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Motion: Crosswiki issues

Original announcement

For the avoidance of doubt: following Template talk:Infobox World Heritage Site#RfC: revert back to non-Wikidata version?, I am slowly converting all pages with that infobox to Template:Infobox UNESCO World Heritage Site, i.e. from a Wikidata version to a non-wikidata version. I presume that such a specific action which has RfC-level consensus is allowed to continue? Fram (talk) 07:58, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

Seems reasonable to continue with an action that a) predates this motion and b) was decided by an RfC. But have asked on the mailing list for any other opinions. -- Euryalus (talk) 08:58, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
@Fram: So far, responses from four arbitrators (including me), all supporting the continued conversion of the World Heritage Site infoboxes back to the non-Wikidata version, because that process predates this motion and is supported by a valid RfC. We haven't heard from the rest of the committee members yet, so I suppose if you wanted an absolute abundance of caution you could go on waiting awhile. But I doubt there'll be a late rush of opposition. -- Euryalus (talk) 08:16, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
Thanks. I'll restart the conversion, and if there turn out to be objections after all I invite them to my talk page to let me know. Fram (talk) 08:24, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
  • There are currently bot tasks pending related to this TfD discussion, converting a non-Wikidata template to a Wikidata template. I'm of the opinion that this should be allowed to continue so long as the bot tasks were filed before the motion (and subject to our typical standards of consensus for a bot task, which have been fulfilled here). The Committee's input would be appreciated. ~ Rob13Talk 14:34, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Question: how many people are aware of this? I could expect that there are quite some template editors who currently may be working on a conversion either way, unknowingly 'violating' this motion. How should such situations be handled? Copy to sandbox and revert to pre-motion state until the RfC has finished? --Dirk Beetstra T C 08:25, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
    Notifying them and discussing at the talk page?--Ymblanter (talk) 08:36, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
    That in any case .. but that discussion would be a local consensus - should that not default to 'revert to pre-motion state' --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:13, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
    I do not see how this is any different from any other discretionary sanctions: There are always users who are genuinely unaware of them, an administrator needs to (i) alert them and (ii) evaluate whether what they are doing is disruptive, and whether this is a good way to achieve whatever they want to achieve, which in many cases requires discussion with a the user. But I do not see how the local outcome of this discussion can contradict the corresponding arbcom decision.--Ymblanter (talk) 09:20, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
  • The same as above. Good-faith actions that were commenced prior to this motion and had verifiable community consensus in support at that time, should continue as normal. If there's a disagreement or a matter at the margins, anyone is welcome to raise it at AE. -- Euryalus (talk) 09:32, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

Does anyone know if the RfC recommended in point (B) of the motion has been created yet? I don't see it at VPP or VPR, the two places I'd expect to see it. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 20:25, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

It is being prepared at Wikipedia:Wikidata/2017 RfC draft (actually, for already quite some time), though I am not really looking forward to the outcome.--Ymblanter (talk) 20:44, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

Community feedback: Proposal to modify how and where case requests are filed (subpages)

Proposal
  • Appears to be a sensible change. With regard to watching cases, it would be easy to create a recent changes filter just for the relevant subpages, or indeed new subpages could be automatically added to relevant administrator watchlists, with a small amount of bot scripting. --Fæ (talk) 11:26, 26 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Long overdue.--Ymblanter (talk) 11:30, 26 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Callanecc another disadvantage of the current system that might worth mentioning is the fact that users who have commented on more than one open case request see their subsection header doubled and thus the "second" one be inaccessible via the TOC (since the software will always jump to the first instance of WP:ARC#Example if there are multiple. This has led to people attempting to modify, disambiguate or number their second statement to differentiate them, with varying degrees of effectiveness. Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 11:32, 26 November 2017 (UTC)
TOC's allow for multiple sections with the same header. For example, they become #Statement by Mkdw and #Statement by Mkdw 2 automatically. It does sometimes cause confusion when people have to link if they're not aware that this distinction occurs. Mkdw talk 20:53, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Way overdue. I strongly support this. ~ Rob13Talk 13:57, 26 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Similar to RfA process? With all the complaints about transclusion difficulty in RfA process, how will this work better? Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:48, 26 November 2017 (UTC)
    For RfA, an ability of a candidate to transclude the nomination page is usually is considered as a prerequisite for their tenure as administrator, and even then, if there are technical difficulties, somebody would help with transclusion. For Arbcom, we have clerks, and fixing transclusion issues will be part of theor job if the proposal passes.--Ymblanter (talk) 16:26, 26 November 2017 (UTC)
  • I agree with this move, not merely because of the page history issue, but because it enables a means of handling seemingly inappropriate case requests (i.e., the procedural move I've discussed in a couple of recently rejected case requests). Where a case request is obviously inappropriate, or the basic requirements of a case request have not obviously been met (i.e., no diffs or links to past dispute resolution attempts), the case can be delisted but kept so the filer can have a little time to remedy the shortcomings. Even better, we may better ensure case quality by requiring clerks to accept a case request (there should be a very low threshold for this) prior to transcluding it (this would be achieved by protecting WP:ARC). Either way, I'm excited about this.
    Any chance, by the way, that we would get back archives for prior case requests built? Like what happened for RfA after we moved away from all requests being on the same page? —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 16:15, 26 November 2017 (UTC)
    • That would be a massive undertaking for the clerks, and given there's already a shortage of work-hours there, I can't see the Committee asking them to put in that time. We're talking about a decade of case requests, including a time period when the page was much more active than it is now. ~ Rob13Talk 17:00, 26 November 2017 (UTC)
      • Doesn't need to be the clerks building the archive. Hell, it can probably be bot-made. Even if not, there is no deadline. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 19:27, 26 November 2017 (UTC)
        • I doubt a bot can handle the revisions where there were two case requests open at the same time; that's a lot of untangling to be done, especially if there are edits that affected more than one case request. The diffs would also be incredibly messy. If you're volunteering, I doubt anyone would argue, but I also don't see anyone creating a backlog that's unlikely to ever be worked on. ~ Rob13Talk 19:31, 26 November 2017 (UTC)
    • @Mendaliv: We haven't discussed having the the clerks accept/approve case requests for transclusion but I'm not sure how much support it would get. You are correct, though, that it will allow us a better (and much 'nicer') option for requests which have potential need some more work. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 11:10, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
      • It's easier than that. The clerks could be given discretion to remove the transclusion of cases that obviously need work (rather than needing to approve each one). That would be a middle ground where obviously premature requests can be held as a subpage while being worked on rather than being declined without adding a lot of procedure to the "average" case. ~ Rob13Talk 11:21, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
  • It has always seemed odd to me that, by the time the case is over and a main case page is archived, all of the community comments from the case request end up on that main page. By and large, these comments (at least other than those of the named parties) are only of importance when the Committee is deciding whether or not to accept the case, but they are relatively insignificant when, later on, users want to find the final decision. I'd suggest formatting case requests so that these comments can be easily moved to a different location when assembling the final main case page: have the parties' request and the Arbs' decision on accepting at the top, and then go directly to the final decision. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:15, 26 November 2017 (UTC)
    • I was thinking about maybe using section transclusion? Either way though, there isn't too much extra work for the clerks to copy the top bit to one level 2 section and the bottom bit to another level 2 section on the main case page and I think it makes sense to have the initial statements at the top and arbitrators' section at the bottom. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 11:26, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

As my comments agreeing with this proposal itself have been moved as well, again, I think this is a good idea. Another advantage of this is that it gives a chance for all parties to put their statements before it gets transcluded for the arbitrators to comment/decline/accept (the downside of that being that it may become another place for uncontrolled dramah until it gets picked). --Dirk Beetstra T C 11:33, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

Sorry Beetstra. I agree that it would become another place where dramah would unfold, the significant downside being that the dramah would be significantly more 'hidden' before transclusion so it likely to be very controlled. My thinking is that only the filing party (and clerks to help with it if needed) would edit the subpage before it's transcluded. Basically, just so that they don't need to do the whole thing in one edit. Once they transclude it, they notify the other parties then they comment. How does that sound? Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 12:07, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
@Callanecc: (this runs the risk of one of the other concerns with ArbCom-case initiations that have never been solved) What I meant was that a request could be 'developed' (under supervision of clerks) before Arbs start posting their view/intentions(/solutions). Besides the below discussion regarding anchoring, there was a discussion about 'railroading' (Arbs accepting cases well before all initially involved parties commented, or editors/arbitrators polarizing the first initiated side of the story before the 'defending party' comments, etc.). This was part of a discussion earlier this year that died out. --Dirk Beetstra T C 12:26, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
@Beetstra: I've been trying to think about a way to do this which wouldn't open opportunities to game the system or completely railroad the process. If we allow parties to comment on a case request but no one else before it's submitted, it opens the opportunity for the filing party to list people on their side of the dispute as parties. If we allow anyone to comment, it removes the case request from a place where it can be more widely monitored as people add their statements and have discussions. At best, there will only be a clerk or two monitoring a case request before it's submitted. Are you thinking of a different approach?— Preceding unsigned comment added by Callanecc (talk • contribs)
@Callanecc: That is what happens all the time anyway - you get someone bringing a case (sometimes even already announced/agreed upon on AN or AN/I), and then everyone who wants their piece of meat will follow. You see editors showing up who are just waiting for a certain party to be brought there, and raking up things from sometimes years back (the last case I followed close was Magioladitis 2, and in the Case Request one statement was made that raked up material from more than 2 years earlier - anything will go). Supporters of the defending party are hardly ever there (and if they are, they are shouted down generally - after all, someone was brought to ArbCom for a reason, right, can't have mitigating factors or other distractions there (see thread below) - ArbCom is there to bring the editor down). So I don't believe that your new system is making things worse (arguably, also not better). Ideas? Not really, except if we want to turn this into a more 'court of law' style.
In the end this is the same problem as the evidence phase - you sometimes have one defending editor, and whole scores of editors who can submit evidence against that person. If they are lucky, there is someone defending the defending editor, but cases with 10 times more evidence against an editor that has to be countered by the one defending party. Case requests develop often in similar ways (dare a crude count on these 50 editors?). Scope definition early on, before you get this pile-up? --Dirk Beetstra T C 13:40, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
That's actually one of the reasons why I think subpages would be good. Having request subpages will reduce the number of edits to the case request page and so (probably) reduce the visibility of case requests (it will only appear on a watchlist once rather than every time someone comments). It'll also hopefully mean that people who are making drive by comments may be less likely to make more than one (if they see the request in the first place). Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 06:03, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
Remains to be seen whether it is going to help, but it is certainly not going to make it worse. I do see the benefits in administration possibilities, but do hope a lot more will follow. You know I am a fierce critic of ArbCom proceedings and procedures, and am afraid that this is just a minor improvement. --Dirk Beetstra T C 07:15, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
Yep, like AfD. Just to clarify though, it's just for Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case not WP:AE. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 10:36, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

General question

  • @BU Rob13, Banedon, Mkdw, and L235: Based on some technical limitations of having the request created on a custom named, non-existent subpage it's looking like Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/'CASENAME'/Request probably isn't viable. Instead I'm thinking of Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/CaseRequest/'CASENAME (or Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Request/'CASENAME), this will more easily allow users to create the subpage (with much less chance of error), will allow case requests to be more easily located and grouped as a subpage. If a request is accepted, my intention would be that it is moved to Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/'CASENAME'/Request so that it stays with the case. If declined, it would stay where it is. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 01:21, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

Case naming

As I said in the proposal, the we're discussing changing how cases (or case requests) are named at this point in time. We want to focus on making one change at a time so that it can be properly discussed. The Committee has discussed changing how cases are named, but in our preliminary discussion on it, we thought it would be best addressed by a new committee (next year). So, no prejudice to this being discussed in more detail later, just not right now. Thanks, Callanecc (alt) (talk) 01:42, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
  • The proposed system just further entrenches the serious issues engendered by the current system of case naming. The issues of anchoring bias are real and unavoidable in cases anchored by the name of an accused party. Further, case names should NOT be named by filing parties in any case whatsoever. All this does is further drive home the idea that the first one to a file a case in a dispute will gain the upper hand; if they get the case named after the person they are in a dispute with, there's far less likelihood the filer will receive sanctions. With this proposed system, even more work will be induced if a case name must be changed. This should be left in the hands of clerks, with instructions NOT to name cases after any participating party. --Hammersoft (talk) 19:40, 26 November 2017 (UTC)
    • Cases could be identified by date (or by the filing party? "Case request by User:Example"?) and then named by ArbCom and/or clerks when opened formally and their scope better defined. Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 19:49, 26 November 2017 (UTC)
      • An initial case named as you suggest would be fine, with it then named by ArbCom with something OTHER than case participants in the name. --Hammersoft (talk) 19:52, 26 November 2017 (UTC)
        • I would support using a iterative naming policy for initial case requests. That is at least an improvement. The Committee can then name the case based on its scope if opened. For example, name the first initial case request of 2018 as "Arbitration Case Request 2018-01". I imagine everyone could get behind this; there are no long-term problems referring to cases, since they'll be renamed if opened. Since the name is set by the Committee, there is no bias in their naming conventions. By using a generic name when opinions are initially being formed, we at least reduce anchoring. ~ Rob13Talk 19:57, 26 November 2017 (UTC)
          • I agree that we should use a systematic sort of docket numbering for case requests. Case names may be assigned by the Committee upon acceptance, but need not be assigned. The use of usernames should be discouraged, and it's really just a holdover from the use of adversarial case naming from the very earliest days of the Committee. As an aside, I would question whether the concept of "parties" even makes much sense given that the Committee operates as an inquisitorial rather than adversarial adjudicative body. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 20:10, 26 November 2017 (UTC)
            • Given the (justified) outcry when non-parties had a remedy proposed against them in one case, I strongly believe the community expects the Committee to be transparent as to who they are investigating in a case. Named parties aids in that transparency. ~ Rob13Talk 20:14, 26 November 2017 (UTC)
              • As one of the non-parties had a remedy proposed against them, I would say that the real problem was that Arbcom proposed a "finding of fact" that was supported by zero evidence, and in fact was a blatant lie.[1][2][3][4] Arbcom has never apologized for this, nor have they shown any indication that they understand what they did wrong and will make a good-faith effort not to do it again. That being said, the anchoring problem is real. It affects all humans. Alas, like most humans, Arbcom thinks that they are somehow immune from well-known cognitive effects that apply to all humans. Hammersoft is 100% correct. No case should be named after one of the parties in the case. No case should be named by the person filing the case. Case names should be neutral, and chosen by a clerk. The list of parties to the case should be in alphabetical order. This proposal to modify how and where case requests are filed is an excellent opportunity to remove a known source of bias. Please don't let this opportunity pass. --Guy Macon (talk) 21:54, 26 November 2017 (UTC)
                • They actually could be just numbered.--Ymblanter (talk) 22:02, 26 November 2017 (UTC)
                  • The problem with that is that people refer to cases in other conversations. "Case 12653B" isn't memorable. "The Guy Macon case" is memorable but triggers the anchoring bias (which everyone agrees affects everyone else but believes that they personally are immune). If possible, a page name ("The Black helicopter case") or topic ("The UK schools case") would be ideal. --Guy Macon (talk) 00:55, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
  • With respect, it was directly relevant. Implementing the system proposed would further entrench the serious problems that case names have now and make it even more of a priority for a complainant to file a case before the other party does. It goes hand in hand. You can't implement this and say you'll work on the other later. That's like only working on the fuel pump in a car without an engine. These issues are different facets of the same problem. --Hammersoft (talk) 02:24, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
  • This system makes sense - and now finally it is just trivial to solve the naming problem (well, you have to, as this only makes the anchoring worse)! A 'file new request' button on the arbitration front page that generates a (sequential) number through a LUA module is the initial name for the case. Upon opening the case, the clerks will name the case (or leave it as is until later). (I know you hatted it above, Callanecc, and I know that those issues have been ignored for years, so stop putting it under the carpet again, solve the issues that the community brings to you over and over, instead of only that is mostly cosmetic). --Dirk Beetstra T C 08:00, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
    • This doesn't even need a Lua module. A template that clerks iterate after each case request is filed would be fine. Hopefully, I can take up these issues in a month or so. ~ Rob13Talk 08:19, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
  • I strongly suspect that the above section was collapsed because it contained material that Arbcom doesn't want to hear. The proposal contains the words "There are currently no plans to change ... how cases are named". Suppressing a conversation that questions this decision is, in my opinion, part of the problem. It is essentially saying "we want community feedback, but only on the solution that we have already decided upon. Any suggestions that we are on the wrong path are unwelcome". The right way to handle this would be to move any comments about how cases are named into a separate section.
in Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels (Part 3, Chapter 2), we find the Laputians, a people who are are so busy thinking Deep Thoughts that they cannot see or hear unless a servant uses a "flapper" to stimulate the eyes and ears. By controlling what the nobility sees and hears, the servants with the flappers hold the real power in the kingdom. A similar situation is in play with Arbcom. By suppressing things that they don't want to hear such as members of the community telling them that they have a case naming problem (above) or editors presenting evidence in a case that they don't want to hear([5][6][7][8]) they limit themselves to a narrow range of solutions that they have already decided are acceptable, never considering the possibility that they are on the wrong path. I would note that some individual arbs do listen, but as a committee I think my description is worth pondering. --Guy Macon (talk) 08:45, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
    • @Guy Macon: We've had enough threads about this. If there are threads about procedural concerns opened by non-arbs, most of the arbitrators do not participate in the discussion. This is at least a thread opened by Arbitrators, so hopefully this will get more of their attention ... --Dirk Beetstra T C 10:45, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Just on case names, the Committee has discussed this a couple times, however there has not been a clear consensus on whether to change how cases are named nor what they would instead be named. In contrast, the move to case request subpages received wide support so the decision was made to action that bit and leave tackling how cases are named to next year's committee. There's no conspiracy to sweep it under the carpet - we're just tackling the easy issues/decisions before the harder ones. In the interim, cases will continue to be named at the Committee's discretion. If a case request is accepted, the name given to it by the filing party will either be confirmed and the case opened or the /Request page will be moved to the Committee's preferred name for the case. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 08:57, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
    • @Callanecc: 'there has not been a clear consensus on whether to change how cases are named nor what they would instead be named' .. that is exactly the same tone as what Guy Macon is suggesting the tone to be. 'We're taking the easier decisions before the harder ones' - You've (the ArbCom at large) been pushing the harder decisions further and further away (when was the first time that case naming was brought up?) and are now just giving a solution to something that is hardly a significant problem in the first place?
    Is there any reason why the community, who, in this and earlier threads, has expressed the concern that the current (anchoring) system is, to say the least, sub-optimal and has been suggesting many other solutions cannot bring a solution to the community and that the ArbCom then just takes over the suggestion (or openly and transparently !votes). Is there any reason why this has to be done in closed chambers? I don't even know why we are discussing this proposal here, you suggest that you have already come to a consensus that this is the solution. --Dirk Beetstra T C 10:45, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
We've discussed changing how cases are named a few times this year (I haven't, and don't intend to, search through emails to find when). This has been discussed on the mailing list and onwiki. Each time we've discussed it, however, we haven't reached a consensus to make a change. We have, however, reached consensus to introduce subpages for each case request and came up with a model to present to the community. This (case requests, in general) is an internal procedure of the Committee, so ArbCom's responsibility to decide how it will work. Given that, we created a suggested model for case requests to present to the community for feedback. Again, it's up to ArbCom to determine how this procedure will work. My hope was that we could have a discussion about the merits of this proposal and perhaps other ways it could work. For example, a different version of or improvements to it. As I've also said, this year's Committee does not intend to address how cases and case requests are named so having another discussion right now about it won't accomplish anything. Instead, it would be better to discuss the subpages proposal (which is currently being proposed and will hopefully happen by the end of the year) now, and to discuss how cases are named later when next year's Committee looks into it. Comments above indicate that introducing subpages has, in fact, been asked for by the community. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 11:01, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Flip it. Is there really a consensus (standing apart from "it's tradition") that the current system is what is wanted? There's been complaints for years now from the community that the current naming schema is deeply flawed. Being sensitive to this issue myself, I alert on people complaining about the current naming schema, and there's been a lot of it. Yet, ArbCom hasn't budged. So, when? It keeps getting pushed into the future at best, at worst ignored entirely. --Hammersoft (talk) 15:13, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Just want to point out a practical result of anchoring: in the ongoing Arbcom elections, a variety of candidates discussed the TRM case in their answer to questions. Only one of them mentioned George Ho's conduct even though he was a party. I think case naming should be changed sooner rather than later. Banedon (talk) 20:06, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
There are too many variables that would make this example inconclusive. Namely the fact that TRM is a running candidate in the current election; the context provides an obvious reason why TRM would be discussed over George Ho. In regards to the case names, I am largely in favour of the community coming up with an agreed upon recommendation regarding the issue of case names. I do not think the best approach is for the Committee to come up with a solution on their own. Community consultation should be an an important part of the process. There is definitely an appetite for change, but no clear proposal that's an obvious choice. There are plenty of real world examples that use numerical systems and names. I could very easily see a hybrid used and shortcuts created for ease of access. Mkdw talk 20:44, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Appetite from the community, yes. But, ArbCom has been very reluctant to even acknowledge there being a problem with case names, much less direct the community to come up with recommendations for a schema to replace the prevailing schema. Perhaps it's time for ArbCom to vote on a motion to request the community initiate an RfC. Barring that, it's not very likely the community will do anything, as to date ArbCom hasn't shown any willingness to consider replacements. --Hammersoft (talk) 20:47, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

