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Use this section to request clarification or amendment of a closed Arbitration Committee case or decision.

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Clarification request: Palestine-Israel articles 3

Initiated by Nyttend at 01:19, 25 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Case or decision affected
Palestine-Israel articles 3 arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)

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Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

Statement by Nyttend

This is not some sort of complaint/argument/etc. Just trying to get an authoritative statement on this decision's scope.

Airbnb is a US-based company that acts as a broker for people who have spare rooms in their homes and people who want to rent those rooms. Apparently there was some controversy related to Israel-Palestine and this company, so the article has a section on this issue. Ymblanter recently protected the article under ARBPIA following some disruptive editing to this section. I questioned this action, saying basically "did you accidentally protect the wrong article", and Ymblanter responded basically "I protected it intentionally, because the disruptive editing was related to Israel-Palestine". His response mentions some consultation with Galobtter regarding the duration.

So the question...are this decision's stipulations on page protection meant to apply to all articles that have bits related to Israel-Palestine, or is it only intended for pages to which Israel-Palestine is an integral component? This article is definitely the first — one can understand the company quite well without a tiny Israel-Palestine section sourced only to news reports and an advocacy organization. By the latter, I'm talking about Israeli politicians, places in the West Bank, events in the history of Gaza, etc. The situation here reminds me of the "weather" situation at WP:TBAN — if we had similar sanctions on the topic of weather, I suppose we'd not consider all articles with "climate" sections liable to ARBWEATHER protection.

If we assume either Ymblanter's perspective or mine, there's no room for dispute over whether this is an appropriate protection; if Arbcom meant to include all pages with Israel-Palestine sections, of course this is an appropriate protection, and if you didn't mean to include pages like this, obviously this should be treated like any other victim of disruptive editing rather than an Israel-Palestine issue. So once again, no hard feelings exist yet, and I don't envision them arising in the future; I just want the scope to be clear.

if the result of this clarification request is that only dedicated articles can be extended-confirmed protected (or anything else) this is perfectly fine with me says Ymblanter. I agree — if the committee intends ARBPIA to apply to articles in an Airbnb-type situation, that's fine with me. Nyttend (talk) 23:48, 25 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
By the way, at User talk:Ymblanter#Protection of Airbnb, Ymblanter said I am not sure I can now so easily remove or lower the protection. I do not think we have a mechanism of lowering ARBPIA protections. If an admin levies an ARBPIA sanction and then changes his mind, is there something preventing the admin from self-reverting? If this is indeed the case, and it's specific to ARBPIA (I don't know; I don't do WP:AE), it would be helpful if you implemented a mechanism for lowering ARBPIA protections or allowing other self-reverting. Nyttend (talk) 23:54, 25 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Ymblanter

The consultation with Galobtter which Nyttend mentions is at my talk page, User talk:Ymblanter#Protection of Airbnb. Concerning the issue itself, I indeed interpret the decision such that if an article contains a significant part (in the case of Airbnb, this is a dedicated section) the discretionary sanctions apply. However, I do not hold strong opinions here, if the result of this clarification request is that only dedicated articles can be extended-confirmed protected (or anything else) this is perfectly fine with me.--Ymblanter (talk) 05:40, 25 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Huldra: Without giving my opinion of the motion you mention, if someone compiles a list of articles where the notice must be placed I volunteer, after a reasonable check, place the notice to all these articles (which obviously is going to take time but it is still better than nothing).--Ymblanter (talk) 21:13, 26 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@AGK: Yes, it is time to conduct review of all remedies. We are slowly moving towards professionalizing of AE in general and PI in particular, when one first needs to study for five years and then run an internship in order to be able to act there responsively. This is not really good.--Ymblanter (talk) 10:33, 28 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Galobtter

Statement by Doug Weller

It looks as though this problem is going to continue. It's been discussed for over a week at Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests#Some issues relating to the IP area which I urge everyone to read (and User:Huldra has found a slew of articles that need templating and edit notices given the current sanctions). Towards the bottom of the thread I've tried to outline how I understand ARBPIA sanctions are meant to work. Doug Weller talk 05:36, 25 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It's also virtually the same issue as I raised a few weeks ago which can be found at Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Palestine-Israel articles, isn't it? Doug Weller talk 09:19, 26 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@BU Rob13: I'm pretty sure that my understanding as outlined at Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests#Some issues relating to the IP area is in line with yours, if not please tell me where I have it wrong. What's needed now to clarify "reasonably"? I presume a motion, right? Doug Weller talk 14:41, 4 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@BU Rob13: I'd like to see a discussion of your suggestion to remove the "blanket 500/30 of "reasonably construed" pages in favor of discretionary but liberal use of 500/30 to combat abuse across all "broadly construed" pages." In the last two days I've had to disappoint an Admin (User:El C and an experienced editor(User:Nableezy) who thought IPs couldn't edit anything to do with the conflict. I also like rewording somne DS alerts to mention 1RR. Doug Weller talk 11:54, 12 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Huldra

This is not related to the issue about parts/whole of the article being under ARBPIA, but it relates to the imbecile motion added March this year. Yes: imbecile!

After that motion, no-one can be sanctioned for 1RR unless an admin has placed an edit notice on the article in question. Since there are thousands of articles, and only a few hundred of them have edit notice, the result is that clear cut violations of the rules goes unpunished; see this example.

So while "All Arab-Israeli conflict-related pages, broadly interpreted" are placed under "discretionary sanctions", the 1 RR rule has become unenforceable on most article.

This is a totally untenable situation, I hope that arb.com either:

  • 1. Undo their March 2019 motion, or
  • 2. Start templating the thousands of articles which need to be templated. (In addition to the ones I have already mentioned on Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests, we can add all the ‎Israel settlements on the West Bank and the Golan Heights, all the kibbutz, etc built on the 48 villages land (they will be found in the "current localities" in the infobox, see eg Suruh.....you would be amazed as to how often that information "disappears"...)

I would prefer that you chose option 1, that's because admins are not the best persons to see what is under ARBPIA, or not. Case in point: Solomon's Pools, where both, say, Icewhiz and I agree that it comes under ARBPIA, but "outside" admins have a difficulty in seeing that. (For those of you who don't know us: Icewhiz and I disagree about just about everything regarding the I/P area...) Huldra (talk) 21:07, 26 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

User:Ymblanter: All articles mentioned in Template:Palestinian Arab villages depopulated during the 1948 Palestinian exodus (and the Israeli localities on their land), all Palestinian localities on the West Bank; listed under Template:Governorates of the Palestinian Authority. I would also say all localities listed in [[Category:Arab localities in Israel]], and all localities in the Golan Heights: Syrian towns and villages depopulated in the Arab–Israeli conflict, and the places mentioned in it and Template:Golan Regional Council. Huldra (talk) 21:28, 26 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

That old expression: "Don't fix it if it isn't broken" should also be the guiding words for arb.com. This 14 March 2019 change basically changed a structure which was working..sort of..to one with lots of complications. I cannot recall any editor wanting to edit ARBPIA articles, achieving 30/500 status, and not knowing about ARBPIA sanctions. What normally happen, is that they wander into ARBPIA territory before they reach 30/500, they are promptly reverted, most with a note on their talk page. Then, if they are mature enough, they stay away until they have reached 30/500, and then they return.User:SilkTork: yes, the 14 March 2019 added "This remedy may only be enforced on pages with the {{ARBPIA 1RR editnotice}} edit notice." I just became aware of that, as I reported an obvious offence, but the editor walked scot free, thanks to this. See here.
User:AGK yes, it is a patchwork, and I would love to see one standard. Especially what "broadly constructed" and what is not. (I think User:BU Rob13 is the only one who understands it!) 1RR is one of the best things there are in the ARBPIA area, alas, the 14 March 2019 change was horrible: it made 1RR unenforceable on most ARBPIA articles. Why have rules if there is absolutely no punishment for breaking them? Huldra (talk) 21:52, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, User:SilkTork, I hadn't seen the January 2018 note: [1].(I don't follow the "Discretionary sanctions" page), that makes me more understand the 14 March 2019 changes. We have two set of rules for ARBPIA, and I have given up hope of ever understanding those rules....
Also, according to these idiots, I have a IQ of about half a zillion, I don't know if I would trust them, but I tend to understand things that have a logic to them. And as a corollary to that: when I don't understand a thing, it is usually because there is no logic to it. I would love to see some logic to the rules in the IP area...Huldra (talk) 23:33, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I went to Wikipedia:Requests for permissions/Template editor, and got pagemover rights. So now I see a "Page notice" on my editing screen, where I can put {{ARBPIA 1RR editnotice}}. I will advice everyone (who is not admins) to apply for this, Huldra (talk) 21:13, 1 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Zero0000

To editor SilkTork: I think you missed the point when you wrote "If someone feels that there is significant enough content which falls under a DS topic on a particular page/article then they can place a DS template." No they can't; only administrators and template editors can add the editnotice that arbcom decided is needed for enforcement. Zerotalk 10:50, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

To editor BU Rob13: Before 500/30, IPs and new socks would cause disruption because they don't care about rules while the good editors trying to preserve article integrity were constrained by 1RR from reverting the disruption. The combination of 1RR and 500/30 has proved very beneficial to the area and I don't understand why you think removing 500/30 would be an improvement. Zerotalk 07:54, 11 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Sir Joseph

I think that articles that are not broadly about the conflict should not be locked down under ECP, they can be locked down temporarily, they can be IP protected, etc and then when the vandalism passes, it's good to go. We should not have many articles under a patchwork of horrible ARBCOM rulings that are terribly confusing to enforce and understand. Sir Joseph (talk) 15:03, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Davidbena

I think that it is wise and pertinent that no-one can be sanctioned for 1RR unless an admin has placed an edit notice on the article in question. If the 1RR edit-notice were to apply to all articles in the I/P area, and if ordinary editors could add such notices, who would prevent them from adding these notices to every town and city in Israel (Palestine), irregardless of whether or not the town had been involved in the Israeli-Palestinian struggle? Editors would still find a way to include it, since both sides vie for the control of the same country. This would greatly impede progress and make the simple task of editing much more difficult, just as we found in the article Solomon's Pools, which to my dismay came to be associated with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, although it has absolutely nothing to do with that conflict other than the fact that the pools lie within territory controlled by joint Israeli-Palestinian Authority officials. In my humble opinion, we should avoid making the task of editing bogged-down in red-tape and litigation, whenever possible, and only in those articles where by their nature they spark heated debate or POV views should these 1RR edit warnings be added.Davidbena (talk) 23:52, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Gatoclass

I have long argued that discretionary sanctions should be applied not only to articles within the topic area, broadly interpreted, but to edits clearly related to the topic area in question, regardless of whether the article topic itself is related. This is because the topic area to which discretionary sanctions apply can be referenced peripherally in almost any article (falafel, anyone?) If somebody is making edits somewhere, anywhere, that can be reasonably construed as pertaining to the topic area, then surely all the usual discretionary sanctions should be applied to those edits regardless of which article they were made in. It seems to me that if this approach were to be adopted, the regular tiresome debates about whether or not a given article belongs in the topic area could be avoided altogether. Gatoclass (talk) 12:29, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps I should add, with regard to extended-confirmed protection, which is a special case because it works to automatically block anyone who doesn't meet the editing criteria on a given page, that an alternative approach might be to manually enforce extended-confirmed on articles which only peripherally relate to the sanctioned topic area (such as Airbnb in this case), in order to avoid penalizing the vast majority of users who are not making edits that pertain to the sanctioned area. Or alternatively, to use the automated protection only for limited periods, until the related dispute cools down. Gatoclass (talk) 13:14, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Sandstein

@AGK: In response to your question: yes, ArbCom rules in the I/P area are too complicated, to the point where I'm reluctant to help enforce them because of the likelihood that I'll do something wrong and/or need to spend too much time reading up on the rules. I agree that the relevant decisions should be reviewed. Off the cuff, it might be worth it to consider reverting to basic discretionary sanctions. That's because drive-by disrupters using new accounts can be easily dealt with without the need for complicated rules, and AE regulars who are playing long-term games with the I/P content are quite capable of gaming complicated rules to their advantage. I could be wrong, though, and maybe the rules are actually helpful. Hence the need for a review. Sandstein 09:27, 4 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Nableezy

WP:NOTBURO. Yall have made this more complicated on each iteration. You have made it so what was intended to be a way of limiting edit-wars for the topic and limiting the sockpuppetry into one that on too many pages is unenforceable due to a technicality or not applicable because of this reasonably or broadly dispute. To me the answer here is obvious, divorce where extended-confirmed is applied (reasonably construed), but apply the rest of the prohibition to the larger set (broadly construed, with only the sections about the topic area covered). And remove the edit-notice requirement. What is important is that a person know that the edit is covered by the 1RR. Having the {{ARBPIA}} banner on the talk page and having been notified of the sanctions is enough of a notification, and requiring the edit-notice is allowing for some of the sillier games to be played without a hint of shame. Besides, I have yet to see an example where an editor was not asked to self-revert prior to being reported. By the time a report is made they are effectively notified and their refusal to self-revert should be enough to consider sanctions. This was supposed to be simple, and for years it was successful. The last several "clarifications" have undone a decent chunk of that success. nableezy - 09:06, 12 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Or at least make me a template-editor so I can add the edit-notices myself. nableezy - 09:14, 12 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Icewhiz

Rob's suggestion to make 500/30 conditional on ECP being applied to the page makes sense. I would suggest making this a "package deal" with 1RR (so if ECP is applied - 1RR is always applied as well). If these are handed out on an article level on a very liberal basis (e.g. mere relation of a page to the conflict - assuming requests at RfPP will be handled quickly and promptly - even without evidence of disruption for "reasonably construed" (for "broadly construed" - one should have evidence of disruption)) - then the amount of disruption should be fairly low (and if a new editor hops around many unprotected pages doing un-constructive editing - regular DS would still apply). For new articles, all one has to do is ask at RfPP (e.g. diff for a new current event conflict article).

