And as for the inevitable suggestion that I have some obligation to forgive and forget and extend a second chance, I respectfully suggest that it is not within the remand of the community to dictate what olive branches must be offered by people who have come under genuine real life threat for their service to this project. Phil Sandifer (talk) 21:44, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Outside comment by Cla68

I have interacted with Everyking often in-wiki and I've found him to be a good faith and dedicated editor. I just reviewed the prior arbcom cases he was involved in, and, as far as I can see, the main remaining legacy of those cases appears to be a dispute between Snowspinner (Phil Sandifer) and Everyking. Everyking states that he doesn't want to retry the previous cases, but Phil appears to be trying to do so in his statement above.

In my opinion, there seems to be enough blame to share between the two of them, but for some reason the hammer has fallen more heavily on Everyking than on Phil (in Wikipedia, that is). To resolve this for now, I would suggest suspending all of the sanctions against Everyking except for the one to stay away from Phil. I would propose, in addition, that an identical motion be made to tell Phil to stay away from Everyking. This would put things on an equal and fair footing between the two of them and I would hope would put this entire thing to rest and send two of our most dedicated editors back to improving articles, which both do so well. Cla68 (talk) 10:02, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

Arbitrator views and discussion

  • Could we please have links to the various times this has been before the committee. John Vandenberg (chat) 04:03, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Other than the most recent case page, where most of the post-case discussions from here should have been logged, I found several diffs on the rejected requests page, going all the way back to 2004 (some are to do with stuff around the time of the first and second cases) - dates are case dates or when the thread was archived:
Details
  • December 2004 (rejected RFAR)
  • EK1 (January 2005)
  • February 2005 (clarification of EK1)
  • EK2 (March/April 2005)
  • May 2005 (withdrawn RFAR)
  • EK3 (July/August 2005 and then October/November 2005)
  • EK3 motion (December 2005)
  • EK3 motion (July 2006)
  • May 2007 (rejected appeal for EK3)
  • EK3 - music parole suspended for three months (November 2007)
  • February 2008 (EK3 motions passed)
  • March 2008 (problems with EK3 motions pointed out)
The last two are the most relevant. The first of those last two was logged at the case page. The last one of those last two should have been logged at the case page, but doesn't seem to have been. Hopefully there are not more appeals or motions missing from this list. Anyway, I followed the discussion the last time (in February and March 2008) about how two possibly contradictory motions were passed. Avoiding that this time would be a good idea. Carcharoth (talk) 05:36, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It turns out I did miss some appeals (including the ones I thought hadn't been archived). They are listed at the EK3 case talk page. Carcharoth (talk) 00:23, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Starting a new comment to directly address Phil's statement. Memories are probably short here because some of the new arbs (me included) were either not around, or were not aware at the time, or since, of the incident you refer to. Many thanks for giving your side of the story to us. As you say, you don't know who called the police, but the distress and ongoing problems this caused you, especially when combined with the offsite commentary, should be recognised when considering restrictions on Everyking. I agree with Risker that the avoidance sanction may need to be made permanent, but I am prepared to wait to see whether Everyking will voluntarily agree to such avoidance (or reconfirm such avoidance), with supervision if needed. It should also be noted that there are some things that Everyking could do that, even if it will not affect Phil's stance on this, may help improve Everyking's standing in the community - it is mostly the actions and comments made by Everyking in relation to all this that determine his standing in the community, not just what the Arbitration Committee think of all this. Agree with others that the other remaining sanctions can be lifted. Concern about excessive number of appeals by Everyking also noted, but if there is an opportunity to make progress here, let's take it. One final point: could all parties here (and others) please be sensitive to what is said on-wiki about this and, if necessary, e-mail the arbitration committee to check what is appropriate before posting responses. Carcharoth (talk) 01:03, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Responding briefly to Everyking's new statement (which was posted while I was writing the above). First point: please stop wikilawyering the year-long ban on appeals. You are being heard here, which should be good enough. As far as I'm concerned, a mutual restriction is up to Phil. I would suggest that if the restriction is maintained and you feel it is one-sided, that you e-mail the Arbitration Committee if you genuinely feel that Phil later comments on you for no good reason. No comment on the other points, as a public back-and-forth will not be productive here, for you or for Phil. Both you and Phil have had the chance to say something and it would now be best to wait and see what can be done, and to let others respond. I would strongly suggest that anything further from Phil or Everyking be e-mailed to the arbitration committee, or be kept very short and to the point. Carcharoth (talk) 01:29, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I find merit in the appeal in light of, among other things, the time that has elapsed since the last discussion with no significant further issues involving this editor. Therefore, unless something unexpected comes to my attention in this thread in the next couple of days, I will offer a motion to lift all the remaining sanctions as no longer necessary. Should that motion fail, I will offer a set of alternative motions to vote on lifting each sanction individually, to avoid the confusing and arguably contradictory situation that arose last year. A clerk should kindly notify Phil Sandifer of this thread, as I believe that one of the remaining sanctions involves him. Newyorkbrad (talk) 09:22, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • The irony of this being filed on the day the new arbs are empaneled is not lost on me. In this February 2008 ruling it clearly said requests would be reviewed not more than once a year: "Upon request by Everyking, these terms will be reviewed, but no more often than once per year, starting the date this motion passes." Then this March 2008 and this May 2008 thread came along. While I understand there is some confusion regrading this case and it should be cleared up, the numerous requests centering around it concern me. — Rlevse • Talk • 20:15, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I would support a motion that lifts all sanctions except that related to Phil Sandifer. The situation from whence that sanction arose (there was additional on- and off-wiki behaviour that is not detailed in Phil's statement) is of such a nature that I cannot foresee any interaction between Everyking and Phil Sandifer that will not be perceived by many as a rekindling of hostility, now or in the future. As such, I would not be opposed to considering the avoidance sanction to be permanent. Risker (talk) 22:47, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • It is not yet 22 February. Sam Blacketer (talk) 23:46, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • In view of the background, the Phil Sandifer sanction doesn't seem so onerous to me and I can see advantages in making it permanent. How does the project gain from its lifting? --ROGER DAVIES talk 06:56, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Request to amend prior case: Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Barrett_v._Rosenthal

Statement by Shoemaker's Holiday (talk)

Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Barrett_v._Rosenthal#Use_of_unreliable_sources_by_Fyslee names Quackwatch as an unreliable source. Quackwatch has been recommended by major medical organisations (AMA, American Cancer Society) as well as numerous universities, newspapers, and journals (See article), and, furthermore, is used as a source in articles on the American Cancer Society website.[47] This finding should be simply thrown out. Although electronically published, it has reviewers, selectivity, and an advisory board. It is not merely a self-published source, it is a highly respected organisation, and thus a very, very useful source on some of the obscure fringe views it covers, but which other reliable sources are rare for. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 15:05, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In response to Geoff: Can you point out the section on the evidence page where evidence was provided that it was not a reliable source? I see some people saying they dislike its point of view, or claiming that it is biased against alternative medicine and fringe topics, but no actual evidence. If such exist, please link. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 20:07, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Response to Geoff:
If evidence was not presented during the case to support the finding, then your proposal, "Evidence has been presented that Quackwatch may be inadmissible as a source under policy", would, barring a very strong case for it being an unreliable source (which has not, nor really should be presented here [it should be presented to the community after this is dealt with]), make the Arbcom look bad, as it'd effectively be saying that a finding for which both sides agree no evidence was presented to justify was nonetheless right - despite such evidence still not having been presented. Better to remand it to the community, and the cases for and against can be presented at the appropriate venue: WP:RSN. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 06:32, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Response to Coren:
The finding is entitled "Use of unreliable sources by Fyslee". If the committee did not intend to name Quackwatch as an unreliable source, then they did an appallingly bad job at getting their meaning across. As well,the committee has repeatedly found, in numerous cases, that encyclopaedias present science in line with mainstream thought. It's hard to see how this fits in with calling a widely-respected mainstream medical source "partisian" because it advocates for the mainstream scientific thought that the encyclopaedia should be using. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 09:25, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Fyslee

archived bad start.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

I just wish that some ArbCom members would review that particular "finding" and expunge it from public view. Even though it is blanked, the history is there. They should go to that "finding", write comments admitting it was baseless, and then blank it again. It was one of many disgraceful things that happened under that ArbCom, most performed by my now-banned opponent, her dishonorable mentor, and her major defender. Unfortunately this particular blunder was made by the ArbCom itself. "Findings" should be written based upon actual findings, proven facts, and evidence, not upon false charges brought by my cowardly attacker (other username), who has been silent since that time. He wrote the agenda for the ArbCom case and some ArbCom member just copied it and followed it without checking to see if the charges were true. You can't write a "finding" before something is actually proven to have been "found"! Upon examination, that charge, among several others, was never proven to be true at all, both as regards any misuse of Quackwatch, or of Quackwatch being unreliable. Wrong on both counts, and yet it still stands there and gets trotted out by fringe POV pushers regularly.

That finding was just plain wrong on both counts:

  1. I did not use or abuse unreliable sources;
  2. Quackwatch is not considered an unreliable source by the mainstream scientific and medical world, only by pushers of fringe POV, quacks, and known (and often convicted) healthfrauds.

-- Fyslee (talk) 15:29, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Revised/calmer version

I wish that some ArbCom members would review that particular "finding" and expunge it from public view. Even though it is blanked, the history is there. They should go to that "finding", write comments admitting it was baseless, and then blank it again. It was one of many disgraceful things that happened under that ArbCom.

"Findings" should be written based upon actual findings, proven facts, and evidence, that have been presented, not written before presentation of evidence. Nor should they be based upon false charges (they were shown to be false) brought by my attacker (other username), who has been silent since that time. He wrote the agenda for the ArbCom case and some ArbCom member just copied it and followed it without checking to see if the charges were true. One shouldn't write a "finding" before something is actually proven to have been "found"! Upon examination, that charge, among several others, was never proven to be true at all, both as regards any misuse of Quackwatch, or of Quackwatch being unreliable. Wrong on both counts, and yet it still stands there and gets trotted out by fringe POV pushers regularly.

That finding was just plain wrong on both counts:

  1. I did not use or abuse unreliable sources;
  2. Quackwatch is not considered an unreliable source by the mainstream scientific and medical world, only by pushers of fringe POV, quacks, and known (and often convicted) healthfrauds. A simple study of the many authoritative sources that recommend Quackwatch and Stephen Barrett (we only use a few in their articles) will give an idea of what mainstream science, medicine, universities, professors, librarians, consumer organizations, and governmental bodies, think of them, and it's very positive. They are considered authoritative and can be used as good opinions. Yes, attribution is a good idea, but don't give the impression that they shouldn't be used. For more comments on Quackwatch, I suggest reading the discussion at the other RfArb Workshop page.

-- Fyslee (talk) 02:16, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Response to DreamGuy
Thanks for pointing out my irritated tone. I basically copied it from another place and have now revised it to be more appropriate for this use. Thanks again. -- Fyslee (talk) 02:16, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Response to User:Backin72's many points
Of course there is "evidence that Barrett is biased against alternative medicine." He shares this bias with countless scientists and mainstream personages, many of them quite notable. Such a bias and vast experience as the world's foremost authority on quackery and healthfraud make him even more qualified to sift the chaff from the wheat when dealing with healthfraud and questionable claims. His bias and stance on evidence is the same (read here) as that held by many others, including Marcia Angell, former editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM):
  • "It is time for the scientific community to stop giving alternative medicine a free ride. There cannot be two kinds of medicine -- conventional and alternative. There is only medicine that has been adequately tested and medicine that has not, medicine that works and medicine that may or may not work. Once a treatment has been tested rigorously, it no longer matters whether it was considered alternative at the outset. If it is found to be reasonably safe and effective, it will be accepted. But assertions, speculation, and testimonials do not substitute for evidence. Alternative treatments should be subjected to scientific testing no less rigorous than that required for conventional treatments."[1]
He is a scientific skeptic, which means he holds extraordinary and fringe claims to a higher standard of evidence: "In science, the burden of proof falls upon the claimant; and the more extraordinary a claim, the heavier is the burden of proof demanded." We follow the same verifiability principle here at Wikipedia. That is a legitimate and necessary form of "double standard", and it's one that is standard practice among scientists who possess critical thinking skills. You will always find Barrett in good company, along with other scientific skeptics, Nobel prize laureates, and notable authors. He was named as one of the top 20 scientific skeptics of the 20th century. He thinks like other skeptics.
The wording of the Village Voice article should not be taken in isolation from Barrett's actual practice. He recommends and supports chiropractic for the things it is proven to be good for, but still opposes the widespread quackery, scams, and pseudoscientific claims that still plague the profession, and especially the pseudoscientific and metaphysical basis for the whole profession (vertebral subluxations, Innate Intelligence, misuse of spinal manipulation, etc.). Likewise for acupuncture, where the claims are required to be backed up by good research. (There is plenty of disagreement about the quality of such research, and Barrett is far from alone in that matter.) We (and you especially) know that acupuncture is associated with many claims that are nonsense or not backed up by research. Barrett's actual practice is not as extreme as indicated by that old article. It is quite normal in medical and skeptical circles. He's just one of the most notable skeptics in that area.
Lest Barrett become a straw man diversion here, let's remember the subject is Quackwatch, not Barrett. He is the prime mover behind the website, but a whole host of others help in the endeavor. Most of the front page articles are written by him, with fact checking and research conducted by helpers, but even more material on the site is from other authors. The website is the largest database on such subjects on the internet, with a vast collection of articles, news reports, scientific research, government documents, and historical records, and as such it is often the only source for those references. When we reference Quackwatch for those types of sources, for example a Congressional report on quackery, the reference carries the same degree of reliability we would accord the Congressional record.
Of course Quackwatch should be used with discretion, and that's what we should do with all sources. That is a given with all our sources. No new rule or application of existing policies is required for a special case here. It is already covered by our V & RS policies. We should prefer better sources when available, and use attribution when necessary, but QW is often the only or best source available for many fringe subjects. It is often a notable, significant, controversial (among quacks), and highly respected opinion source, and should be used as such. We constantly use sources of far less quality without blinking, or with them being subjected to uninformed and deprecatory remarks in an ArbCom. Why? Because quacks' incomes aren't being threatened, and scammers aren't being named with backing from the FDA and FTC. Unlike many opinion articles we reference all the time, it provides its sources, and we can sometimes use them instead of, or in addition to, QW itself. When it is used as a source for a scientific article unavailable elsewhere, it is just as reliable as any scientific article, and for that type of use MEDRS would apply. Just use common sense in a case by case manner. -- Fyslee (talk) 18:25, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Response to John Vandenberg
I fully agree with you. The implication of the "finding" is that Quackwatch is always an inappropriate source, and that's very, very wrong. It can be used on a case by case basis, just like other sources. It is not a peer-reviewed scientific journal (websites are not "peer-reviewed"!), and thus scientific research would rate higher as a source, per MEDRS, for nitty gritty details of scientific matters, but can be used like any other source for matters of opinion related to those subjects. Like most of our other sources, it is a perfectly good source for certain purposes. In fact it is often a better source for articles related to fringe subjects, which alternative medicine subjects are by definition, where there is a dearth of scientific expression on the subject. Since scientific research isn't for opinions, you won't find scientific research that states a matter is nonsensical or quackery, because research doesn't deal with such matters. The same scientists will write such opinions, but they do it in other venues, such as articles and websites. -- Fyslee (talk) 18:25, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Response to other critics here
While I'm not surprised that believers in fringe POV would appear here with their attempts to smear Barrett and Quackwatch, please get your facts straight before making statements. I do appreciate that Geoff Plourde did recognize (in his "reponses") that his initial statement was way off base on a couple points. In fact most of his statement is quite inaccurate.
As I wrote elsewhere, I will even go so far as to point out a cardinal red flag of a fringe POV pusher - they attack Barrett and Quackwatch. Anyone who does that needs to be placed under observation, and a clue stick labelled "ban" held over them, ready for instant use if necessary. Attacking such reliable sources is a pretty obvious symptom that one's POV and ideologies are screwed up. Find anyone who is doing it, and you'll find such an editor....or someone who just doesn't have a clue, possibly because of ignorance of the issues regarding healthfraud, consumer fraud, and quackery. Please take this opportunity to understand the issues (by using Quackwatch) and become informed. That can only be done by studying both sides of an issue. Ignorance is no longer an excuse. -- Fyslee (talk) 18:25, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Note to everyone
Please read in detail the section Quackwatch#Notability at the article. Read the references. Keep in mind that this is a fraction of the available evidence, since critical editors have done all they could to keep such favorable mentions out of the article. There are plenty more from mainstream sources. -- Fyslee (talk) 18:25, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
References
  1. ^ Angell M, Kassirer JP (1998). "Alternative medicine--the risks of untested and unregulated remedies" (PDF). N. Engl. J. Med. 339 (12): 839–41. doi:10.1056/NEJM199809173391210. PMID 9738094. Retrieved 2007-12-28.