I don't think the issue of case names is as significant as a few people commenting in this and other recent threads posit. Speaking for myself, several times I've written a decision that made no findings against an editor whose name was included in the casename. As a practical matter, when we open a case we already know who is or are the editor(s) against whom allegations have been made, and await the evidence to see whether it substantiates the allegations. The "Gulliver's Travels" rhetoric is not necessary, particularly while we're going through an election featuring the lowest number of candidates (i.e., editors willing to do this job) that there has ever been. That being said, I'm open to being persuaded on this issue, and for what it's worth, I note that it's been brought up from time to time since at least 2008. Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:06, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

I mean no disrespect, but are you listening to yourself? When you open a case, you already know who the allegations are against? Of course you do, because that's who the case is named after. Anchoring shows that if you open a case named "John Doe", with parties "John Smith", "Jane Smith", and "Jack Jones" that people are going to be submitting case statements about John Doe because that's who the anchoring will cause people to write about. You have to nip it in the bud at the beginning; a person who is first to the punch and files a request shouldn't get to name the case.
So, you open a case about John Doe, and big surprise there's evidence about John Doe because you named the case John Doe, and it's obvious it's all about John Doe. Meanwhile, the other parties will rarely have findings against them because the anchoring causes people to write about John Doe, not about the other parties. I've looked at all party named cases 2009 through 2015 (slowly catching up to 2017). Those named in the title of the case are 11.2 times more likely to get sanctions against them than parties not named in a title. Yes, there's other factors that play in here, but 11.2 times more likely to get sanctioned? Basically, if you're named in the title of a case, you're screwed. Ever wonder why so many title named parties get ArbComFlu when a case opens? They know they're screwed and there's no point in participating. It's wholly unfair, and people know it. In 46 cases I looked at, not one single title named party escaped sanctions. Not ONE. Only 13.6% of parties not named in the title of cases got sanctions. If you think the table isn't dramatically tilted against title named parties, you must be flying in zero-g :)
It's been noted elsewhere; when something rises to the level of ArbCom, it almost always means there's multiple problems from multiple parties. There isn't just one person who's being the asshat. Yet, case after case after case concludes exactly that; target one person, destroy that person, and hey the fire went out so we did our job! Woohoo! Meanwhile, the other parties who had a direct hand in creating the problems in the case feel vindicated and think their disruption of the project was some how justified. This isn't problem solving. This is problem generating. --Hammersoft (talk) 21:53, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
Of course it could have nothing to do with the fact that the majority of people who have cases named after them have gone through significant dispute resolution first before being taken to arbcom due to their problem editing, and so are more likely to receive personal sanctions. While those cases that are named ambiguously are due to general wider-ranging issues, rather than a specific problematic editor. 'There isn't just one person who is being the asshat'. Yeah most of the time it is. The Betacommand case isn't named Betacommand because other editors are the problem. Only in death does duty end (talk) 09:42, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
And of course, User:Rich Farmbrough was wrong, because User:Betacommand was wrong, and User:Magioladitis was wrong, because if Betacommand was wrong and Rich Farmbrough were wrong, he must be wrong as well ([9]). You all fail to consider that there are maybe lower lying issues (which you will never prove or search for) because it must be the editor who is causing the conflict, right? --Dirk Beetstra T C 10:50, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
Or alternatively, those editors who consistently fucked off many other editors over extended periods of time, were found to be the problem. If you want to re-argue past cases because your pet bot-warriors got sanctioned and you don't agree with it, go ahead and do so. But there is no situation where either of those 3 would have escaped sanctions even if the cases had been named 'Friendly rainbow pony petting zoo'. The only argument (which has been made before by Hammersoft and yourself) is that naming cases after editors somehow magically increases their chances of being sanctioned - with no evidence to actually prove this is the case. Its neither plausible or credible that an editor who has had: multiple blocks, multiple AN/ANI cases, and ends up at ARBCOM has their chances of sanctions increased by naming conventions. This entire point of the push for anonymising cases is to deliberately obfuscate and make it hard to track problem editors. Only in death does duty end (talk) 13:27, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
Only in death does duty end A part of my case led to general changes in policy so it was not a case about a person. Things in discussed in various places led to significant policy changes and better texts. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:33, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
@Only in death: oh, it is so easy to prove that user:Hammersoft and I are completely wrong ... the evidence is so easy to gather. —Dirk Beetstra T C 19:36, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
@Only in death: I'm sorry you feel it necessary to misattribute my intent as being to deliberately make it harder to track problem editors. I have no such intentions. I've never had such intentions. I'm never going to have such intentions. I've never stated such intentions. I've never implied such intentions. I don't know where you're getting the idea that I am doing so. My only intent is to improve the ArbCom process to bring about better solutions for the project as a whole. My only reason for being on the project is to bring about a better project. I'm very sorry you think my intentions are otherwise, but I assure you (and with absolute respect) you could not be more wrong. --Hammersoft (talk) 19:45, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
On AN/I there are regularly situations where an editor comes and complains 'XX is doing this and it is wrong' .. that regularly boomerangs - it regularly is the case that actually the reported is in the wrong. Now, cases that get to ArbCom generally are of a higher level of dispute, but it is striking that there NEVER has been a case that effectively boomeranged completely, never a case where the conclusion is that the community or a certain set of editors should stop with their wining because the editor is following policy. No, if the editor is following policy, guidelines and/or general practice, there still will be reasons to (only) sanction said editor. And you know why - because the editor was brought to you, so they must be wrong. --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:28, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
No the editor was brought to Arbcom because despite being through previous dispute resolution they are still a problem. It is not 'striking' in any form that an editor who has ended up at the court of last resort ends up with sanctions. It is expected because they have already proven to be a highly disruptive editor. That people get boomarangs at AN directly influences this because it already weeds out *during prior dispute resolution* those cases where someone has been dragged there unjustly. Again you seem to be basing this on the premise that people who end up at Arbcom do not deserve to be there or have ended up there through no fault of their own, when the overwhelming evidence over an extended period of time is that yes, they do. Only in death does duty end (talk) 15:23, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
Well, I was just brought to Arbcom despite the fact that there was no previous proper dispute resolution (for example, I was never brought to ANI for that, and nobody managed to prove a pattern of my disruptive behavior, or in fact cared to prove one), and the Arncom was still pretty close to accepting the case. (For the record, I do not particularly care what the name of the case is, and would not mind it to be named for me - I would expect though that, if the case were accepted, actions of the filer were investigated as well).--Ymblanter (talk) 15:29, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
I can top that (smile). Sanctions were proposed against me despite no previous dispute resolution, and despite nobody complaining about my behavior to Arbcom, at ANI, on my talk page, or anywhere else. One of the editors had a "finding of fact" that he "chose to involve himself in this dispute and/or commented extensively during the events leading up to the case" despite having ZERO involvement other than presenting evidence as an uninvolved editor after the case started.[10] Why? because certain Arbs (not all of them, thank FSM) had already decided the case before any evidence was presented and they wanted to punish those who presented evidence that did not support what they had already decided to do.
I was given no chance to respond to the accusation. I wasn't even notified! Is it too much to ask Arbcom to follow their own rules? "Any editor named as a party to a case, or whose conduct otherwise comes under scrutiny during the course of a case, will be notified of this by the Committee or its clerks, and, except in exceptional circumstances, will be given a minimum of seven days to respond, calculated from the date the case opened or the date on which they are notified, whichever is later." (Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Procedures#Expectation of participation in proceedings). --Guy Macon (talk) 18:03, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
  • @Only in death: ArbCom's existence is primarily to resolve "serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve". Let's think about this for a second. If a situation were truly so lopsided that one person is clearly in the wrong, that person would have been blocked by an administrator or even banned by the community before it ever got to ArbCom. If ArbCom cases were so lopsided, it wouldn't take a month worth of evidence and hemming and hawing over a steaming pile to figure out "yeah, this guy's in the wrong, block him". The community would have done so already, and ArbCom isn't needed for that. Yet, this is precisely how ArbCom's schema for case naming lays cases out; one person is clearly the target of the case, evidence will be collected to determine the severity of the sanctions, and at the end the target of the case will get sanctioned. ArbCom's approach doesn't deal with "serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve" at all. ArbCom's approach is to take serious conduct disputes and sanction one editor, thus removing one side of the fire triangle without addressing the other sides. This results in a tinder pile just waiting to go off again. It doesn't solve anything. In fact, if anything, it empowers those who file first, those who complain about someone else the loudest, those who work the system to get rid of someone who is only part of the dispute, and not really resolving the dispute. Tangled, messy disputes which ArbCom exists to solve have multiple parties at the table who contributed to the situation. Collecting evidence only about one party at the table solves nothing. Deliberately naming cases about that one party means what you are going to get for case statements (much less if the cases gets accepted) will be tilted against the person named in the title of the case, and very little about other parties of the case. The system is badly broken. It needs to be fixed. This has dragged on for years now. Fix it. Now. --Hammersoft (talk) 18:37, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
I do feel this is an issue in several ways.
  1. Pre-judging the dispute.
  2. Creating a situation where there is a defendant, but no plaintiff.
  3. Badge of shame. (I cite, without a diff, a case where someone stated that having a shortcut to "my" case must mean I was a bad person. (Of course I had created the shortcut myself.))
[However there are other items that are just as worrying.
  1. Cases being taken when clearly community resolution has not been exhausted.
  2. "Remedies" at least verging on ultra vires
  3. Arbs opining on the result when accepting a case.]
All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 11:01, 28 November 2017 (UTC).

Community consultation: User:Crouch, Swale ban appeal

Original announcement
Thank you, everyone, for the feedback. I've proposed a motion at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Motions to enact the unban appeal. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 23:52, 25 December 2017 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

General comments on the appeal

  • Some context and links. Crouch, Swale was community-banned in 2011 in this discussion, most directly for socking but following a period of disruptive editing regarding the mass creation of micro-stubs and redirects on non-notable geographic features, and prolonged arguing over article names. There's an example of the redirect issues here, and there's more in their editing history if required.
Crouch, Swale has appealed the ban a couple of times, without success. On the positive side they have been active on Commons, and do not appear to have socked on en-WP for several years. The community ban has also been in place for a good long time. On the negative side they were once a genuinely prolific sockmaster, and there's some evidence on Commons of continued vigorous arguing over naming.
They have indicated they would like to work on articles relating to UK civil parishes. Initial interest was in creating new civil parish articles to fill in gaps, but they acknowledge this would be prevented by the proposed restrictions. Instead, they propose to focus on improving existing UK location pages. They have previosuly referenced civil parishes in Devon as an area of particular interest.
From discussions, Arbcom has mixed views on the merits of the appeal. In that spirit, all views welcome, either as yes/no or as suggestions on whether the proposed restrictions would be an effective safeguard against yesteryear's disruptive editing patterns. -- Euryalus (talk) 13:32, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
  • My main comment here would be to voice my general pleasure to see the Committee addressing the backlog of longstanding indefinite blocks and bans. I believe that measures of indefinite length should be the exception rather than the norm, and from all appearances this case does not present particularly unique features of misconduct. Rather, it seems to follow the rather routine occurrence of someone doing something that annoys many other editors, falling into a death spiral of sanctions, and then committing the cardinal sin of socking. Of course, the volume of socking in this case is rather unusual, but the period over which it was done doesn't appear very remarkable.
    First of all, I think compliance with unblocking procedure rather than just continuing to sock is admirable. In fact, if we look at it, from all appearances Crouch, Swale could qualify for the standard offer given the amount of time since he stopped socking. Obviously, just following the rules is a baseline requirement rather than something that merits rewarding on its own, but I think given the circumstances it should factor into the analysis. Particularly relevant, I believe, is the period of activity on other Foundation projects. Though it has been noted that Crouch, Swale's activity elsewhere has shown signs that he might still be prone to the same conduct that caused the original problems, I think it's also worth considering that he's avoided getting into trouble with that conduct. And really, it's pretty uncommon for us to see longstanding blocked and banned users with records of productive activity at other wikis. It's my understanding, actually, that this is why the SO became popular, because it was so difficult for blocked and banned editors to provide evidence of improvement. I think the fact that we have any evidence of conduct elsewhere is a good thing, and should be counted in Crouch, Swale's favor rather than against him where possible.
    In short, I think that Crouch, Swale should be given a shot, with the proposed restrictions, to rejoin English Wikipedia as a productive editor. It's been something like five years since the last confirmed sock. People change. I think it's worth trying. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 06:15, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

Input from Crouch, Swale

The comment below is from Crouch, Swale, originally posted here and reposted at their request:

"Thank you for posting the unban request however I am still a bit concerned about the things pointed out. The problem is that any partial ban (1 creating new pages, 2 moving pages or 3 editing existing pages) either prevents me from making the contributions I intended to make by the request or leaves work for others. With regard to the moves an templates/categories/redirects I hardly created any redirects in my first 10 months and didn't create any templates or categories at all. Also noting that the apparent reason why this started as because I edited the article London which Nancy was watching, a major department from my normal convention. I didn't even use categories until Summer 2010[11]. With the moves and discussions about moves I didn't make any moves in nearly my first 6 months[12] and apart from making a few problematic moves and repeated/frivolous requests I have done very little of this work. My initial thoughts were because of my work on moves here but I'm unsure what the "prolonged arguing over article names" is referring to. I would note that I started 3 more CFDs (Mansfield, Bolton and Bury) because I was getting ready to "die" on Commons as assumed I would be busy contributing on Wikipedia[13]. Could you please post a link to this message at the discussions thanks. Crouch, Swale (talk) 11:29, 21 December 2017 (UTC)"
Pinging Nancy who is mentioned in the above. -- Euryalus (talk) 01:05, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
I'm a little concerned that they seem to have badly misread the return conditions. A ban on creating, moving, or editing pages would restrict them to only posting on existing talk pages and therefore be a near-total ban but that is very much not what is being proposed. They seem to be missing the statements of a good number of editors here that the whole intent of these restrictions is to enable them to edit existing pages in a way that would allow them to show good faith. They need to demonstrate they understand and accept the restrictions as written if they are to stay around for anything more than a brief visit. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 15:25, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

Comments on suggested conditions

  • Well, from what I can tell about the case (and there's not really a good unified summary of the case anywhere I could find), the proposed conditions should definitely be imposed if the Committee were to lift the siteban. Of course, not being in possession of the petition or much information on the original block/ban, I can't say much else. Upwards of 800 confirmed, categorized socks though... that's pretty significant. I can't tell when the last sock was discovered, but a random check of a dozen or so socks, the most recent was in 2012. Even if there are ones into 2013 or 2014 it's been quite awhile. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 09:01, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
FWIW, confirming that the last identified sock was several years ago. -- Euryalus (talk) 11:57, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
  • this revision of their user talk page should shed a little more light. Suffice to say the current restrictions would not address all the problems Swale caused. One quote from Nancy there stands out: "Redirects, templates and categories. You have recently created a lot of redirects, templates and categories many of which are now being discussed for deletion. This is obviously using up an awful lot of the community's time which I am sure you will agree could more usefully be spent improving articles." - the proposed restrictions do not prevent this - and that's just one of the issues they had. Unless you are going to restrict them from everything else they caused trouble with, I cant see the benefit outweighs the headache they will cause. Only in death does duty end (talk) 09:42, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
    • So perhaps instead of a ban on article creation, it ought to be a general ban on page creation... which I think is probably easier to administrate anyway. Obvious exceptions would be things like creating "utility pages" like a personal css/js interface files or other automatic page creation. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 12:30, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
      • I agree with this. Further, I would expect the Committee would not consider an unblock until a suitable plan has been outlined as to what the editor intends to do when they return to editing. ~ Rob13Talk 12:40, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
        • After having read through the talk page archives of the user, I also agree with Mendaliv that restriction #4 should be a ban on page creation instead of article creation. I am further concerned that a ban on moving or renaming geographic articles (restriction #3) is likely to invite some "nibbling around the edges," as it were. A ban on moving or renaming articles of any kind for at least six months would be easier both to comply with and to monitor. These tweaks to the restrictions would allow this user the time and opportunity to demonstrate the ability to cooperatively and positively contribute without temptation of what tripped them up last time. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 13:00, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
          • Agree with amending point 4 to a ban on page creation, for the reasons given above. -- Euryalus (talk) 13:36, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
            • Also agree for the same reasons. Doug Weller talk 20:19, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
              • I'd also be more comfortable with a blanket ban on creating/renaming pages (perhaps with some specific exceptions like user interface pages and talk pages), rather than trying to administer a complex set of rules that cry out for being gamed. This should not interfere with their stated goal of working on existing articles. Given that it's been a number of years since any confirmed socks I think it's worth taking a chance here. Lankiveil (speak to me) 00:43, 20 December 2017 (UTC).
  • Thanks Euryalus! I see where you're coming from Mendaliv, but I don't think there's an easy way to work that without the restriction getting too complicated. It's one of those things which could probably be dealt with if and when it comes up (either by individual admins, at ANI or ArbCom). Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 08:21, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
  • (edit conflict) x 2: What about creating an article talk page for the purposes of discussing an article? For example, suppose Crouch was to make a substantial edit to an article which is reverted, and the article has no existing talk page? Creating one to begin a discussion on whether parts of their edit are worth keeping rather than all being reverted is much more appropriate than trying to make smaller changes in the hope that some are not reverted, and discussion on user talk pages is hidden from others who monitor the article. (I am commenting in theory, and have not checked whether appropriate talk page discussions were regularly undertaken by this editor.) Following the above change from Euryalus, page creation inside user space allows from the drafting of new articles. Would it be reasonable to allow such a draft to then be published to article space either by another editor who was willing to review it and take responsibility, or through the AfC process? In either case, someone else would be judging the draft suitable for inclusion. If this approach were allowed, it would also offer a potential approach to the first problem that I mentioned – Crouch could create a draft of an article talk page in user space and then ask that it be reviewed and if appropriate moved to the appropriate place (possibly even by asking the editor who reverted the article change to move the to-be article talk page for the purposes of the "D" in a BRD cycle. This would have the advantage of not adding any amendment to the proposed conditions except specifying the circumstances for requesting a page be moved from user space. EdChem (talk) 08:30, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
I don't think we want them creating articles at all, the purpose of this restriction is to have them editing existing articles rather than creating new ones. We'll need to tweak #4 a little to make that clearer. That is, any pages created in userspace need to be for "utility" purposes (and not articles/templates for example).
I'm also minded to change #3 to prevent renaming/moving any pages outside userspace.
I'm tempted to have #3 & #4 in place for 6 months and then become automatically suspended for an additional 12 months (during that 12 months, they can be reinstated by any uninvolved admin). Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 08:47, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
I actually don't mind if they create credible articles in userspace and another editor reviews and transfers it to mainspace. The previous problems were non-notable (or non-credible) microstubs, and idiosyncratic naming theories. If they're now creating useful article drafts that avoid those issues, then great. It would also help demonstrate bona fides towards an eventual repeal of the restriction (by showing they were producing some decent articles). Plus as a restriction its simpler than the alternatives, and less open to accidental breaches.
Re talkpages of existing articles: I understand the point but suspect it's an edge case. In an established field like UK settlements and geography, there'd be few articles without at least a token talkpage showing wikiprojects. If it did arise (for example if they got into new page patrol and wanted to comment on a very new article with no talkpage), then mentioning it in their userspace,or flagging down any passing editor, would have it rectified pretty fast. But other views welcome. -- Euryalus (talk) 08:52, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
Agreed, don't make things too complicated. Masses of userspace drafts are problems if there are lurking BLP violations or copyvios or something, but they're harmless wastes of time if they're just non-viable articles - not worth over-complicating things just to deal with that particular edge case. I don't really care at all if they create talk pages, and asking for hoop-jumping seems again like too much complication for no benefit. Since the problems involved articles, templates, and categories, "no creating articles, templates, or categories" seems like the simplest solution. Opabinia regalis (talk) 09:02, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
(edit conflict) @Callanecc: I like the way you think re: automatically suspending but allowing them to be reinstated on any admin's discretion should there be a problem. @Euryalus: A thought occurs: Suppose Crouch, Swale wanted to get involved in tagging articles for WikiProjects. This would certainly involve creation of many article talk pages without adding content to them. Would that behavior fit in with how these unban conditions are intended to work? If not, then we probably shouldn't allow creation of talk pages at all. As to whether drafting is allowed, I honestly got the impression that Callanecc puts forward above; that article creation was the problem and we should encourage non-article-creating work first. Perhaps an expiring provision forbidding drafting initially? I am of course mindful of overcomplicating things needlessly. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 09:05, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
As a general view, I think Euryalus' view of creating articles in user space allowing the opportunity to demonstrate new skills / changed approaches is preferable, provided that taking the consequent risk is viewed as justifiable. As to edge cases leading to complications in framing restrictions, that is certainly true... however, edge cases can also look like disruption and testing boundaries, which is obviously undesirable and viewed harshly. It's a balance, of course. Perhaps permitting requests to be made via admin help with blocks authorised if it is abused? EdChem (talk) 10:58, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
The creation of pages in userspace isn't a bad thing as noted above (they're hard to find and NOINDEX'd), plus it provides an option for situations we're not imagining at the moment (that the wording of an exemption written now may not cover). Given comments above I'm thinking it's probably worth adding an exemption allowing him to create talk pages for mainspace pages which exist - @Euryalus: what do you think? I'm also mindful of Crouch's concerns regarding the last 3 conditions, but I don't see a clear way forward without those sanctions. It's probably worth saying that I imagine/hope that next year's Committee will be willing to suspend or remove them after 6 months of good editing. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 23:57, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
Fine by me, for the purposes of moving this along. I reckon a simple ban on page creation outside userspace is cleaner, but won't die in a ditch about it. -- Euryalus (talk) 01:10, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
I'd say permit page creation in userspace and all talk spaces. Userspace will be particular useful down the line, when we are considering relaxing conditions.--Nilfanion (talk) 19:16, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

I've had a lot interaction with Crouch, Swale on Commons; so I can give a detailed commentary on him (as an admin on both projects). In his entire edit history on Commons he hasn't been blocked nor has he gotten any serious warnings about his behaviour. Therefore I can't see any reason why we shouldn't extend something based on the standard offer - with appropriate restrictions for the circumstances.

I am concerned that the proposed restrictions and his statement of intended edits to Wikipedia are not workable, based on his edit practices on Commons. I fully believe that the edits he wants to make on Wikipedia are the direct equivalent of those he has been making on Commons, and those definitely violate the proposed restrictions. The best outcome will be for him to work on new areas that do not violate the restrictions, such as substantial expansion of existing articles. However its more likely he will be hankering for a relaxation on those restrictions, instead of changing his editorial focus.

If he does follow his Commons editing approach, restrictions #2 (ban from geographic naming convention), and #3 (ban on moving/renaming geographic articles) will be a concern (segment of move log). There are reams of discussion between him and me on naming conventions (check user talk archives) and he has opened dozens of CFDs - the closest Commons equivalent RM - following his interpretation of naming conventions. One thing I have noticed which alarms me is he is moving Commons categories that are not strictly geographic like this move. Moving buildings from parentheses to commas does not match the consensus of this RM and church titling is a known problem area. If he is banned from moving places, I expect him to move building articles instead and generate problems.

As for #4 (Page creation ban) - this is his other major activity on Commons. This definitely should be in place, as he will want to create articles about minor places and that is what led to his initial WP block. Even if those are well-crafted about notable places, they will still need correct disambiguation, and that will mean discussions about page naming and lead to a violation of #2...

I am concerned about his stated desire to work on civil parish articles, even if he is prepared to work within the "no new article" restriction. The reason is civil parishes are logical parents to the sort of non-notable articles he created before his WP ban. So instead of creating a sub-stub saying "X is a hamlet in the civil parish of Y" he will just add "X is also a hamlet in the civil parish" to the article on Y. If X isn't notable, then that doesn't improve the article on Y. That's just the same problem, but done in a way that avoids the editing restriction.

I'd make a few recommendations, in terms of the restrictions and directly to Crouch, Swale:

  1. Change #3 to a ban on moving any article. That prevents chipping at the edges.
  2. Identify a suitable mentor. Based on the information provided by Euryalus above, I believe that should be an editor who has a strong interest in a specific English county. Ideally, that mentor should have no previous history with Crouch, Swale - as that reduces preconceptions. I can think of a few possibilities there.
  3. Crouch, Swale, should then initially restrict his editing to the county of interest to the mentor, and work on a different aspect to the gnomish tasks he has done on Commons. There are other gnomish things he could do, but it would be better if he focused on instead making substantial improvement to content.

I can give more detail about his edit history on Commons if necessary.--Nilfanion (talk) 19:06, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

"church titling is a known problem area" - The consensus is on Wikipedia and applies to statues (and other works of art). Churches use commas here and on Commons - see Category:Church of England churches in Kent and Commons:Category:Anglican churches in Kent (or any other county) - the exception there is Commons:Category:St. Gregory and St. Martin (Wye/Kent), which was created by an editor whose home wiki is the German Wikipedia, so is probably disambiguated according to German Wikipedia naming conventions. Peter James (talk) 14:57, 25 December 2017 (UTC)
There are a lot more issues around church naming, than just comma or parentheses. St / St.; church / Church; Church of X / X's Church are a few examples, and there is no real consensus on all points (cf this thread). No real consistency can be seen in the two categories you provided. Resolution of that is desirable but beyond scope of this thread.
What is relevant is based on his Commons history, its reasonable to assume Crouch, Swale will want move similar articles in line with his views. If he does get involved in that, it will be wide-scale and rapid, and therefore likely to trigger debate. Given his history, it would be prudent to include all articles on the moving restrictions. That will prevent issues arising and give him the opportunity to work in non-contentious areas.--Nilfanion (talk) 17:07, 25 December 2017 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Crouch, Swale ban appeal

Original announcement

What does "including creating articles on pages where one didn't previously exist" mean? Is it saying "no creating articles, including articles on topics that don't currently have articles", or do I misunderstand something? My proposal seems redundant (WP:CFORK), but I can't imagine any other meanings. Nyttend (talk) 23:17, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

The version before the final adjustment clearly stated "no creating new pages in any namespace (except user or any talk space). Given that tweak was made after this comment, I'd interpret it as prohibiting Crouch, Swale from converting a redirect into a true article.--Nilfanion (talk) 23:37, 31 December 2017 (UTC)
Yeah, it's clarifying that they can't go from red link to article and they can't go from redirect or disambiguation page to article. I clarified it at the last minute as Crouch asked a question about it. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 04:47, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

2018 Arbitration Committee

Original announcement

@Callanecc: I see you mention that the CU status of Keilana should be removed now, but he/she is only an OS (and retains that status). Perhaps you could remove Keilana from the line "Checkuser: Casliber, Keilana, Kelapstick"? It was apparantly a (small) mistake mentioning him/her. Thanks. Trijnsteltalk 22:55, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

Done. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 01:32, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

Catflap08 and Hijiri88: Motion

Original announcement

Contact role accounts

Please see the discussion at WP:AN#Contact role accounts. — JJMC89 (T·C) 18:02, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

Motion: Palestine-Israel articles (January 2018)

Original announcement

Edit war at WP:AE

There is an edit war at WP:AE concerning a discussion about a sanction I imposed. I suggest that clerks take a look at the matter. Sandstein 20:56, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

And I suggest you allow the community to discuss the behavioural issues previously identified without getting involved, or requesting further chilling via the anonymous clerks instructions. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:01, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
The "Community" (which I guess apparently consists of the two or three individuals who insist on breaking policy to gratify their own egos) can discuss - at the appropriate venue. Either at WP:AN, or the talk page where User:Black Kite just moved the discussion to [14]. Nothing stopping you. Have at it. But doing it under a closed WP:AE report is purposefully disruptive to make a WP:POINT.Volunteer Marek (talk) 21:10, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
Not really, you'll find purposely wikilawyering around where a discussion should take place is precisely one of the reasons that certain admins and arbs are held in such poor regard. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:12, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
It's not "wikilawyering". "Wikilawyering" happens when there's some ambiguity. The instructions are pretty clear. This is just a couple editors deciding to climb a (an admittedly small) Reichstag to signal their dissatisfaction with how the report was closed. Like I said elsewhere, if this wasn't some "big names" doing this, ya'll'd be already blocked.Volunteer Marek (talk) 21:18, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
Oh, well done, there's been a temptation resisted to block us. Bravo! Not that it matters, there's precisely no reason at all in policy why anyone should be blocked. But it's not surprising that some individuals will resort to claiming that we're being done a favour not being blocked. It gets progressively worse. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:21, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

Conduct of Mister Wiki editors case closed

Original announcement
It's difficult to say thank you, here -- it's all unfortunate, but the committee's diligence (special mention to drafter(s)) is appreciated. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:34, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
I agree, and it should be noted that Euryalus did a particularly large amount of the heavy lifting, and did it very well. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:15, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
1000% agreed. Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 18:26, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
Yes. I expressed to Euryalus privately after the case closed about how impressed I was with his handling of it. He really deserves a lot of kudos for keeping engaged with the community, and helping keep the conversation civil and related to the case. TonyBallioni (talk) 19:41, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
Thanks, agree with Alanscottwalker that cases are never a good thing and glad this one wasn't as fraught as some. That was nothing to do with me: everyone with an interest in the case contributed politely and in detail, and that's all it needed.
Workshop engagement was the most useful part, as the only forum in which to test evidence for surprises and make sure everyone gets a say. Compare the level of workshop engagement in this case, with this one. The drafters did fail to post proposals directly in the workshop like we said we would - sorry about that, Christmas and the shortened time frame got in the way. Thankfully most things that ended up in the PD were already posted in the workshop by others, but it would have been best practice for us to post proposals there too. Something for next time. -- Euryalus (talk) 03:18, 12 January 2018 (UTC)