The advantage to moving to a more normal (in relation to other topic areas) DS regime is that the current regime in ARBPIA is a rather severe roadblock for new editors, who can accrue sanctions at an alarming rate due to a mere misunderstanding of 500/30 and 1RR (which are even confusing to regulars (some long term editors diverge from AE norms in the parsing of "what is a revert") - let alone new comers). New Israeli or Palestinian editors invariably edit many pages that are "reasonably construed" (e.g. geographic locations, the country articles, all sorts of organizations) - even if their particular edits are not particularly conflict related (e.g. updating the head of the local council in a West Bank settlement after local elections) - the "survival rate" of such new editors on Wikipedia (without getting TBANNED from the topic area - and potential TBAN violations subsequently leading to blocks) is pretty low under the current sanctions regime - as they are able to edit non-ECP articles (running foul of 500/30 and often violating 1RR).Icewhiz (talk) 12:34, 12 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Serialjoepsycho

The rules should apply where they apply naturally or rather the use of common sense is necessary. Every article need not be given a templet or protected simply because it dips it's toes in areas that are under sanctions. However when editors import the conflict into these articles due consideration should be given on a case by case basis for the appropriate action. An editor topic banned from ARBPIA related topics should be able to edit AIRBNB but they shouldn't be allowed to edit the portions of the article related to ARBPIA. Uninvolved admins also need the ability to take some appropriate form of action when the general disruption associated with articles under sanction is exported to articles that merely get their toes wet on the subject. I'd have to endorse a rewrite of these sanctions or any others that simplify them but they do need to have teeth.-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 04:11, 23 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]


Statement by ZScarpia

I would like to check whether my understanding of the situation is correct and to clarify how the remedies would effect interaction with editors on pages which could not be reasonably construed as relating to the AI conflict.

Two sets of sanctions affect the ARBPIA area, the general remedies (1RR and 500/30) and discretionary sanctions.

The general remedies appy on pages which could be 'reasonably construed' as relating to the conflict. For them to apply, the ArbCom Arab-Israeli edit notice must be placed on affected 'pages'.

Discretionary sanctions apply, more broadly, on pages which may be 'broadly construed' as relating to the conflict. The ArbCom Arab-Israeli enforcement notice may be placed on the talkpages of affected articles, but such a placement is not necessary for discretionary sanctions to apply. However, discretionary sanctions may not be applied unless editors are aware that discretionary sanctions are in place.

The Airbnb article as a whole cannot be 'reasonably construed' as relating to the conflict and therefore the general sanctions do not apply to it, though part of it does and editing of that part may be subject to discretionary sanctions.

If an editor who doesn't meet the 500/30 standard edits the part of the article which is conflict related or leaves conflict-related comments on the talkpage, how should (or may) another editor handle it if he or she thinks that those edits or comments are problematic? Similarly, how may it be handled if an editor makes more than one revert to the conflict-related material within a 24-hour period? Is all that can be legitimately done to give a warning that enforcement under discretionary sanctions may be sought (though, if enforcement was sought, there would be no bright lines and it would be up to individual admins to decide whether to apply 500/30 and 1RR)?

    ←   ZScarpia   15:43, 27 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by {other-editor}

Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should opine whether and how the Committee should clarify or amend the decision or provide additional information.


Palestine-Israel articles 3: Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Palestine-Israel articles 3: Arbitrator views and discussion

  • Sometimes we can bogged down with the letter of the law rather than the spirit. The intention of DS is to prevent disruption; if there is material on Wikipedia which is likely to lead to disruption, then it is appropriate for us to monitor that material. If the DS wording inhibits us from appropriately preventing disruption then we may look to change the wording rather than allow the disruption to take place due to unclear wording. The material in this case, Airbnb#Delisting_of_West_Bank_settlements, does fall under the Palestine-Israel tension. It is currently neutral and factual, and we would want to keep it that way, so applying DS to that material is appropriate. (For me the greater debate is should that information be in the article on Airbnb, or in the article on Israeli settlement. But that's an editorial decision, not an ArbCom one.)
I think I'm comfortable with the template wording as is so we don't need to be fiddling with "page/article/section/material". If someone feels that there is significant enough content which falls under a DS topic on a particular page/article then they can place a DS template. If another person doesn't agree, the matter can be taken to AE for discussion and consensus. While the template is in place, any inappropriate edit to any part of the page would be liable for sanction - that would be to prevent, for example in this case, anyone deliberately vandalising Airbnb to reflect badly on the company in retaliation for their actions on the West Bank.
In short, I think we're fine as we are, and nothing needs to be done. Disagreements about siting of templates can be taken to AE. SilkTork (talk) 00:49, 26 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
User:Zero0000. My understanding is that a DS notice goes on the talkpage to let people know that the article comes under DS, and if someone edits that article, and it appears they are not aware that DS applies to the article, they need to be informed on their talkpage before sanctions can be applied against them. I understand that an editnotice can also be added, but does that mean a talkpage notice cannot be placed, and a user cannot be informed? Has there been a rule change which says that we are no longer using talkpage notices, and no longer informing users? I wouldn't have thought an talkpage notice editnotice is sufficient notice alone before sanctioning someone because, lets be honest, most people don't read talkpage notices editnotices. But they do read notices left on their talkpage. SilkTork (talk) 16:06, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
User:Huldra, I see what you are saying. Though the rule regarding editnotices has been in place since January 2018: [2]. I think the intention was to ensure that users get warned by having editnotices placed on appropriate articles. But it has created a limbo loop hasn't it? The rule to place editnotices should be separate from the general rule on warning. That is, an editor who meets the general criteria for being warned, should not be able to escape sanction by wiki-lawyering that there was no editnotice in place. It looks like Rob intended or hoped that a bot would be created that allowed editnotices to be created if there was an appropriate talkpage notice in place. I think AGK is right - it would be helpful to conduct a review of the remedies. SilkTork (talk) 22:34, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
User:Huldra - Hah, yes, I was a member of Mensa in the Seventies, yet my mind glazes over when faced with some ARBPIA stuff. But, truth be told, IQ tests only test how good someone is at solving IQ tests, they don't measure the ability to handle arcane Wikipedia bureaucracy created by an ever changing committee. SilkTork (talk) 01:27, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Arbitration remedies applying to the Arab–Israeli conflict seem to have grown confusing and patchworked. Is it time to conduct a review of all remedies? I'd like to hear from editors and enforcing administrators who are active in this topic area. Among other questions for a review, we should look at whether 1RR is effective – both in general and under the current rules of notification. AGK ■ 10:20, 28 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Retired arbitrator
  • Airbnb is rather obviously not "reasonably construed" to be within the topic area of an international conflict, though it is "broadly construed" to be. That would mean discretionary sanctions are in force, but 1RR and the general prohibition do not apply. As for calls to review the entire topic area's sanction regime, I consider that unhelpful. There are some editors, admins even, who seem like they just simply won't understand anything we throw their way in this topic area. Further tweaking is highly unlikely to change that, because we've tweaked these sanctions about a dozen times already to try to solve such issues, and the repeated changes have never helped. If anything, they've made things more confused because we aren't just settling on one set of sanctions and sticking with it.

    What we have now is discretionary sanctions on articles "broadly construed" - meaning any article that's even tangentially related to the topic area. Additionally, we have 500/30 and 1RR on articles "reasonably construed" - meaning any article where one could not talk about the article subject at the top level without delving into the topic area. That really isn't that complicated or confused.

    The one positive clarification we could make here is to set forth a formal definition of "reasonably construed". I would suggest what I wrote above. ~ Rob13Talk 05:18, 2 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    • My thinking on this has changed rather sharply after the recent Huldra/Sir Joseph kerfuffle, especially the admin response at AE. It has become clear that the current sanction regime, in total, is not working. I think we need another ABRPIA case to review the entire situation. As a potential road map, I'd like to consider a removal of blanket 500/30 in favor of implementing 500/30 where disruption occurs as a discretionary sanction, with a remedy explicitly noting that the Committee would like it to be used liberally but not unreasonably. Blanket 500/30 is a relic of a bygone era when 500/30 could not be applied by technical means in case-by-case scenarios. Existing protections could be automatically converted to discretionary sanctions appealable at AE like any other sanction, so no "mass-unprotecting" during a switch. I also think we need to rethink the awareness requirements of 1RR and its applicability. In particular, we could change the DS notice to include mention of 1RR and then allow a consensus of administrators at AE to enforce 1RR in cases where a reasonable editor who had received the notice would be aware the article was covered in addition to being able to enforce it where edit notices exist. In other words, edit notices would only be truly needed to enforce the requirement on articles that are difficult to tell are reasonably construed to be within the topic area, but not on those articles that are obviously related. Plus I think a look at the long-term contributors in this area would be useful to determine where there are issues that have not been solvable by the community. ~ Rob13Talk 19:15, 10 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Zero0000: Read carefully what I have written. I have not proposed removing 500/30. I have proposed removing blanket 500/30 of "reasonably construed" pages in favor of discretionary but liberal use of 500/30 to combat abuse across all "broadly construed" pages. I have proposed zero removals of existing protections, stating all existing protections should remain if we were to make such a switch. In fact, such a proposal may increase some protections by eliminating from our vernacular this "reasonably construed" language that is proving hard for admins to parse. The current rule is clearly causing some issues, given the protection of Airbnb, which I believe is rather plainly not intended by our sanctions, and I no longer think the benefits outweigh the harms of removing administrator discretion from the equation in this remedy. ~ Rob13Talk 08:00, 11 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

information Note: We are trying to reach a consensus, so placing comments by a retired arbitrator into {{Hidden}}. AGK ■ 11:21, 16 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  • PIA ARCAs make me want to hide under the blankets, and it seems I'm not the only one. Frankly I'd love to see this topic area get a rules overhaul, but I don't have the time to do it. A number of these repetitive requests on PIA issues have centered on this point about "what if it's just a small section in a larger and mostly-unrelated article" and I've generally held the view that such things should not be included in all the warning/templating/etc infrastructure. I don't see any reason this should be an exception to that general view. Opabinia regalis (talk) 08:48, 6 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm not sure what's more to be said here - but I've been lax at ARCA, so I thought I'd pitch in. In my opinion - the discretionary sanctions can be applied where the disruption occurs - hence the broadly construed nature of that. I would hope that the sanction would be as light as possible in areas that are more tangential to the case, be it through time limitation of the sanction or through a tailored sanction which hits as small an area as possible.
    I like the idea of re-doing ARBPIA, similar to OR, I'd want to hide under the blanket! WormTT(talk) 08:45, 2 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Motion: Arab–Israel conflict

For this motion there are 10 active arbitrators. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 6 support or oppose votes are a majority.