Statement by DreamGuy (talk)

I would hope that ArbCom would look past the (understandably, I suppose, considering, but not very helpful) angry tone of the above and take steps to fix the very real problem. We've been discussing QuackWatch on the Workshop page of the Fringe Science workshop page, and we've pretty well established that it's nothing like an unreliable source. ArbCom typically doesn't rule out sources as unreliable just in general, but it's especially odd they'd do so on one that fits WP:RS so strongly, and it's mentioning as such is being used by civil POV-pushers to try to remove a well known, extremely well-regarded and important source critical of their beliefs in fringe topics. DreamGuy (talk) 18:22, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Response to User:Geoff Plourde's comment that "Medical school curriculum does not cover the core concepts of chiropractic, acupuncture, or other CAM techniques." -- of course it doesn't, because they are not considered real medicine by any accepted medical expert or authority. That's like trying to argue that no biologist can weigh in on how absurd the notion of Nessie or Bigfoot existing in the real world because university biology courses and DNA studies do not include dissection practice on cryptids. Medical studies have examined chiropractic, acupuncture and other techniques. The individual behind QuackWatch is aware of these studies. That's why he says what he says, not because he is ignorant and incapable of saying anything educated on the topic, but precisely because he is well versed on the fields from a medical and scientific viewpoint. It's absurd to try to use your own personal opinion to rule anyone who disagrees with you as a bad source and expect Wikipedia to just follow whatever you say. DreamGuy (talk) 17:07, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Durova

This finding attempted to rule upon a content issue outside the Committee's remit. Although a necessary part of arbitration does relate to obvious calls such as the unreliability of citations to non-notable blogs, this was not that type of obvious call. The evidence upon which the Committee passed this finding was more emotional than factual (one party had been in a protracted lawsuit with the owner of the Quackwatch site) and regardless of what POV is at stake that is not a good basis for arbitration findings. I have no opinion about the suitability or unsuitability of Quackwatch for encyclopedic citations. This is a matter for the community to determine. DurovaCharge! 19:17, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Geoff Plourde

While I have a COI in this area, I believe that the finding regarding Quackwatch was accurate, but nonetheless procedurally wrong. Quackwatch is as heavily biased as any other blog site. The articles are written by an ex psychiatrist with absolutely no training in the areas he professes to be an expert in. Medical school curriculum does not cover the core concepts of chiropractic, acupuncture, or other CAM techniques. This website has no peer review system and considers all topics as pseudoscience. It is clearly the work of someone with a vendetta against anything that is not mainstream medicine. Unfortunately, I must agree with my worthy colleagues that the scope of this body does not include content, and therefore content rulings are moot. However I advise amending the finding to a suggestive finding stating that "Evidence has been presented that Quackwatch may be inadmissible as a source under policy." This is simply a statement of fact and not a content ruling, satisfying both the need to note the error of Quackwatch and remove the content intrusion. Geoff Plourde (talk) 19:39, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Response to Shoemaker's Holiday
Review of the case page did not turn up evidence to support my position. However I believe the finding about Quackwatch was based on behavior and not content. In no way does the Committee rule that Quackwatch is bad, simply that Fyslee has used it as a partisan source. this is supported by cursory review of Quackwatch and its purpose. Geoff Plourde (talk) 20:26, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Response to Fyslee
I must respectfully disagree with as regards the accuracy of Quackwatch. I present a statement by Ray Sahelian, MD [48] Dr. Sahelian is a currently practicing board certified family practitioner who in this statement points out the errors of Quackwatch.

Statement by Enric Naval

ArbCom made a ruling on content, and a bad one at that. It's being discussed on the fringe science case [[49]]. My 2 cents:

Barret is a knowledgeable/notable source on health and nutrition issues, and in quackery. From his own bio:
a scientific advisor to the American Council on Science and Health, a CSICOP's Fellow, FDA Commissioner's Special Citation Award for Public Service in fighting nutrition quackery in 1984. Honorary membership in the American Dietetic Association in 1986. Two years teaching health education at The Pennsylvania State University. 2001 Distinguished Service to Health Education Award from the American Association for Health Education. [50](not a literal quote)
but we can't use him as source because "he's engaged in advocacy"? No. (not to mention that there are not defined criteria to determine advocacy, so all sources showing a fringe belief in a negative light will inevitabily be accused of advocacy)

This finding is being used as a sledgehammer to kill references to a source that, as Shoemaker points out, is recommended by reliable sources on the relevant fields.

Statement by User:Martinphi

"As a result, the ACSH has been accused of being more of a public relations firm, and less of a neutral council on Science. " [51]

Well, maybe the site is reliable and maybe not. Looks like it might have some wise council sometimes. But that does not mean we should not prefer better sources when available, nor does it mean we do not attribute statements. If it weren't purportedly defending the mainstream, it would be considered a very unreliable source. Its "reliability" comes totally from its POV, since few here would for example think that the Parapsychological Association is an RS, although it is far more RS per policy. As it is, Quackwatch and similar sources should never be used unattributed, and I'm guessing that is the major point of contention in articles, as it has been in the past. I mean, read WP:RS. ——Martinphi Ψ~Φ—— 08:17, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]


Statement by User:Backin72

There is some evidence that Barrett is biased against alternative medicine. Please note that this is not just another way of saying "he has a pro-science bias (chuckle, well, shouldn't we all)". I mean that he holds alt-med, which like conventional med ought to rise or fall based on evidence, to an overt double standard.

"I won't even look through that telescope"

For example, from a Village Voice article: "Barrett believes most alternative therapies simply should be disregarded without further research. "A lot of things don't need to be tested [because] they simply don't make any sense," he says, pointing specifically to homeopathy, chiropractic, and acupuncture.

Homeopathy, I can understand; extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and the evidence to date is far from extraordinary. But chiropractic and acupuncture? Whether or not vertebral subluxation theory or qi and meridians strike you as bullshit, the practices of spinal manipulation and acupuncture (inserting needles at particular sites) are the subject of mainstream research, and show some promise in the treatment of pain (and nausea, in the case of acupuncture), according to the Cochrane Collaboration, a resource for evidence-based medicine. Cochrane, unlike Quackwatch, meets WP:MEDRS and takes the stance that more research is appropriate and necessary in these fields.

When Barrett refuses even to acknowledge that things like chiro or acu, which are physical procedures with plausible mechanisms, should even be studied before being dismissed, he's out on a bit of a limb. Dare I say, he's something of an extremist.

Quackwatch is "occasionally informative"

From the same Village Voice article, regarding Barrett's anti-evidence-gathering stance:

"He seems to be putting down trying to be objective," says Peter Barry Chowka, a former adviser to the National Institutes of Health's Office of Alternative Medicine. "Quackwatch.com is consistently provocative and entertaining and occasionally informative," Chowka added. "But I personally think he's running against the tide of history. But that's his problem, not ours."

Exactly. Barrett not only lacks objectivity, he derides it.

Ultra-mainstream IOM held to double-standard by... not-too-mainstream Dr. Barrett

The Institute of Medicine, one of the American Academies of Science and certainly one of the most prestigious and reliable English-language sources on medicine, conducted a study on alternative medicine ca. 2003-2005. Barrett criticized the panel for doing what any other panel on any other subject convened by the IOM would do: including members who had professional affiliations, sometimes including grant money, related to alt-med. This is disingenuous and a flagrant double standard, since a panel on radiology would obviously include some radiologists (some of whom were academics and therefor getting grant money), and so forth.

Such a double standard is plainly indicative of bias.

Conclusion

This doesn't mean that Barrett a/o Quackwatch can't be used as sources at all, but we should be mindful of their biases. Quackwatch does not even come close to meeting WP:RS, particularly WP:MEDRS. In my view, it should be used in situations where WP:PARITY applies, i.e. as a counter to fringe, vanity-type claims. When it comes to more mainstream alt-meds, like chiro and acu, we have far better sources meeting WP:MEDRS; there, Barrett has amply demonstrated his bias and should never be considered a reliable source. --Backin72 (n.b.) 08:52, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by User:John Nevard

It reflects very well on the quality of Quackwatch that the best critical quote Backin72 could come up with was from a Mr. Peter Barry Chowka in that well-known bastion of evidence-based medicine the Village Voice, and it reflects very poorly on the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine that he helped squander their tax dollars.

One simply has to examine his website.[52] The latest article is on "An International Story That Helped to Define 2008"- the terrible defeat of Thabo Mbeki, AIDS hero, and his anti-HIV treatment policies, which biased pro-science Western science found to have killed at least 330,000.[53] It namedrops fellow AIDS hero David Rasnick. And it shows up the mainstream scientific establishment, represented by Oprah Winfrey.

So there you are. If you accept the judgement of important public figuress like Chowka, Quackwatch is simply an entertainment site. Nevard (talk) 02:10, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

Arbitrator views and discussion

  • I did not agree with several aspects of the ruling at the time. The type of content that Quackwatch has gives it a slant and makes lean toward being a partisan source more than other medical resources, but is not an unreliable source and to characterize it as such is wrong. FloNight♥♥♥ 20:05, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • The title and text of the finding could have been better phrased and better explained, because Quackwatch can in some circumstances be used as a source. As I understand this request for clarification, it is largely asking for a ban on Quackwatch to be lifted. That is not possible because there was no such ban: It is not the job of this committee to determine whether sources are reliable. The substance of the finding stands in relation to the original case: Quackwatch, as a campaigning site, should be deprecated in favour of sites which do not have a particular agenda to promote. Sam Blacketer (talk) 12:55, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree in part with Sam above; I think more has been read into that ruling than was warranted. There is an observation that Quackwatch tends to be partisan, and should not be a preferred or exclusive source, but not that it is not a reliable source as is generally understood. — Coren (talk) 17:38, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • We can and should revise the wording of this FoF. John Vandenberg (chat) 00:52, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Suggest that we should revise the wording through issuing a clarification or correction, rather than changing the finding itself (which might have the effect of attempting to rewrite history). Sam Blacketer (talk) 01:05, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • Agree with Sam. We should not be changing past rulings themselves. — Rlevse • Talk • 01:08, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • Aye, that is what I meant. I would not be surprised if there is an appropriate FoF buried in the current wording, as there would be times when QuackWatch is an inappropriate source, however the current ruling implies that it is always an inappropriate source, which is wrong and needs to be corrected. John Vandenberg (chat) 11:27, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Deeming a source to be reliable or unreliable is almost always going to be a content decision and as such beyond our remit. However, as Sam says, the substance of the finding (that partisan sources should not be misused) stands; cf. this principle, for example. --bainer (talk) 02:59, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I tentatively agree with several of the comments above, but could a clerk please advise the arbitrator who wrote the original decision of this thread, as I would like to get his input, if any. Newyorkbrad (talk) 09:33, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Request to rename: Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Piotrus_2

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

  • None.

Statement by Geoff Plourde

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Committee;

I am filing this request after consultation with others. I believe that the current title of this case is not accurate due to the immense number of sanctions in this case, on users other than Piotrus. I am proposing therefore that it be renamed Eastern european disputes.

Geoff Plourde (talk) 01:15, 28 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Response to Rlevse
A motion was filed here, but Arbitrators did not act on it despite support from several members of the community. Geoff Plourde (talk) 01:56, 28 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Clerk note: This remark moved from the Arbitrators' section. AGK 02:12, 28 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Response to Kirill
The substantive benefit is that the name does not accurately reflect the scope of this case, even at acceptance. Geoff Plourde (talk) 02:01, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Response to Newyorkbrad
Due to the Arbcom practice of reviewing the conduct of all involved, the scope of this case at acceptance automatically became Eastern European disputes. The scope has been and always was this, therefore the name should reflect it.
Response to Flonight
I agree that in the current Arbcom practice, cases should not be named after one person. If a case involves the conduct of one person, then such is appropriate, but in the current methodology of reviewing conduct of all involved, this is impractical. Geoff Plourde (talk) 02:06, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Response to Sam
The fact of Piotrus filing the original motion would lead one to the assumption that he wanted this renamed? Geoff Plourde (talk) 05:22, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Response to Deacon
I must respectfully disagree. While you may believe that you filed on Piotrus, this isn't just about Piotrus. When arbitrators accepted this case, they specifically said "accept to look at all parties". By doing so, the scope automatically became anyone involved in Eastern European disputes. Even if this were not the case, the sheer amount of named parties would support a rename, at least to Piotrus and 20 others. Due to the scope, a rename is in order. Geoff Plourde (talk) 19:49, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Response to Motion 2
Can this be adjusted to "may be rejected, at the Committee's discretion" to reflect new information and special cases? Geoff Plourde (talk) 00:43, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by AGK

I concur with this. The Piotrus 2 arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t) involved 19 parties (or so), a substantial number of whom remedies were passed on; I don't think the current name is an appropriate title—nor one which accurately reflects the scope of the case.