Arbitration motion regarding discretionary sanctions

Original announcement
The way this is worded, someone who addressed the ctte in a case but was not named in the final, is deemed unaware, that's a stretch -- so, can the clerks please add to their case duties sending an "alert" to everyone who commented at any time in the case, please? Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:01, 15 January 2018 (UTC)
First of all, it's worth noting that this motion didn't address the awareness criteria it just added a requirement before someone can be sanctioned for breaching a restriction an admin has placed on a page. Regarding the point you raised, expecting someone who filed a statement before the case was accepted, or who submitted evidence to be aware of the final decision is a stretch. Likewise giving them an alert (if discretionary sanctions where authorised) when they may not have edited in the topic area for weeks also seems to be a bit of a stretch. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 23:41, 15 January 2018 (UTC)
Not knowing about a case you know about is basically silly nonsense. And not giving a pro forma alert is just dereliction of diligence. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:33, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
So just to be clear, this now says "In the last twelve months, the editor has given and/or received an alert for the area of conflict", yet the yellow box above says that "Editors using mobile devices may not see edit notices. Administrators should consider whether an editor was aware of the page restriction before sanctioning them.". So, all an editor (especially our swathe of lovely new ARBAP2 editors) has to do now is say "I was on my mobile, didn't see that" ... am I missing something? Black Kite (talk) 23:49, 15 January 2018 (UTC)
To enforce a page restriction (like 1RR or the AP2 consensus required restriction) the editor has to be aware (eg received an alert in the last 12 months) and there has to be an edit notice on the page. If they're using a mobile device, their edit will be tagged with mobile edit, mobile web edit or mobile app edit. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 23:59, 15 January 2018 (UTC)
Callanecc, nope. I’m currently editing from mobile and you see no tags. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:04, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
@TonyBallioni: Using the desktop version on the mobile or the proper mobile version (with "en.m.wikipedia" in the URL). If the former you can still see edit notices, if the later, it's probably something for WP:VPT or phabricator as a bug. In any case it doesn't say that admins can't sanction editors using mobile devices, just that the admin should consider whether the editor was aware of the page restriction. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 00:11, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
Desktop, as I find the actual mobile versions impossible to edit in. Thanks for the clarification. Yes, I can still see the notices (confirmed with my alt on my phone just now). This isn't a major concern of mine, but I can see where Black Kite is coming from: "I was on my phone" could become an excuse, even if it isn't explicitly forbidden to sanction off of it. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:15, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
Callanecc (or anyone else), I'm a bit puzzled at how to apply these modified requirements to WP:ARBMAC, specifically enforcing WP:FYROM. "Macedonia" probably appears in thousands of articles, often incidentally. If I see someone changing it to Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia or any of its abbreviations I'll warn them like this. Do I really now have to go around article to article, adding article and talk page notices, before I can sanction them? --NeilN talk to me 00:01, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
@NeilN: I assume you're talking about the naming conventions 1RR? If so, then it isn't a discretionary sanction (ie something imposed by an admin) so it's not covered by these requirements. Is that what you mean? Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 00:07, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
@Callanecc: I... guess? So editing restrictions directly imposed by a Arbcom decision don't require article/talk page notices before sanctions can occur? --NeilN talk to me 00:14, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
@NeilN: Correct. So as an example, this amendment does not affect WP:ARBPIA#General 1RR restriction but does affect any page-level restrictions imposed by an administrator under WP:ARBPIA#Standard discretionary sanctions. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 00:17, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
@Callanecc: Gotcha. Thank you. --NeilN talk to me 00:19, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

The yellow-box quotes of the Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions policy and modifications contain links that--when the policy page itself is viewed--go to other sections of the page. But these section-links are broken in the quotes on Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard because they are relative links. For example, the first box has "The enforcing administrator must [[#Logging|log]] page restrictions they place." but that link should instead be "[[Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions#Logging]]". DMacks (talk) 19:07, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

Arbitration motion regarding Doncram

Original announcement

Thank you. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 23:19, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

Wasn't that a bit quick? I was depressed by the arbitration motion and was off for a few days. The situation is unpleasant for me to deal with, as it has to do with past long-running harassment that was truly awful to endure. I didn't respond quickly, sure, but the closure seems abrupt and catches me off guard. I was coming back to ask publicly what are SarekOfVulcan's intentions going forward. And I was inclined to ask publicly why they made the request, so they could answer truly or they could choose to lie and deny that it was their wish to get elected to the Arbitration committee in the future. They ran but then withdrew their nomination the last time around, because they received negative reviews regarding this arbitration case. At this point, I am apprehensive as to their intentions; it is depressing and demoralizing to contemplate their following me around and contending again as they did for a year or two or three before they successfully launched the arbitration case that drove me out of my area of main interest for several years. --Doncram (talk) 23:58, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

Someone explain to me how this statement by Doncram is not an instance of "fail to adhere to Wikipedia editing standards in their interactions with each other". How is this not a case of "Accusations about personal behavior that lack evidence"? Nyttend (talk) 00:19, 22 January 2018 (UTC)
If it isn't, I think this statement definitely is, though I'd be inclined to discount it as fairly normal post-litigation loss frustration that probably ought to be overlooked (though probably also struck). —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 01:33, 22 January 2018 (UTC)
To be clear, it is no accident that User:Nyttend comments negatively. They are the administrator alluded to by me in that comment that was using administrative tools horrifically at the time, including to make article deletion that was reversed by review. That action and others were not fought out at the time, because the case was poisoned and it was impossible to muster all that was necessary. It was awful. This is repeating the awfulness. Consider the public news situations of persons abused by harassment and having to deal with that harassment being brought up again later. They are victimized again. At any rate, please consider Nyttend to be horrifically, centrally, wp:INVOLVED. --Doncram (talk) 02:07, 22 January 2018 (UTC)
(e/c) Please see my comment in voting on the motion. I do not expect Sarek to engage in the sort of conduct you describe and there would be little tolerance for it. Newyorkbrad (talk) 00:23, 22 January 2018 (UTC)
Doncram, if he does that, bring it to ARCA. It will be incredibly obvious if one of you starts following the other around, as you've said you don't overlap much in where you work these days. Having said that, so far, it's your comments that have been problematic, not Sarek's. If the problems become one-sided, note that a one-way interaction ban is possible (through request at ARCA, probably, since we didn't think to include the possibility in the motion). ~ Rob13Talk 00:36, 22 January 2018 (UTC)
Since the ban was only suspended, it can be reimposed by any admin as an AE action, no ARCA required. (Though ARCA is also OK as a venue for this, especially if the problem is more complex. But as everyone else has said, that seems unlikely as things stand at this point.) Opabinia externa (talk) 01:00, 22 January 2018 (UTC)
I was speaking about imposing a one-way IBAN, if only one of the two is causing problems. Since that isn’t a simple restoration of the sanction, I think that would have to go to ARCA. As you said, restoring the two-way IBAN is available as an AE action. ~ Rob13Talk 04:02, 22 January 2018 (UTC)
  • I'm surprised this motion passed. It seems like a case of nothing to gain but much that can be lost. If SarekOfVulcan and Doncram already don't encounter each other, then whether or not they remain IBANed has no impact. Lifting the IBAN therefore gains nothing. Suspending the IBAN means SarekOfVulcan can now respond to Doncram. Since Doncram is not willing to interact with SarekOfVulcan, that effectively turns the two-way IBAN into a one-way IBAN, which is bound to be stressful. Not being able to respond to the quoted AfD seems a bit extreme as well. WP:IBAN clearly states that IBANed editors are "generally allowed to edit the same pages or discussions so long as they avoid each other", so there was nothing stopping SarekOfVulcan from commenting. Banedon (talk) 01:16, 22 January 2018 (UTC)
    • I brought this up at the ARCA. The logic that "If they don't want to interact, then why should we lift the IBAN?" is something we should reject as a matter of principle because it causes indefinite sanctions to become permanent. Sanctions should expire eventually. There is a non-negligible cognitive load associated with them, at least for careful editors, that is burdensome. As Sarek made clear at ARCA in mentioning the AfD, he suffers from this burden. Even if he arguably could have participated at the AfD, that does not negate the burden: He still would have needed to evaluate every situation like that, and even if he decided it was permissible, Doncram might well disagree, and then Sarek would be subject to the additional burden of a noticeboard discussion that might not go his way. So, in effect, a careful editor would just avoid those situations to minimize risk, making the effective scope of the IBAN much greater than what would be a clear-cut violation. These aren't minor factors, and the Committee rightly took account of them. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 01:26, 22 January 2018 (UTC)
      • Doncram's attacks in this thread and the naming discussion have prompted me to file an arbitration enforcement request. Nyttend (talk) 02:27, 22 January 2018 (UTC)
        • Speak of the devil ... I wrote that there's little to be gained and much to be lost, and within three hours of the proposal being enacted we're already at an AE request. If the AE request results in sanctions, we would be well and truly on the path of "much to be lost". Banedon (talk) 03:12, 22 January 2018 (UTC)
      • @Mendaliv:, perhaps, but lifting the IBAN pushes the burden from Sarek to Doncram. How is that objectively better? Banedon (talk) 03:12, 22 January 2018 (UTC)
        • Because we should always favor less Committee oversight over more. Sanctions that are doing nothing should lapse. This six-month period is a essentially request on Sarek's behalf to prove that it does nothing. And as we are seeing, Doncram is already trying, quite hard, to force its reinstatement. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 03:24, 22 January 2018 (UTC)
          • Yeah, this. When something can be handled by normal community processes and no longer needs the specific constraints that come from an arbcom sanction, it's better to do exactly that. As far as either party's typical Wikipedia experience goes, there's no reason anything needs to (or appears likely to) change as a result. As for "already at AE", as a rule I stay away from that place, but in this case I suggest considering the whole thing blowing off steam and moving on. Doncram, if you want to vent yell at the arbs, not other people commenting ;) Opabinia regalis (talk) 06:18, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Length of sanctions

This may be an easy clarification but if not, I'll ask at WP:ARCA. Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee/Discretionary_sanctions#Sanctions states that "Any uninvolved administrator is authorised to place: revert and move restrictions, interaction bans, topic bans, and blocks of up to one year in duration." What if there is consensus amongst multiple admins during a sanctions or appeals process that a longer or indefinite sanction is appropriate? --NeilN talk to me 16:06, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

  • I've always seen it interpreted that the up to one year clause refers to the blocks, not to the other authorized sanctions. The only case from the past year that springs to mind where someone was indef'd at AE was by GoldenRing. In that case, the first year was an AE action, and anything past that was a regular block. TonyBallioni (talk) 16:42, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
  • Correct. This is somewhat ambiguous as written, but the "up to one year" refers only to blocks. Indefinite topic bans at AE are not abnormal. ~ Rob13Talk 17:13, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

Emergency desysop of Denelson83

Original announcement

@KrakatoaKatie: So, I'm not sure I see a catalyst for this to have happened. Was this at the request of Denelson as he was concerned it was compromised? As far as I can tell by edits/logs nothing seems overly suspicious. He also has a SHA-512 on his userpage for identity recovery, if you are in touch with Denelson. Regards, — Moe Epsilon 03:19, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

Yes, we're in touch. CheckUser evidence indicates the account was compromised. Katietalk 03:21, 1 February 2018 (UTC)
Just confirming the above. This was uncovered by a CheckUser while investigating a different compromised account. We were able to get to the compromised admin account before it caused too much disruption, which was fairly fortunate in this instance. A reminder to all admins to ensure you use a unique password for your Wikipedia account and consider enabling 2FA. ~ Rob13Talk 04:24, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

Community consultation: User:Rationalobserver block appeal

Original announcement
Thanks all for your comments. After considering evidence presented directly to the Committee and the community feedback on this page, the appeal has been declined. -- Euryalus (talk) 23:19, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Rationalobserver was blocked in November 2015 as they posted now suppressed information during a discussion at ANI. The Committee has resolved the elements of the block which relate to suppressed information and that must not be discussed here. Instead, the Committee is seeking community comments particularly in relation to the November 2015 ANI discussion which concluded when the Oversight block was put in place. Any private evidence should be submitted to the Arbitration Committee by email. For the Arbitration Committee, Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 00:51, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