Proposed:

The committee opens proceedings on pages relating to the Arab–Israeli conflict, naming it Palestine-Israel articles 4. Proceedings will take place in the normal form. Evidence (and related submissions, including at the Workshop) must remain within the proceedings scope. The following matters will initially be within scope:

  • Trends in disruptive editing of related pages, but not the specific conduct of any editor.
  • Difficulties in Wikipedia administrative processes, particularly arbitration enforcement (AE), with regard to related pages.
  • Currently-authorised remedies under any arbitration decision that affect related pages.
  • Prospective amendments to, or replacements for, existing remedies.
  • Other general matters relating to the ease with which Wikipedia keeps order on pages relating to the Arab–Israeli conflict.
Support
  1. Proposed. We don't have a lot of bandwidth right now, but we seem to agree that it is time to formally review these decisions and look into why participating editors and uninvolved administrators alike seem to be discontented. This motion proposes a low-fuss path towards conducting such a review, and hopefully matches with what colleagues were thinking. AGK ■ 11:17, 16 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose
Abstain/recuse
Comments

Amendment request: DS Awareness and alerts

Initiated by Atsme at 19:20, 13 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Case or decision affected
  • Motion - The Awareness section of the discretionary sanctions procedure was modified.
Clauses to which an amendment is requested
  1. Basic DS template respective to the particular sanction, be it AP2, Pseudoscience, BLP, etc.


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



Information about amendment request
  • Basic DS template respective to the particular sanction, be it AP2, Pseudoscience, BLP, etc.


Statement by Atsme

Topics subject to DS require that we alert users of same.

An editor is considered aware if:

  • They were mentioned by name in the applicable Final Decision; or
  • They have ever been sanctioned within the area of conflict (and at least one of such sanctions has not been successfully appealed); or
  • In the last twelve months, the editor has given and/or received an alert for the area of conflict; or
  • In the last twelve months, the editor has participated in any process about the area of conflict at arbitration requests or arbitration enforcement; or
  • In the last twelve months, the editor has successfully appealed all their own sanctions relating to the area of conflict.

Proposal to add something along the lines of the following example:

  • The editor maintains a DS Awareness Notice at the top of their user page stating they are aware of sanctions in the respective area(s) of conflict. Any editor who adds a DS Alert to a user's TP despite such notice of awareness for a specific area of conflict (custom or otherwise) will be in violation of DS and subject to AE per current Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee/Discretionary_sanctions#Alerts 21:02, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

Reasoning: some established editors have been the recipients of multiple DS alerts which may be viewed as harassment or abuse of the process. Admins have been taken to task for it from time to time. It typically occurs when a disagreement arises in a conflicted area and a DS notice suddenly appears on an editor's TP. Some editors, intentionally or otherwise, will add a DS template on the TP of an opponent without first checking to see if that editor is already aware, the latter of which is a difficult task in itself, but it can be easily remedied. While DS alerts are included on the conflicted article's TP, and typically in an edit view banner for the article itself, such notices apparently aren't enough.

  • Adding current special rules:09:53, 15 May 2019 (UTC) My bold
WP:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions § Alerts: "Editors issuing alerts are expected to ensure that no editor receives more than one alert per area of conflict per year. Any editor who issues alerts disruptively may be sanctioned. Editors may not use automated tools or bot accounts to issue alerts."
Template:Ds/alert: When you attempt to save the alert on a user talk page: "Special rules govern alerts. You must not give an editor an alert if they have already received one for the same area of conflict within the last twelve months. Please now check that this editor has not already been alerted to this area of conflict in the last twelve months: [links to logs and stuff here]".

My proposal is an effort to help limit DS alert template overuse/abuse (perceived or otherwise) by allowing editors, who are already aware of DS in specific topic areas, to include a permanent notice (customized or standardized) at the top of their user TP stating they are aware of specific areas subject to DS. In order for it to work, ArbCom needs to modify the DS Awareness section to include some form of mandatory check for said TP DS notices before an editor adds the respective DS alert template. I have a customized DS Notice at the top of my user page which I customized for aesthetics, but until ArbCom formally includes/accepts such notices as an acceptable notice of awareness and makes checking for same a mandatory procedure, the harassment issue will probably continue. It is actually an easy and efficient way for editors to make sure they are not overusing the DS alert template, or inadvertently finding themselves in a dispute over it.

  • Thryduulf - notice of sanctions for abusing the alert process are already in place - it's not something I added. The problem is knowing where to go to find the info - the notice at the top of one's TP is to help editors, not impede them. As indicated above, my wording is simply an example. I am not asking that a permanent TP notice be mandatory - it's simply an option. What I'm requesting is for ArbCom to recognize the optional TP notices as an editor's statement that they are aware of DS in the named topic areas. It's a convenience for others and saves them the trouble of having to search for prior alerts, or possibly be sanctioned for abusing the alert process. 10:29, 15 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Rob, perhaps I've misundertsood your response but it does not address what I've proposed. I'm simply asking for ArbCom to include in their list of AWARENESS the recognition of an optional (custom or standard) Alert Notice on the top of a user TP as satisfying the alert requirement - that's all - very simple. Go to a TP of an editor who gets a lot of traffic and tell me if you can easily find if that editor has received an alert in the past 12 mos. Notices are difficult to find, especially for TP that get a lot of traffic. ArbCom made the special rule that an editor can be sanctioned for abuse of the DS alert - particularly because adding it after an editor is already aware of sanctions could be considered harassment by one's opponent - and that is why I proposed the above - to avoid potential harassment and potential sanctioning as a result. Atsme Talk 📧 11:02, 15 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Rob, Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee/Discretionary_sanctions#Awareness_and_alerts leads with (my bold underline) No editor may be sanctioned unless they are aware that discretionary sanctions are in force for the area of conflict. An editor is aware if: . The latter tells us an editor can be made aware by various methods, but then we're advised these only count as the formal notifications required by this procedure if the standard template message – currently Ds/alert – is placed unmodified on the talk page of the editor being alerted. Then we have: Editors issuing alerts are expected to ensure that no editor receives more than one alert per area of conflict per year. Any editor who issues alerts disruptively may be sanctioned. Jiminy Cricket. In retrospect, I probably should have asked ArbCom to simply recognize a customized DS awareness alert at the top of one's user page as formal notification, which makes things less complicated, spares editors potential sanctioning who are not aware of the TP search capability you were kind enough to bring to my attention. Apparently, quite a few editors aren't aware of that feature because in 2017, I received 3 DS alerts (2 in the same month, 1 the next month) despite my being fully aware of the DS topic area(s) via other means listed in the green box. At the time, it sure felt like harrassment. In 2019, I received yet another alert despite the notice at the top of my page and my being fully aware of DS in the topic area. I believe there are quite a few others who can relate. I just hope ArbCom will consider simply recognizing as formal notification (1) a customized DS alert awareness notice at the top of a user's TP and will (2) modify the following statement if the standard template message – currently Ds/alert – is placed unmodified on the talk page of the editor being alerted to accommodate it. Apologies for any confusion I may have caused for not being more clear in my initial statement. Atsme Talk 📧 14:21, 15 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Rob I actually tried to avoid bringing Doug Weller into this discussion because as you can see from some of the responses here, people don't always AGF and for some reason, they become defensive over something as harmless as this request. I'm not the one who decided there has been abuse of the DS/Alert template - ArbCom made that decision, and that is probably where Bishonen can get answers - but for now, I'll just add that what triggered my request was this discussion wherein Doug very undeservedly was taken to task over the template, and I felt bad for him. I mentioned my idea to him, and that discussion is what brought me here, so all the wild guesses over why I've made this proposal can now be put to rest. I have seen admins taken to task by angry editors for no good reason, and I have seen editors harassed over the templates so I simply sought a remedy I thought might help eliminate or at least reduce the issues. I've seen it quite a few times but my purpose here is not to get anyone in trouble, including myself, because chances are, my detractors will somehow spin things around to make it all my fault, and that's what I consider a sad state of affairs. Atsme Talk 📧 12:44, 16 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Mandruss, had I known you would have been offended by this, I would have approached it much differently. It was not my intention to purposely offend or hurt anyone's feelings - I was in defense mode - and I certainly hope you can understand why I was feeling piled-on after what I had just been through in January. Over time, such things tend to make an editor defensive, and that is what I'm trying to avoid happening to others by proposing something as simple as a custom DS alert notice that ArbCom will acknowledge. No harm - no foul. When other editors know the targeted editor is aware, why add that ugly template to their TP? Mandruss, you obviously have an advanced understanding of the technical intricacies of filters and how to find things some of us spend hours trying to find or never find. I'll be first to admit that I've had no professional/academic training in code much less CSS. Everything I know was self-taught and my introduction began back in the day when all we had was C> which later became C:\>. When Steven Jobs brought us the first Mac, I was elated!! Long story short - I hope some day you will stop seeing me as someone who is trying to complicate things when my goal is quite the opposite. My perspective branches out to newbies, to busy editors who simply aren't aware of all the perks and shortcuts, and/or to those of us who have trouble remembering all the acronyms, code and shortcuts. WP deals with all age groups and all levels of computer knowledge, and I believe it's worth the time to explore the full potential of our volunteers, and help them find a niche where they'll be happiest and can do the most good for the project. And Mandruss, you are welcome to comment on my TP anytime - I apologize for my lack of patience that day and for deleting your comment, and I hope you understand why I acted in that manner. I will try to do better. 🕊 Atsme Talk 📧 00:01, 16 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Mandruss - I disagree with most of what you've said, including your comments to GRuban, me, and overall in your statement. <---constructive criticism. I see it more as squelching a much simpler process in support of a more complicated one. I don't see how my proposal makes things more complicated. Yes, it adds a tiny bit of work for ArbCom to make a few minor adjustments to their already complicated requirements - so sit on a whoopee cushion and we'll all have a good laugh. All one has to do is read and try to understand what ArbCom intended and why they chose the route they did - but first, install a fan, blow away all the smoke, and then tell me what you see. I'm of the mind that you'll find editors making excuses that they weren't aware the article was under DS in an attempt to get out of a t-ban or block which is what led to the "remedy" we have in place now - basically ignorance of the law - it has worked in some instances, and probably should have, so now what we have created is growing bureaucracy that requires alerts every year, leaving the ambiguity over what is or isn't harassment in place which further leaves opposing POVs vulnerable and subject to biases - and that is what you consider a simplified process? If so, I don't agree, which is why I made this request to simply things. If this discussion closes with nothing more than editors thinking about the things I've pointed out, I see it as progress; albeit at a slow crawl. Atsme Talk 📧 20:41, 16 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sir Joseph - thank you for making that connection about the bot/auto notices. I think it serves indirectly to support this request and allowing custom DS Alert awareness notices at the top of a user page. Maybe it will help lighten things up on the requirements necessary for establishing a user's awareness. Most new editors are simply not going to be aware of DS issues when they first show-up at an article - how could they be? Eventually, they learn but that's also when these other irritiating issues begin to rear their ugly little heads - including DS Alerts. It's easy for veteran editors to say how easy it is to look for prior notices using scripts, search options, etc. because they are familiar with the community and the processes - but we also have to take into consideration the thousands of editors, both old and new, who are not aware of all the options available, much less code or the many acronyms. So what is wrong with simplifying the process so that it doesn't require a wikilawyer, a great deal of effort or experience - just add a DS alert awareness notice at the top of your TP, and be done with it - you reduce all the guessing and leg work? KISS 💋 Atsme Talk 📧 20:15, 16 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • SilkTork - please briefly explain what part of this proposal you find annoying? Are you referring to the simple addition of text to ArbCom's alert requirement and/or what is considered a formal notice? Atsme Talk 📧 17:29, 17 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
SilkTork Clarifying the following response is with reference to the proposed custom/standard TP notice at the top of user TP. Atsme Talk 📧 16:47, 18 May 2019 (UTC) No, that is not the purpose or intent. There is obviously a misunderstanding. The notice is simply acknowledgement that the user is AWARE of DS in a given topic area. Its purpose is to save editors the trouble of searching for the bureaucratic "formal DS alert" or worse, saves them from adding a 2nd or possibly 3rd DS alert on that user's TP. With the notice at the top of a user page, editors can quickly see if the user is aware and move on or go through the extra efforts required to post ArbCom's DS alert. It is ArbCom bureaucracy that forces the extra work and complicates things by insisting there is only one formal notice that is acceptable, so we have to jump through hoops in lieu of having a simple acknowledgement at the top of our TP. It actually eliminates the annoyance you believe it creates. Atsme Talk 📧 18:22, 17 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Objective3000 - it appears you may be conflating the current abuse of DS alerts as something I've proposed when it is already part of the DS alert process by ArbCom. I support its removal. The current process is confusing and highly bureaucratic. I support ArbCom removing the misuse sanction currently in place. The crux of my proposal is quite simply for ArbCom to formally recognize a declaration of awareness at the top of a UTP as meeting the requirements for editor awareness of DS sanctions for the following reasons:
    1. It's a simple DS alert notice at the top of one's UTP declaring awareness of DS in named topic areas - it remains as part of one's UTP and can be customized for aesthetics;
    2. When you go to a UTP, the first place you land is at the top of the page so it's hard to miss the alert;
    3. You don't have to hunt for anything as we do now because it lists all topic areas a user is aware;
    4. It saves editors time researching, and potential sanctioning for abuse of the DS alert process;
    5. It is optional, but will serve no purpose unless ArbCom formally recognizes it as a declaration of an editor's awareness.
  • Some of the comments below support it as an option while some suggest either (a) maintaining status quo, or (b) removing the abuse sanction from ArbCom's current policy, or (c) automating the process using a bot. My proposal simply streamlines the entire process, so if more users will opt in, the easier and less complicated it will be. Atsme Talk 📧 14:22, 22 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Goldenshimmer, this proposal does not stop editors from getting a DS Alert unless they acknowledge at the top of their UTP that they are aware of DS in specific topic areas. If they don't use such a DS alert notice, then the normal procedure applies. Perhaps it would help if you re-read the proposal or maybe ask questions if you're not quite certain what is being proposed here. I will gladly oblige, preferrably on my TP so as not to break anything here. 😊 Atsme Talk 📧 00:07, 23 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It's actually quite simple - see Galobtter's statement below. In summary, I have an aesthetic "I am DS aware" notice at the top of my TP. Either JFG, Awilley or Galobtter (or all 3) have volunteered to write an ?embedded? or ?hidden? code we can simply add to our TP that triggers an already aware notice whenever someone attempts to add another DS notice - see Galobtter's example. I'm thinking most editors will see the custom DS-aware notice at the top of a user's TP and won't bother trying to post another one. But...if they don't see it, and attempt to post another DS notice, doing so will auto trigger an "already aware notice" and prevent it from being added. It's a wonderful thing - no aggravation - no extra work - everybody's happy. My apologies for not explaining it that simply from the get-go. Atsme Talk 📧 02:30, 6 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by BullRangifer