Inaccurate naming gives a poor impression to editors reviewing the decision; remedying this would be a step in the direction of ensuring all decisions are easy to understand—a direction which, when proposed in the recent ArbCom RfC, the Community quite eagerly assented to.

I'm hoping the Committee can agree to retitle the case.

AGK 01:40, 28 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Durova

Good proposal. DurovaCharge! 01:42, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And to the arbitrators: this is too absurd to pass without a blog post.[54] DurovaCharge! 02:49, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Deacon of Pndapetzim

The case as launched was about Piotrus, renaming it distorts this and would be historically inaccurate. I didn't launch a case for all or general north-eastern european disputes (Poland, Germany, Russia & the Baltic are the countries/areas involved, not eastern europe in general), but against Piotrus, following on from Piotrus 1. Historically, the case launched was called Piotrus 2, and it is now over and that can't be changed. The arbs accepted the case and then proceeded to deal with anything subsequently raised in the evidence section, which made the case about North-Eastern Europe in general. So this would suggest splitting the case into something launched by me [and rejected?] and something dealt with by the arbs. Renaming it entirely would bury this historic fact. Moreover, Piotrus 2 follows neatly from Piotrus [1]. If it is to be renamed, make it North-Eastern Europe 2 or North-Eastern Europe 3 (with Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Piotrus-Ghirla as North-Eastern Europe 1 and Piotrus 1 as North-Eastern Europe 2). Additionally, there are other Eastern and North-Eastern Europe arbitration cases which evolved [through evidence sections] from one editor to include that one editor's main allies and enemies. There are of course even more in wikipedia generally. The principle has thus not been established yet. I oppose renaming for historical reasons, but oppose general renaming less. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 18:33, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by M.K.

I have been involved in this case primary due to continues problems surrounding user:Piotrus' behavior, not because the general Eastern European topics, as current proposal would imply. Renaming will make make unnecessary confusion - completely distort my motives why I participated in it, the whole evidence section will be out of context etc.

Personally I still fail to see any solid reasons why closed case should be renamed as such; we saw such attempts to rename first Piotrus arbitration case, (which was not implemented), there was attempts during and the second Piotrus case as well [55]. M.K. (talk) 20:20, 30 December 2008 (UTC) P.S. Now people are redrawing their statements, soon this case will be complete mess.[reply]

Idle comment by Orderinchaos

Given it affected many parties and Piotrus was not even the main sanctioned party (two users were banned and three restricted and two mentored, whilst Piotrus was only "urged, cautioned and admonished"), I think this is a no-brainer especially given it seems Piotrus himself had requested such a rename during the case. Orderinchaos 10:32, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

  • I've moved 1 comment by Geoff to his own section. If you'd like to respond to a comment by another editor in the thread or by an Arbitrator, you can do so in your own section; by doing so we avoid unnecessary threaded discussion in-Request. Thanks, AGK 02:12, 28 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Normally (as far as I know), case name is set when the case is opened (because there are numerous links and notifications). And there are various precedents where parties not indicated in case name have been sanctioned. - Penwhale | Blast him / Follow his steps 03:48, 28 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I changed a case name at close once to more accurately indicate what findings and remedies were made (Kuban kazak - Hillock65 became Kuban kazak). Its not a bad practice.--Tznkai (talk) 18:53, 28 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Motion is passed, will enforce right away. - Penwhale | Blast him / Follow his steps 10:07, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrator views and discussion

  • Question--did anyone ask this before the case closed, by any method? — Rlevse • Talk • 01:47, 28 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • We have not, traditionally, renamed cases merely because the final decision dealt with users whose names did not feature in the original title; the only occasions I can recall where we undertook this sort of change involved removing names, not adding them. I'm not convinced that the idea of matching the title with the scope, in and of itself, is worth the confusion that radically renaming the case will cause; is there some substantive benefit to doing so? Kirill 03:20, 28 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • It frequently happens that the final scope of a case winds up being different from what was anticipated, and we don't usually rename the case for this reason (except sometimes by dropping the name of a party who winds up not really being mentioned in the final decision at all). That being said, I might be willing to consider taking action here if Piotrus feels strongly about it; otherwise, there's really no reason to. Newyorkbrad (talk) 00:27, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm open to renaming this case. My preference is to never name a case after an user since it often causes them distress. In situation such as this one, I think that naming the case after a single user in not for the best since it over emphasizes his importance in the situation. FloNight♥♥♥ 13:58, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have no problem with renaming this recently closed case (to reflect final remedies). However, I'd recommend such requests be made within a week of the closure; otherwise we'll end up renaming cases closed years ago. -- FayssalF - Wiki me up® 17:15, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • It's a bit late but a rename would not be inappropriate if, as Brad says, Piotrus feels it is important. Sam Blacketer (talk) 19:55, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm not persuaded that a rename really serves any purpose here. If Piotrus had been shown to be behaving completely within policy at all times, I would agree there was justification to change the name, but he was indeed the subject of two remedies (a caution with respect to administrative privileges and an admonishment with respect to edit-warring). I find it unfortunate that this case was permitted to range as widely as it did, but it was the decision of the committee at the time and I will respect that. Indeed, if not for the issues identified with respect to Piotrus, there would not have been any findings on any of the other editors. Risker (talk) 00:21, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • The case amounted to a post-amnesty review of user conduct that had not been addressed under the existing discretionary sanctions. "Eastern European disputes" would be a reasonable title, though somewhat misleading as the case was not about articles at all (what with the sanctions mentioned already existing) but entirely about conduct. --bainer (talk) 02:54, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Motions

There are 17 active arbitrators, so 9 votes are a majority. 08:51, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

1) The case Piotrus 2 is to be renamed Eastern European Disputes and all subpages moved accordingly. Redirects will be left at the former name to prevent breaking internal links.

Support:
  1. — Coren (talk) 05:52, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  2. I support renaming a case, (and courtesy blanking, deleting personal information, inviting sensitive evidence to be submitted privately, and other means to help users feel less violated by the process.) This matches well our goal of dispute resolution since people that feel violated by the process have a more difficult time accepting the ruling and moving on. FloNight♥♥♥ 19:14, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Support and agree with FloNight. FayssalF - Wiki me up® 19:37, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Support and agree with FloNight. — Rlevse • Talk • 12:15, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Support. Sam Blacketer (talk) 12:46, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Support. John Vandenberg (chat) 01:01, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  7. Support, though pedantically "disputes" should be a lowercase 'd'. Carcharoth (talk) 04:25, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  8. Newyorkbrad (talk) 10:04, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  9. --Vassyana (talk) 15:32, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  10. Makes sense. Wizardman 17:09, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  11. FT2 (Talk | email) 03:49, 2 January 2009 (UTC) Don't name a case after a handful of specific editors if it's a more general case and not specifically about those editors per se.[reply]
  12. Support. Calling it "Piotrus 2" seems to me to unnecessarily personalise it. --ROGER DAVIES talk 07:10, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose:
Abstain:
  1. I don't see much value in the name change, but will not stand in the way. Risker (talk) 00:28, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Arbitrator Discussion of motion:

2) Any post-closure request for a case renaming should be submitted within 7 days (168 hours) of its closure. If this time limit is exceeded, the request will be rejected. Old cases closed before January 1st, 2009 are exempt from this motion.

Support:
  1. FayssalF - Wiki me up® 19:37, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose:
  1. I don't think that's necessary or useful; and I can see cases where either new information comes to light or the situation has changed sufficiently that it would be reasonable to entertain a request for renaming a case much later after the fact. I think that the Committee should remain able to examine such requests on a case by case basis, regardless of how much time has elapsed. — Coren (talk) 19:52, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  2. No need to state a general policy. Sam Blacketer (talk) 12:46, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Nothing should be locked in stone. John Vandenberg (chat) 01:01, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Though there should be a way to discourage frivolous renamings. More to the point here is that more attention should be paid to the name of a case before it opens, or while it is in progress. In this case, there was a proposal by Piotrus to rename the case. See here. If in-case renaming is too disruptive or prejudicial or pre-judgmental, or the degree to which the final scope may require renaming is unclear, then any renaming issues should be deferred to the end of a case and actively dealt with then. Carcharoth (talk) 04:40, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Per comments above, although in general I agree that it becomes less likely such a request would be granted after too much time passes. Indeed, ideally, these issues are raised (if at all) before the closing. Newyorkbrad (talk) 10:04, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Can't set something like this in stone. Wizardman 17:09, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  7. Concur that this has to be handled on a case-by-case basis. Risker (talk) 00:28, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  8. Unnecessary to set a formal limit. FT2 (Talk | email) 03:50, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  9. I agree with Risker. --ROGER DAVIES talk 07:14, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Abstain:
Arbitrator Discussion of motion:

Not user friendly for many people that will not know of the policy. If they file late it does not diminish the need. FloNight♥♥♥ 19:53, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with Flo. — Rlevse • Talk • 12:15, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I also agree with FloNight; there's little value in having a rule just for the sake of having a rule. Risker (talk) 00:28, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Request to amend prior case: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/JarlaxleArtemis 2

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


Statement by Martijn Hoekstra

Following discussion on WikiEN-l I would like to ask the Arbitration Committe to review the effective options we have to limit the impact of the disruptive behaviour of the individual behind JarlaxleArtemis (better known as Grawp). The measures we have used so far (as listed by soxred93: Huggle, ClueBot, Notices on IRC, Spam blacklist, Abuse filter (in the future), and as added by Christopher Grant, adminbots as Miza's) haven't been able to effectively stop disruption to a satisfactory level. His ISP, Verizon, has so far been unresponsive. Options that have been suggested are stronger attempts at contacting Verizon, preferably by people who have a clear connection to Wikipedia and/or the Wikimedia foundation. Another option discussed are various forms of placing large rangeblocks if Verizon remains unresponsive. It is clearly preferable if rangeblocking is not needed, but there are some voices that rangeblocks may be an option to make it known to Verizon that we are nearing our last resorts, and without their assistance to stop the abuse, we may have no other choise.

Therefore I would like to ask the arbitration committe to guide the discussion on the enforcement on the ban on Grawp, and on additional measures that can be taken.

Statement by JzG

The user is already banned and is unlikely to be anything else this side of the heat death of the universe. Anything else should be down to the community, and perhaps the office.

For the record, I think we definitely should contact Verizon and inform them that if they do not take action then we will have no option but to rangeblock them, I strongly suspect that the adverse PR which would attach to that would be sufficient even for them, but I guess it depends on which Verizon business unit we're dealing with and at what level. I had the devil's own job getting a major outage sorted, but our man in the States called the VP of Verizon global customer services on his cell (at his barbecue at home) and there was an engineer on site 15 minutes later. Maybe Jimbo can make the call if I get him cell number :-)

Anyway, it's not clear to me what change ArbCom can make here, irritating though this vandal undoubtedly is. Guy (Help!) 23:43, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by SirFozzie

I mostly agree with Guy. On Wiki activity such as rangeblocks will be of limited use, he already recruits folks to do his dirty work on various messageboards and the like. Any action to be taken can be STARTED with rangeblocks at the EN-Wiki level, but probably either ArbCom or various OFFICE members will have to recommend to the Foundation that certain actions be taken at the Foundation level to minimize the disruption of this persistent troll. SirFozzie (talk) 00:18, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Jéské Couriano

Didn't it mention on Jarlaxle's LTA page and at WP:BANNED that Jarlaxle was banned Wikimedia-wide before? In any case, I think this may have to go to the Foundation level or directly to his (apparently largely-clueless) ISP; Jarlaxle's been using SUL to impersonate and harass other users. I don't think a rangeblock will work too well; he's been using open proxies, as far as I am aware. -Jéské Couriano (v^_^v) 23:10, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

ADDENDUM) Is Verizon a member of the BBB in Jarlaxle's area? If they are, we can put pressure on the BBB to cut off Jarlaxle, as happened with Mmbabies. -Jéské Couriano (v^_^v) 23:14, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Durova

WP:DENY occasionally fails as a solution strategy. This is one of those times. Recommend ArbCom consider a formal complaint to the user's ISP, since the behavior obviously exceeds the boundaries of any normal terms of service. Persistent disruption has become a drain on volunteer morale. If ArbCom determines such action is outside its remit, then a formal recommendation of similar action to WMF would be in order. Respectfully, DurovaCharge! 21:42, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by other user

Clerk notes

Arbitrator views and discussion

  • The Arbitration Committee is aware of this problem. Obviously, in terms of traditional arbitration or community remedies, we are maxed out here—JarlaxleArtemis a/k/a Grawp is clearly as banned as a user can be. There has been some internal discussion of possible steps that could be taken beyond that, which I am sure will continue, and we will report to the community if at any point we have anything useful to add. Newyorkbrad (talk) 00:31, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Confirming that ArbCom is aware of the problem and we have discussed whether ArbCom should be involved in taking further steps, and if not us, who if anyone should. FloNight♥♥♥ 14:04, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • There is, at this time, very little that ArbCom could be doing directly in this matter. We are, nonetheless, examining ways ArbCom or the Foundation could help alleviate the problem. — Coren (talk) 15:47, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Nothing more to add, but noting here that I've been following the wiki-en-l mailing list discussion and participating in the internal ArbCom discussions. Some co-ordinated approach is needed for these types of problems, and hopefully something will emerge from the discussions. Carcharoth (talk) 04:46, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Decline - Grawp's a bit outside the scope of a finding at arbitration, don't you think? Such action as exists will happen whether or not a formal RFAR existed, and a formal RFAR would add nothing to it. A reasonable request, but Grawp is the kind of user that further RFAR's are not going to add anything. Discussion will happen regardless. FT2 (Talk | email) 03:54, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Request to amend prior case: TTN

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


Statement by Collectonian

I am requesting that the original restrictions against TTN be extended. Since they have lifted, he has returned to many of the behaviors that caused his initial restrictions, including wholescale merging of character lists to their main articles, characters to character lists, etc. He is doing all of these without any previous discussion and without performing any actual merging just redirects. He is doing no tagging before so issues may be addressed.[56][57][58][59][60][61][62][63][64][65][66][67][68][69][70] And he is completely ignoring/disregarding any on-doing merge discussions that may be happening on that page and falsely claiming he has "merged" the content rather than just redirected. While he is generally not edit warring after they are reverted, he has done some.[71][72] He is doing this silently, and ignoring all requests that he instead start discussions before doing such inappropriate merging as they almost always go against multiple-project consensus and a general overall consensus that fictional series can have a single character list.[73] If his edits are reverted, rather than start proper merge discussions, he takes the articles to AfD.[74][75] This seems to very much be the same sort of disruptive behavior that caused so much trouble before, and is causing hassles for multiple projects attempting to clean up articles. As such, I think the original restrictions need to be extended until TTN can learn to actually "work collaboratively to develop a generally accepted and applicable approach to the articles in question" rather than just clearing out dozens upon dozens of articles because he personally thinks "there is nothing to merge" despite consensus saying otherwise and thinks there is some deadline for cleaning up articles.