Comments from Rationalobserver

General comments on the appeal

  • In my opinion as the blocking admin, RO is temperamentally unsuited to a project built on collaboration and discussion and I oppose (really quite strongly) the proposed unban, especially with such lax conditions. She always appears reasonable when appealing sanctions but had a long track record of recidivism. The damage she would cause to the community far outweighs any incentive to lift the ban. I often find myself asserting for rehabilitation, but at some point, we as a community have to be prepared to show somebody the door once they've exhausted multiple last chances. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 14:45, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
  • I've re-read the email discussions I have archived from when the functionaries discussed previous appeals in 2015 and 2016 (the current recent appeal has not been mentioned on the functionaries list, although I will be neutrally advertising this consultation there) and I find myself in complete agreement with HJ Mitchell. I am unconvinced that we should allow back any user who has a history of stalking a contributor who disagree with them in minor disputes, let alone someone who has done this more than once. I am not privy to any communication from RO more recent than 2016, but I was not the only functionary back then to express grave doubts about the sincerity of what they were saying. Finally, they have a history of accusing multiple people (they believe to be*) male of sexism and misogyny simply for saying things she does not wish to hear, even if they are just a messenger (*iirc, including at least one person who does/did not make their gender public, but who I know privately to be female [for obvious reasons I'm unable to provide evidence of this on-wiki]). Thryduulf (talk) 15:23, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
  • I would like to point out the inherent unfairness of making decisions based on "email discussions" to which the person being discussed is incapable of defending themselves. As far as whether "we should allow back any user who has a history of stalking a contributor who disagree with them in minor disputes, let alone someone who has done this more than once" well, at one point that was almost condoned behavior, especially when conducted in the name of "sock-hunting." And don't get me started on the level of belief that Wikipedia is a hot-bed of "sexism and misogyny" by many editors. Maybe what really causes the damage to the community is the refusal to hold all editors to the same standard of conduct. Lynn (SLW) (talk) 18:06, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
    • I would be interested in hearing whether, and if so to what extent and to what effect, the Committee has taken the past relief proceedings into consideration. It would be very nice for transparency's sake to get some digest of the past proceedings as well, like month/year the requests were made and general reasons why the requests were denied. I'm not asking for a restatement of the facts or publication of the deliberations or anything like that, just for general information about what influenced the decision. If even that's a problem, I'd ask that we at least get the relevant dates of the past actions (i.e., when received and when denied).
      Again, I understand that privacy considerations are present in any off-wiki request for relief, and that the privacy considerations are orders of magnitude greater due to the nature of the conduct that got RO indeffed, but it's very difficult for the community to give feedback with an incomplete picture of the procedural history of this case. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 15:57, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
      • I have records of appeals from November 2015 (arbcom), March 2016 (functionaries) and October 2016 (functionaries), and all were decided in less than a month (a quick glance suggests ~1-2 weeks for each). Assuming that arbcom works at about the same speed as it did in 2015, this email will probably have been received around 1-3 weeks ago (much will depend on how quickly RO has responded to any questions from the Committee). I don't guarantee my records are complete, and I will not have any record of appeals made to the Arbitration Committee after 2015. The factors I mention above were all considered, but I'm not comfortable going into any more detail without making absolutely sure I'm not revealing anything that it would be inappropriate do so, which will take more time than I have right now. Thryduulf (talk) 16:23, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
  • Unless arbcom specifically overturn the close or a further AN discussion amends the community restriction, RO will be subject to the restrictions imposed there regardless as a result of 28bytes closure. If RO wants to appeal those restrictions at AN they are welcome to, but since they have a history of not learning after blocks, I doubt many people would be fine with no restrictions whatsoever. Only in death does duty end (talk) 16:55, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
    • Would have been better to put this below where it's already under intense discussion, and where it's clear the reality is a bit more nuanced than you would seem to believe. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 17:24, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
      • I read them. Irrelevant. Either arbcom lifts the community restrictions in total or an appeal will need to be made at the venue in which they were restricted. See WP:RESTRICT. Unless arbcom lift or supersede the community restrictions already imposed, an appeal has to take place at the same venue. Only in death does duty end (talk) 17:48, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
        • Then you have failed to understand the discussion. As I said below, and because of this effective "top-posting" am compelled to repeat here, the Committee is not handling an appeal in this case, but a petition for relief. This is conceptually very different, and is a matter addressing all disabilities this editor faces. In other words, the Committee's proposal here is comprehensive and supersedes any purported long-tail restrictions this editor may face. Additionally, there was no consensus to enact that particular set of restrictions, and it is my view that such restrictions, which purport to be in derogation of the authority of an unblocking admin, the community deciding a standard offer, or the Committee itself (and this is essentially all three) should be considered facially invalid. These "gotcha" sanctions, much like "no appeals allowed" sanctions, are fundamentally inequitable and incompatible with the consensus model that we utilize on Wikipedia. If you oppose the unblock, as I frankly may, you are free to do so. Attempting to bureaucratize proceedings like this is, frankly, sad. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 18:51, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
          • RO is already under community sanctions. Arbcom can either lift them, supersede them, or do nothing about them in which case they take effect from the point RO's oversight block is lifted. If RO wishes to appeal them its at the place where they were imposed. If you wish to challenge their legitimacy, feel free to open a discussion at AN. Otherwise you are wasting your time. They were indefinately blocked by an administrator and only unblocked to respond to the discussion about them. In the process of which they intentionally outed someone incurring the OS block. So no, they do not get out with significant restrictions unless Arbcom want to stop fannying around and actually address it themselves. Otherwise their initial restrictions take effect. Only in death does duty end (talk) 20:56, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
            • Ridiculous. We are already here and the Committee has jurisdiction to hear all matters concerning this editor's sanctions. Go read the thread for yourself. There was no consensus for a "gotcha"/anti-appeal sanction, and even if there were, making such a sanction binding is contrary to the consensus model. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 21:04, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
              • I honestly don't care if you think it's ridiculous or not. Unless Arbcom explicitly void or grant an appeal of the community restrictions they take effect when RO's ban is lifted. Unless RO appeals them at the venue they were imposed. This is not a difficult concept. Don't like it? Feel free to go challenge the closure of the discussion. 2 years later. Only in death does duty end (talk) 21:12, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
  • Is this a joke? Because it's neither funny or April Fools. Is this Arbcom seriously going to let this serially problematic user not only back into the project, but also sanction two users who have never been sanctioned, who RO serially harassed, in order to allow it? I find myself so incredulous this is even being considered that I'm struggling to find the words to express how bad an idea it is. People who harass other people for the duration and intensity that RO did are never going to be able to return to this project, and really that sentence has more qualifiers than it needs. Some people the project and its valued contributors seriously need to be protected from, and this is one of those people. Courcelles (talk) 18:01, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
    • Again, it is inherently unfair to throw around accusations of egregious harassment without providing proof. And if you try tp provide proof, you will be opening up not just a can of worms, but a can of rotten smelly worms that will leave their stench on a lot more people than RO. I suggest we not go there. Lynn (SLW) (talk) 18:46, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
      • I'm puzzled why anyone would think that such accusations require proof when an oversight ban is being appealed. The ban would not have occurred in order to be appealed if there weren't sufficient substantiation two years ago. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 19:07, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
        • RO did not "serially harass" the editor she was banned for outing. It was a one-time incident. Lynn (SLW) (talk) 20:07, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
          • My puzzlement is not so much with the semantics but with questioning the evidentiary record over two years too late. Stare decisis applies and I don't know how any attempt to re-hoe those rows has any benefit to RO or to this community consultation. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 21:26, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
            • Because the accusations being made here are not what caused the block. The block was in response to RO's "outing" of another editor. I saw the whole thing go down, and as usually happens on WP, the merits of the case were clouded by the fact that she was not a popular editor. So, rather than look at the merits of the case, folks are just winging at more accusations, and not providing evidence for them. Lynn (SLW) (talk) 21:45, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
              • Lynn, I agree with you on many of the principles you're stating, and would rather see a merits-type case (to the extent one is possible with confidential evidence) where the Committee members have to go on record and actually state why they reached the conclusion they did, if only to ensure that the people we elected are carrying out their duties properly. I believe this would be important if only to ensure the Committee doesn't become another ANI. That said I don't believe the case of RO's request for relief is the right vehicle for that goal, both because of the complexity of dealing with private evidence and serious harassment. The Committee wrongly believes that the use of private evidence should mean they can't publish what they concluded, what principles factored into that decision, or even tell us whether they considered prior appeals when deciding this one, and because I agree with the merits outcome at ANI (that is, even if I dislike how the result was reached and exactly what the result was, I do not believe those aspects rendered the outcome itself void, rather than serving as points where process can and should be improved). —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 22:39, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
      • Honestly, I actually agree that this specific discussion is probably not the right place to explore the whole situation. Perhaps instead of a "request for input" the Committee should consider a full-dress case where these concerns, which are both evidentiary and based on general principles of Wikipedia conduct, could be explored. This would also resolve the concerns floated below about the attachment of jurisdiction to people other than RO.
        Also, to piggyback off what Eggishorn says, it's important to remember that this is not an appeal as the term is understood in law, but a petition for relief (or perhaps closer to a parole application, and this discussion is a bit of a solicitation for impact statements). In an appeal, the underlying grounds for the sanction would be the target of RO's request. Here, much like with the standard offer, not only is the validity of the underlying sanction presumed, but the requestor's argument that the underlying sanction was unjustified should be viewed as a disqualifying act. In other words, RO more or less has to waive any objections to the propriety of the original sanction to even reach this point. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 19:37, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
  • Strongest possible oppose: This person engaged in an extensive campaign of harassment against me, including off-wiki activity. It must be pointed out that they did not get indeffed here for their behavior with me, but rather for outing another editor ( Godot13 ) with whom they had issues over the WikiCup. Frankly, their timing is beyond suspicious, as I have been dealing with an anonymous troll for the past month, and while I do not think RO is this troll (it seems to be the ItsLassieTime sock, who I don't think is RO), I nonetheless am concerned that RO is aware of this issue and their appeal may be coinciding with this uptick in drama on my page, (some of which has also targeted another of RO's obsessions, SlimVirgin, to wit: [15], [16] (note that one is a near-impersonation), [17], [18], [19], [20], along with vandalism on other WMF projects where I am active. Montanabw(talk) 18:58, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
    • And here is an example of the kind of pathos directed at RO. Bringing this up with some kind nefarious reasoning to tie her to something there is absolutely not one iota of proof that she has any connection to, other than past similar accusations. Lynn (SLW) (talk) 19:10, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
    • (edit conflict) I agree with this, there's something rotten going on. I believe the Committee should investigate these aspects and only grant relief if it can affirmatively clear RO—not merely be unable to connect RO—even if this has to be determined on the grounds of nonpublic information. Harassment, especially when it involves outing, is likely the most serious threat that faces any online community. And when someone demonstrates such serious antisocial behavior as to engage in malicious outing, such a person must bear an extraordinary burden to demonstrate his or her wellness and competence to return to the community. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 19:24, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
      • Just what are you saying here, Mendaliv? For one, your characterization that RO's outing of Godot13 as "malicious" is unwarranted. I believe the RO's defense in doing so is that she felt he had already outed himself by posting personal information about himself on WP. And then, because her third attempt at appealling her block coincides with a troll harassing MBW, she automatically has to be cleared of a non-accusation but implication that she is the troll? Gee, what was going on during her first two attempts that MBW can try to tie to her? And doesn't MBW have to provide some proof of "off-wiki harassment"? Because I highly suspect that what she is calling harassment does not involve any interaction with her. Lynn (SLW) (talk) 19:58, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
        • I admit I have not seen the oversighted material. If RO wishes to appeal the block and claim that those statements were permissible under policy, I invite RO to do so. As to whether any outing was malicious versus unintentional, I believe the circumstances surrounding the ANI thread speak for that. And as for evidence of off-wiki harassment, I invite those with evidence to provide it to the Committee directly. It should not be posted publicly. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 20:08, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
  • Strongest possible oppose: I have evidence of stalking of MontanaBW that cannot be presented on-wiki without her being outed. This included edits by an IP of a series of articles that contained her first name, last name, profession, and location (including the name of her street) immediately after editing a series of articles known to be on her watchlist, and posts containing her real name at an external website. Extremely creepy and frightening. Adding: I have evidence that connects this with RationalObserver but can't present that on-wiki either, not without outing RationalObserver. Evidence is the result of sleuthing I did at the time it was happening. — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 19:39, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose per the substantive objections above. Deliberate outing, as I said above, is one of the most antisocial acts that can be performed in an online community, and shows a willingness to exploit people's discomfort in keeping separate online and real lives. There needs to be something more than a statement of the Committee's suggested unblock conditions. As I suggested above, the context of a full case, even if most of the evidence would need to be nonpublic, may be a better way for the Committee to respond to these concerns and ensure that any relief of sanctions is in conformity with the fundamental principles under which Wikipedia operates. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 19:47, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
    • A month-long case to look at an appeal? I don't think the community fully understands how many appeals we get if that is being proposed as a serious suggestion. ~ Rob13Talk 19:50, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
      • (edit conflict)The vast majority of "appeals" can and should be settled without a full case. This is not one of them. In the unfortunate event that this appeal is granted, I believe a siteban discussion should be immediately undertaken. If the Committee is so impotent to carry out its mandate then the community will have to take up the slack. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 19:55, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose per both Mendaliv and Diannaa. Not to mention, that the comments by LynnWysong need to be taken with less than a grain of salt considering her long fought campaign against Montanabw at practically every turn. She has nothing but animosity toward Montana and her comments here are surely biased. Looking the exchanges between them as well as Lynn's talk page comments and bad faith edit summaries [21], [22], [23], [24], [25], [26], [27], is a good start to see that at every possibility, Lynn targets Montana relentlessly, fervently, and with malice. My suggestion is to regard her comments only with caution. -- ψλ ● ✉ ✓ 19:53, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
  • oppose..am on the road but do not consider RO to be a good fit for wiikedia without evidence of them cooperating well on some other project. If this is still active when I get home, will try to pull together more evidence, but I was around for the episode Dianna relates above and was nasty. Ealdgyth - Talk 20:00, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
  • @Mendaliv: (particularly, but also some others) I am really rather confused, and potentially concerned, about your comments on this page. As has been explicitly noted several times it is not possible to provide evidence of most of these complaints on wiki without outing at least one person. I do not make the comments above I do lightly, and I have seen evidence that has been oversighted and have been party to previous off-wiki discussions among arbitrators (when I was one) and functionaries where private evidence was referred to. It was no one-off incident (that is best characterised as the final straw). I also now recall the episode that Dianna refers to, and that was deeply troubling, and would be not be a violation of an interaction ban. I fully endorse what Courcelles' writes above and commend him for his restraint. Thryduulf (talk) 20:48, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
    • I have nowhere asked for non-public evidence, and have repeatedly stated that I am not seeking non-public evidence. I think you may be confusing someone else's comments for mine. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 20:51, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
    • And I certainly hope that the evidence that ties RO to the IP outing MBW is better than that which tied me to RO, which, if I recall, was that we could both be tied to editing from somewhere west of the 100th Meridian. The reality is, MBW's made more than one enemy in her time, and the fact that WP allows IP editing makes it pretty much impossible to track and stop those enemies from harassing her. Combine that with the whole "oh we cannot publicly divulge the information" for neutral scrutiny leads to a process no one should trust as fair. Lynn (SLW) (talk) 21:22, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose Montanabw's concerns ring a familiar bell, but more importantly, I just don't see RO ever being able to work in a collaborative environment. I've had plenty of of private discussions with RO, who can be pleasant enough one on one, but she is someone who simply can not work with others in a public setting. Not everyone is well suited to working collaboratively, it isn't a cut against them and says nothing about them as individuals, but facts are facts, that working with groups of people brings out the absolute worst in some people, and RO is one of them. I simply can't fathom any chance of her coming back and being able to work here without drama following her on a weekly (if not daily) basis. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 21:24, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose - Looking at their block log as well as the edits above This user seems to have a problem the moment she came here, Some people change ... and some don't..., Lifting the block would only mean more troble and long before we know it they'll be blocked again, They're better off without WP and in all honestly (and in the most nicest way possible) we're better off without RO. –Davey2010Talk 21:33, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose for all the reasons people have explained above. Callanecc, can you say more about how this came about? It's worrying that there's a proposal to tie two of the victims into a two-way interaction ban, and without consulting or even pinging them. SarahSV (talk) 21:44, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
    • It is absolutely unreal that the Committee has made a preliminary decision or made any proposals without first seeking statements from RO's victims. That alone should send this proposal back to the beginning. I have never seen an adjudicative body in any organization, no matter how small, behave like this. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 22:13, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose - The other commentators have swayed me. Harassment of the nature detailed by Montanabw and Diannaa is not something we should ever tolerate, and I find myself agreeing with both Dennis and Harry that she just doesn't seem like the right fit for a collaborative website such as this. It's never fun to ban anyone, but in RO's case, it is unfortunately necessary. Kurtis (talk) 22:02, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose in the strongest possible terms. This individual's behavior alone is enough to show that they should not be here, and it happened repeatedly. I cannot conceive of how you're even considering allowing them back, and no reason why is provided that the Committee is considering granting the unban. That aside, the Committee is also proposing to sanction editors who have done nothing wrong. That's beyond unacceptable. This discussion in and of itself should go to show that the community would easily support reimposing the ban if it were to be lifted. Please don't necessitate that. Some people just aren't a good fit for this project. Seraphimblade Talk to me 22:19, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose. I know I'm not around anymore - but I do remember those days. This would be a huge mistake. The time and disruption involved to remove problematic users is considerable - and I believe this would be something you would regret for many months, perhaps years, to come. — Ched :  ?  22:29, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Oppose principally per HJ Mitchell and Courcelles. Regardless of the propriety of the mutual ibans the Committee wants to impose as conditions, the fact that the Committee thinks these are necessary tells you a lot about why permitting RO to come back is a very bad idea. Not too many things stick out in my memory as much as the passive-aggressive editing by RO. I can't imagine ever thinking it's okay to unban her. Hey Ched, nice to see you! --Bbb23 (talk) 22:55, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
  • Question, I will take the committee's word that the matters relating to the oversight block have been adequately dealt with and are no longer a factor. However, this user still had a long history of obnoxious behaviour and harassment quite apart from the one incident which ended up getting them blocked. What indications has RO given to Arbcom that such behaviour would not re-occur again were the block to be lifted? Lankiveil (speak to me) 22:56, 3 February 2018 (UTC).
  • Oppose. RO is untrustworthy and goes back on promises made, repeatedly, as shown by links posted above (and in comments given below and made before this message from myself was posted). RO is disruptive and shows, when given the chance to edit, no change in behaviour. RO has been given numerous chances and has blown every single one of them. Therefore, Wikipedia and RO are simply not suited for each other. I suggest a thank you message is sent to RO thanking them for their interest in re-joining wikipedia, but suggesting that their talents lie elsewhere and do not suit the ethos of Wikipedia and that consequently, we wish them farewell and good luck.  DDStretch  (talk) 23:13, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