  • Atsme is correct that tracking down whether an editor has received a DS notice can be difficult and a waste of time. It would really help the process, and be a help to editors who have received DS alerts and DS sanctions (as well as other editors), if DS alerts AND sanctions were logged so they could be seen in the same way and place as when one looks at an editor's block log. Please make this happen. Otherwise, I have no current opinion on Atsme's request, although I reserve the right to return. -- BullRangifer (talk) 19:57, 13 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think this boils down to the need for everyone to grow thicker skin and just AGF. -- BullRangifer (talk) 15:27, 17 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Thryduulf

I like the idea of an opt-in "I'm aware of discretionary sanctions in <topic-area-1>, <topic-area-2>" notice, and I'm fine with discouraging editors from adding another notice for any of the listed areas. However I think the proposal to make leaving another notice a sanctionable offence is going too far - e.g. alerting to major changes should be allowed (the recent merging of the Balkans sanctions into the Eastern European sanctions comes to mind as a major change that users professing awareness of one or the other should still be able to be formally made aware of). If someone is being disruptive or harassing another editor by use of the notices then that can be dealt with on a case-by-case basis without most editors being dragged to AE for mistakes. Thryduulf (talk) 18:27, 14 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Many of the arguments against this - the added complexity of needing to check the talk page and the filter history - could be avoided if placing a notice about your own awareness triggered the edit filter in the same way that someone else leaving a DS notice did. This would presumably require the notice to be in a standard format, but to be effective it would anyway. It would require updating each year, but one edit a year is not a burden and you can set yourself a reminder using whatever method you normally use to give yourself reminders about tasks that need doing. Thryduulf (talk) 07:48, 16 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Floq

Isn't the solution to getting a redundant DS notice to just remove it with the edit summary "Thanks, I already knew that"? The DS process is already complicated, why make it more complicated? --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:36, 14 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Mandruss

I'll strongly oppose this, FWIW. It would be an added complication to something that is already unnecessarily complicated, without sufficient benefit to justify that added complication. I'd love to see some proposals to simplify.

BTW, editors who don't like receiving routine non-critical DS alerts can issue them to themselves, which creates the normal page history entries. I pointed this out to Atsme before she opened this item. It takes a minute or two per year, not an unreasonable burden in my opinion. ―Mandruss ☎ 20:42, 14 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Atsme's argument appears to rest on the false premise that it's too difficult to check the UTP history. Notices are difficult to find, especially for TP that get a lot of traffic. That is simply not true, and it's clear that Atsme wasn't aware of the easy way to do this when she opened this item. If Atsme's experience with duplicate alerts was due to good-faith lack of editor awareness (1) she is just as capable of pointing editors to the instructions as anyone else, and (2) doesn't her proposal presume and require editor awareness? If it was harassment (certainly possible, although Atsme has shown a marked tendency to perceive harassment where it doesn't exist[3]), the solution is sanctions, not an added complication to the system that wouldn't prevent harassment anyway. ―Mandruss ☎ 20:11, 15 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@GRuban: surely there should be some way to ask that specific boilerplate notices not come to our talk pages? And surely there is one, as explained in my first comment above. Are you really supporting this added complication to the rules to save a few editors that one or two minutes per year? Are you saying editors shouldn't be subjected to boilerplate notices from themselves? Is it just me, or does this approach the comical? Seriously, molehill→mountain. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:02, 15 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@GRuban, you're certainly not the first to fail to weigh the upside of a proposal against its downside with equal clarity and focus on both. That complexity is an ongoing cost is a fact that is very widely supported by experts—virtually indisputable—and yet almost completely ignored in countless decisions like this one throughout Wikipedia's history. That's why we have an editing environment that is maddeningly complex, and unnecessarily so. I will continue to fight that from time to time, as my time and motivation level permit. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:13, 16 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Atsme: I completely understand your reasoning, and in my view you're missing the following. You propose to make things easier on editors in one way, without showing how many editors need things made easier in that way. At the same time, your proposal would make things harder on editors in a different way, a way that would affect every editor without question (that is, every editor who uses DS alerts). Currently, editors must check the page history. If your proposal were implemented, editors would have to check the top of the UTP, and then check the page history if they don't see the message. That's clearly a little more difficult; worse in my view, it's incrementally more complicated, i.e. more difficult to understand and remember. It's just a small increase in complexity, but the monumental mess we call Wikipedia editing is the sum of thousands of small increases in complexity just like this one.

Thus your argument hinges on widespread use of your proposed message—the more widespread, the better—and you ask us to take that widespread use on faith. I wouldn't use it.

had I known you would have been offended by this, I would have approached it much differently. - Helpful hint for future reference: Editors will somewhat predictably be offended when you call their constructive criticism "harassment", which is a sanctionable offense. ―Mandruss ☎ 01:40, 16 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@MONGO - This discussion is not about me or my comment on Atsme's UTP, and it's ridiculous to respond to a brief parenthetical aside with a 300-word off-topic essay. I seriously considered ignoring your comments entirely, but I assume most present will appreciate my not following you down that bottomless rabbit hole. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:37, 16 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Premeditated Chaos: I really don't see the drawback of letting someone essentially opt in to knowing about DS. Let them spend one to two minutes per year showing that they know about DS, with no change required to the existing system. Or, let them stop being annoyed so easily, neither alternative too much to ask of a grown-ass man or woman. Homo sapiens is the most adaptable species on the planet, and it's a fool's errand to continually complicate the system to save a few vocal editors from having to make a small adjustment for the greater good. That only invites more of the same—literally without end. ―Mandruss ☎ 01:48, 27 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Premeditated Chaos: - I really don't see it as a complication - It unquestionably adds a degree of complexity, slightly lengthening the learning curve for every editor introduced to DS alerts, for as long as DS alerts exist, as explained above. It will add to existing documentation and probably add one or more new software elements like templates. The return on that investment: (1) Some undetermined number of editors, only a handful that we actually know of, are saved the one or two minutes a year required to issue DS alerts to themselves, and (2) some undetermined fraction of editors who issue DS alerts—that fraction depending on how widely the new notice is used, a total unknown—are saved the small effort of checking the UTP history using the filter (note that there is no requirement for any single editor to issue DS alerts, and every editor is free to leave that to others if they find that checking too difficult). I'm sorry if folks can't see that that's a bad trade-off, and I guess I've outlived any usefulness I've had in this discussion. Good luck. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:07, 28 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@SilkTork - We are here to serve the project, not have the project serve us. - Exactly. Thank you! Somebody please enlarge that, frame it, and hang it on the wall. ―Mandruss ☎ 20:09, 30 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by GRuban

Support basically per Thryduulf. We're allegedly not a bureaucracy, we don't have rules for the sake of having rules, Atsme maintains a prominent notice on her talk page that she is aware of these sanctions, and finds getting them annoying. Surely there should be some way to opt-out. Just saying "well she shouldn't find them annoying" as some here seem to be saying does not answer that. We're allowed to ask specific people not to come to our talk pages, surely there should be some way to ask that specific boilerplate notices not come to our talk pages? --GRuban (talk) 21:48, 15 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Mandruss: Atsme wants to be able to put up a straightforward "no soliciting" sign once, and leave it up, rather than have to post messages on her own talk page at regular intervals. Even if that weren't a rather non-obvious way to go about things (I have to notify myself? Repeatedly?) there is a difference between being able to opt out once, and many times. Though as Thryduulf writes, I admit asking for sanctions for well intentioned missing of the notice seem to be a bit far; if someone is intentionally using whatever for harassment, we don't need to itemize all the possible ways. --GRuban (talk) 23:55, 15 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Objective3000

Just 2.1 weeks back, ATSME complained about a DS warning on her page attacking two editors for actionable harassment, one correctly following procedure and one (me) defending the editor after the attack.[4]. There was no DS alert in the previous 12 months. Somehow the editor leaving the alert was supposed to know there was a recent appeal by ATSME. I then received an odd (but polite) notice on my TP that I was incorrect in defending the editor for following procedure. [5]

I leave a fair number of DS alerts. I search history (which can be very long) and the 602 log. Am I now supposed to also search the editor TP to see if they demand that I don’t leave a DS alert? (ATSME’s TP is now 35,377 bytes.) Further, if a DS alert isn't left annually, how is the next person to know not to leave another without an entry in the log?

A rare extra DS alert, which are now politely stated, is nothing compared to the SPAM I receive every day (hour). Just say thanks or remove it. The notice at the top of ATSME’s page telling editors not to post DS alerts is inappropriate. O3000 (talk) 00:25, 16 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Comment – It’s much easier to search the 602 log (one click from the warning when you post an alert) than the UTP, and the log should always work if a previous alert was properly issued. And if it wasn’t properly issued, another should probably be issued anywho. I’d suggest removing the requirement to search the UTP history before posting an alert. O3000 (talk) 10:38, 16 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@MONGO: Please AGF. Most of the alerts I post are for newcomers to the ugly areas when it looks as though they are likely to violate, as a prophylactic. The alerts exist for a reason; and that reason is not to set some sort of trap.[6] O3000 (talk) 20:07, 16 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The problem I have with adding a DS aware notice on a UTP is instruction creep. There are users that don’t want other things posted on their UTPs, like humor, images, birthday notices. It’s fine to have options to control some bots. But, let’s not end up with a set of custom rules by UTP that an editor must read before posting. O3000 (talk) 10:32, 22 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Atsme, I am not conflating anything. I’m OK with the current process. O3000 (talk) 14:33, 22 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Drmies

I am not sure what we are doing here. NO ONE needs more bureaucracy in this area. A DS template is just that--a notification. If someone wants to see that as a slap on the wrist, I suppose that's up to them, but we shouldn't discourage notifying editors who might get in trouble. If I have to search by way of filters or what not before I can drop a DS template (usually, in my case, I think they're BLP templates), that's just yet another little hoop. I am sorry if Atsme got hurt in January (?), or if a DS template is triggering, but all this is already complicated enough.