Addition: One of the most recent issues relates to List of D.N.Angel characters. This list already was tagged and had an active discussion to merge all of the character articles to the list. TTN came in, delinked the articles and redirected the individual articles to list, without performing a single actual edit nor really merging a single bit of content (despite his claim that he did by saying so in his edit summary).[76] When this was undone in favor of allowing them to be properly merged, he immediately took all of the articles to AfD. This is NOT following the normal nor proper process for dealing with fictional articles. There was already consensus to merge the articles, an AfD was neither nor appropriate. However, TTN wanted them gone NOW rather than allowing editors to do the merges properly, so he attempted to have them delete. And considering his earlier actions with randomly redirecting character lists to their main articles (wiping out almost all the information, then doing a mediocre "merge" of a few sentences to try to get around it)[77][78], it seems highly likely he would have revisited this list in another month and wiped it out completely.

I was one of TTNs supporters in earlier actions, but it seems he is getting worse and worse, acting purely on his own views rather than actual established consensus, guidelines, and project efforts. Regardless of the reason why, in the last ArbCom, TTN WAS restricted from this behavior. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 05:11, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Response to Guest9999
That is only accurate for a few of the minor characters. For others, much information was lost in the merges, such as Daiki Niwa's section. Also, proper merging should include going ahead and cleaning up stuff. If there wasn't some apparent rush, I would be really merging this PROPERLY by also adding the missing sources and doing fact checks, as was done with my many merges at List of Tokyo Mew Mew characters (currently being prepped for FLC). The lack of references is pretty irrelevant in this case, as he did not just leave out OR, but everything possibly salvageable from the original articles, including plot summary. And in the case of his redirecting character lists, tons of information was lost for no good reason at all. There is a right way and a wrong way to do this stuff, and TTN's methods are wrongs. He isn't even doing just one series, but doing some 10-20 per day, without discussion, falsely claiming he merged stuff when he did nothing but do a redirect, and leaving others to go back and clean up behind him. Yet some people act as if that's fine, yet will throw a right hissy fit over people doing "drive by tagging" because they didn't do any "real work." And though TTN has already been involved in multiple ArbComs, AN/Is, RfCs etc, he is still being allowed to continue being disruptive, despite requests and attempts to discuss alternative and better ways of dealing with the problem. He is showing no desire at all to actually work in a cooperative manner, only do what he wants the rest of the editing community be damned. Yet, others do similar things and its "hey, you stop that now because it isn't in line with consensus nor being a community." -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 20:38, 25 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by A Nobody

The most recent Administrators' noticeboard thread concerning the user in question is at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive500#User:_TTN_blanking_pages_after_discussion_says_KEEP. These mass nominations are attracting negative attention as seen at Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Archive 48#Deletion_spree. TTN has also removed a caution/warning from an admin who brought this up earlier and saying he is merely trying to get articles merged and redirected given his recent Articles for deletion (AfD) record is just not true. Notice that only about 25% of his AfDs were outright deleted (it is not called Articles for Redirecting or Articles for Merging), which suggests a remarkably poor "success" rate. AfD is not for merging and redirecting, but he apparently does not mind misusing it for that purpose as he admits here. These AfDs are becoming increasingly frivolous with sources that the nominator can and should have easily found himself (see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sissy and Ada, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Egon Olsen, and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Eddie Quist). Consider, for example, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Prinny. The article contains out of universe information easily found from Google searches (see Prinny#Cultural_impact) and yet at AfD it gets the same copy and paste bot-like nomination that once again does not accurately apply to all the articles being nominated. It is as if categories of fiction are just having their contents discriminately nominated even though some of the articles vary considerably in terms of potential and actual notability and verifiability. Even those who frequently argue to delete are starting to get annoyed with this (see [79]). Also, not sure where this was archived to, but there is a revealing diff there (this one), which shows TTN’s disregard for the community. It is telling when even admins who do close his nominations as delete are getting tired of the nominations as seen at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mainframe (C.O.P.S.) (yes, I know that nomination was actually by a different editor, but the wording is identical to part of the wording used in the copy and paste TTN nominations). From just today, see also [80] and [81] for additional quarrelling with other editors. In fact, he is driving people away from the project. So, the user is unwilling to discuss with admins who caution him (see [82]), is bringing articles to AfD that he admittedly wants merged or redirected but does not want to discuss with the actual article creators and writers on the articles' talk pages as they might argue against what he wants per [83], and has nominated well over 200 articles for deletion (see [84]), a minority of which were actually outright deleted (I gave a more detailed breakdown of his edits at Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Sgeureka#Oppose to contrast him with another editor). How many times does he have to be sanctioned before he alters his way of going about things? You know, to be fair, maybe there is something problematic about those of us with obvious biases participating in these discussions. Maybe they need new blood as it were. This is a big project and I think he can and should try his hand at something else like article creation or sourcing for a change. Show the community that you are not only about deleting things, but that you too can build content as well. Randomran and others with whom I have disagreed in AfDs have all made efforts to improve articles as well, as I tried to show at Sgeureka's RfA, and in some cases even offered the occasional “keep” argument in discussions. I cannot say to them, “You never argue to keep” or “You never add sources”, because they can prove that they have done these things. I urge TTN for his and the community’s sake to make a voluntary good faith effort to work on something other than deletions and you will at least make it that much harder for those to criticize you, because otherwise this copy and paste approach to nominations is very bot-like and thus does not truly consider the individual merits of the articles under discussion. Sincerely, --A NobodyMy talk 20:43, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Reply to Masem's 06:44 comment
Actually, he does focus on a large majority of articles from a single work of fiction at one time. Generally, he seems to pick one category or two a day and nominates a block of articles rapidly with the same word for word nomination regardless of the variance of the various characters or weapons notability (I have even seen some where characters are labeled weapons, weapons characters, etc.). Sincerely, --A NobodyMy talk 06:47, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment on Sgeureka's pie chart
So, that pie chart essentially shows that the bulk of TTN's nominations have been way off mark. As it is articles for deletion an overwhelming and decisive majority of the articles have been closed as something other than outright deletion. Thus, that chart effectively demonstrates that AfD is being used to circumvent regular merge discussions, as TTN has himself acknowledged in order to avoid discussions in which the regular editors of the article would be more likely to oppose (put simply, to avoid the will of those who actually write the articles) and to force merges and redirects by using the wrong venue, i.e. a clear and undeniable abuse of process. The chart additionally shows the shear volume in nominations that in effect overwhelm projects' efforts to rescue articles, which given as we don't have a deadline, there is no pressing urgency to delete these articles and halt all work on them right now forcing those who are willing to improve them to start over rather than building from a foundation. Sincerely, --A NobodyMy talk 18:46, 28 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment on another statement
Trying to circumvent discussing with the actual authors of the article is disrepectful to those who volunteered their time to contribute to our project and ignores the stances of those who are more apt to have specific knowledge of that particular work of fiction. If the community is extremely tired of anything, it is these indiscriminate mass nominations that circumvent normal merge discussion procedures. That is why editors of varying inclusion opinions keep starting these threads. The community is fatigued by TTN's efforts to just remove rather than improve articles concerning topics he is unwilling to improve himself. Given the tremendous disputes over and failure to yet compromise on a fiction guideline, trying to enforce one editors' belief of what it should be on everyone else is unacceptable. Sincerely, --A NobodyMy talk 22:20, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Reply to SirFozzie's supplemental comment
TTN is actually NOT working within any policy as we do not yet have any actual consensus on fictional notability. Rather, he is tendentiously copy and pasting the same deletion nomination for articles of sometimes wildly varying notability and with varying quality of sources in the article or found in simple Google searches. He is disrupting Wikipedia to make a point by flooding Articles for deletion with an overwhelming number of nominations while admittedly attempting to get around the input of those who might argue to keep the articles in question. Sincerely, --A NobodyMy talk 06:05, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Colonel Warden

I was picking up a few of the pieces of TTN's trail of destruction today. Aside from the aftermath of the unnecessary AFDs, I noticed that he took a big bite out of the Ringworld article in passing. This was done without any discussion and seems quite unhelpful since Ringworld is multi-award winning novel which certainly merits a good article here and the information included highly structured stats. I have reverted but might easily have missed this. As for Collectonian's complaints above, I have little direct knowledge of those articles but, if she considers TTN's treatment unacceptably destructive and dismissive then this is telling as I usually find Collectionian to be quite a hard-line deletionist. So, please restrain User:TTN again, as requested. Colonel Warden (talk) 20:55, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by not impartial and not-currently-but-formerly-partly-involved Casliber

I echo the above, and view Collectonian's position as highly significant and worth noting. I feel that TTN is unable to edit in a collaborative manner which is incompatible with the writing of an encyclopedia. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:59, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by New Age Retro Hippie

I find it worrisome with regard to his use of the AfD process - he's got roughly 43 active requests for deletion, and he's participated in roughly only two or three of the discussions in any of those. - The New Age Retro Hippie used Ruler! Now, he can figure out the length of things easily. 21:07, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And note, I'm not calling for probation or the b&, merely that TTN either needs to cut down on AfDs or increase his participation in them. - The New Age Retro Hippie used Ruler! Now, he can figure out the length of things easily. 04:43, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by TTN

I try work as collaboratively as possible with people, but there is a point where it is not possible to directly deal with fans or projects that feel the need to take two years to take care of small problems. I use a mix of merge discussions/strait merging, redirects, and AfDs to get things done, and of course some people will have a problem with it. Collectonian acts like I absolutely never deal with people, though I recently asked the video game project for input twice (here and here), and I do start merge discussions, though they are overshadowed by the number of articles that do not need to be merged at all. Other complaints are just issues of personal preference in dealing with bad articles (whether to tag first, only use talk page discussions for these kinds of articles, ect), so this is the kind of thing that belongs in a RFC/U or some other similar forum of discussion.

Statement by Ryan Postlethwaite

I believe this is being handled effectively by administrators and there's no need to sanction TTN at this point in time. The major problem we've had with TTN in the past is the edit warring to keep his merges/redirects in place. I still see the odd reversion, but nothing like what we were seeing 12 months ago. We encourage our editors to be bold and this is just what TTN is doing, if he steps back and starts edit warring again going against the bold, revert, discuss cycle then perhaps we can look again, but that's not happening at the minute. I do have some concerns about the way TTN merges his edits, and this led to a warning for not attributing edits properly (something which I will block for if he does it again, although a quick scan of his contribs shows he's attributing correctly at the moment), but that is a simple administrative issue which can be dealt with as such. To sum up - there's no need for the Arbitration Committee to step in here. Ryan PostlethwaiteSee the mess I've created or let's have banter 22:34, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Goodraise

(Edit conflict) As far as I understand it, TTN has previously been restricted for edit warring, which nobody here seems to accuse him of. - He has been accused of going "against multiple-project consensus and a general overall consensus that fictional series can have a single character list". Note, that this quote is not covered by the link provided. He has been accused of misusing AfD for merging. The diff provided, where he supposedly admitted this behavior, only shows him talking about redirects, not about merging. Are people actually expecting of him, to start a merge discussion, after a redirect of his has been reverted? What would he be supposed to start the discussion with? Perhaps, "I suggest article A be merged into article B, but since I can't find anything in those articles worth merging, someone else will have to perform the merger." Then, he has been accused of having "disregard for the community", as is supposedly evident by yet another misread diff. - TTN has picked himself a dirty job. And he is doing that job in an admirably civil way. A hothead like myself probably couldn't do it. -- Goodraise (talk) 22:37, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Black Kite

I have sympathy for both viewpoints here, but I think TTN is stuck between a rock and a hard place. There are a lot of articles, mostly fiction, that are candidates for either deletion, a merge or redirection, but how to deal with them? The obvious answer is to be bold and redirect/merge them, but often (and probably because it's TTN to an extent) this will get reverted, leading to the edit-warring problems we had before, which at least TTN has generally avoided this time. Adding merge tags is generally fruitless because many of these articles are so obscure and ignored that no reasonable discussion will ensue. And so we go to AfD, where - yes - many end up with results of Merge, but at least they've then got the weight of an AfD behind that merge. I know this is another layer of bureaucracy, but possibly some sort of parallel discussion page such as Articles for Merging (AfM?) is an idea which would cope with this. Black Kite 22:50, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Randomran

I think we need to be very specific about the problem here.

First what this is not.

  1. TTN's previous ArbCom case was not for merging or redirecting articles. It was for edit warring.
  2. There are a lot of people who do not like that User:TTN is being too WP:BOLD. There is absolutely nothing wrong with merging, cleaning up, even redirecting entire articles WP:BOLDly.
  3. If anyone, including User:TTN, makes a WP:BOLD edit that you disagree with, the correct action is to revert it.
  4. If anyone, including User:TTN, is unhappy with being reverted... the correct action is to discuss it. (This failure to do so is what led to his last punishment, which I agree with.)
  5. If the discussion results in no consensus, then solicit feedback from more editors.
  6. I haven't seen evidence that User:TTN is misusing the WP:BRD process.

But that said, I can see why this case keeps on coming back to ArbCom in good faith. (Although I suspect that a few people really just want to be rid of someone they disagree with, regardless of whether or not he follows our behavioral rules.) I don't think TTN is breaking any policies in any clear way (being incivil, failing to assume good faith, edit warring...) But I think that we need ArbCom to answer a few specific questions about more gray-area behavior:

  1. If your effort to redirect an article results in a revert, is it appropriate to solicit further discussion at an AFD?
  2. Is it disruptive to boldly redirect an article for issues that haven't been described through either a discussion or a tag?
  3. Is it misleading to summarize your edit as a "merge", when you've been highly selective in the content you've merged? (See: Wikipedia:Smerge#S)
  4. Is there such a thing as WP:GAMEing the WP:BRD process through sheer volume? If so, what is an appropriate level of activity, keeping in mind that some Wikipedians are highly active, and others only check in once a week, or less.
  5. Does the collective amount of these behaviors amount to WP:GAMEing the system? ("See #9: Borderlining".)

I would be uncomfortable penalizing TTN for any of these behaviors, because I think these are questions that nobody honestly knows the answer to. (At least, I sure as hell don't know the answer. Take #1 as an example: the vast majority of the AFDs that TTN puts together results in deletion or a redirect -- so it's not like he's particularly out of step with the community. But then again, it's not called "articles for redirection". It's not called "articles for discussion". It's articles for "deletion". Is an AFD an appropriate way to settle a disputed redirect? I think you'd get a different answer from everyone here.)