Comments on suggested conditions

  • No comment on anything else at this point, but the ANI closure included "...if/when the issues related to the oversight block are resolved to the oversight team's satisfaction, the following restriction will be put in place. For six months starting at the time of the unblock, Rationalobserver may not edit "project space and user space (except their own). They would be asked to edit only articles and article talk..." (my bold). Is this to be included with the proposed, listed restrictions? -- Begoon 02:20, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
    • I'm not a fan of the enforcement of long-tail, surprise restrictions like that by default. In fact, I really, really dislike when community discussions result in anything more complicated than straightforward blocks and bans, etc., and seek to do things reminiscent of criminal sentencing, like making sanctions run consecutively; or claim to assert restrictions on appealing the sanctions. This restriction is essentially both; it is the former for obvious reasons, and it is the latter because the effect would deprive the community of an effective standard offer. I think the practice of purporting to limit the application of the standard offer, or overriding/limiting a consensus not yet reached, ought to be restricted if not outright prohibited if and when there's a reform of community sanctioning policies.
      This also brings up a criticism I have of Committee terminology, insofar as this matter is being called an appeal. While I'm not privy to the request RO submitted, I'm presuming it's more in the nature of a petition for relief from editorial disabilities than an actual challenge to the underlying sanction. As such, I believe it's within the Committee's discretion to throw that restriction out in crafting a set of unblock conditions that it feels will best protect the community while RO is reintroduced to it. Of course, the Committee should take the ANI closer's assessment of consensus and enactment of sanctions under advisement, giving it due weight, but I don't think it should be presumed to be in place in light of the proposed Committee action on this matter. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 02:52, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
      • There's some merit to the points you make. It's worth considering, though, that "removal" or "reduction" of provisions presumed to be in place could make some uneasy and less inclined to support removal of the block, which is, after all, the main thrust of the "appeal". Of course it's also worth noting that the committee doesn't need community support and can go ahead and unblock anyway, with no conditions at all, if they like (and technically the community could then re-impose them as topic bans etc, if it liked - but let's not go there...) - but one assumes that, in seeking community input, they intend to pay it at least some heed. -- Begoon 03:13, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
        • Absolutely, there should be a dialogue about the old sanction, whether it's appropriate going forward, and what the effect would be on the proposed unblock conditions. Where I'd differ from my usual approach, though, would be that I think the prior close should not be given deference as to the assessment of consensus, nor to the places where the closing admin got creative.
          If on the other hand the current restrictions were crafted with the old 6-month restriction in mind (i.e., if not for the old restriction, the unblock conditions would've been more restrictive), then I think there's no problem to be remedied here (though my annoyance with "consecutive sanctions", restrictions impacting the availability of the standard offer, and the use of the term "appeal" for petitions not challenging the underlying validity of a sanction would remain). So perhaps some clarification(s) from the Committee would be in line first. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 04:09, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
          • We discussed including something like this (though a different wording), however decided that the effectiveness of such restrictions is questionable and could actually be counter productive. From memory though, I don't think we explicitly discussed 'overturning' this community sanction or just not applying one of our own. Main reasons being that we don't believe restrictions such as this are effective, but instead can be counter productive. For example, the restriction would need to include an exemption for replying to reports at admin noticeboards (ANI/ANEW for example) which can be gamed and wikilawyered by RO or anyone else (not that they would). On the other hand, there would also need to be discussion on whether RO should be allowed to make reports themselves (for example at AIV/RFPP/ANEW/ANI). It's not really equitable or reasonable to expect an editor to follow policies, some of which either require or strongly encourage, but not be able to request enforcement of them. Consider a brand new account getting into an edit war with an editor under this restriction. They would only be allowed to revert a few times (3RR) and wouldn't be allowed to: talk to/warn the new account on its talk page; report the account to AIV or ANEW; or seek administrative assistance on an admin's talk page. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 04:52, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
  • If I may, I have another question. The proposed restrictions include "Indefinite mutual interaction ban"(s) with Godot13 and Montanabw. Would these be sanctions logged against these editors, and have they been asked to comment? I understand that one-way interaction bans are disfavoured and also that these editors might not even object, and I understand that the committee might have considered this and somehow feel such sanctions are justified regardless, but I don't see where these interaction bans have previously been discussed (I could easily be missing something in the long discussion(s) though). -- Begoon 04:45, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
    Doubly so because User talk:Montanabw has no reference to this discussion (I've now done so). Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 10:30, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
I was going to make a comment on the same lines as Begoon. While I understand the reticence for a one-way ban, a two-way ban might be viewed as a black mark against an editor, and should only be considered if that editor has either contributed negatively (which requires a finding) or affirmatively supports such a ban. I don't have a recollection of the issues involving this editor so my comment is generic rather than based on any recollection of interaction between the editors.--S Philbrick(Talk) 16:17, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
  • Personally, I think the original sanctions are sufficient. RO has been blocked for over two years now. If that's not long enough for her to have realized how she got sideways with the community it's all pointless anyway. Also, in the past two years, the community has changed. The whole sock hunt hysteria that was going in the early part of 2015, which contributed greatly to RO's problems, has pretty much died down. A couple of editors that also seemed out to get her are now gone, and a couple more have been reined in and hopefully have decided they can't afford to be throwing stones. I will say this: There are three or four editors out there that if there is any future conflict between them and RO, their past behavior in contributing to the problems should come into play, and MUTUAL interaction bans, sanctions and all, should be applied. Lynn (SLW) (talk) 14:30, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
  • I find it concerning that two editors might be sanctioned as a result of an appeal by another editor. The mutual interaction bans here seem to be punishing editors currently in good standing in order to show mercy to one who is not in good standing. TonyBallioni (talk) 14:38, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
Indeed - hence my question above to attempt to clarify the situation. I didn't want to be quite that blunt in advance of that clarification, but yes, that is precisely what would be my concern too. -- Begoon 14:52, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
That also concerns me, though I haven't been particularly active in the discussions surrounding this situation. I would probably go so far as to say the Arbitration Committee does not have the authority to restrict editors entirely unrelated to any current arbitration proceeding based on the appeal of another editor. ~ Rob13Talk 17:08, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
The only circumstance when I think Arbcom definitely should restrict an editor (A) based on the appeal of a different editor (B) is when that appeal contained evidence directly related to editor A. Such evidence should of course be published if it can be, and if it can't the committee should explicitly state that the restrictions as based on private evidence. Thryduulf (talk) 17:33, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
I also fail to see anywhere where ArbCom can restrict non-parties with this level of (seeming) arbitrariness. I also fail to see why explicit interaction bans are required, given the other conditions. After looking at the public evidence, and recognizing that there is certainly non-public evidence involved, the last condition suggested ("Indefinite restriction on insulting or commenting on the identity, character or motives of other editors") appears to cover most, if not all, of the negative interactions with the two non-parties. I can appreciate that the committee members felt it was necessary to acknowledge that the interactions with those two were particularly important for various reasons. That said, the priority here and in the ANI thread seems to be more on stopping all of the negative behaviors of RO and not on "...stop[ing] a conflict between individuals." The conflict between individuals was over two years ago so there is no current interpersonal conflict to stop. If RO begins a new interpersonal conflict, condition #4 already warns of enforcement via IBANS. That already explicitly and proactively puts preventative measures in place. It would be simpler, more flexible, and fairer to all parties concerned if the conditions were reworded to something like:
  • Indefinite topic ban from the WikiCup.
  • Indefinite restriction on insulting or commenting on the identity, character or motives of other editors (which may be enforced with IBANs, in addition to blocks).
  • Any uninvolved administrator may impose such enforcement measures in the event that previous interpersonal conflicts relating to either the previous oversight ban or the previous ANI concerns are renewed
Although that language probably needs tweakage to fully comply with ArbCom policies and remits. I obviously don't know if the committee members think that's explicit enough but it would avoid sanctioning non-parties in advance just in case, as the current proposed conditions do.Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 18:04, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
(edit conflict)I agree that the whole mutual IBAN situation is problematic. I don't have quite the same procedural objections as BU Rob13, which are effectively claims about a lack of personal jurisdiction or lack of process; we are not, after all, in a court of law. That said, I agree that they should be given somewhat more an opportunity to be heard on that particular question than this general discussion itself affords. My main objection is that I have never seen anything to really justify our aversion to one-way IBANs other than the hypothetical ability of the non-restricted party to game them in order to vex the restricted party. I believe that unless there is an actual risk with the current parties, there is not really any grounds for a mutual IBAN over a one-way IBAN (and this still leaves aside the fact that maliciously exploiting a one-way IBAN of which you are a beneficiary would be grounds for severe sanctions for, say, WP:GAMING reasons).
I have a great deal more that I would like to say about the common fallacy of considering mutual IBANs to be sanctions rather than restrictions aimed at preventing sanctions, but in the interests of time and space I will reserve those comments for later, should they become necessary. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 19:08, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
  • I can guarantee you that a mutual IBAN will immediately result in RO editing articles where I have a strong interest and then immediately running to a drama board to accuse me of doing something nefarious. They did this in the past. I also am not convinced that the recent harassment I am dealing with is wholly unconnected to RO's request for reinstatement. Just yesterday, a troll tried to imply that I already am subject to some form of TBAN, which I am not. There is a very concerted effort here, noted in the diffs I listed above, to attack me personally and try to have me subjected to some sort of sanction. Montanabw(talk) 19:02, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
Irrelevant and disruptive.--Bbb23 (talk) 23:00, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
    • "I can guarantee you that a mutual IBAN will immediately result in RO editing articles where I have a strong interest and then immediately running to a drama board to accuse me of doing something nefarious. They did this in the past." Dif? For an article relating primarily to horses or Montana. Lynn (SLW) (talk) 20:22, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
      • Lynn, your stirring the pot is not helping your friend RO. My primary interactions with this editor began, if memory serves, on articles related to Native American history, as Maunus may recall from the article on Irataba (see [28] ). Montanabw(talk) 20:43, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
        • Actually, she's not my friend, but someone I see as the victim of the same unjust and unwarranted accusations that were being lobbed at me. So, yeah, I defend her. And, as far as the article on Irataba, she wrote it, and your interaction on it started when she put it up for FA review. So, are you trying to make the case that she wrote it to lure you in so that she could file an ANI report on you? Lynn (SLW) (talk) 20:50, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
          • No, and please do not mischaracterize my statements. The Irataba article had twice failed FAC and had to be completely rewritten on account of things like close paraphrasing, inaccuracies, and misattribution of source material. Maunus was the person who got it to FA quality, not RO. Montanabw(talk) 21:40, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
              • Nope, nope, nope. You aren't going to get away with that. The fact it failed FAC is not relevant. What is relevant is you use that as an example of how RO edited "articles where I have a strong interest and then immediately running to a drama board to accuse me of doing something nefarious."Lynn (SLW) (talk) 21:49, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
                    • I am not 100% certain, but I think my first interaction with RO might have been this, where RO invited me to do the GAN review of Irataba (I did not do so), but it later alerted me to the problems with the article. Montanabw(talk) 22:30, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
The previous post was not about my original comment, but merely a reply to the immediately preceding remarks. For "evidence" as requested,one good example of RO's behavior that did not involve me at all is this: "Reneging on an assurance, made to get a successful unblock, by Rationalobserver" of note is the comment by Ddstretch: "I do think something needs to be done about her tactic, now used twice (in one case to have a block removed) of promising to avoid drama, and then promptly engaging in it again." also the comment by Begoon: "Here, the user has shown, more than once, that a simple "promise" the behaviour will not be an ongoing problem cannot be trusted."Montanabw(talk) 22:10, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
No, you are still subverting. You made an assertion that should be easy to justify: "articles where I have a strong interest and then immediately running to a drama board to accuse me of doing something nefarious. They did this in the past" Just when did RO do this in the past? Lynn (SLW) (talk) 22:20, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
This is about RO, not me. RO's behavior is clear: RO promises not to cause drama and then causes drama. I am quite certain that based on past behavior (for which I have deliberately provided an example that did not involve me), if allowed to return with a "mutual IBAN" in place between a multiply-blocked, problematic editor and two of the people that were harassed by this editor, RO will use it to game the system against them. Montanabw(talk) 22:42, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
(edit conflict)I think we might be putting the cart before the horse on that point. The burden is and should be on RO to show that the proposed relief package will adequately resolve any problems of community reintegration, and that a full block is no longer necessary. Plus, I mean, I think it's kind of a given that any way RO returns will be with an IBAN involving Montanabw. The question is whether Montanabw should be IBANned as well. I don't think that the burden for that rests or should rest on Montanabw. Like, we could strike everything you find objectionable in her statement and there would still be an outstanding question about why we should impose a mutual rather than unilateral IBAN. After all, the default should be fewer burdens on other editors rather than more burdens on other editors. And, as I have argued above, I still have never seen a convincing justification for the community's near-phobia of one-way IBANs. All I have ever seen is "One-way IBANs don't work". —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 22:56, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
  • Please add my name to the list of those concerned that an appeal by one editor can lead to sanctions on another. Regardless of the outcome of this appeal I do not think that such conditions are appropriate in any circumstance. Lankiveil (speak to me) 22:58, 3 February 2018 (UTC).
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Community feedback: Proposal on case naming