And wile we are on the topic, I am having a hard time figuring this out because I'm also hearing that someone got upset at an edit summary last week, and that people were elated when Bill Gates delivered a computer to their place of work, or something like that. Which reminds me that Atsme's topic ban (former topic ban?) was issued in part because of that kind of chatter on talk pages, was it not? Drmies (talk) 03:04, 16 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Comment to BU Rob13 by Bishonen

@BU Rob13: I don't know about the "fact" that admins have been taken to task for leaving a DS notice, since you're worried about that. It's only a fact that Atsme has stated that "Admins have been taken to task for it from time to time". Please supply diffs, Atsme. "Taken to task" sounds like something imposed from above, i. e. taken to task by arbcom. Really? Bishonen | talk 09:55, 16 May 2019 (UTC).[reply]

Comment from SN

I don't think this has been mentioned yet (?), but using User:Bellezzasolo/Scripts/arb—link—to place DS alerts searches for a previous alert within the first year automatically, so you don't have to do it yourself (the script is able to automate the procedure for checking that a user has previously been notified of sanctions. ——SerialNumber54129 12:05, 16 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by WBG

Seems like a solution in search of a problem. I, for one, check the EF hits (that can be easily accessed from the banner that automatically pops up, once you try to save the page for the first time with the template) to detect whether the user has been served with the same DS notice in the last year and accordingly proceed with issuing the notice. Also, in case of redundant issuings of notices, we need to assume good faith. ∯WBGconverse 14:43, 16 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Sir Joseph

1. @Serial Number 54129: IIRC, ARBCOM recently ruled that you can't use that anymore, but I can be mistaken.

2. I'm not exactly sure what the issue is. As it's written now, if you give yourself an alert every twelve months, you are covered by this: *In the last twelve months, the editor has given and/or received an alert for the area of conflict; or and when someone tries to give you a DS notice, the edit filter will catch it. All you have to do is just renew that every twelve months on your own talk page. I don't think we should add another rule or layer of bureaucracy. If you want to add something to the top of your talk page, then do so,and add a notify alert to yourself to renew the alert within twelve months so you can renew the alert. Sir Joseph (talk) 18:52, 16 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Masem

I generally agree that having to deal with repeated notices can be a pain, but also just wanted to add that we have many bots that frequently drop user-talk messages and which recognize opt-out messages linked on the user's talk page. We treat those opt-outs that the user is well aware that any result from not recieving new notices is wholly their responsibility (eg image deletion).

If we were to have "DS message bot", in which DSes can only be placed by the bot by a request of an admin, that bot can check for such opt-outs. But how often does this situation come up? I'm just brainstomring here in case the community goes in that direction. --Masem (t) 19:50, 16 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by MONGO

I wonder how many people who have issued DS "reminders" can honestly state that each and every time they have done this was just to provide a "friendly reminder". As part of AE enforcements one of the first steps to get a sanction placed against a editing foe is to make sure they first get a DS "friendly reminder".--MONGO (talk) 19:53, 16 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Mandruss above alludes that his comment at Atsme talkpage was "constructive criticism" and I assume he meant this criticism (and almost immediately removed here) that I personally would label as harassment and bullying, particularly in the specific timeframe Mandruss posted it. I personally do not find the following passage to be "constructive criticism: "I forget whether I'm welcome here or not. After this comment, probably not, as there is a high correlation between support and welcome on this page. According to the page history, the previous AP2 DS alert expired in July 2018.[7] There is no requirement to be aware of, let alone observe, a notice at the top of the UTP. That notice is not a substitute for the page history entries that editors are instructed to check before issuing an alert. I issued my currently-active AP2 DS alert to myself, just to save others the trouble.[8] If you don't like receiving them from others, Atsme, you might consider doing the same in the future." I mean, if one isn't clear if they are even welcome at a talkpage, why badger that person at all? Yes, as Mandruss admits himself the last DS warning in that topic area was indeed less than a year ago and for petes sake, Atsme was sanctioned since then so I mean, it's obvious they are aware of the DS on that topic you think? The last sentence Mandruss offers makes a little sense, maybe, but why the hell are we going to place DS tags on our own pages just to avoid someone else doing it for us? For the record, my placement of a DS "friendly reminder" on my own talkpage was directly due to demonstrating the folly of such a notion.--MONGO (talk) 20:39, 16 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]


Statement by Mr Ernie

The whole process of alerted editors to DS is overly bureaucratic for the sake of bureaucracy, especially because there's more ways than just the talk page notice to show editors are aware. Take this one, for example - "In the last twelve months, the editor has participated in any process about the area of conflict at arbitration requests or arbitration enforcement." Now back in February 2019, both myself and Objective3000 commented in an AE case in the AmPol topic area. But you may notice on my talk page that O3000 gave me the annual refresher 2 months later in April 2019. I'm technically also permanently aware, as I've been sanctioned (but since successfully appealed) in that topic area before. Is it reasonable to expect editors to check AE comment histories or logs to confirm that editors are aware? I don't think so, but it did annoy me somewhat to be given another notice, especially since I'd have a very similar discussion (see here) still visible on my talk page. I'm not sure what to do about it, if Arbcom insists that all the awareness criteria should remain. These talk page notices should really only be given to new or inexperienced editors. Everyone else is surely aware that misbehavior (real or perceived) gets you in trouble. Mr Ernie (talk) 09:35, 17 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Awilley

A suggestion for something that (I think) would be pretty straightforward to implement.


We currently have Special:AbuseFilter/602 that detects if somebody is trying to add {{DS/Alert}} to a page and gives them the following warning: MediaWiki:Abusefilter-warning-DS

It shouldn't be too difficult to modify that edit filter to also detect a self-awareness template or category on the same user talk page.

Steps needed to make this happen
  1. Somebody create {{DS/Aware}} that editors can put at the top of their talk page to indicate that they are aware of sanctions. The syntax should include a field for the topic area, and maybe an option to hide the template. Example: {{DS/Aware|topic=AP|hidden=yes}} The template could also place hidden categories on the talk page like Category:Aware of AP sanctions.
  2. Modify Special:AbuseFilter/602 MediaWiki:Abusefilter-warning-DS to detect if the awareness template appears on the page, and if it does display a message that the user is already aware of the sanctions. have the edit filter prevent the addition of {{DS/Alert}}. Also have the edit filter create log entries for when users add or remove {{DS/Aware}} from their talk pages.
  3. Arbcom adds "* The editor has placed a {{DS/Aware}} template for the area of conflict on their own talk page, or has removed the template within the last 12 months" to the list of items under "An editor is considered aware if:"
  4. Forget the garbage proposal about punishing editors who leave DS Alerts for editors who are self-aware (moot anyway if the edit filter blocks the edit).

I imagine this would take a couple of hours for somebody with the technical know-how, and I wouldn't be surprised to see lots of people opt in. The current system of manual annual alerts for each topic area is annoying.

~Awilley (talk) 15:21, 18 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging Arbs who have already commented: @BU Rob13: @Opabinia regalis: @SilkTork: @Mkdw:
I suspect you haven't yet taken the time to have not yet read deep enough into the "Statements" to see my alternate proposal above. I don't blame you...you have a lot of reading to do, and I commented after some of you had already written your statements.
Reading what you have written I would summarize your current position as "Yeah, DS Alerts are mildly annoying, but the proposed solution makes things as annoying or more annoying by adding more hassle for people doing the perfectly acceptable work of placing alert templates. I'm open to other solutions that are less annoying and that don't create more work." I believe my proposal is just that. It's less annoying for the people who don't like getting templated every year (they no longer receive templates) and it's less annoying for the people placing the templates (they no longer have to search through the edit filter logs to try and determine whether the user is aware, since the automatic warning template would now explicitly say "This user is aware of the sanctions for the following topic areas: foo bar baz")
User:Galobtter has been kind enough to demonstrate that this will indeed work. You can check yourself: Navigate to User:Galobtter/sandbox3, edit the page, add the words "Testing of Ds/aware abusefilter", then hit "save".
In conclusion, the only thing you (Arbs) need to do is #3. Others (see also JFG below) are already willing to do the rest of the work required to implement this. ~Awilley (talk) 16:02, 26 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@AGK: Re: "complicating the issuance of DS alerts in any way would be the step backwards." I agree. I think my proposal is a step in the direction of simplifying things. See the following table
Procedure for leaving an alert template on a user's talk page
Current system Proposed modification
Regular user protected by ACDS#aware.aware 1. Place the template on user talk page and hit Save
2. Use the link from the Warning template to sort through previous alerts and verify that the user hasn't been alerted about this particular topic area in the last 12 months
3. (optional) Perform a search of the archives at WP:AE to see if the user has participated in cases related to the topic area in the last 12 months
4. (rarely done) Make sure the user wasn't a participant in the original arbitration case
5. Try to recall if the user is under any active discretionary sanctions for the topic area
6. Hit "Save" again to actually place the template
7. Be prepared to respond to the user's questions about why you templated them		 No change in complexity from current system
User who has opted out of ACDS#aware.aware by placing {{DS/Aware}} on their talkpage — 1. Place the template on user talk page and hit Save
2. The Warning template pops up and says that the user is already aware
3. Go back to editing
In summary, it doesn't make things any more complicated for templating users who have not opted out, and it makes things much more simple for users who have. ~Awilley (talk) 17:16, 27 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • @SilkTork: Thanks for the follow up. I personally haven't done anything on this since May. I figured we were waiting for a go-ahead from you before modifying any templates. I'm currently on vacation with limited time, but between me, User:JFG, and User:Galobtter I'm probably the least essential. In any case I think a mockup shouldn't be too difficult to produce now that Galobtter has shown that it is technically possible. ~Awilley (talk) 20:25, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by QEDK

The current system is just fine, instead of making a DS notice to be a big deal, we just need to destigmatize the notice. I oppose any proposal of pressing a button to inform an editor, it should be compulsory for an editor to do their due diligence. If it's absolutely necessary, we might as well shift the responsibility to bots, to inform editors whose edits meet a certain condition (bytes/number of edits) and log DS notices and get it off our hands entirely, instead of a half-hearted attempt to automate part of the process, then this finger-pointing with notices can finally stop. --qedk (t 桜 c) 15:42, 18 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by JFG

As a "regular" in the AP2 DS domain, I have had my fair share of giving and receiving DS alerts. In several instances when I received one, I got the uneasy feeling that "somebody wants to stir drama now". Sometimes I ask for clarification from the alert dispenser, to check whether any recent editing of mine prompted their action. I consider myself as having a pretty thick skin, and yet I sometimes feel attacked, so I understand that Atsme or other editors may feel threatened by such alerts, especially when it's obvious that they are editing regularly in a DS area, and they would be aware of the process. The feeling may be even stronger after an editor recently went through an AE case, irrespective of the outcome. I have unfortunately seen alerts being handed out as an intimidation tactic, despite the best efforts of alert drafters in making them less threatening now than they originally sounded. In the spirit of WP:DTR, I think that editors should be able to opt out of receiving such alerts, being understood that they cannot then defend themselves in an AE case by claiming ignorance.

As a practical step, I fully support Awilley's proposal of a standard {{DS/Aware}} message that could be placed on one's user talk page, and would be checked by relevant bots and edit filters. People trying to place an alert would be themselves notified that "this user already knows about DS in this area", thus saving both editors some time and mental effort. Should the Committee support this change, I would volunteer to help craft and test the appropriate technicalities.