However... I do think we should find out if any of these behaviors are considered disruptive, so we can know once and for all where to draw the line. Once we have a clear line, there will be no excuse for crossing it. Vice versa, if these behaviors are acceptable, we also need to know. I'm a little tired of how ArbCom is being used here, when I don't think that other forms of dispute resolution have been tried. ArbCom should be used based on the quality of the behavior, not a judgment on the person. I don't see TTN doing anything remotely as bad as what he did around a year ago, and the fact that he was here a year ago should not turn every disagreement with him into a request for ArbCom to step in.

  • Additional comment: Something to keep in mind: TTN has no real power. AFAIK, he's not even an admin. He cannot delete content: only start an AFD. At most, he can redirect, which can easily be reverted if he's truly alone. Yeah, TTN has a lot of patience and time to go after lots of articles at a time. But he is not responsible for their deletion/redirection/merging any more than the article itself can be owned by a single editor. That responsibility belongs to the consensus of editors. It is literally impossible for TTN to singlehandedly override consensus. It is literally impossible for TTN to singlehandedly delete entire topics. Collaboration is too ingrained in WP's processes.

    Despite being unclear as to what TTN is actually doing wrong, I think there are legitimate questions in this RFAR. (I tried to pick them out above.) But many of the honest questions are being overshadowed by hyperbole. While I hope ArbCom disregards the hyperbole, I hope they don't disregard the honest questions that people have. I think we ALL want to know where to draw the line. It will prevent us from wasting ArbCom's time unless there's a real problem, and it will also show everyone (including TTN) how to behave.

    One more thing. The fact that most of us don't know where to draw the line would make it unfair to enforce some invisible behavioral policy upon TTN before it's been made clear. I think we should WP:AGF and presume that TTN has learned his lesson from the last arbcom case. We should assume that the new TTN wants to abide by our behavioral policies. (Indeed, he's stopped edit warring.) And if TTN is actually doing anything wrong (which many people don't think he is -- honestly and in good faith), then we should assume that the problem here is a lack of clarity in our policy, not a lack of cooperation. Randomran (talk) 03:48, 25 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Reply to DGG Moved from DGG's section per rules against threaded discussion. Daniel (talk)
Sorry to barge in, but I figured I could since you mentioned me by name. It sounds to me like your biggest issue is the quantity (or maybe the speed?) of the AFDs put forth by TTN. If so, then I don't really disagree with your overall message. Just that we need a clear statement about what a disruptive level of activity is. I would even be comfortable adding something to WP:GAME and WP:POINT for future reference, and would fight hard to make sure that rule stays there. Randomran (talk) 19:58, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Response to John Vandenberg

  • I'm very pessimistic about exploring how the restriction affected content. First off, this is a behavioral issue, not a content issue. Second off, since I expect a lot of people to take the bait on the question... I also expect a lot of people saying "things were so much better with the restriction! We need to stop TTN from deleting good content," while another group says "things were so much worse! TTN is helpful in that he flags a lot of bad content". In other words, you'll get an entirely partisan answer. Finally, TTN can't delete content. He can only nominate it, or boldly redirect it. Are we going to treat him as though he WP:OWNs the changes, when others added their analysis at AFDs, merge discussions, and assisted with redirects and merges? That seems like a double standard. Randomran (talk) 17:09, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Peregrine Fisher

Wikipedia is not cleaned up in a day, because it's a lot of work, and people's feelings will get hurt. TTN seems to have taken the job on by himself, and he's forced to cut corners and ignore other peoples feelings. TTN needs to learn to play nice and work with other people. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 23:14, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment to a few of the TTN supporters here. I don't disagree that TTN enforces our policies and guidelines. This case reminds of a few other arbcom/ANI situations. It's the question of whether someone who is a "net gain" is allowed to, basically, be mean to other editors. It seems the answer to this is sometimes "yes". I personally believe the answer should be "no". I don't know if arbcom can answer this question in some general way, but it would be cool if they could/did. Let's say TTN correctly cleaned up 10,000 articles, and alienated 100 editors (I think those numbers are within a factor of the real numbers). Is that OK? If TTN alienated just DGG, that would be too much for me. 10,000 articles to 10 IPs? Maybe that's OK, I don't know. I think a positive result of this situation would be that TTN, under penalty of small blocks, must work collaboratively with others. A big block just makes him take time off, then go into maximum attack mode (within whatever restrictions are on him), as far as I can tell. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 09:02, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by DGG

Let me word this as a reply to Randomran, A occasional or closely targeted bold redirect without discussion is not disruptive--I've done this myself from time to time, even on characters when I see an obviously unsupportable article and a good target. [85] Dozens of them in close succession for multiple article groups are disruptive. It is not wrong to try for a redirect as a compromise, and if not obtained, to try what you really wanted, which is deletion. It is wrong to do so routinely for multiple article groups. Nominating 5 articles in one day for deletion is reasonable. Systematically nominating 5 items or more a day, every day, is not. TTN has a valid point--the articles on these subjects are horrific--anyone coming here will soon see this. But the way to improve them is through discussion and cooperative work, not rushing "madly off in all directions" Stephen Leacock, disregarding all opposition. To nominate articles for lacking references to show notability is useful.[86] To refuse to check first is not so good. (as in every AfD he's placed) To reject references when offered is not good. (multiple afds) To reject even awards as showing it is probably even worse [87]. It shows a determination to be rid of the articles regardless of how. To nominate for deletion or redirection or destructive merging in very large quantities without cooperative work results in random articles being handled in incompatible ways, which is not helpful--especially when done regardless of the importance of the underlying subject [88]. It results in decision by trying to wear out everyone else, and hope to be the last person standing. In desperation, to reduce our areas of interaction, I came on line today intending to propose to TTN that I would simply abandon defense of some classes of articles (games, and children's video), if he would cease trying for the deletion or quasi-deletion of som other classes (classic fiction & works based on classic fiction). Some people, even looking from outside at WP, have called me "patient," [89], (7 paragraphs from the bottom); for my discussions see my talk page archive on fiction. But he is driving me away from the topic to the extent that I am some days reluctant to start looking at the latest AfDs, or even at WP at all.

I have repeatedly online and offline offered to work with TTN on these articles, as I work with others--and when i do , I give very orthodox advice. [90]. I've worked cooperatively in a friendly & constructive way with people I consider rather extreme deletionists, such as Orange Mike. The only people who have ever not been willing to are a few trolls and SPAs--and TTN. I have specifically offered many times to help with proper merges, [91] (for example) since it is true that sometimes appropriate redirects or merges that he proposes are unreasonably rejected, and I've been ignored--possibly because I offer to help only for the appropriate merges. [92] WP:BRD only works if all three parts are followed--otherwise its bullying or obstruction. There are three things to which a wiki is extremely susceptible: zealots, refusal to discuss, and gaming. See the unanimous WP:Requests for arbitration/Episodes and characters 2#Principles arb com view on this DGG (talk) 00:12, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Reply to Masem
nobody but TTN does this quantity, and does it without discussion. The quantity is the problem. "Any sin if persisted in will become heinous" Samuel Johnson. I'm referring to refusal to discuss as the "sin," not deletionism) DGG (talk) 06:01, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Caissa's DeathAngel

It is tough to say whether TTN is actually breaking the rules here. Certainly, individually his actions are in agreement with WP:BRD. However, these are not isolated incidents, these are a huge number of incidents and I believe that collectively they may well be gaming the WP:BRD. Articles for Deletion is not to my mind a place for redirects and mergers. While merge and redirect may be an outcome of the process, no article should ever be submitted there with that intention in mind. I also believe that discussion should occur before an article is sent to AFD. It is very easy for us as editors to occasionally let something lie a little too long, and we may need a bit of prodding (no pun intended) to remind ourselves to sort an article which may be a candidate for deletion. But that discussion should to me come before the AFD. Attempting a redirect straight away I do not object to. I do however object to the article being sent to AFD immediately upon the redirect being reverted, especially when the revert edit summary requests a discussion. That discussion may lead to the merge/redirect being vindicated, but at least the discussion will have happened. To me, the best place for this discussion is on the article's talk page, or that in to which it is suggested it be merged. Not AFD, which is not in any way a discussion page.

Does the fact that so many cases of this amount to justification for extending sanctions on TTN? I would feel more comfortable if that were the case, but that is no what this is about and it would be a gross violation of policies to let my personal feelings affect how this judgement should be made. Perhaps the best solution is requesting that TTN cool off with his use of WP:BOLD and perhaps engage in discussion a bit more readily before sending articles to AFD rather than letting the AFD be the discussion. Whether there is any basis for this to be enforced or an official judgement however I leave to those better versed in such interpretations than I to decide however. Caissa's DeathAngel (talk) 00:26, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by nifboy

In my mind the discussion of many similar articles has, for articles TTN is not involved in, gone something like this:

Editor1: {{plot}} Editor2: {{sofixit}} 2 years go by without any substantial change. Maybe a small-scale edit war but nothing substantial unless Editor1 is dedicated enough to basically rewrite the article from scratch, which can only really be done for high profile articles (hence the success of the Final Fantasy Project, for which step 1 was basically "Merge together a whole bunch of middling characters").

I don't think this is tenable in the long term. So when TTN comes along as asks, "Guys, can we talk about these articles now?" I generally approve. Even if the article hasn't been tagged before, getting the issue on the table and making sure people know about it right away is preferable to letting it stagnate before doing anything about it. Nifboy (talk) 02:06, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by SirFozzie

Agreed with Ryan, I'd hope ArbCom quickly rejects this "Clarification" as yet another attempt to sanction TTN for behaviour that complies with Wikipedia policies. SirFozzie (talk) 02:09, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Supplemental Statement by SirFozzie Re: Coren's motions

I would suggest that the other side be just as wrist slapped. See the ANI section on Pixelface yet again edit-warring to try to take WP:PLOT out of the realms of Wikipedia policy (so they can keep all the cruft articles that get generated). Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Pixelface_and_WP:NOT.23PLOT for the recent discussion and and Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Pixelface for the result. This is a two way street, and to be quite frank, TTN is the one acting more within policy on this one. SirFozzie (talk) 19:35, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by KojiDude

FWIW, I beleive the statements posted by A Nobody and Collectonian bring up very real problems, (with evidence to boot, something many arguments here lack [including mine, ironicly]) which need to be considered. It seems to me that TTN has realized very little about the issues his rapid nominations and editting patterns raise, and it would be a net positive to have the sanction restored. Dude needs to chillax.--Koji† 03:24, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Protonk (talk)

As I am a poor writer, I will begin this with a caveat. While this issue itself appears perennially before Arbcomm without apparent differentiation from request to request, I agree that each request can be made in good faith. Like all content/conduct disputes, no one here has the benefit of speaking from stoic impartiality. The folks calling for TTN to be restricted are probably genuinely interested in stopping conflicts and encouraging dialogue. They are probably also interested in being rid of TTN. The folks (like me) calling for this to be dismissed are also genuinely interested in working in the 'pedia harmoniously. We are also interested in protecting folks like TTN from being censured, restricted or blocked. Both of our camps' concerns (where they are direct or proxies) are legitimate. TTN isn't the white knight simply because 90% of fiction articles are 'bunk'. Nor is he the bad guy simply because he proceeds aggressively and methodically.

Having equivocated, I'll try to move to the point. This motion should be rejected as it stems from a vague admonition in E&C2 ("The parties are instructed to cease engaging in editorial conflict and to work collaboratively to develop a generally accepted and applicable approach to the articles in question"), is largely unchanged from previous rejected motions, is (as Randomran points out) unrelated to the disputed issue in E&C2, and hinges upon what is a thorny community issue.

  • Previously rejected motions were argued before the committee with the same collection of information and basically the same motivation. Upon the expiry of TTN's restriction, he moved immediately into the prior area of dispute and began editing specifically within the guidelines set by the case. As he (and others) has said multiple times, the use of AfD and placement of redirects is the only venue allotted him to clean up or remove articles on fictional works. Unless we present some clear reasoning why this request is different from all the others we find ourselves in a position where the committee is being used as a standing threat against an editor proceeding along their normal editing path. The result is a chilling effect against editors who wish to clean up articles on fictional subjects. Either something novel should be addressed here or the motion should be rejected.
  • The impetus for E&C2 and the reason for restriction were the same. TTN was edit warring to maintain articles in his preferred state. If we want to ask for community action on his actions which are manifestly different from edit warring, we should be filing a new RFAR. If we think that the community cannot answer the questions his behavior poses, it might be time to do so. But we can't just keep using the result of E&C2 as an albatross around TTN's neck. Unless the suspect behavior is the same, the remedy should be different.
  • Finally, and most importantly, this problem isn't a user conduct issue. Or it isn't solely a user conduct issue. TTN is still doing this because he has the patience and the motivation to do so--not because of some unique malevolence or mania. The community is close to answering the fictional notability question (see WP:FICT), in the middle of answering the 'spinout' question (see the WP:N RfC) and nowhere near answering the merger/deletion/redirect question (in other words, answering the question of what the appropriate fora for these discussions are). Until those questions are answered and some process exists to discuss mergers centrally and enforceably within or without AfD, we cannot use the ARB as a blunt instrument to prevent those merger discussions from occurring.

TTN has a pretty impressive record at AfD of nominated articles eventually being deleted, redirected or merged. He's not doing it to prove a point. He's not tilting at windmills. If we don't like the outcome of his discussions or don't like the volume of them, that's tough. So long as we don't see deletion nominations rejected by the community or some recurrence of past behavior, we should not continue to bring these requests here.

An update with some comments

Ok, this request seems to be settling on two things:

  • Fait accompli: E&C 2 contained another provision that discussion is not to be overwhelmed by editing rate. If TTN is in violation, this is the likely problem. However, I want to caution the committee against interpreting this to mean discussion moves at the same rate in all venues at all times, nor should they treat discussions as a convoy where the pace is determined by the party wishing to proceed the slowest. More specifically: AfD discussions are centralized, semi-formal and predictable where talk page merger discussions are free form, local and relatively open ended. The expected speed that a talk page merger discussion would proceed at is not the expected speed that an AfD would proceed at. Consequently the rate at which new discussions can be opened or closed is different. 3-5 or even 8-10 AfDs a day is not an unheard of pace nor is it fast enough to presume that TTN is choosing the pace in order to disrupt opposition.
  • Out of process mergers: This is the second major 'charge' against TTN that appears to be materializing. To me, it is less compelling than the first. The community is currently at a point where policy (WP:DEL and WP:AFD) does not match with practice. The policy says that merger discussions are to be remanded to talk pages and not discussed at AfD. This plainly ignores practice--AfDs result in redirects and mergers all the time (fiction AfDs especially because they have a logical parent article). We should assume (this won't be hard to do) that TTN has a good faith belief that every article he nominates should be deleted. If we (the community of people that read the AfDs and comment) say "merge" or "redirect" that doesn't somehow void the AfD itself. Likewise the fact that every fiction article has a logical parent isn't grounds to force editors to engage in a merge discussion perfunctorily just in order to go ahead with an AfD. ArbCom stepping in and enforcing this will do just that. Protonk (talk) 08:24, 25 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by MuZemike

I do not see what I would call any significant signs of edit warring as a result of TTN's extreme usage of the BRD process that would constitute any restrictions in terms of this RFAR case. If users wish to nail TTN for mass-AFDing articles or for abusing the BRD process to the point of gaming the system, then use the dispute resolution process as intended, just as the WP:BEFORE process should be used as intended prior to nominating articles for deletion. Hence, I believe this to be another attempt at forum-shopping with ArbCom until the desired effect is achieved.