Proposal
  • I hate it. Do it anyway. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:39, 19 January 2018 (UTC)
    • Could you elaborate a bit? ~ Rob13Talk 20:08, 19 January 2018 (UTC)
      • It will be difficult to refer to a case while in process - typos will be easy to commit, and the intended target might not be clear, depending on context. It could also cause issues with case acceptance. Say Editor A has a concern about Editor B, and Editors C, D, and E support those concerns. Then Editors F, G, H, J, and K come in and say "why is A filing a case about B when A has done L, M, N, and O in the past?" Does the case get opened to look at B's behavior on one topic, or A's behavior on a whole mess of unrelated topics?
      • That said, I do understand the concerns of editors who say that naming the case in advance affects the outcome, and I think this is a much fairer way to handle it. I'm also a data geek, so I like meaningless primary keys. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:34, 19 January 2018 (UTC)
  • Please, no. This would unnecessarily obfuscate the matter to be arbitrated. If an user is the primary subject of an arbitration case, just name the case with their name. If Arbcom weighs evidence as they should, concerns about bias in the case name should not be a concern at all. Most of us are not that shallow, and certainly not the demigods we elect to Arbcom.- MrX 🖋 19:49, 19 January 2018 (UTC)
By the way, this proposal would make it very difficult to find declined requests (which are already painfully difficult to find). Declined case requests often contain useful information needed for subsequent requests, sometimes years later.- MrX 🖋 12:15, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
Case subpages are in the pipeline, which would help dramatically. Watchlisting is easy enough. ~ Rob13Talk 12:30, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
Actually, we do not get 100 cases per year, and numbering declined cases as well is affordable within the same scheme. This has an advantage that a submitted case can be numbered at the very beginning, not at the moment a case is accepted.--Ymblanter (talk) 12:33, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
Case subpages would help, and if the numbering scheme is implemented, an index that lists the numbered case request with a very short summary of what the case was about would help. I can't see how watchlisting would help much. At least one of the cases I was heavily involved in had a previous declined case from years earlier, that I was not involved with, so it would have never appeared on my watchlist..- MrX 🖋 13:14, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
  • If this proposal should gain favour, perhaps when a case is concluded, a more memorable moniker could be assigned as a redirect? isaacl (talk) 20:02, 19 January 2018 (UTC)
    • To be clear, after a case is concluded, it would be named as we currently do now. Under this proposal, we just wouldn't name a case until after it concluded. ~ Rob13Talk 20:07, 19 January 2018 (UTC)
      • Sorry, I misread the second paragraph in the proposal. isaacl (talk) 20:43, 19 January 2018 (UTC)
      • @BU Rob13: The proposal states: Case names will reflect the case's scope, content, and resolution. Currently, since case names are decided at the very beginning of a case, it doesn’t state anything about a case’s resolution. How do you think this might change the way we name the cases at the end? My first impression was that a case might be titled, say, Banning of Jimbo Wales, if that was the resolution of the case. Mz7 (talk) 18:20, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
  • I think it might be a good idea to implement this only up to the point of case acceptance. In other words, assign nonjudgmental numbers for the request, but once the Evidence page has opened up, there should be a name assigned by the Committee. If the Committee does not want a case name that could bias the case, don't use that case name. But I think that it would be kludgy and potentially confusing to continue to use numbers throughout the hearing of the case. How would members of the community (other than those who participated in the request) know whether they might want to contribute evidence or proposals to a case whose name means nothing? --Tryptofish (talk) 20:09, 19 January 2018 (UTC)
    • Perhaps the cases over the past year can be examined for what short descriptors might be suitable starting in the evidence phase? I understand why it may be helpful when there is a concise way to describe the crux of the issue. However, often it's behaviour over multiple issues that is being examined, and I'm not sure what concise description would serve well in these situations. isaacl (talk) 20:49, 19 January 2018 (UTC)
  • It is of course a bold statement that the numbering system (and, actually, Wikipedia) would survive until 2100, but otherwise I would say in 201805 the first 20 is redundant.--Ymblanter (talk) 20:19, 19 January 2018 (UTC)
    Concerning usability, I was long time ago an arbitrator in the Russian Wikipedia where numbers were used from the very beginning (just started from 1, both accepted and rejected cases); it was not confusing. People remember the numbers of the most significant cases, others can be easily looked up.--Ymblanter (talk) 20:22, 19 January 2018 (UTC)
  • Can we at least get a separator of some sort between the year and number? —Cryptic 20:38, 19 January 2018 (UTC)
  • Excellent, and no separator thanks. 201805 is clear and embellishments won't improve it. Johnuniq (talk) 21:37, 19 January 2018 (UTC)
  • I think that this is a good idea: it's fairer to all involved, will hopefully reduce the level of stress for the involved parties a little bit, and will also hopefully reduce the number of people not involved in cases making drive-by style comments at the RfArb stage. Naming accepted cases should also stop it looking too much like a quasi-legal process. Nick-D (talk) 22:22, 19 January 2018 (UTC)
  • This is fine. The Committee isn't a common law court, and our proceedings aren't adversarial. We don't really even need an official case name after cases conclude given they are non-precedential anyway. I think the current case naming practice is just a leftover of extremely early Committee practice where cases actually were somewhat adversarial. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 23:23, 19 January 2018 (UTC)
  • I like this idea. See my comments at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Catflap08 and Hijiri88#Statement by Nyttend from when I filed the case request — I was concerned that listing the two editors in that order (rather than "Hijiri88 and Catflap08") would somehow influence the situation, so I specifically had to say that I picked that order because it was alphabetical. And please use a separator; it definitely helps with readability. This is already done in lots of situations where a sequential number follows a number that reflects a year or other long time period, including acts of the U.S. Congress — for a random example, the 48th public law of the 92nd Congress is "Public Law 92-48", not Public Law 9248. My only suggestion — have a clerk name the case once it's accepted, rather than waiting until it's done; the remember-ability advantage of a name is most important when the case is busiest (i.e. when it's still active), and once it's accepted, you know you're going to get a decision and a neutral name at some point, so why wait until afterward? Nyttend (talk) 00:31, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
    • As Tryptofish said above, I think having a meaningful moniker for the case starting with the evidence phase is useful for attracting people to comment. However the advantage of having a memorable name, I think, is greater as time goes by. Nowadays, there typically isn't more than a few cases open at the same time and so there isn't much opportunity for confusion. But as the case proceedings recede into the past, it becomes harder to remember the details of a case. isaacl (talk) 03:26, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
      • Realistically, I think people will just use unofficial titles for cases if they have no official names. I am honestly surprised that people haven't done that before. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 03:47, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
        • Absent official titles, the unregulated use of unofficial titles could lead to significant problems when somebody involved feels aggrieved by an unofficial title. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:58, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
          • Then we handle it as we normally do. In Arbitration proceedings decorum is important, so it is likely that calling a case "Mendaliv's Fuckup" would attract a sanction just on decorum grounds. Outside of Arbitration, it would fall under NPA. And if it doesn't, at least outside of Arbitration, then who cares? Inside of Arbitration people should, of course, be strongly discouraged from making clever digs at others, and honestly in most cases it would be at the peril of the person who did so. But again, otherwise, who cares? As long as someone's shorthand name does not have a prejudicial effect on the proceedings, and I believe the Committee itself is the best judge of that, this is something that more or less does not matter. The Committee itself ought to use official designations when referring to cases, but I see no advantage to banning unofficial shorthand names. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 03:51, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
  • I can see the attraction in this, but I disagree that it will be of a net benefit. By all means don't name requests, but you do need to have a permanent name once the case is accepted, otherwise there will be unofficial names used (possibly multiple ones if there are multiple points of view regarding it) that will accrete mentions and redirects causing confusion and not unlikely defeating the entire point of the change. The best way to avoid any undue bias about the scope of a case is to, upon opening, have a bold statement at the top of each page stating "The scope of this case is: " followed by 1-3 short sentences neutrally defining what you are looking in to. This will also help to keep the evidence page on track and make it easier and less controversial for clerks to determine what is so far off topic it needs hatting or removing. If there is a need to change the scope part way through, then this should be done by a motion on the case in the same way a temporary injunction is. Thryduulf (talk) 11:02, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
  • Support. This is a long overdue change. Per Mendaliv’s comment above, ArbCom cases are not criminal cases but more like civil disputes. Reforms like this encourage the idea of neutral and unbiased treatment rather than focusing on memorability (which is fine once it’s been decided). Take the noted case of Donoghue v Stevenson, which is correct but can be more neutrally cited as [1932] UKHL 100 (although few people remember that). In contrast, what most people do remember it as is "The Paisley Snail Case". The memorability lies in unofficial names as suggested by Nyttend above. I disagree with the suggestion of a separator because the proposed numbering is pretty clear, but perhaps even a four-digit system might work e.g. 1805 rather than 201805. Consider that the only century involved is the 21st, so it isn’t as though we need to distinguish from 20thC ArbCom cases. This would work for all cases up to and including 2099, by which time there can be a rethink for the 22ndC. Green Giant (talk) 14:01, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
  • Two comments 1) Use a separator from year to number. 2) When giving it a name (which I hope references some policy or guideline, in some way), keep the number with the name, to avoid future confusion. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:11, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
  • Support a system like "2018-xx". I think having a four letter year is not really a problem and furthermore, having the year number in front and then the case number should be most intuitive. I do think though that cases should be named when they are accepted, not when they are decided, because once something is under discussion, people should be able to refer to it easily. Regards SoWhy 20:58, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose, numbers are hard to remember and easily confused. Find something else, names of flowers or anything else neutral, but in words. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:34, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose Gerda's idea is actually brilliant. People remember words, not numbers, and also - importantly - it would make cases far easier to search for if we used flower names from A-Z from each year. Also, it would make ArbCom cases sound less threatening, and even better, in future years, we could refer to "the Gladioli case" and sound like Inspector Poirot. Black Kite (talk) 00:30, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
I refer to my above quote from Excession. Only in death does duty end (talk) 00:50, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
I too would would like to endorse Gerda's suggestion. Thryduulf (talk) 00:59, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
If that's what happens, Wikipediocracy will have a field day with it. Please at least change it to a real name when the case is accepted. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:40, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
Or at least consider alternatives to flowers. Perhaps spelling out (in English letters) the Greek alphabet: Alpha-2018, Beta-2018, and so forth. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:43, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
The whole point is that you'd have a different set of names each year, so they wouldn't be repeated (like hurricane names). Doesn't have to be flowers, though I do like the idea. Black Kite (talk) 01:49, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
Anyway, only during the Request stage. If it stays with those kinds of names through the case, it will really be very silly. Sorry. --Tryptofish (talk) 02:05, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
If you buy into the theory that case names are prejudicial to the outcome - and I'm not convinced one way or the other on that - then naming on acceptance by a clerk who's probably not especially familiar with the situation is no better than naming by the filer, and possibly a lot worse. —Cryptic 02:26, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
Well if the committee adopt my scope suggestion above then that would help, but I suspect what will happen is that people commenting on the request will say "if this is accepted I suggest it's named 'Cryptic and Thryduulf'" or "this case should be called 'Battle of Flowers'" and the Committee will most likely pick either one of the suggestions or something based on them (clerks wont be the ones deciding, although they'll be able to provide input on the clerks mailing list if they feel it appropriate). Thryduulf (talk) 02:36, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
If actual case names were to be assigned at any stage of the case, then it would be the Committee, not clerks, who would assign the name. Personally, I don't really buy into the idea about case names being prejudicial, and I'm increasingly thinking that the existing procedure should be kept. Calling cases by numbers, or by flower names, or by fish names (hey, I like that one!), or by the names of Snow White's seven dwarfs, until case closure, is a terrible idea. --Tryptofish (talk) 02:48, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
I like Thryduulf's idea. Actually it might help to defuse tensions if all cases were called Battle of Flowers. They could be further distinguished by year and number, so for example the first arbitration case in 2018 would be called Battle-of-Flowers-2018-01, and the second Battle-of-Flowers-2018-02, and so on. MPS1992 (talk) 02:50, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
Also, there's nothing in Category:Flowers starting with "Q", so 14 cases a year is our limit. Black Kite (talk) 02:52, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
​Quamash? Queen Anne's lace? Quaker ladies? Queen-of-the-prairie? Quince? Queen lily? Heretical as the idea may be, Wikipedia articles are sometimes inaccurate. ‑ Iridescent 12:02, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
I like Thryduulf's idea, too. And I think it might work best with the current system of naming. But any case name with "battle" in it risks being a self-fulfilling prophecy. --Tryptofish (talk) 02:58, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
I like the Greek letters idea. Well, actually I like the flowers/dwarves/animals/etc idea, and don't care if it's silly - in fact I actively prefer silly, because the middle of an arbcom case is peak time for people to take everything Way Too Seriously and anything that makes that harder is a step forward, even if it means referring with a straight face to the Blue-Footed Booby Case of 2018. But in terms of "things that people would actually agree to", Greek letters are nicely boring and neutral, and conveniently come in a known sequence so we don't have to make a new list of animals or retire a dwarf after a particularly contentious case. Opabinia regalis (talk) 07:25, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
Opabinia regalis, forgive the Statement Of The Bloody Obvious, but you have the advantage of having been absent during the period in question. Please ask anyone who was following arbcom and ANI during that period why having Arbcom cases called "Beta" and "Delta" is never going to end well. ‑ Iridescent 09:20, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
Facepalm Facepalm Duh. And I suppose there will inevitably be a User:Blue-Footed Booby who will be really confused about why everyone is complaining about him. Opabinia regalis (talk) 09:33, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
With the current proposal, the code names only last until a case is closed, so there wouldn't be a need to use the code names afterwards. However for the requests that are not accepted, there could be an advantage to using English words as codewords instead of numbers. isaacl (talk) 03:05, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
I'm not sure I follow why it would matter for declined requests, which are likely only relevant if the issue later comes back to arbcom. Opabinia regalis (talk) 07:25, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
​Eh? We refer to declined case requests all the time in all sorts of venues ("You've already made this request five times, please drop it", "I was referred to this noticeboard by Arbcom because they said that I hadn't exhausted all avenues of dispute resolution, see the case request for the previous discussions", "You commented extensively at this case, that case and the other case, don't suddenly pretend you don't know how proceedings work", "This editor was taken to Arbcom last week and they concluded that there was no case to answer, why did you block them today?" etc etc etc). Hell, large parts of both the Signpost archive and your own archives consist of permalinks to declined case requests. ‑ Iridescent 11:32, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
In any event, if we use request numbers then all requests get numbers and they really can't get reassigned ever, if only because there will be the equivalent of linkrot should they get reassigned. So... basically whatever numbering system we use has to apply to accepted and declined cases equally, and the number has to be unique and assigned permanently. As to assigning convenience names, that can happen at any point really. But I agree with, I think, what OR was getting at, that there is little value in assigning convenience names to declined requests. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 11:55, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
Yeah, that's what I meant - for most of the circumstances in which you'd want to refer to a declined request, it doesn't really matter if the request is called something boring like "2018-03". Opabinia regalis (talk) 19:24, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
For the vast majority of unaccepted requests that never get referred to again, an English code word instead of a numerical identifier would make no difference. However I didn't want to ignore the one advantage I see to using a code word. How much weight this advantage should be given is another matter. isaacl (talk) 16:59, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
More to the point, if you ever really have to refer to Blue Footed Booby Declined Case or Bluebells Declined Case, instead of say, 'that case you brought', you can just as easily refer to 1944-01 Declined Case. Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:01, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
Emoticons would make good case names (not). --Tryptofish (talk) 20:16, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
The issue is not how easy it is to put double brackets around the case name, but how easily one can remember the right case name to use. Of course, anyone can make their own index of declined (and accepted) cases if they wish, using whatever monikers they want. isaacl (talk) 21:40, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
  • Support, especially as it pertains to cases in which the tentative title is the subject's username. I've long been of the opinion that arbitration cases should be given non-specific names as standard practice (e.g. the recent Mister Wiki case, which was originally called "Salvidrim!" after the administrator whose contributions were in focus), with perhaps a bit of leeway for situations where such generalizations are not possible (i.e. it concerns the conduct of a single editor not exclusive to a given area). That way we can minimize the number of cases that are described as being "against" a certain editor. Kurtis (talk) 04:55, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
  • I do think that instead of numbering, using greek letters as Tryptofish said would be better - there is more to distinguish Gamma 2018 from Beta 2018 than 201803 from 201802, remove possibilities of typos etc. Galobtter (pingó mió) 05:31, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
  • Please for the love of god don't do anything other than numbers or maybe Latin letters and numbers. A docket numbering system, which is what we're talking about here, should be trivial to incorporate into a script (whether for statistical analysis or some maintenance task), and should be absolutely dead obvious for English speakers of any capability. There are people who don't know the Greek alphabet, or that gamma is the third letter, let alone know how to type them quickly. As for birds... You can't easily systematize that, or tell for sure that the "Blue-bellied roller" case is the first request of the month. The goal isn't to make arbitration fun, and while I'm sure the "bearded tit" case would be well known, this is something that will just cause more frustration and confusion.
    Just pick a serial numbering system that works well enough and has no chance of needing to be changed in the future. Make separators optional (20180101 would be equivalent to 2018-01-01 and 2018-1-1). Maybe use letters for the last field in the case designator so it's not confused with a date string (so 2018-01-A is the first request of January 2018, and 2018-11-L is the twelfth request of November 2018). If there's a need to add an extra identifier for the type of case, as most real courts do, that can be appended to the end. For instance, ARCA requests can use the same numbering system; 2018-01-A.CR and 2018-01-B.ARCA would be the first and second requests of January 2018, with request A being a case request, and request B being an ARCA. This sort of serialization might seem like unneeded complexity, but could be advantageous on the Committee mailing lists for keeping discussions straight.
    In short, the goal here should be basic function even at the expense of form. While this is being done to address a concern about prejudice against request parties, it's really more of a clerical matter. And when it comes to clerical things, simpler is better. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 10:47, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
  • Support I've been arguing in favor of this for many, many years. Psychological science has long held that the issue of cognitive bias in situations like this does taint the outcome and is not avoidable, even by those who are aware they are being biased. What schema we use for numbering cases is less important here than that we need to get away from targeting particular editors with case names. Even if this does not get accepted, we must get out of the practice of allowing editors to name the cases, as this supports a first-to-the-punch-wins environment. --Hammersoft (talk) 18:12, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
  • Support for 4 digits of year, a seperator (hyphen or vertical bar), and anywhere from 2 to 3 digits of sequence numbers (heaven help us if we have 1000 cases accepted in a year) as the transitory case name while the case is open, however at the conclusion of the case the committee should come up with the dispute title (incorporating the case serial number) and any short names as appropriate. Hasteur (talk) 18:38, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
  • Support 2018-001, 2018-002. Etc. If we are going to stick with usernames in cases standardize it to the Filer's username followed by a number like Legacypac1, Legacypac2 etc. Usually there is only one filer and since they started it, there shoild be no issue having their name attached. I 100% agree the present system stacks the deck against the person who is named in the case. Legacypac (talk) 19:31, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose, kind of, sort of. Having followed this discussion so far, I've ended up with the conclusion that most of what has been discussed here will end up being worse than the status quo. First of all, I think all these concerns about confirmation bias have been overblown. I think that most of the users who get elected to ArbCom in the present day (not necessarily so a decade ago) are clueful enough to look at evidence that comes as a surprise to them, and change their minds if need be. If you see someone running for ArbCom who isn't going to do that, don't vote for them. Of course I'm not saying that confirmation bias does not exist: we are talking about human beings here. But it has a smaller effect on case outcomes than some people here believe. And I agree that arbitration isn't supposed to be fun (as much as I would like to see the "Grumpy" and "Sneezy" cases). OK, some of you disagree with me.
But I do agree with many other people that naming cases after individuals is something that should stop. The usernames of parties should not be in case names. Renaming the recent case from "Salvidrim!" to "Conduct of Mister Wiki editors" was the right way to go, and it should be made into formalized practice. It's entirely understandable that someone who sees themselves named in the case title is going to worry about fair treatment. (But no way does "Conduct of Mister Wiki editors" really predetermine a case outcome.)
And I really like Thryduulf's idea about making scope as clear and well-communicated as possible. You should enact that, too.
There's nothing really wrong with using case numbers during the Request stage, and maybe that's a good idea. But once evidence and all the rest are underway, the Committee (not the clerks) should carefully name the case. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:05, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
  • Supportish The points of the opposes and any commitment status quo are overblown - I, for one, having watched the complaints about case-names over the years will be fine with it being addressed with this rather anodyne proposal (I do hope the clerks just change the file at filing, if someone does it 'wrong' and no one ever has to discuss it) - if you are going to be changing names anyway (of at least some cases), this proposal is OK, and as with most everything Arbcom does most Wikipedians will not care, anyway. (I'm only "ish" because no doubt people will find something new to complain about, and it's rather odd that we are 'voting' on this anyway) -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:28, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
    • On the topic of "voting", that's somewhat of a puzzle for me as well. If editors feel most comfortable bolding something, go ahead, but we're looking for general community feedback and sentiment, not a vote. ~ Rob13Talk 23:59, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
  • Regarding syntax of the case name, let's not worry too much about it. Someone can create a redirection template that'll strip out/insert separators as needed, prefix "20" for those who don't want to type a 4-digit year, and so forth. (Even map from greek letters to numbers, if that's what people want.) isaacl (talk) 21:44, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
  • I am not sure that I understand fully what is going on here, but I am horrified to see editor User:SarekOfVulcan leading off in what appears to be opposition to a proposal to use numbers for case names, rather than allowing the filing party to choose the name. Naming of a case is extremely prejudicial. I happen to have been the victim of SarekOfVulcan's naming of a case in my name. It was one more instance of a pattern of bullying for many years that was truly horrible to endure. At the time, the naming in my name ensured that editors who had grudges or ill feelings for whatever reason against me would be more likely to notice the arbitration and participate negatively against me, and it immediately made it impossible to pursue immediate issues at the time of a different administrator using adming tools abusively against me, and to properly deal with the pattern of abuse on SarekOfVulcan's part that had gone on. I only find my way to this discussion because I was referred to this page, because unfortunately the editor has won repeal of their interaction ban with me. This issue is about one of the tools by which bullies can inflict themselves in Wikipedia. In my case, a couple administrators blithely/naively/stupidly assured that they would not allow the case-naming to prejudice the case. That was fucking (emphasis intended) surreal and ignorant of them; of course there was anchoring bias and self-selection of participation in the case which definitely affected the outcome. --Doncram (talk) 00:15, 22 January 2018 (UTC)
    • At the time, the naming in my name ensured that editors who had grudges or ill feelings for whatever reason against me would be more likely to notice the arbitration and participate negatively against me... There are two issues here - one is related to the case naming primairly being discussed, the other relates to the benefits of an explicit statement of scope to avoid the problem of past grievances irrelevant to the case being flung at the wall in the hope they stick (or make something else stick). Thryduulf (talk) 02:09, 22 January 2018 (UTC)
  • Support Seems like a reasonable request, and avoids the first-mover problem. TheValeyard (talk) 00:55, 22 January 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose. I don't pretend to have read all of the above input but my two main thoughts are: a) suggestions that case naming prejudices the outcome are concerning but speculative. I don't think this has been established to any acceptable degree one way or the other; b) moving to a naming system of a numeric key, or a novel arbitrary naming system of proper nouns (flowers, girls' names etc.) will only serve to make the whole process even more arcane and inaccessible, which is the exact opposite of what Wikipedia needs. If this is implemented it will simply shift the controversy down the line to when the cases are ultimately accepted anyway and there will inevitably be attempts by parties prior to case acceptance to influence the eventual name. The current system of having a consistent, relatable name throughout simplifies the process and makes useful participation easier, and ideas that are simpler and easier to implement are generally better, in my opinion. ElAhrairah inspect damage⁄berate 20:45, 23 January 2018 (UTC)
    • It's funny, I actually completely agree with this. I don't think the first mover or case namer problem is actually a problem (or even if there is an effect, it's a minor effect), and I also think moving to some clever case naming system will just make things more byzantine. Even so, I still support the move towards alphanumeric case identifiers because it does provide clerical advantages for some of the Committee's behind-the-scenes work, and because I think we should have some easier way of tracking and citing declined requests. As I suggested above, I think we should also be assigning these identifiers to ARCA requests, and just differentiating between normal case requests and ARCA requests with a suffix or something like that. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 08:31, 24 January 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose This will make is super hard to refer to cases and numbers are hard to remember --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 15:33, 24 January 2018 (UTC)
  • Mixed I'd oppose having numbered active cases. I'm fine with having numbered case requests that the committee would then assign a name to. This would also be very easy to work into the case request template. For example, a case request filed today would be 20180124 (and if we had multiple requests on the same day it could be 20180124-2, etc.) Once a case has been accepted, however, there will be substantial community interest that having a name that is easily identifiable and easy to remember becomes necessary. The committee should decide the name when accepting a request. This would move it away from the filing party deciding, and also has the positive advantage of framing the case for the arbs in a way that a number would not. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:42, 24 January 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Gerda & Black Kite. The current system is certainly problematic, but I think the title should reflect the issue at stake, even if not the persons. Adding the date in addition is fine. Using a name that is only the date before it is accepted is of course fine, but if accepted, the name needs to use actual words that relate to the case. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 19:15, 24 January 2018 (UTC)
    Reading closer, TonyBallioni's idea has real merit: Use the numbers for unaccepted cases, and let the Arbs themselves pick the name if they accept. Put it all on them, which works because they are neutral parties. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 20:19, 24 January 2018 (UTC)
  • I would prefer 3 digits to indicate the number of the request, and a separator (either a pseudo-subpage dash or a full subpage slash) e.g. 2018-001 or 2018/001 (or just drop the leading zeros in the construction with a slash: 2018/1 on up to 2018/62094 or whatever). While I doubt the committee sees anything close to 100 requests a year, 1000 definitely takes it out of the ballpark of likely. I don't see a reason for a full date, because we still might find ourselves needing to disambiguate. Moving the case after acceptance to a name reflecting the scope, selected by Arbcom, is reasonable to me (but I don't per se support it). --Izno (talk) 23:01, 24 January 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose specifics, support the base idea. Naming after a party is wrong, unless it's a one-editor behavior case. Naming it with numeric blather is also a wrong, to everyone, since it will make the case pages all but uncitable. There's great value, however, in naming them after the topic or other locus of dispute, and these are were we get the shortcuts from, like WP:ARBPIA, WP:ARBINFOBOX, etc. In theory, we can still create memorable shortcuts, but of course if we're going to do that, creating memorable case names in the first place is the logical solution.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  16:01, 25 January 2018 (UTC)
At least two of these most recent 'opposes' are a little difficult to understand - there is not a current proposal to never give the accepted case a name - and it's rather unusual that allot of people would really be referring to an ongoing case, elsewhere than at the case (where they will say 'this case'), other than a very, very few who may elsewhere say, 'that ongoing case' and sometimes, 'that ongoing case about _____' (I recently had a conversation, where we both referred to the "Salvadrim!" case or 'that Admin case', but the case is not even called those things, nonetheless we knew what we were referring to, and it does not matter otherwise -- no one's going to be much of a stickler how people say 'that case' in their regular conversations). As for the declined case, any mnemonic, for whatever few care about a declined case seems rather overblown, the people who care will remember, those who do not will search around (if it ever comes up), exactly like they have to do now. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:35, 25 January 2018 (UTC)
As User:BU_Rob13 said, this really isn't a vote—after all, the Arbitration Committee has full purview over what it decides to name the pages, and in any case the community can create as many templates it wants with different naming schemes that redirect to the canonical case pages/archived requests, if there are editors who feel very strongly about it. Personally I think enough voices have spoken up regarding a desire for meaningful names for active cases to establish the weight of this viewpoint, so my suggestion is that we can focus on raising new discussion points. isaacl (talk) 17:17, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