Finally, I join other commenters in rejecting any automatic boomerang effect on editors who place DS notices despite an "I'm aware" message. Such behaviour, if deemed objectionable, would be assessed in the normal course of an AE proceeding. — JFG talk 06:13, 22 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Good suggestion by Fæ below. @Awilley and Galobtter: Would that work well? Contrary to Fæ, I'd still support making the {{DS/Aware}} template visible. Telling people "I'm already aware" is a simplifying step. — JFG talk 07:21, 1 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with some other posters: we don't need a long protracted discussion here. Can Arbcom just decide in principle whether users can opt out of DS alerts in topic areas of their choosing? Then these users cannot mount an "I wasn't aware" defense at AE. There is demonstrated demand for this simplification, and it is likely to reduce drama whenever alerts are perceived as threats (irrespective of whether such perceptions are justified). The community will sort out the technicalities. — JFG talk 06:30, 6 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@SilkTork and Awilley: I'm largely off-wiki this week. Would be happy to work further on the draft technical solution and template wording if that's what you feel the committee needs in order to reach a decision. I feel the committee could usefully rule on principle only, but that's just me. — JFG talk 06:05, 27 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Galobtter for completing the technical part of the job. The amendment is ready to pass now. — JFG talk 12:48, 13 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Goldenshimmer

Just dropping in to say... I've studiously avoided learning about the various topic-area editing restrictions so far. So, I would appreciate getting a notice on my talk telling me I need to start thinking about them so I can adjust my behavior accordingly, if anyone thinks I do (rather than getting whacked with a sanction without warning). (I mostly do smallish, infrequent edits, and I guess no one's felt they needed to give me a notice so far.) So, please don't replace it with "you're expected to read the talk page before any edit to see if there's a sanction notice" or similar pitfalls for the unwary. All that said, a way for people to opt out if they don't want the messages doesn't sound like a bad idea. Thanks! (I hope I commented here correctly, and am supposed to; feel free to move/delete this if you want.) —{{u|Goldenshimmer}} (they/their)｜😹｜✝️｜John 15:12｜☮️｜🍂｜T/C 18:19, 22 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, and harassment is totally unacceptable, of course, whatever medium is used for it, although hopefully this doesn't need mentioning... —{{u|Goldenshimmer}} (they/their)｜😹｜✝️｜John 15:12｜☮️｜🍂｜T/C 18:23, 22 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
To clarify the purpose of the above: My comment was mostly intended as something for future authors/implementers of alternate proposals to bear in mind, such as in the actioning of the suggestion to "open up a community call for ideas" (—Mkdw, WP:ARCA#DS_Awareness_and_alerts:_Arbitrator_views_and_discussion); as well as just to share my appreciation for the positive aspects of the current system, which didn't seem to have been voiced elsewhere. I was aware that this proposal as written would be dependent on a talk page header, and have no issue with it; I wasn't trying to argue against what was being proposed. Sorry this wasn't clearer! —{{u|Goldenshimmer}} (they/their)｜😹｜✝️｜John 15:12｜☮️｜🍂｜T/C 00:50, 23 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Newyorkbrad

I don't have a strong opinion about this specific proposal, but I do about the bigger picture. ArbCom introduced discretionary sanctions in 2007 as a way of dealing with ongoing problems in our most contentious articles and topic-areas. Because the editing rules for pages covered by DS may be very different from the usual rules, and violations may be sanctioned more quickly or more severely, since the inception of DS there has been a requirement that editors be warned that the rules exist before they can be sanctioned under them. This is matter of basic fairness, to ensure that editors are not sanctioned for breaking a rule that they didn't know existed, and would have complied with had they known.

From this common-sense origin of the "warn before sanctioning" requirement, over the past 12 years there has developed an increasingly complicated and arcane set of procedural rules for DS warnings and notifications. This accompanies the increasing complexity of the actual discretionary sanctions themselves in the various topic-areas (including but not limited to the uniquely complicated rules for the Israel-Palestine and American politics areas). Each incremental step along this path has been well-intentioned, but the cumulative effect is that we may have created a morass of complexity that is increasingly difficult to understand. I myself don't understand all the rules at this point; and if I don't, given that I've spent more of my wikilife on the arbitration pages than any other editor, I'm not sure what chance anyone else has.

I don't have any specific changes to propose, and my intention is to finish stepping away from the arbitration pages (a process which this posting suggests I'm not all that good at), but in the interim I would urge caution before taking any step that might make matters even more complicated than they already are. Newyorkbrad (talk) 14:52, 29 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Fæ

Rather than a big visible notice that would itself be annoying for users who find DS alerts annoying, it would be entirely possible to use an invisible process to achieve the same result.

The current system relies on edit filter 602 picking up an attempted edit matching the alert template text. Technically there is nothing to stop extending that filter to pick up on matches to an otherwise invisible template being added to the users talk page by themselves. This can then create a log entry showing that the user has elected to log that they are aware of DS applying to any topic(s) they are interested in.

Under current procedures for DS alerts, this then avoids any further notices for the next 12 months for that topic.

--Fæ (talk) 08:28, 31 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Od Mishehu: makes sensible remarks with respect to implementation, however I believe it wise for Arbcom to make a decision on the principle alone, without resolving specifics about what is technically reasonable, best or possible. For example, rather than discussing a clarification about notice templates and the edit filter, the clarification here should be focused on whether a user should be able to flag themselves as being aware of DS on given topics, and then be considered opted out of alerts. However that is then technically implemented is downstream, whether by self-added templates, self alerting, a request page/list or something else, and does not need to be resolved here through Arbcom motions, as usability and practicality is better done via community consensus. --Fæ (talk) 11:14, 5 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Galobtter

@Fæ and JFG: Users can already alert themselves with {{Ds/alert}}, and Mandruss has suggested doing that above. The presumable benefit to a change here is having a notice that works permanently, i.e without notifications every 12 months for multiple topic areas. Galobtter (pingó mió) 07:50, 1 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@SilkTork and Awilley: Everything technical has been done. See Template:Ds/aware for the mockup (which calls Module:Ds/aware).

So the remaining steps are

  1. Arbcom passes a motion to add "The editor has placed the {{Ds/aware}} template for the area of conflict on their own talk page, or has removed the template within the last 12 months", per Awilley's wording, to WP:AC/DS#aware.aware
  2. Modify MediaWiki:Abusefilter-warning-DS to add {{#invoke:Ds/aware|detect}}, which will show a message if a person has {{Ds/aware}} on their talk page, along with the topic areas they have indicated awareness of

And then people will be able to use {{Ds/aware}}.

As a sidenote, in the interests of not ever-increasing the complexities of WP:AC/DS#aware.aware, I personally would suggest axing the "In the last twelve months, the editor has participated in any process about the area of conflict at arbitration requests or arbitration enforcement" criterion. That one is almost never applicable in my experience, because anyone active enough to participate in ARCAs and AEs has very likely been active enough in the topic area to have received an alert - that criterion just adds complexity, and is an absolute pain to search for. Although that could probably be a separate ARCA. Galobtter (pingó mió) 13:19, 2 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Od Mishehu

Since a number of users are suggesting that we use the edit filter to disallow DS warnings under certain conditions, I think I should clarify on some technical issues:

  1. The filter can only check the wikitext of the one page, not the UP of the UTP's owner, not an edit notice, not a transcluded "header" page.
  2. The filter can only access the current version of the page.
  3. As far as I know, there is no way to get the flag from the current DS warning and use this flag to check other text on the page. It is possible to explicitly write a test for each existing DS, but maintaining this would require new manual work on the filter each time a new DS is imposed.
  4. If a user is aware of multiple DS topics, he should be able to handle this with multiple parameters to a single template instance. The edit filter could be given an appropriate regular expression for each DS, but maintaining the filter would become extremely difficult.

Statement by MJL

I disagree Galobtter. I've not once received an alert (nor would I particularly like to tbh) and have participated in the areas of AE and ARCA. I'd prefer we keep that bit in there or at least have a separate discussion about it another time. Either way, it looks like User talk:MJL/Editnotice will need an update... –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 03:21, 16 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by (username)

DS Awareness and alerts: Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

DS Awareness and alerts: Arbitrator views and discussion

  • One already can see if someone has received a recent DS alert by searching edits on the user talk page for the "discretionary sanctions alert" tag, so the technical recommendation to somehow add a log is not needed. (Tags would be the only way of doing this sort of thing, given the realities of the MediaWiki software.) I'm not super hot on this idea because I worry that it will only encourage the view that leaving a DS notice is a negative thing. It is not. If you've been contributing positively in a contentious area and I noticed you haven't gotten a DS notice, I would still leave one, since it would be helpful for positive editors to be aware of the sanctions so they can go to AE and seek sanctions against others if needed. The fact that admins have been "taken to task" for leaving a DS notice for an editor is the real problem here, in my opinion, not the leaving of the notices. ~ Rob13Talk 20:32, 14 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Atsme: "View history" --> "Filter revisions" --> type in "discretionary sanctions alert" to the tag filter. You get this. This is the same filter you're linked to by an edit-filter-generated warning when you try to place a discretionary sanction alert, so it isn't hard to find. I don't see any danger of editors not being able to find if someone has been made aware in the last year. Your proposal originally sounded like it was more targeted at getting rid of the awareness requirement for editors who don't want to receive DS notices every year on certain topics. That is why I responded basically saying I think that attitude – that DS notices should be avoided, and editors who give them out to good-faith contributors reprimanded – is the real problem. Is that not what you were saying? ~ Rob13Talk 12:23, 15 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • @Bishonen: I don't have diffs or remember details, but I've personally seen this a couple times where people get upset about getting a DS notice and then the community makes comments about how the person who gave it did so in a POINTy fashion or should be trouted. Nothing serious, "taken to task" is maybe a bit strong, but I do get the gist of what Atsme is saying based on past experiences. I can't for the life of me remember the editors involved, so I have no way to really find diffs of it myself, unfortunately. Perhaps Atsme has a better memory or more recent example. ~ Rob13Talk 11:52, 16 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • What Floq said. Yes, the DS notices are mildly annoying. So are long coffee shop lines, red lights, late trains, weeds in the garden, cats who always choose to play with the only toy that makes any noise (gee, thanks, sis, what a nice gift that was...), meetings that could have been emails, slow internet connections, balky printers.... normal life just unavoidably involves some mildly annoying things. "Normal life" in an online community is going to involve a little bit of annoying social friction. Remove the notice, give the cat a quieter toy, and don't waste any more mental energy on it. I'm getting my sister's cat a toy that makes noise and has flashy lights. Note: this strategy not recommended for DS notices.. Opabinia regalis (talk) 07:16, 16 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • This is one of those things where I'm tempted to overgeneralize - it wouldn't annoy me, so why should it annoy someone else? On the other hand, I got Awilley's ping and the phrase "you haven't yet taken the time..." gave me an instinctive "harrumph!" reaction for no particular reason except maybe that someone annoying I used to know liked to say "please take the time to [do annoying thing]" - so fine, annoyance can be irrational and subjective :) I have no objection to a technical solution if someone wants to, ahem, take the time to do that. Opabinia regalis (talk) 07:49, 27 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thanks Awilley - I didn't mean you should have to edit! You were right, I hadn't read it :) Opabinia regalis (talk) 06:13, 29 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • If something is annoying, and there is a reasonably easy way to stop the annoyance then I'm in favour of stopping the annoyance. To take OR's point about the everyday annoyances - yes, give the cat a quieter toy, introduce fast growing ground cover to prevent weeds appearing, brew coffee at home and take it in a flask or insulated drinking cup - you'll save time and money (and have a much wider choice of coffee beans). As for this particular solution - well, it seems to involve someone else doing something that could be equally as or maybe even more annoying. So I take the point that being DS spammed is annoying, but the proposed solution appears to be equally annoying. If there is a workable solution, such as a bot that automatically removes DS notices from pages which have a no-DS notices template, then I would support that. SilkTork (talk) 00:44, 17 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Atsme - having to read the notices at the top of someone's talkpage to see if they object to having a DS notice could be annoying. SilkTork (talk) 18:01, 17 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
If User:Awilley's proposal could be worked such that it required no further bureaucracy (ie, no changing of existing ArbCom wording or procedures) then I would have no objection to see it further discussed. My personal preference in this is that users in good standing who are clearly experienced and have made positive contributions to an article under DS, shouldn't get templated. But if that is the price to pay to keep contentious articles stable, then so be it. We are here to serve the project, not have the project serve us. SilkTork (talk) 18:55, 30 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • This discussion has stalled, but I don't think it should be closed until we've had a chance to look more closely at Awilley's proposal. User:Awilley - what progress has been made on your idea? Are we at the stage where the Committee can look at it and vote on it, or does it require more work? What I think we'd like to see is a working template with the appropriate wording so we can vote and sign off on it if appropriate, rather than sign off on the idea of it, and then have to look at it again when it has been completed and re-vote. SilkTork (talk) 12:38, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
User:Awilley - ping me when you have it done. SilkTork (talk) 07:59, 27 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
User:JFG - yes, the Committee could, but there may be unforeseen issues with the finished template which might create concern and a new clarification request raised which then sits here for a month or more. Better to have any potential concerns addressed here and now. Thanks for agreeing to do this. SilkTork (talk) 08:08, 27 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • For the purposes of this ARCA, I am totally open to a less annoying solution. It does not seem like we have a consensus on what that might be, so perhaps the next best step would be to close this ARCA and open up a community call for ideas. Should one or a few idea emerge with a lot of support, then it could be brought back here for a review and implementation discussion. Any editor who uses DS notices to harass another editor could be sanctioned already under our harassment policies. I do not see us needing to codify that further into the DS policy. Mkdw talk 16:21, 22 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • As a community, we're prone to making changes that narrowly make sense but broadly are a step backwards. I get the thinking: why not let one opt out of the protections at WP:ACDS#aware.aware? Nevertheless, complicating the issuance of DS alerts in any way would be the step backwards. We should think of DS alerts like traffic signs: advertising a change in 'rules of the road' and putting everyone on an equal footing. I think we are asking for more wikilawyering and harm if we change DS alerts – issuing one and receiving one – into anything more. By introducing the possibility of talk page notices (that one is "perpetually in receipt of alerts"), we give everyone involved a further factor to weigh up. Their focus should really be "is Wikipedia is putting up a good article?" We ought to remember that DS is a system for rescuing disorderly articles from calamity. Anything that frustrates that objective should be avoided wherever possible; I think the language that already governs alerts strikes the right balance. Close without action. AGK ■ 21:35, 26 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • The logic of "DS alerts" is to ensure that people are aware they could be sanctioned for editing in certain areas, because it would be unfair to sanction someone who doesn't know that DS exists in the area they're editing in. Ok, that's a reasonable courtesy. But what started as a courtesy has evolved into a bureaucratic system requiring a yearly re-issuing of the alert, even for editors consistently active in those areas, just in case they get amnesia after knowing about the DS scheme for 365 days. They're no longer (if they were ever) seen as a courtesy, they're seen as a warning. Nobody likes getting them no matter how we re-word them, and they prompt frequent accusations of harassment or retaliatory alert-placing.
    Given all that, if we let people declare they're aware, I think it has the potential to save a lot of drama and bureaucracy. Once someone opts-in, nobody needs to place an alert at them, they no longer need to get alerts they're well aware of, and nobody needs to argue over alerts being placed. I really don't see the drawback of letting someone essentially opt in to knowing about DS. After all, declaring awareness means opting in to potentially being sanctioned; it's not like there's a strategic upside. I'm personally all for it. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 23:37, 26 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Mandruss, I really don't see it as a complication. How is it extra complicated to let someone "opt in" or "declare awareness" or whatever you want to call it, as long as it prompts the same kind of edit notice or error message that trying to re-template someone does now? Saves the effort of making sure they're DS alerted and lets you move right on to taking them to AE, if that's what you're after (and let's be real here, I really don't think anyone is out here issuing DS alerts as a friendly reminder between pals, no matter how often we try to pretend otherwise). You say let them stop being annoyed so easily, neither alternative too much to ask of a grown-ass man or woman, but it feels like we could ask the same of you here. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 14:22, 27 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have no objections to a user being able to mark themselves as "alerted" in a specific topic area. My only concern would be if this would require people to expend significantly more effort to determine if that user is alerted in that topic area (for example, if they had to dig through talk page history to find it). However, based on Galobtter's comment it seems that this could fairly easily be added to the Abusefilter-warning-DS warning, so that satisfies my concern. As for sanctioning editors who place a DS alert on an already-alerted editor's page, I would oppose that. If a user is hounding other editors by placing repeated alerts, that can be addressed without any modification of existing policy. I would rather default to assuming good faith, that the editor simply missed that an alert was made, rather than default to believing a user was intentionally re-alerting someone. GorillaWarfare (talk) 17:50, 6 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Discretionary Sanctions: Awareness and alerts: Motion