However, (huge caveat not present in my previous statement in the last request for clarification) even I find it a trifle annoying when I traverse through the day's AFDs and see the same types of articles nominated with the same reasons for and against deletion and with the same users going after each other like in some sort of a dog fighting ring. If users wish to nail TTN for that (along with the merge/redirect issues), it seems that starting at RFC/U (as boldly recommended by a very conscientious editor here) would make more sense and then work from there. I am afraid, however, that the community's patience especially those returning to this RFAR case is wearing thin; I don't know if the community is willing to wade through the lengthy process anymore. Hence, I think, in the near future and especially with the new arbitrators coming in, there will be a lot of friction between the Wikipedia community in general and the ArbCom to get troubling issues resolved. MuZemike (talk) 04:37, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Sceptre

Yawn. Of course, it just wouldn't be RFAR without people screaming for E&C modifications to get rid of TTN... every other week. Sceptre (talk) 04:40, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Masem

I have to agree with others that TTN is following the same process than anyone can for approaching merges of content, and he is pretty spot-on in identify articles that are inappropriate per guidelines, including the in-progress FICT that has been developed across a wide range of editors. If this was anyone else but TTN, people would simply blink and move on, since these fall into the bounds of suggested methods of editing. As long as it's understood that a "merge" result from AFD is completely acceptable from discussion, and (as been pointed out before to TTN, which it looks like he's following) the merge is noted in the merge target per GFDL, it's hard to see what TTN is trying to do as requiring any action above and beyond what admins can do. --MASEM 04:50, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Reply to DGG's 06:01 comment

If TTN was focusing on a large majority of articles from a single work of fiction at one time, as to invoke the fait acomopli approach that he was warned about before, then yes. But from the checking I've seen, he does maybe a few articles from different works, or when there is a block, he will put a multiarticle AFD togther. (I don't think this is 100% perfect, but this is from spot-checking). Both of these help to make sure that the articles that should be kept will be caught by those that want them to be without overloading them. The other thing seems to be that TTN does monitor those article he deletes, which is much better overall than "drive-by" editing Given that the general barrier to deletion/merging of an article seems to be much higher than the creation, "rapid tagging of articles for AFD" does not seem to disrupt WP save for those whose areas of fiction of interest are being merged. --MASEM 06:44, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Nsk92

Basically I agree with everything Collectonian said. Agressive mass redirects without discussion on articles where there is an active and still largely unresolved controversy about notability are clearly disruptive and it looks like TTN's behaviour is getting worse. It appears that TTN has not learned the lessons from the previous arbcom sanctions. Extending and expanding those sanctions would seem appropriate. Nsk92 (talk) 06:55, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A few general extra comments. Some editors here suggested that an RfC or a WP:AN discussion or individual administrator intervention may be more appropriate courses of action here than an arbcom action. I don't think that is correct. In view of the massive number of articles affected by TTN's actions, this is not a problem that can be easily dealt with by individual administrators (and, in fact, a coordinated approach is preferable). Given how divisive the fiction notability wars are, it is rather unlikely that a WP:AN discussion would produce any conclusive result and to some extent the same is true about an RfC (which may still be useful, but would take quite a long time whereas the disruption caused by TTN's continued actions is considerable and ongoing). It does seem to me exactly like a case where expanding arbcom's previous sanctions is the right and most efficient remedy, at least in the interim. It is true that the previous arbcom sanctions on TTN were concerned with edit warring, but their intent was clearly to prevent disruption and since as prectice shows they were not sufficient, it is appropriate to expand those sanctions. User:A Nobody raises some valid points and examples above. It does look like many of TTN's AfD nominations are done fairly indicriminantly, with something close to a templated nomination text and with no real attempt to find sources first and to see if an article is salvageable. This type of behaviour is contrary to WP:DEL's intent and, when done on a massive scale, is disruptive. I should say that personally I am fairly indifferent to the issue of notability of fiction articles and the related notability wars; but I do want them to be resolved in some way since these notability wars destabilize WP:N and other notability guidelines. To the extent that I do have a position on the issue of fiction articles, it is probably fairly close to that of TTN. But I think the kind of WP:BATTLE unilateral tactics TTN deploys are inappropriate and disruptive and some more constructive approach aimed towards establishing consensus on underlying issues is necessary. Waging a one-user all-out war against fiction articles on Wikipedia is not the answer. Nsk92 (talk) 14:10, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Nihonjoe

I think TTN means well. I don't think there is any malicious intent in what he is doing. However, his methods tend to be very disruptive and don't lend themselves to achieving a useful end result. As many others have stated here (and elsewhere), it's not what TTN is doing, it's how he's doing it. I think that if he made a more concerted effort to work with the community he is so intent on "reforming" he would find there is already an effort underway to make all the improvements he seems to want. Granted, they aren't moving as fast as he seems to want them to, but he needs to understand that there are only so many people who can do the work, and flooding them with additional work in the form of all the AfDs and other issues he piles on only makes them have less time to do the actual cleanup work already on their plates. While there may be members of WP:ANIME who may think they want TTN gone, I think what they really want is for TTN to work with them rather than rumbling over the top of them. If TTN shows that he can and will actually do this, rather continuing on his merry way—damn the torpedoes—when whatever restrictions are placed on him expire, then I think there can be a solution to this issue which will be good for everyone involved. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 07:54, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Y|yukichigai

As Kirill pointed out, the fait accompli principle from E&C2 covers this situation. This is a perfectly rational request for clarification and/or amendment, because it looks like TTN is attempting to accomplish his goals (once again) by way of fait accompli.

I'm not going to say TTN is wrong in wanting to merge some of this content. I'm not even going to say he's wrong in declaring some of it completely unfit for Wikipedia. I will say he's not right about all of it. More importantly though, he's going about it completely wrong, proceeding on a delete/merge/redirect binge with no regard to the community or even existing merge efforts.

Yes, he isn't edit warring currently, but I'd argue it's only minimally reduced the, shall we say, "pissed off" effect his edits generate. Much of the community does not welcome his contributions or even presence, and strongly enough to complain to administrators and the arbcom semi-regularly. That sounds like reason enough to examine a re-extension of his editing restrictions. -- Y|yukichigai (ramble argue check) 08:47, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by sgeureka

I have high respect for the work of Collectonian and TTN, and while TTN is doing a lot of good work by being bold, it will occasionally backfire when other good and sincere editors like Collectonian stand up to deal with the cleanup issue in a different manner (usually with the same end result - the unimprovable bad standalone articles will be gone). Nothing that a reminder of Wikipedia:Assume good faith and Wikipedia:There is no deadline can't solve (this applies to both parties), so no arbcom involvement is necessary. – sgeureka t•c 11:54, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statistics for User:Jayvdb (John Vandenberg)
File:TTN AfD results September through December 2008.JPG
TTN's AfD results Sept-Dec 2008

Following User:Jayvdb's request, I reviewed all of TTN's AfD noms since the end of his arbcom restriction in September 2008. You can see the proportional results of his ~550 AfDs in the graphic on the right (no guarantee for absolute correctness, and group nominations were still only counted once). I won't offer interpretations of these statistics, although I'd call attention to his does-this-deserve-an-article sensor (as opposed to the widely-held view that AfD is only for deletion). TTN still boldly merges and redirects, but now usually starts discussion (AfD or merge proposal) if he gets reverted.

In comparison, TTN initiated only 40-50 AfDs during his then-1.5-years wiki career before his arbcom restriction in early 2008 (with varying results), and he merged/redirected mostly boldly and edit-warred to keep redirects in place at that time. It's impossible to analyse other effects of the arbcom restriction on TTN's edit behavior, since he did not edit (much) during the restriction after the vagueness of the arbcom restriction had resulted in several AN/I and RFAR threads about his edits (I'd have done the same thing in his position). I will not provide specific examples either way, as e.g. 50 diffs of piss-poor decisions on TTN's part (which undoubtly exist) ignore the sheer volume of his area of work (thousands and thousands of affected articles) where he was spot-on. – sgeureka t•c 17:54, 28 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(replies)

  • Is that 550 AfDs, or 550 articles listed at AfD? - ~550 AfDs including maybe a dozen group noms (TTN rarely group-nominates articles these days, as they backfire so often as seen at e.g. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ring Mao, which was snow-kept and later deleted when individually listed)
  • why so many - I can only guess, but there may be no other option for TTN. Fan IPs can (and often do) revert any bold merger/redirect of popular yet nn articles, TTN can't revert them per his former arbcom restriction, and AfD is the only community-sanctioned way to confirm that the articles shouldn't (or should) exist.
  • Any chance of a cummulative line or bar chart of TTN AfDs? - What do you want to see exactly?
  • The number of merge outcomes is also a worry, as our procedure for merge is Wikipedia:MERGE#How_to_merge_pages - There is no wiki process like Wikipedia:Articles for redirection when an editor feels there is nothing to merge, e.g. when the whole article consists of WP:UNDUE WP:PLOT mixed with WP:OR and is already summarized in a parent list (my guess is that at least 80% of all individual fiction subarticles suffer from this).
  • Also helpful would be stats and graphs of AfDs in this topical area that were not raised by TTN. - Based on the history of Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Fictional characters during TTN's restriction, there seemed to be ~40 character AfDs a month that weren't initiated by TTN, and I guess there were and are an additional ~15 AfDs for episodes, fiction lists or other fictional elements per month. Let me be clear that these AfD results are in total ignorance of performed mergers. I rarely initiate fiction AfDs but have still successfully merged/redirected/prodded ~2000 bad fiction articles in the last 12 months (maybe 50% without discussion), but then again, my chosen focus are abandoned bad fiction articles.

– sgeureka t•c 14:28, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Sephiroth BCR

As people have previously noted, TTN was originally brought before ArbCom due to his edit warring, none of which is apparent here. What this report is ultimately about is TTN being impatient in attempting to subvert the existing venues for merging the articles of articles that fail our notability guideline when the Anime and manga WikiProject has a very effective cleanup task force that has a proven track record of successfully merging articles without loss of content or the mess of repeated AfDs. In several recent AfDs (see [93], [94], [95], [96]), he attempted to move around a merge discussion that was already in motion here. Whether he believes that there is "no content to merge" or not, he has no reason to take matters into his own hands when editors of the anime and manga project were fully capable of handling the situation and ensuring that the information was merged properly (and the merge discussion is in support of a merge too!). I realize that TTN may be cynical of any such efforts due to long experience of fictional walled gardens in which such merge discussions never produced any substantial change, but it has been repeatably pointed out to TTN (see [97], [98], [99]) that the cleanup task force for the anime and manga project is capable of performing such merges and that his intended goal will be fulfilled in any case. Now, I respect TTN's work. I believe that he does a lot of good for the project, but he needs to show the necessary discretion in realizing where his efforts can best be focused. If anything, I would ask him to respect the existing processes, and leave the job for them rather than going through everything with a chainsaw. — sephiroth bcr (converse) 12:49, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by MacGyverMagic

Finding the diffs to back all this up will take a while. Please be patient.
  1. As User:MuZemike has said above, I have considered opening an RFC on this editor's behavior. While I can see merit in the idea that a lot of these articles need merging (I even defended a recent merge of his), I find that the way he goes about achieving his intended goal is disruptive.
  2. TTN has nominated articles for deletion where a redirect or merge was undone even though the merge discussion was still ongoing with no concensus (and even though the redirect/merge could have been reinstated). The particular case I remember was split 2-2 between support and oppose on the merge. This seems to indicate that he wants immediate solutions.
  3. Another indication of his immediatism is the sheer amount of deletion nominations he makes in a day. It makes it impossible for interested parties to improve all the affected articles in time because they're given too much work at once.
  4. In a previous arbcom ruling which had as one of the supported principles: "Editors who are collectively or individually making large numbers of similar edits, and are apprised that those edits are controversial or disputed, are expected to attempt to resolve the dispute through discussion. It is inappropriate to use repetition or volume in order to present opponents with a fait accompli or to exhaust their ability to contest the change. This applies to many editors making a few edits each, as well as a few editors making many edits." TTN was restricted in that debate but has again started in the behavior that that RfArb found to be disruptive.
  5. There is also no indication that he checks if the article is verifiable, rather than verified per WP:BEFORE before nominating an article for deletion. In his nominations he says that the subject is not independently notable from the main topic, which supports the idea that the articles does not warrant its own entry, but he never suggests or considers merging the articles he's nominating (in whole or in part). Just because something isn't independently notable, doesn't mean it's unverifiable or unencyclopedic and shouldn't be covered at all.
  6. Furthermore, there are basic disagreements on what constitutes reliable sources when people make attempts to improve articles TTN nominates (contrary to what he says, you only need multiple sources to indicate notability, for verifiability only one suffices) Whether a source is reliable is something to discuss too if it is contentious and shouldn't be decided by a single editor.


In short: I believe this editor should be restricted from making mass nominations on AFD and only make merges/redirects after the extend of the merges in question have been thouroughly discussed (and editors have been given sufficient time to address any issues). - Mgm|(talk) 13:21, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by TheFarix

The issue with TNN's recent actions is that he is refraining form the consensus building process because, as he already stated above, it is too slow and sometimes result in outcomes he disagrees with because of "fandom". While he and his supporters are citing WP:BRD to justify his actions, one must remember that WP:BRD is meant to initiate the consensus building process. Building a consensus is one of the fundamental cornerstones in editorial decision-making. Instead, TNN has is using WP:BRD to bypass this consensus building process altogether. --Farix (Talk) 14:15, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Kung Fu Man

I'm going to say up front this is pointless. TTN does do a lot of mass deletion and blah blah blah, but at the same time, so do many other editors, myself included. Yes, he can be a stubborn jackass and push things to an extreme when he feels something should be a certain way. Then again, we all can. I've butted heads with him on more than one occasion, but I've also seen him actively question himself if his standards were too high and back down when it was shown editors were working on an article.