The Awareness section of the discretionary sanctions procedure is modified to the following:

No editor may be sanctioned unless they are aware that discretionary sanctions are in force for the area of conflict. An editor is aware if:

  1. They were mentioned by name in the applicable Final Decision; or
  2. They have ever been sanctioned within the area of conflict (and at least one of such sanctions has not been successfully appealed); or
  3. In the last twelve months, the editor has given and/or received an alert for the area of conflict; or
  4. In the last twelve months, the editor has participated in any process about the area of conflict at arbitration requests or arbitration enforcement; or
  5. In the last twelve months, the editor has successfully appealed all their own sanctions relating to the area of conflict; or
  6. They have placed a {{DS/Aware}} template for the area(s) of conflict on their own talk page.

Enacted - GoldenRing (talk) 12:04, 16 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Support
  1. SilkTork (talk) 10:59, 6 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Hopefully I was clear above when this request was first filed with the committee. Any expanding of The Rules should be reluctant, careful, and slow. Giving people an opt-out seems unnecessary and I think it may open up more edge cases at AE. However, I also recognise that if editors want to dispense with the entire Awareness thing – as that both favours and disadvantages them – then they should be entitled to easily do so. I do need to say this: each year, ArbCom gets bolder in its willingness to expand (and complicate) the terms of DS. This is not helpful. Looking at the DS document, it is increasingly plain that the thing was written by committee. The more that happens, the less – I believe that the system does its core job of protecting the encyclopedia when editors fail to toe the line. Alerted should look at the system's terms and quickly grasp that "Okay, if I am not careful, I will be booted out. Got it." Can anyone honestly say the motion above will make our articles more stable and better in quality? I am OK with this change but it needs to be the last one. AGK ■ 13:52, 6 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Sure, for reasons I outlined above. If we're going to have a bureaucratic requirement that someone must be "aware" in a formal sense before it's possible to sanction them, there is no downside to letting people cut through and choose to be formally aware. Like AGK, I don't love the sprawling bureaucratic complexity of the DS system, but I'm going to be optimistic and imagine this change will indirectly help make articles more stable by reducing the amount of time spent determining awareness and warning people about systems they've known about for years. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 14:22, 6 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  4. This seems reasonable, iff it can be added to the list of things that make a user show up as "alerted" in the automated checks provided by the warning notice. GorillaWarfare (talk) 17:47, 6 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Katietalk 21:23, 6 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Courcelles (talk) 21:38, 6 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  7. I agree with AGK about the expanding bureaucracy to fulfill the needs of the bureaucracy. But for the time being, this works for me. Opabinia regalis (talk) 08:26, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  8. WormTT(talk) 11:25, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose
Abstain
Inactive
Discussion by arbitrators

Amendment request: Crouch, Swale restrictions appeal

Request declined. GoldenRing (talk) 11:41, 16 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Initiated by Crouch, Swale at 17:48, 1 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Case or decision affected
Original Ban Appeal (31 December 2017)
First Modification (16 July 2018)
Second Modification (18 January 2019)
Clarification (10 February 2019)
Clauses to which an amendment is requested
  1. Special:Diff/879051226
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request
Information about amendment request
  • Replace the 1 article a week through AFC with the ability to move pages and create DAB pages and redirects.

Statement by Crouch, Swale

Can I replace the existing restrictions with the ability to move pages, create DAB page and redirects. It was suggested by SilkTork (talk · contribs) that I would be expected to have a 5% (or less) failure at RM. I pointed out that RM is for controversial moves, not uncontroversial moves to aren't relevant to that. It was then suggested that I use RMT and I now have 108 edits at Wikipedia:Requested moves/Technical requests but only 4 of these have been contested (I think) and out of those only 1 failed so I think I have passed that, see User talk:SilkTork/Archive2/Archive 49#New articles. Also at the last ARCA it was agreed to allow me to create pages outside the mainspace, given that DAB pages and redirects don't fall under article even if in the mainspace, see Wikipedia:What is an article? I think if I'm allowed to create pages outside the mainspace, its not that different to allow DAB pages and redirects in the mainspace. I am requesting to allow the page moves and DAB pages/redirects so that I can use them for housekeeping at for the bot created articles, see Wikipedia:Bot requests#Civil parish bot and User talk:SilkTork#Bot created articles. Obviously if we're fine with removing the restrictions all together then that's great but this would be fine for the next 6 months while we do the bot created civil parishes since as pointed out we're taking it 1 step at a time.

The suggested changed are:

  • Allow page moves (with a 1RR or 0RR restriction) and that as with the geographical NC restriction can be reinstated by any uninvolved administrator in the next 6 months.
  • Allow the creation of DAB pages.
  • Allow the creation of redirects.
  • Remove the ability to submit articles at AFC (which is replaced by the bot articles). Note that I haven't had 1 article at AFC declined.
  • Thanks @Cameron11598: I previewed and modified several times but I couldn't work out how to format it properly. Crouch, Swale (talk) 17:31, 2 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Headbomb: fully aware of the fact that lifting the creation doesn't remove the need for a bot request. However I wasn't asking to be able to create articles (manually) because for the next 6 months the bot would do that for me (but we would clarify that I am OK to have the articles created by the bot). And yes as well as the fact you pointed out that community consensus independently of the requester is required I both discussed this with one of the users who participated in my last appeal and I disclosed it in my bot request therefore I indeed don't think there's a problem here with proxying. The idea behind starting the bot request prior to my appeal was so that I could get consensus and have the code/bot ready for when I appeal, then at my appeal (here) I could then point to the consensus and say that "I have consensus to have the bot created articles, can I have my page move restrictions removed and also be allowed to create DAB pages/redirects in mainspace so that I can do the housekeeping with the bot created articles as long as we're happy with allowing the bot created articles". However we seem to be somewhat in a situation where we can't get consensus for the bot request due to the current ban and we can't get consensus on what to do with my restrictions because we don't have consensus for the bot request. Crouch, Swale (talk) 16:41, 3 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • @SilkTork: that's fine as long as it doesn't take months (which I'm sure it won't) otherwise there's no big rush. Crouch, Swale (talk) 16:58, 3 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Headbomb: WP:MASSCREATION says "It is also strongly encouraged (and may be required by BAG) that community input be solicited at WP:Village pump (proposals) and the talk pages of any relevant WikiProjects." It doesn't say that it is necessarily required to notify WikiProjects, it says that it is strongly encouraged and may be required by BAG. I notified 3 relatively active projects and its not my fault that I got a lack response. The only thing MASSCREATION says is required is "approved at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval". Crouch, Swale (talk) 17:23, 3 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Headbomb: the example is at User:Crouch, Swale/Bot tasks/Civil parishes (current) which gives notes on how the bot would do things (as noted not all of those will necessarily be used) as well as sources and this example is also linked for how the "Geography" and "Demographics" sections would be. I don't have the technical understanding of how to create the source code for this (if I did I would have presented it at the BR) but the plan should at least give some understanding for how the bot would be programmed. Crouch, Swale (talk) 17:51, 3 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Headbomb: the "Other ideas" contains things that could be included but aren't especially likely and if they are though of as a good idea could be added to the plan. The "Problems" section already contains possible solutions. The plan is based on what I could do at the time but others at BOTR and BAG would get clarity on how to do so however I'll link some of the ideas to the sources. Crouch, Swale (talk) 19:29, 3 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Premeditated Chaos: the "tunnel vision" should make it easier for other editors to see what I'm trying to do and try to find ways to avoid or mitigate problems. I have tried to solve the problems that have been raised at the bot request (as can be seen by my edits at User:Crouch, Swale/Bot tasks/Civil parishes (current)). I would also note that the request to create the missing articles (which is about 727 but probably less) over 6 months would actually amount to less than 4 a day (I put 6 as an allowance for stops etc). Its quite easy for me to add the equivalent content to those new articles that I added to the articles that I have submitted through AFC. Crouch, Swale (talk) 16:50, 6 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • @GorillaWarfare: what are you're views on the direct restriction changed that I'm proposing here namely (1) the ability to create DAB pages and redirects in mainspace, (2) the ability to move pages (with a 1RR or 0RR restriction) and (3) removing the ability to submit at AFC. Crouch, Swale (talk) 17:59, 6 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Its indeed not the job of other editors to mitigate problems, I was meaning that if editors want to stop me from doing certain things then suggestions can be made on how instead to do something with less/no problems. And if the bot request succeeds then it might be better to focus on that rather than AFC (which as noted is backlogged). Crouch, Swale (talk) 18:51, 6 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't want to be too critical etc since I seem to have got what I was asking (that I can make the bot request without it being seen as violating my restrictions). However as I noted at the bot request "I currently have a page move/page creation ban and that would make creating DAB pages and name fixes more difficult but even if my appeal fails I still intend to go ahead with this." the move ability and DAB pages/redirect creation would still be needed for housekeeping with the request even if not essential. Considering my point about the number of successful RMTs that I have made are we comfortable with the proposed removal of the move ban with the suggested 1RR or 0RR restriction? If not are we comfortable with a greater restriction such as only 10 moves per week or an even greater one of only being able to move the bot created articles? Crouch, Swale (talk) 18:21, 8 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • @GorillaWarfare: I have started a (slightly simpler) version at User:Crouch, Swale/Bot tasks/Civil parishes (current)/Simple which also includes many more detailed instructions, its nearly finished and I hope that it resolves Headbomb's concerns. However as noted although the bot request could still go ahead even with the current restrictions, cleanup such as moves and the creation of redirects and DAB pages would be helpful for ensuring that all the other maintenance issues are sorted. What concerns do you have about (1) lifting the move restriction and (2) the DAB pages and redirect creation? Would the (even tighter) restrictions I proposed work for you? Crouch, Swale (talk) 16:30, 10 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Worm That Turned: it was said in the previous request that "If the page move admins agree with your requests 95% of the time, that would be good evidence of your secure judgement in that area" for RMT which I believe I have satisfied and "If we can see a period of you having a series of articles successfully transferred into mainspace that would be encouragement to lift your article creation restriction" 100% of my submissions have been successful, how can that not be good enough? especially since I'm not even requesting the ability to create articles myself. And as was pointed out above the creation restrictions removal wouldn't be necessary for bot request its self but moves and DAB/redirects will be needed. Crouch, Swale (talk) 16:37, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @Worm That Turned: the general concern that can be seem from the previous request was that I might create numerous short articles and make controversial moves etc. It was also clear from multiple people that I would need to demonstrate good conduct in both areas for a while, having had a 100% success rate at AFC surely satisfies that one and the fact that only 1 of my numerous uncontroversial technical requests resulted in a "no consensus" result surely satisfies the move concern. If I have had 23 articles created over nearly 6 months then what's to say that I can't create half a dozen or so articles of the same quality a day (or improve half a dozen bot created articles a day). And the general consensus is that its frowned upon to create large numbers of short, poor quality articles, not that creating large numbers of high quality articles is a bad idea, in fact there is an essay at Wikipedia:Make stubs. But I don't see any basis in policy or general consensus that creating large numbers of good articles is not allowed. WP:NNH gives in the "Focusing on particular processes" part the example of creating stubs (and my interest in titling etc also falls within the spirit of that). The User:Crouch, Swale/Civil parishes list won't be used by the bot, the articles will come from City Population, that list is simply for tracting purposes and as noted has some that probably shouldn't exist anyway. Crouch, Swale (talk) 12:07, 12 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • @AGK: the "got somewhere" was to do with the 100% success rate at AFC. And yes I won't be operating a bot myself since (1) I am restricted to 1 account (leaving aside that fact that I'm not allowed to create articles myself) (2) I don't have the skills (but I like to learn them). Crouch, Swale (talk) 12:07, 12 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Spike 'em

In the BOTREQ mentioned by Crouch, Swale he has asked for 700+ articles to be created by a bot rather than by himself, which seems to me to be an attempt to outsource the creation and avoid his current ban. They have been asked to gain consensus for the BOTREQ, which he has tried to do, but not had any significant response. I note that previous discussions here have concern[s] that Crouch, Swale is mainly interested in rapidly creating hundreds of civil parish stubs which is exactly what the BOTREQ is to do. He has suggested an initial run of 6 articles per day, which is a lot more that the current 1 AfC per week restriction. All of the suggestions to his restrictions above make the assumption that the mass article creation goes ahead, so that needs to be considered here. Spike 'em (talk) 08:46, 3 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Headbomb

To be clear, when I wrote in "Wikipedia:Bot requests#Civil parish bot"

"Smaller batches" is a way of having a better chance at getting support when things could potentially be contentious. It does not negate the need for prior consensus before creation, but it might make consensus easier to get. Going "I want to create 1000 articles tomorrow!" vs going "Hey, about about we have a bot create 10 articles as drafts as a subpage of WP:PLANTS, see what the feedback is on them, if they need more work, etc... so the next 10 are easier to handle, ... and then we'll see if we get to a point where we're comfortable having the remaining articles get created directly in article space" or similar.

Note the it might. People may decide this is too close to violating a page creation ban for comfort. Or maybe they'd be open to such a bot creating articles in the project space if someone other than you reviews the article before moving into mainspace. Or maybe people would be comfortable with the task as proposed.

I did not mean that lifting the page creation ban would negate the need for consensus for mass WP:MASSCREATION, either through a bot or a meatbot, the distinction between the two being pointless for WP:MEATBOT purposes. I say this part for the benefits of User:Crouch, Swale, in case they thought a lift on restriction was sufficient to ensure WP:BOTREQUIRE #4.

Generally speaking, the BAG is of the opinion that making a WP:BOTREQ is not a violation of a page creation ban/restriction, since a) the request would be reviewed to ensure community consensus independently of the requester b) pages would be created by someone other than the requester c) if concerns related to using a bot to circumvent the ban existed, those would be addressed during the BRFA. I say this bit for the benefit of ARBCOM, in case they think that making a BOTREQ to have a bot create articles is (by itself) somehow nefarious behaviour. It is also the first time User:Crouch, Swale makes such a request, which may or may not matter.

I say both the above bits as a BAG member, purely for context and without prejudice against lifting, or maintaining, or expanding the ban, on which I have no opinion as I have not reviewed the current ban nor the relevant facts that led to it. Should a WP:BRFA be filed, BAG will review that the task complies with all aspects of WP:BOTPOL, including WP:BOTREQUIRE (#4) and WP:MASSCREATION, as applicable at the time of review. A lift of the ban would imply fewer restrictions on the task, maintaining the ban would imply more restrictions on it, but in all cases the bot's task and mode of operation (if approved) would be subject to community consensus. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 09:55, 3 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Crouch, Swale: However we seem to be somewhat in a situation where we can't get consensus for the bot request due to the current ban and we can't get consensus on what to do with my restrictions because we don't have consensus for the bot request. Maybe. But what I was getting at in that discussion was that consensus was unclear for the task because only you expressed support for it. This was meant to be an invitation to go to a Wikiproject and start a discussion there to flesh out the idea, and if there was buy in, BAG would then be in a position to evaluate if there was consensus for something. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:07, 3 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Crouch, Swale: there is some buy-in on the general idea. What hasn't been done is fleshing out the idea and produce a mockup of the result, explaining exactly how the bot would generate things, along side what sources it would use. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:36, 3 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Crouch, Swale: User:Crouch, Swale/Bot tasks/Civil parishes (current) is not a fully fleshed out example. There are several placeholders, and lists general concerns which have not been hammered out, potential ideas, a possible process, etc... This is still at the idea stage and even if a bot coder wanted to take the request, they would be at lost on exactly what it was you were asking them to implement. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:59, 3 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Worm That Turned: the bot request is entertained to the extent that there is a theoretical path forward. However, as of now the bot logic is so premature that no bot coder would take the task because no one knows what they are being asked to code exactly, and a village pump discussion is likely bound to fail because of the page creation restrictions combined with the ill-defined logic of the bot. These are theoretically surmountable hurdles. For instance, if there's a clear bot logic proposed, which results in articles that the community would deem appropriate. Or that a bot coder shows interest in the task and is willing to work with Crouch, Swale and with other WikiProjects to figure out how exactly to build such articles out of existing resources. But we aren't there yet. Right now, there's not even a "The bot would go to this <database>, and use <this data> in this <exact manner>." Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 21:07, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Begoon

As I said in the linked discussion at User talk:SilkTork#Bot created articles, I share the concerns expressed by Iridescent about "crapflood[ing] the wiki with stubs". As I also said there: "At a minimum this would need BAG approval and that of the projects concerned (bold added), yes. I'd also like to see an explicit statement from Crouch, Swale that they would STOP the second ANYONE asked them to - for the protection of the wiki, and the protection of Crouch, Swale from reimposition of blocks."

I also share the concern expressed by Spike 'em : "seems ... to be an attempt to outsource the creation and avoid his current ban". I'm still uneasy about Crouch, Swale exercising sufficient judgement in this area, given the history. I don't think amending restrictions to facilitate mass creation is a good idea here - I'm basically uneasy about CS being involved in mass creation processes in any way at this point. -- Begoon 20:47, 3 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by {other-editor}

Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should address why or why not the Committee should accept the amendment request or provide additional information.

Crouch, Swale restrictions appeal: Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).
  • I've fixed some major formatting issues with this case request. Crouch, Swale please be more careful filing amendment requests in the future. --Cameron11598 (Talk) 17:29, 2 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Crouch, Swale restrictions appeal: Arbitrator views and discussion

  • Just to give User:Crouch, Swale the head's up that the Committee are rather preoccupied at the moment, and a little short staffed. It is unlikely that this will get a response for a while. SilkTork (talk) 16:45, 3 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • With respect to Crouch, Swale and his willingness to contribute under heavy restrictions, I'm afraid I don't see the wisdom in lifting or altering the existing restrictions. My comment at the July 2018 motion adjusting his conditions is still relevant - it's behavioral change that's important, and I'm not sure the underlying tunnel vision that led to the behavioral issues has actually changed. At the bot request, Crouch, Swale never acknowledges of any of the BAG members' concerns, he just argues past every comment. And despite the pushback, this amendment request is written with the assumption that the civil parish bot will be approved: so that I can use them for housekeeping at for the bot created articles and this would be fine for the next 6 months while we do the bot created civil parishes. It's just pure tunnel vision.
    I had hoped that the slow adjustment of restrictions, including the article creation through AfC, might help Crouch, Swale, understand why his previous behavior was problematic. I hoped that working one by one on drafts of reasonable length might help him understand the level of work he was asking other editors to undertake in dealing with his large amount of micro-stubs. Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to have been the case. There still seems to be no awareness of why others might be concerned about the creation of approximately a thousand such stubs (either manually or by a bot) and the accompanying retitles, redirects, and disambiguation pages. On that basis, I can't do anything other than decline this request. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 16:00, 6 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Crouch, Swale, your tunnel vision is not an asset. It is not the job of other editors to try to mitigate problems with your grand vision, it's yours. And I think GorillaWarfare makes a good point about using restrictions for bargaining - that is not the point of them. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 18:41, 6 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • I share PMC's concerns about the "tunnel vision" that Crouch, Swale is exhibiting here and in the bot request. Headbomb has explained that this restriction does not need to be lifted for the bot request to succeed, so I would rather see Crouch, Swale try to work within the restriction. GorillaWarfare (talk) 17:38, 6 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @Crouch, Swale: I'm not of the mind to swap out your restrictions—we allowed you the limited ability to create articles at AfC, and it's quite odd to see you use it as a bargaining chip you're trying to trade for a different adjustment. I would either 1) allow you the two adjustments you've requested in addition to maintaining your ability to create one article through AfC a week, or 2) not allow the two adjustments. Swapping them is not an option for me. At this point I would prefer option 2. GorillaWarfare (talk) 18:06, 6 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • No. Courcelles (talk) 21:39, 6 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Per PMC. Work within these restrictions for now. And no, I don't have a sense of how long 'for now' is going to be. Katietalk 16:00, 10 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • With some reluctance, I supported the last request – to propose moves or new pages (via RM and AfC). This request is a significant further step, and not one that seems beneficial. Deny request. AGK ■ 16:29, 10 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Firmly no. I'll repeat what I said at the last request - "@Crouch, Swale: to be clear, if your end goal is the creation of significant numbers of articles, I think you should find another hobby." I shouldn't have to explain that this includes DABS, Bot requests, redirects or whatever. No. You may expand articles by adding relevant content - and may add up to 50 new article each year. I do not see any further relaxations of your restrictions any time soon and repeated requests on the bi-anniversary (or whatever the term should be) are only going to strengthen my resolve against them. WormTT(talk) 11:33, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    You are picking and choosing what you want to hear, Crouch, Swale. Asking for a bot to create articles, on a list that you curate and that you will then edit as you see fit - is quite clearly an attempt to end run around your topic ban. I'm a little disappointed that the bot request is being entertained by the BAG (@Headbomb:) but that is their choice. I see no reason to enable it further. There's enough for you to do on this encyclopedia without coming back so regularly to ask for more. WormTT(talk) 19:31, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
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