In the cases of these merges and redirects he's getting the hammer for, I'll be blunt: almost every one (there are exceptions of course) I've seen has been an article with an extreme narrow scope where a merge or redirect would be a better idea than a full article, because notable or not enough information doesn't readily exists to make a full fledged encyclopedic article despite all the jumping up and down over how notability must exist because one brief mention is found. If that was enough for an encyclopedic subject we'd see an Ash McGowen article singing my praises; thankfully it isn't and common sense needs to apply, in that there is a lot of cleaning needing to be done on Wikipedia.

TTN should definitely cool his jets more, but other editors should too, and realize what discussions are worth having. Encyclopedic content is not being lost by a merge, nor by a removal of content than on the surface appears to be unsourced original research. I think if you want to enforce anything, push for editors to not go to him when they feel an article should be removed and instead take care of it themselves and get the blame good or bad.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 14:41, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Gazimoff

I have nemtioned this at at a Request for Clarification, both in one I initiated shortly after TTN's editing restriction came to an end here, and in one I commented in about a month later here. In both cases, the request for clarification was dismissed despite several concerns raised.

To clarify the point, for those who seem to miss it through my verbose discussion of the argument previously:

  • My concern is not regarding the edits as individual actions, but the large quantity of edits in a short space of time that presents a fait accompli.

By bombarding editors with a large quantity of redirects or AfDs, you reduce their ability to react meaningfully to each individual one. If there was a single AfD on a specialist topic at a given time, you would expect a deep and meaningful discussion along with some work to improve sourcing and other requirements. Once this is scaled up to 50 AfDs, the editing resource is stretched so thinly that it can't possibly meet the demands of every discussion happening.

My final concern is Arbcom's reluctance to grasp the nettle and deal with the issue one way or another. Either grant TTN carte blanche to perform contentious edits as heavily as he can manage, or call time on his actions and rein him. Without a clear message either way, I can assure the members of Arbcom that another Request for Clarification will be raised by another well-meaning yet concerned editor within another three month period. Gazimoff 15:34, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by PeaceNT

Wikipedia is a collaborative project; collaborative being the operative word. Though it would be unreasonable to require everything be discussed in advance, editors should not constantly force their way in the face of loud crticism from the community. It is true criticism doesn't automatically mean what TTN does is wrong, but it suggests TTN needs to use feedback and improve their manners. Only when TTN knows how to work with others should we deem a restriction on him unnecessary.

These days TTN is starting a myriad AfDs - too many that he himself would not be able to comment on. This is hardly a good method of discussion, not to mention the enormous pressure put on editors working on a rescue, and the likely damage on legitimate content because AFD commentors may mistake those "merge" nominations for normal "delete" nominations. We have a very heavy workload at AfD already. That Wikipedia doesn't have an "Articles for merge" page is not an excuse. Wikipedia has a process for merge: starting proposals on talk pages. Everyday editors all over the project are patiently following this merge process without much trouble. People do not flood AFD with merge nominations like TTN does.

It should be noted that TTN's comment on this very page suggests that he won't discuss with "fans" or projects who he knows will disagree with him. This is wrong. The more potentially disagreeable an action is, the more important it is to discuss. TTN was restricted by arbcom not because of what he wanted to do, but how he did it, and now after the restriction period it seems he is repeating the old patterns. --PeaceNT (talk) 18:02, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Stifle

TTN should be congratulated, not sanctioned. Sure, he's ruffling feathers, but that's bound to happen with the area he's involved in. Stifle (talk) 11:03, 22 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by ThuranX

I have seen a number of threads on TTN on AN/I in the past years. Now he's conforming to the restrictions placedon him by ArbCom and the community, and still those who won't really improve things can't stop gunning for him. I am constantly frustrated by the number of editors who see Wikipedia as a cruft farm, and expand things here based on their love for a character or notion, bloating articles with nonsense about episode 17, season 9, scene 4, line 36 or whatever. When editors who work hard to make more and more articles look comprehensive without looking childish fold things together ,or insist on some rigorous standards of writing, not unlike a term or research paper, too much of this community rebels, screaming bloody murder instead of looking at is as real editing. I support TTN in this, as I do in almost all his efforts, and think this is a colossal waste of ArbCom time. ThuranX (talk) 12:40, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]


Statement by Jtrainor

While individually some of these merges may have merit, the fact that a) many are being done very quickly, b) many of them are redirects instead of actual merges and c) TTN ignores discussion about them means that collectively, they are quite disruptive. Jtrainor (talk) 20:56, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Addendum: If TTN is attempting to use the AFD process to circumvent merge discussions, this is a textbook abuse of process. Jtrainor (talk) 23:27, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Kww

Another week, another unsupportable complaint to Arbcom about TTN. I repeat my normal request: reject this RFAR, and then make it clear that bringing this back to Arbcom again will result in blocks. This has gotten beyond ridiculous.—Kww(talk) 22:29, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]


Addendum: One recurrent theme that comes up is that using AFD for merge discussions is somehow an abuse of process. This is patently ridiculous. The only way to actually achieve a merge is to discuss it in a forum that isn't dominated by fans of the topic. The three prime authors of "Pikachu's left nostril" are never going to agree to merge it into a superordinate topic. Moving the discussion to the AFD gets a wider set of eyes on it, and in no way reduces the ability of the authors to participate: it only reduces their ability to dominate the discussion.—Kww(talk) 21:34, 28 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Response to Coren's proposals: These are moderate enough that I won't jump up and down screaming, but it still smacks of finding TTN's behaviour objectionable while not noting the larger problem: 80% of TTN's AFDs are resulting in deletions or mergers, and there is still a group screaming for his head. TTN is receiving stronger feedback that his AFDs are appropriate than in the other direction. People continuously note his sense of appropriateness in detecting articles which should not exist as standalone entities, and support his decisions a large percentage of the time. There needs to be a strong message to the people attacking him that the community is extremely tired of this, and fatigued by the constant efforts to drag him to Arbcom in an effort to preserve bad articles. It's unbalanced to "remind" TTN of his need to listen, and not "remind" his opponents of their need to abide by notability guidelines and AFD results.—Kww(talk) 22:09, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by User:White Cat

Okay... As an involved party on both E&C rfars... and as an involved party on 3 other rfars (which are relevant as far as I care)...

user:TTN (and several others) has been mass removing articles for over a year now. Whether TTN is meaning well or not is besides the point. What he is doing is harming the site. This is a serious problem and is not a content dispute. The disagreement isn't over the phrasing of a certain piece of text. Instead it is over weather or not an ENTIRE TOPIC belongs to the site or not. This mass removal is a trend not based on policy or consensus.

Detailed coverage on fiction related topics such as articles on episodes and characters are not banned from Wikipedia the free encyclopedia. In addition at no point had there been any conclusive discussion in weather or not such articles should go. There is no policy or consensus basis for TTN's mass action.


In current practice very popular shows such as The Simpsons or Doctor Who enjoy the liberty of having detailed sub articles on them. Less popular shows such as works of fiction particularly older shows and shows from countries that are not native English speakers (like anime) are being mass removed under the guise of notability. Some of these articles are on wikipedias most visited articles. For example the Japanese anime Naruto is generally in the top ten of the most visited articles and yet we do not consider any of the shows episodes notable enough to have an article. If that is our metric for notability then it is seriously flawed and needs a complete overhaul.

This is because in TTN's words:


This behavior prevents articles from developing. Development of an article is a long and painful path and it takes many years for an article to develop from being a stub to a featured article. In the time period it takes for an article to develop small communities are also formed within our community such as show-specific wikiprojects. These small communities work together and write articles in great speed and it no longer takes years for an article to become featured. Doctor Who wikiproject is such a "small community" that develops articles with great speed. TTN isn't willing to give articles a mere two years to mature which is not only preventing article development but also the development of "small communities" that would create. This creates an causality dilemma.

In addition to all that in the past some users have used this trend to cause various sorts of disruption including but not limited to trolling, vandalism, and harassment. For example User:Jack Merridew, a user convicted of harassment and sockpuppetry, had been making edits just like TTN which had lead to the circumstances arbcom is familiar with.

Arbcom to date has not made a very serious attempt to resolve this dispute so far and I'd ask arbcom to perhaps shoot Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Episodes and characters 3 instead of amending a past case. (no offense intended)

-- Cat chi? 22:10, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Maybe arbcom should sanction TTN to write a few featured articles on fiction. :) -- Cat chi? 17:39, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by User:Guest9999

The particular incident that seems to have started this whole thing off again involved TTN ignoring an active merge discussion (Talk:List of D.N.Angel characters#Merging character pages) and redirecting pages, then taking them to AfD after being reverted. However on further examination it is apparent that when TTN undertook these actions the merge discussion had been under way for almost two months and had not recieved any comments for approximately one month. I think it is fair to say that a discussion with no comments in a month cannot be considered to be active by Wikipedia standards. Looking at the initial three weeks or so of the discussion all five users who took part supported merging the pages. During the near two months the discussion was open - one month of which it lay idle - any of the users who were involved in the discussion could have merged the articles - likely without opposition - but none did. After TTN redirected the articles any interested editor could then have completed the merges but instead, the editors (who had all supported merging) decided instead to revert the redirects and revive an arbitration case. If anything this incident shows why TTN chooses to use - for the most part - AfD discussions rather than pursue merge discussions and other such measures. A process that after two months has yielded five comments and zero improvement to the encyclopaedia is not one that works well. AfD might not be designed for article merges but it is - in theory - a discussion based attempt at identifing consensus. The simple fact that TTN is able to nominate the number of articles he does every day shows the scale of the issue at hand; there are thousands of articles like them in the encyclopaedia and judging from the recent discussions he has started there appears to be a consensus to merge a large proportion of these. Having a page as a redirect for a while in no way prevents information from later being merged - be it the next day or a month later. Having hundreds of individual articles which can never meet Wikipedia's inclusion criteria not only encourages more similar articles to be created but impedes the implementation of a high-quality, encyclopaedic treatment of the topic (such as those found at Characters of Carnivàle and Characters of Final Fantasy VIII). What TTN does must be very repetitive and tedious (likely a major reason why far more editors do not carry out similar actions), I do not think there is any doubt that he thinks he is doing the "right thing" for the project and would not be doing so otherwise. If anyone is truly at fault here it is the community for our collective failure to define an inclusion standard for fiction or develop an effective process for implementing any standard over the thousands of articles which as free standing works have little chance of improvement to a state where they meet the standard of content and quality required by all Wikipedia articles. Guest9999 (talk) 09:21, 25 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Your summary of "what started it" is incorrect, as is your presumption that the discussion was old or stale. Yes, it was clear to merge, but that doesn't mean merging will happen instantly, nor that it should be done without REALLY merging. The discussion ended a month ago, but hello, there are major holidays at this time of year and there is no WP:DEADLINE for doing the merges. The page needed a reformat first, and there are only a handful of us in the anime project working on doing this many merges PROPERLY. The fact is, yes, the individual characters were unnotable and merging was a go. TTN didn't need to do anything at all here, but he did. TTN also completely redirected a valid character list to the main article claiming the character list wasn't necessary either. The anime project IS working at dealing with those many bad articles and I'm not going to disagree on your last statement because I obviously don't think they are necessary either. However, simply redirecting wholescale dozens of character articles AND character lists without discussion, consensus, and proper merging is not a valid way of dealing with them. If TTN is too lazy or too busy to actually merge the articles he claims to be merging and to help fix up the target lists, he shouldn't be sending dozens of them to the projects to deal with and should let those projects deal with them on the schedule they can comfortably work with. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 15:07, 25 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
To be fair in this instance all the articles to be merged are completely unsourced and most of them consist of only a description of the character. Given that the main - equally unsourced - list article already included a description of each character the amount of information to actually be merged from each article seems minimal. As an example your merge of Rio Hikari ([100]) didn't actually add any information from the individual character article it only involved rephrasing information already in the list article and including new information not found in either (note this is no way a criticism of the merge only a comment on the form it took). A similar pattern seems to be emerging for the other articles being merged. The discussion shows a consensus to merge the topic areas, with no sourced information from the individual articles and a brief character summary already present in the list article redirecting the pages seems reasonable and in no way prevents any information from being merged at a later date. As you say there is no deadline for merging but in the meantime isn't a redirect to a brief summary better than a poor article that will never meet Wikipedia's inclusion criteria, bogged down in original research and unnecessary plot detail? Especially if the article contributes little to nothing extra by way of sourced, encyclopaedia information over what is present in the list. Wikipedia will never be "complete" and all articles are - to a greater or lesser extent - a work in progress, I think the only disagreement is in how to manage the information that will eventually be retained. Using TTN's method a little information can be lost - at least in the short term - but the remaining "good" information becomes far less obscured by unsuitable content that is was always going to be removed at some point. The balance of article creation vs. information presentation has been skewed regarding fiction to such an extent that it is likely that a large proportion of Wikipedia's articles on fictional topics do not represent a standard - either in content or presentation - which reflects the consensus of the community. TTN's methods are clearly not perfect but during this whole lengthy saga neither "side" has shown any hint of a willingness to compromise and we are left with this situation. There is clearly a need for a visible process via which the community can consider fictional topics as a whole in a timely manner in order to determine how information pertaining to the topic should be presented and there is clearly a need to give interested editors the time to enact any consensus which is established. As it is we currently have one process which is likely to attract little attention and can proceed for months with no improvements and little impetus even when there is a clear consensus and one process that was never designed for the job and therefore often also results in no improvement for the opposite reasons. I think I've gone wildly off topic here but the point is frankly I don't really see how any further sanction against TTN would improve the situation, it wouldn't really solve the underlying problem that a lot of Wikipedia's coverage of fiction does not reflect our policies or guidlines or the content expected of a high quality encyclopaedia. This is accepted by most people on all sides of the discussion, the only disagreement is on how the problem should be solved. We are all working towards a common goal. Guest9999 (talk) 18:48, 25 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Response to response from User:Collectonian to User:Guest9999

Broadly I agree that, ideally, your way is the "right way" to do things, the main problem with it is that it is seen by many not to work in terms of the project as a whole in its current state. Whereas TTN's methods are more visibly - and actually - effective in removing poor content from the encyclopaedia on a large scale and within a reasonable time frame. In terms of ignoring consensus I think the fact that this discussion comes up time and time again is an indicator that any consensus as to validity or otherwise of his methods is questionable at best. At this point I think there is reasonable evidence of a consensus that aspects of fictional works which have received no reliable third party coverage in their own right but are important in terms of the work of fiction (such as many fictional characters) should be covered in "List of..." articles rather than stand alone pieces. Currently we have thousands of stand alone articles on non-notable fictional elements of this type, sometimes with a grouping list article. To the typical user quickly getting rid of the stand alone articles, leaving only the list article - even without any true merge - looks more like moving towards the consensus position than any other method currently available. Personally I think some kind of "Fiction for discussion" process where users could bring a set of articles to a central forum would be a good idea. The process could involve a week of discussion to try and establish what the consensus was for the group (merge these, keep this, source that, etc.); followed by a set period for implementing the changes (maybe three weeks, a month - maybe dependent on the number of articles involved) at which point any "to merge" articles which hadn't been properly merged would be redirected (obviously any merging could still take place after the implementation period simply using the article's history). Most people would have some problem with such a process - even if it didn't devolve into the kind of battleground regularly seen on this page - and I can't see it being anyone's ideal but that's the nature of a compromise (Except on Wikipedia where the nature of a compromise seems to be writing out your unaltered opinion in the most stringent possible terms under the heading of "Compromise"). Guest9999 (talk) 00:38, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • There should also be discussion on what is good spinoff material in the first place. Many times I see material split off when it doesn't need to be or I see delete !votes for stuff not being "independently notable" while split-offs aren't independent to start with. - Mgm|(talk) 11:59, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think that the counter argument to that is that if something isn't independently notable then it shouldn't have been "spun out" in the first place. I think the community is generally accepting of articles that have actually been been spun out for size or presentation reason and contribute to a high quality encyclopaedic treatment of a topic. The large tracks of independently created unsourced, original research and plot detail that make up a considerable proportion of the articles in question are another matter. Guest9999 (talk) 22:45, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by JzG

In many areas, Wikipedia leads the world in documenting minor fictional elements by direct summary from the primary source. TTN is not the only one who finds this a problem. I suspect that if the fanboys were better at self-policing then we would not have this recurrent problem, but as it is we get AfDs with snowstorms of "keep" votes because obviously Pikachu's left foot is waaaaay notable. Exaggeration for comic effect aside, the Wikiprojects are dominated by people who are fans and much of Wikipedia's coverage of fictional topics reads as fanwanks as a result. I would say that TTN's best approach would be to start a centralised discussion on a single series or group, establish what can and cannot be reliably documented by reference to independent secondary sources (because, after all, that is a very very long-standing principle) and work from there. And I think White Cat is just the editor to help him do it.

Alternatively, perhaps the time has come to change WP:NOT. At present, it says that Wikipedia is not a directory. In several areas, such as Canadian senior-school amateur hockey, Wikipedia is a directory because the fans will vote Keep to absolutely anything rather than have a single redlink in the series, even if there are no reliable independent sources about the team, only the occasional score printed in the local paper. Substantial sections of Wikipedia, including much of the fictional element coverage, is absolutely a directory compiled form primary sources by us. Guy (Help!) 12:14, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Flatscan

There exists variance in editors' interpretations of the scope of AfD, specifically relating to redirects and mergers. While an editor's inclusionist/deletionist stance may affect his/her interpretation, all I've seen are defensible. Recent discussion Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Archive 48#Mergers at AfD has a few example AfDs and relevant discussion, but what I read as limited consensus. Nominations that propose a merge only and lack a recommendation to delete (example) seem to be closed early per Wikipedia:Speedy keep clause 1, but treatment is inconsistent otherwise.

There is no centralized Wikipedia:Articles for merging or Wikipedia:Mergers for discussion; there is Wikipedia:Proposed mergers, but it is explicitly optional. I had seen this "Mergers for discussion" mentioned and floated it at VPP myself, but I have not seen it gain traction. I would prefer to see an actual discussion if mergers will be formally blocked from AfD. Flatscan (talk) 07:18, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Response to Motion 4 (role of AfD, inclusion criteria, outcomes): I think that this is a fair restatement of current practice. If it passes, future discussion would benefit from having it as a fixed point of reference. Flatscan (talk) 05:17, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Sandstein

As a semi-regular AfD closer, but not otherwise (I think) involved in this issue, I recommend that the Committee take no action. As a closer, I've never found TTN's AfDs to be a particular problem, either in volume or in substance, and they generally result in a useful consensus, as indicated by the graph above. It also remains unclear what remedies exactly are requested here.  Sandstein  19:06, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Hullaballoo Wolfowitz

I believe User:TTN is a disruptive user and an editor who has not edited as honestly as an editor should. I looked at his contributions over the last few days, and found him deleting/redirecting articles in contravention of very recent AFD decisions, removing large quantities of content without explanation, and otherwise attempting to override community consensus. It is clear that his actions drive away and discourage many editors. But most of the content he removes is no worse than harmless and is often worthwhile. Many of the articles he targets -- for examples, the Zoids models --would be, if sourced, exemplary articles on admittedly trivial subjects. He recently deleted/redirected the article on the pilot episode of a well-known US TV show which was guideline compliant and included appropriate information on ratings, reception, etc. He deleted large swathes of content from an article on an extremely well-known genre novel which showed its influence on later works in the field. He even tried to delete (longer ago) an article on a well-known, often written about Shakespearan character. His AFD notices are indiscriminately written and often misleading and inaccurate (characters called "weapons" for example. If TTN were really interested in improving Wikipedia, he'd work on BLPs or another important subject. His actions make me think he's more interested in bossing other users, especially younger users, around. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 19:23, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Phil Sandifer

TTN is personally responsible for the gutting of the primary area of Wikipedia that I use. When I say "that I use," to be clear, I mean "that I use for quick checking of background research in the course of academic scholarship." And when I say "personally responsible," to be clear, I mean that he used mass AfD nominations to overwhelm to ability of editors to repair articles.

He has damaged the project as a usable resource for looking things up. He has done so by abusing process in a nakedly disruptive fashion.

For the committee to suggest that some sort of new policy is needed to enshrine the principle "don't use disruptive tactics to gut content areas" is a joke. Unless the committee genuinely believes that TTN's actions do not amount to disruption, this is absolutely within their remit. Should the committee reject this again, I at least ask that they be brave enough to pass a finding that this is not disruption, as opposed to cheaply side-stepping the issue. Phil Sandifer (talk) 22:08, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

  • Comments are welcome, but please keep in mind the rule in place that threaded discussion is not needed here. Editors should move their comments into their own sections. - Penwhale | Blast him / Follow his steps 16:37, 25 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Threaded commentary put back into the sections of the commenters. Daniel (talk) 16:55, 25 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrator views and discussion

  • Awaiting additional statements, but I am concerned, particularly by the allegation that encyclopedic content is being lost. Newyorkbrad (talk) 22:38, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • I would accept this as a case (either a new case or a "review" case). The situation appears too complex for summary motions. Newyorkbrad (talk) 07:56, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Why am I not surprised... Kirill 03:37, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • FWIW, in case I am active yet or not, recused as I am non-impartial. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 08:45, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Recuse, should this extend to after January 1. I'm trying to read this impartially, but in this case I don't trust myself due to my involvement in E+C 2. Wizardman 01:20, 22 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I may have a motion to offer once the new arbitrators take their seats or sooner if the currently sitting arbs request it to speed things along. — Coren (talk) 19:11, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Recuse. I have enforced sanctions against TTN as an administrator. While I unblocked under an agreement with TTN, my action was very controversial. Vassyana (talk) 01:03, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I am not inclined to reinstate a restriction if nobody has assessed how well that restriction affected the content. There are a lot of opinions about whether TTN should or should not be restricted, however there is not a lot of opinion about the effect of the TTN restriction over the last six months. It is obvious that TTN would prefer to operate unrestricted, and many think the project is benefiting from TTN being unrestricted, but how productive was he when restricted in this way? Did the state of this topical area degrade while he was restricted? Did it improve? The AFD Delsort list would be a good place to start researching. I'd prefer to see stats, graphs and specific examples. John Vandenberg (chat) 15:19, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks sgeureka; the graph is fantastic. You mention that TTN raised 40-50 AfDs over 1.5-years prior to the case, and 550 AfDs in three months since the remedy was lifted. Is that 550 AfDs, or 550 articles listed at AfD? Either way, that is a marked increase and a very worrying stat; I would like someone else to confirm those figures, and think it would be helpful if TTN can provide some background as to why so many. Any chance of a cummulative line or bar chart of TTN AfDs? I'd like to see the growth rate.
    The number of merge outcomes is also a worry, as our procedure for merge is Wikipedia:MERGE#How_to_merge_pages rather than WP:AFD, so it appears as if AFD is being abused when so few AFDs are being closed as "delete" (only ~25%).
    Also helpful would be stats and graphs of AfDs in this topical area that were not raised by TTN. It would be especially interesting to see how many AfDs occurred over the time when TTN was prohibited from raising them - if the topical area was being appropriately maintained when TTN was restricted, and TTN is causing this much drama and stress, I'd be more inclined to restrict TTN again in order to allow everyone else to return to steady and stress free maintainance. John Vandenberg (chat) 01:23, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I also extend my thanks to sgeureka, the graph is very helpful. I see that the larger community that opines at AFD agreed with TTN in 79.5% of cases that the nominated article should not exist as a standalone article, whether by straight deletion, redirect or merge; and that only 12% of the nominations were closed as clear keeps. Closing AFDs as redirect or merge is commonplace, and half a dozen AFDs a day (on average) is not flooding the system; at least, we are not seeing admins who routinely close AFDs posting to this request telling us that it is causing a problem. At this point, I am not seeing the need to extend or reinstate restrictions. Risker (talk) 07:25, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I continue to be unclear about which policy, guideline, or Community process or norm that TNN is violating now that would require the Committee to sanction TNN. I understand the concern about the rate of edits made on one topic. But, we don't sanction editors for adding too much content too quickly for the Community to monitor if the quality of the content is generally good, so I'm uncertain that it is wise for us to add editing restriction for an users doing a large number of edits that are slanted toward deleting or merging content. FloNight♥♥♥ 19:43, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Recuse - I intend to become more active again in fiction-related areas, and some of this activity will involve carrying out mergers and may involve commenting at deletion discussions and merge discussions, so I feel I should recuse here. I will remind a clerk to update the wording about the majorities for the motions below. Carcharoth (talk) 00:18, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Motions

There are 16 active arbitrators, 4 of whom are recused, so 7 votes are a majority. 08:51, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

1) Because of the potential of overwhelming the community's ability to participate, large number of similar or substantially identical edits may be disruptive even if, individually, every single edit would have been uncontroversial.

Support:
  1. This is also why the bot policy exists. — Coren (talk) 19:30, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  2. — Rlevse • Talk • 01:57, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Sam Blacketer (talk) 23:55, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose:
Abstain:
  1. I agree with the wording but since I don't support any sanction I don't support the motion. --FloNight♥♥♥ 19:48, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Per FloNight. Risker (talk) 00:33, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  3. I would accept this matter as a case (new or review). The situation appears a bit more complex than should be handled through summary motions. I will add that although I am probably as responsible as anyone for the committee's increased use of the motion procedure last year, any situation complex enough that an arbitrator believes that five motions are called for to resolve it, probably calls for a case. (If my suggestion of opening a case is not adopted, I reserve the right to change my vote on these motions.) Newyorkbrad (talk) 08:09, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Arbitrator Discussion of motion:

2) TTN (talk · contribs) has not resumed the behavior that led to his being sanctioned in Episodes and characters 2. While the large number of submissions to Articles for Deletion is seen as problematic by a number of editors, community discussion appears sufficient to solve the matter at this time.

Support:
  1. — Coren (talk) 19:30, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Cautious support; it is true that the Episodes and characters case was about different behaviour, but they are all in the same ballpark of opposition to extensive coverage of fictional topics - especially recent popular fiction. Community discussion may not produce a situation which all can live with, in which case we ought to stand ready to reconsider, but it should have a chance first. Sam Blacketer (talk) 23:55, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Per Sam. — Rlevse • Talk • 00:04, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose:
Abstain:
  1. I agree with the wording but since I don't support any sanction I don't support the motion. FloNight♥♥♥ 19:48, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Per FloNight. Risker (talk) 00:33, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  3. I would accept this matter as a case (new or review). The situation is a bit complex for resolution by summary motion. I will add that even though I am probably as responsible as anyone for increased use of the motion procedure last year, any request that an arbitrator thinks calls for five motions to resolve it, probably warrants opening a case. (If it becomes clear that my suggestion of taking a case will not be adopted, I reserve the right to change my vote on these motions.) Newyorkbrad (talk) 08:09, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Arbitrator Discussion of motion:

3) TTN (talk · contribs) is reminded that he was urged to "work collaboratively and constructively with the broader community" in Episodes and characters. While none of his submissions of articles to AfD are, on their face, improper; the fact that members of the community have expressed serious concerns at the quantity and rhythm of those submissions should lead to his participation in discussion towards reaching consensus about how to best proceed rather than simply continue with the current method.

Support:
  1. In general, when a significant group of editors expresses concerns about how one is editing, the proper response is to stop to discuss and not plow forward. — Coren (talk) 19:30, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Sam Blacketer (talk) 23:55, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  3. — Rlevse • Talk • 00:04, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose:
  1. I agree in general, but I think we have addressed the matter in past ruling and TNN does not need further feedback. FloNight♥♥♥ 19:48, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  2. I do not see a need for a motion to make a generic statement such as this, particularly a motion that would be attached to a user-specific RFAR. Risker (talk) 00:33, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Abstain:
  1. Per my votes on 1 and 2 above. Newyorkbrad (talk) 08:09, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Arbitrator Discussion of motion:

4) All editors are reminded that the Articles for Deletion process is the proper venue to submit articles that, in good faith, are not believed to be within Wikipedia's inclusion criteria. Such discussions will sometimes result in findings that the article be redirected to, or merged with, another when the criteria are not met. Those results are within process, and legitimate.

Support:
  1. Restatement of existing practice. — Coren (talk) 22:38, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Sam Blacketer (talk) 23:55, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  3. — Rlevse • Talk • 00:04, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose:
  1. I do not see a need for a motion to make a generic statement such as this, particularly a motion that would be attached to a user-specific RFAR. Risker (talk) 00:33, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Abstain:
  1. Per my votes on 1 and 2 above. Newyorkbrad (talk) 08:09, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Arbitrator Discussion of motion:

5) All editors are reminded that dispute resolution is not the proper venue for expressing disagreement about current policy and consensus. Repeatedly raising the same issue after it has been resolved, even when one disagrees with the result, is disruptive.

Support:
  1. Argument ad nauseam is not the proper way of "defeating" consensus. — Coren (talk) 22:38, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  2. WP:STICK covers it well, I find. Sam Blacketer (talk) 23:55, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  3. — Rlevse • Talk • 00:04, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose:
  1. I do not see a need for a motion to make a generic statement such as this, particularly a motion that would be attached to a user-specific RFAR. Risker (talk) 00:33, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Abstain:
  1. Per my votes on 1 and 2 above. Newyorkbrad (talk) 08:09, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Arbitrator Discussion of motion:

References

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