Comment There are people here who believe bias is avoidable in cases. This is flat wrong. Science has repeatedly shown that even when people are aware of an intent to bias their responses, they STILL can not avoid it. ArbCom possesses no superpower that enables them to defeat bias even when science has shown they can't. I've studied seven years of cases where parties to a case were named in the title. Across those 46 title named parties, only one (TRM) escaped sanction. Title named parties are >11 times more likely to draw a sanction than non-title named parties. Those of you who believe that bias in case naming is avoidable are flatly, completely, and utterly wrong. If you think I'm wrong, prove it. I've got science and wikipedia evidence backing me up. Getting away from title named parties is long, long, long overdue. --Hammersoft (talk) 19:14, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

I definitely like basing decisions on evidence, and I agree that naming cases after editors, by username, is something that should stop. But I don't think that plain English language names such as "Genetically modified organisms" or "American politics" or "Gamergate" introduce any more bias than number strings would do. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:30, 26 January 2018 (UTC)
  • I have many comments that I would like to share at some point; for now, I think we could remove a lot of the bias by naming cases (by default) after the filer of the case. Most perceptions of a user "having an arbitration case" would quickly dissipate, and it would still be fairly simple to refer to any specific case. If the Committee chooses not to use numerical case titles, I suggest something along those lines would be helpful; often, it's not possible to come up with any other neutral case name. Best, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 20:11, 26 January 2018 (UTC)
About "often, it's not possible to come up with any other neutral case name", I've been thinking hard about that. I think (but am prepared to be proven wrong by example) that it actually is always possible to come up with neutral non-username case names. At worst, we would have cases like "Wheel-warring I", "Wheel-warring II", and so forth. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:40, 27 January 2018 (UTC)
Sure, we could have "Contentious behaviour 1", "Contentious behaviour 2", and so forth, where each would be unrelated. This might be a little better than a simple number, but still difficult to remember. (Is it "Contentious behaviour 5 I'm thinking of, or "Tendentious editing 3"?) isaacl (talk) 22:12, 27 January 2018 (UTC)
It would have to be more specific than that. All cases deal with contentious or tendentious conduct. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:17, 27 January 2018 (UTC)
Sure, that's the key problematic part: sometimes the editor is exhibiting a wide spectrum of undesirable behaviour, and to describe them all in a title would be unwieldy. But even more specific names can be a problem: am I thinking of "Removing infoboxes 3" or "Edit warring 7"? (On a side note, not all cases deal with tendentious conduct.) If I get the chance, I'll try to go through the past few years of cases and see what names could be given to them when the cases were accepted. isaacl (talk) 22:46, 27 January 2018 (UTC)
Hammersoft this is actually pretty weak reasoning. You're ignoring the possibility that more egregious behaviour, which is more likely to lead to (appropriate) sanctions, is also more likely to lead to a case named after the accused. They are two variables which respond the same way to the same stimulus. ElAhrairah inspect damage⁄berate 00:11, 28 January 2018 (UTC)
  • This rebuttal to my statement has been mentioned before. It doesn't hold water. It's circular logic. We have a case named after JohnSmith because the case is about JohnSmith's actions, and therefore we find sanctions against JohnSmith because it's about JohnSmith's actions. It fails on first inspection. I'm sorry. When it is more than 11 times as likely for a title named party to be sanctioned than for a party not named in a title, there is something gravely wrong. Arbitration, by its very definition, is supposed to be impartial. Naming one side of the table in the naming of the cases irrevocably biases the case. In any dispute, there is more than one party that is part of the dispute. --Hammersoft (talk) 03:51, 28 January 2018 (UTC)
  • I have made this comment above, but apparently it did not make much of impact. In Russian Wikipedia, where I was an arb for some time, cases are just plainly numbered. There are typically several active cases at the same time, and everybody knows what ArbCom:673 (a random example) means, this never cause any confusion, and nobody complained it is difficult to memorize. Old cases, when the decision was made a long time ago, but they still need to be referred to, get special redirects with meaningful names; by those standards, WP:ARBPIA would be a meaningful name, and everybody would use it, again, no confusion ever occurred.--Ymblanter (talk) 20:17, 26 January 2018 (UTC)
    I find this entirely unsurprising. Thank you for this observation, Ymblanter. There's a lot of hand-wringing about memorability and confusion here that is just downright unrealistic. That said, I also believe the panic over case naming is overblown, and that people are confusing the presence of bias for the presence of prejudice or partiality. In any event, my honest opinion is that a docket numbering system like has been proposed here is of value on its own. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 23:14, 28 January 2018 (UTC)
  • The presence of bias is enough to pollute a case on its own. There's no need for prejudice or partiality to thoroughly tilt the table away from level and fair. Bias by any other name is still unfair, whether it be by intent or not. --Hammersoft (talk) 15:21, 29 January 2018 (UTC)
  • This is simply not true, and frankly, exactly why I distinguished the mere appearance of bias from bias resulting in prejudice. As I've said, I support the move away from party names in case names, but only because Wikipedia arbitration is neither an adversarial process nor a precedent-setting mechanism. Thus, there isn't the same rationale to refer back to prior cases as there is in common law courts. The evidence-free insistence, however, that naming a case after a party causes an unfair outcome or deprives the named party of an impartial hearing is contrary to more than a decade of Committee experience and close to a thousand years of experience in the common law courts. The Committee should not concern itself with trifles when its purpose is to resolve actual misbehavior. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 05:41, 30 January 2018 (UTC)
  • How is it not true? As I noted, I have science backing me up on this. If you think I don't, then please rebut Anchoring#Difficulty_of_avoiding. Also, your claim of more than a decade of committee experience isn't upheld by any evidence. I have reviewed 46 cases where a party was named in the title of a case spanning 6 years of ArbCom. Title named parties are 11 times more likely to receive sanctions in this "impartial" process. If ArbCom were truly impartial, this would not be the case. They can't avoid it. Some (at least two I'm aware of) have tried to claim that they can avoid such bias. They can't, as science has shown that even if you are aware you are being biased, you can't avoid it. --Hammersoft (talk) 14:02, 30 January 2018 (UTC)
How do you know this shouldn't be the case? The title named parties are generally the ones that are the most disruptive. Galobtter (pingó mió) 14:05, 30 January 2018 (UTC)
  • See my comment earlier where I say "This rebuttal to my statement has been mentioned before. It doesn't hold water. It's circular logic. We have a case named after JohnSmith because the case is about JohnSmith's actions, and therefore we find sanctions against JohnSmith because it's about JohnSmith's actions." Also, you just proved the point. If JohnDoe submits a case request naming it JohnSmith, then JohnDoe has already decided that JohnSmith is the most disruptive. Case is already tilted. Rare is it that a case is accepted with a different name than the request itself. ArbCom accepts case, requests evidence, defines the scope as being the last two years of JohnSmith's editing, and voila...we have a case pointed directly at JohnSmith that ignored JohnDoe's part in the dispute. That's bias. It isn't impartial. --Hammersoft (talk) 14:15, 30 January 2018 (UTC)
  • Short version, you either don't understand anchoring and how it is applied to questions or you are deliberately distorting its effect in order to support a duff argument. Slightly longer version: Anchoring is where when presented with multiple pieces of evidence that lean one way or another, the first presented influences the decision towards that area. Coke vs Pepsi have been doing this for years - by selectively presenting the options they get the result they prefer in a large enough sample. In the Gandhi example, the anchoring is when presented with two numerical amounts the bias leads towards the first provided. It in no way supports "Mohandas Gandhi, terrorist or statesman?" indicating because the question is named after the subject, the negative option will be biased. More people are not going to think Gandhi was a terrorist because the question is named Gandhi. The anchoring aspect of an Arbcom case is based on the presentation of evidence, when presented with lots of evidence indicating bad conduct first, then supportive second, anchoring would lead the bias towards the first evidence presented. What you keep arguing without a shred of evidence and by deliberately distorting examples of research is that the naming of the subject prior to the question of their guilt/innocence invokes bias. Which is laughable. If you had chosen to make an argument that the structure of an arbcom case leads to anchoring, you might have a legitimate argument, but unless you can find out a way for someone accused of bad conduct to not have their bad conduct be the first point of evidence, good luck. But anchoring has nothing to do with the name of the case. Only in death does duty end (talk) 14:21, 30 January 2018 (UTC)
  • I don't appreciate your accusations that I am deliberately distorting things. You do not need to attack me to make a point. If you can't make a point without doing so, you have no point to make. For the record, I am not deliberately distorting anything. It's prima facie evident, and no distortion of anything is needed, that naming a case after a person means that people coming to the case will be looking at that person's behavior. I'm sorry we disagree. Our disagreement does not mean you are right and I am wrong or vice versa. Regardless of whether you or I are right in this attribution of bias, the reality is that moving away from title named parties harms nothing. As noted elsewhere in this discussion, other language ArbComs do just fine without title named parties. The world isn't going to come to an end because we do away with people being named in the titles of cases. --Hammersoft (talk) 15:22, 30 January 2018 (UTC)
  • Comment The filing party has no right to choose the case name, they can only chose the request name, and we can change that if we feel the need. Doug Weller talk 16:50, 27 January 2018 (UTC)
    • Far, far more often than not, the name of the case that is used is the one the filer chose. The filer should never be picking the case name in requesting it, nor in its accepted form. If they have no right to choose the case name, they have no business naming the request either. --Hammersoft (talk) 21:47, 27 January 2018 (UTC)
  • Naming an Arbcom case after the accused does possibly create interesting dynamics. Such a named case immediately attracts supporters & opponents of the accused. The outcome of such case, tends to depend on the ratio of the accused's supporting/opposing editors. GoodDay (talk) 17:42, 27 January 2018 (UTC)
  • Weak support I think it's better than the current, but very unwieldy. I'd follow Isaacl's suggestions below naming the case about the issue at hand, or Gerda's above naming the case after flowers. I'll add that there are examples from history of Gerda's idea in action (albeit not of flowers), e.g. Operation Market Garden has nothing to do with gardening or buying things in a market; Operation Barbarossa has nothing to do with red beards, and so on. Banedon (talk) 07:55, 29 January 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose: Like Gerda, as I grow older, I find numbers harder to remember and more easily confused. My own suggestion is to name cases after Shakespeare's plays – who could resist having a case named "All's well that ends well"? --RexxS (talk) 14:19, 29 January 2018 (UTC)
You know, I think you're onto something here - The Comedy of Errors and Much Ado About Nothing will, of course, also be snapped up pretty quickly... -- Begoon 14:41, 29 January 2018 (UTC)
But why just titles like, Love's Labour's Lost and not lines, like Out, out, damn spot; 'To be, or not to be'; 'Brevity is the soul of wit'; and 'Boil, boil, toil and trouble', etc. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:54, 29 January 2018 (UTC)
As you may know - because it was on my user page from 2013 to 2015 - I named my case "pride and prejudice", was reminded yesterday by OTD. Back to the flower proposal: the case currently requested should get the name of a high-class flower. Gladioli? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:00, 29 January 2018 (UTC)
If anyone is really motivated to use flowers, plays, etc. as aliases for cases, a template can be created, and they can keep a mapping table up to date. We can have as many aliases as people like. isaacl (talk) 15:58, 29 January 2018 (UTC)
  • Support - Either for a case number, or a neutrally named case anchor - that is, NOT EVER a name of editors (and I have no objections against using both). And especially case requests should be plainly numbered (and only be anchored, if needed, upon acceptance of the case, executed by arbitrators or clerks). Again, when the situation of an editor is so bad that they are the sole problem, there is no case, a motion is enough (for which, then I could somewhat support a personally named motion - 'motion on editor X'). In ALL other cases where there is a case, there must be ambiguity whether there is a case on the person or not, and there is no reason to name after the person. To take the open case as an example - the case was initially anchored (and still is) to one editor, while arbitrators commented that there were editors apparently aggravating the named party. The case is now 'X and others', where no others have been identified (there are no other named parties than the filer, who may not be a party, and the initial anchor). Do we need ArbCom to get a result here? --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:41, 1 February 2018 (UTC)
  • Support, with no particular preference on naming conventions. From a quick round-up of cases between 2012 and 2017, while neutrally-named cases don't seem to particularly affect the outcomes for the primary parties, there is a marginally smaller first-mover advantage in neutrally-named cases. As long as arbitration still has any pretense of being a step in dispute resolution rather than a weapon for filers to get rid of their opponents, using neutral case names appear, at least for a small percentage of them, to increase the odds of even-handed outcomes for all over cases named against a single party. That should be enough reason to end the practice of naming cases after single parties. MLauba (Talk) 23:00, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

Sample case names

As an exercise, I went through all of the accepted cases back to 2015 that were named after editors (seventeen out of twenty-eight), and based on the information known when the case was accepted, attempted to give the case a name. I tried to choose affirmative names that express desired actions, rather than prohibited ones, but there are some exceptions. You can see the choices I made below. I'm sure better names can be chosen for some cases, but the point of the exercise was not the specific names I came up with, but how hard did I find it to choose a descriptive name that avoids editor names and serves as a useful mnemonic. It was fairly difficult: only for two cases (which were case 1 and case 2 for the same editor) did I find a name related to the type of edits involved. (There are some cases where a name like "April Fool prank" could be used, but as that was not the real issue, I didn't choose that name to try to avoid biasing the scope of the investigation.) For all other cases, the crux of the matter was undesirable behaviour spanning multiple areas. As to be expected for situations serious enough to require a case, the poor behaviour typically fell into multiple categories, making it hard to narrow it down further. Many of the cases are basically "editor X has difficulty interacting positively with other editors when an issue arises" (eight out of the seventeen).

In summary, about 40% of the cases examined already have names describing the area of dispute, and the remaining 60% are related to specific editor behaviour. Given the wide spectrum of problematic behaviour, it is challenging to come up with a short descriptive name that is memorable. isaacl (talk) 05:38, 28 January 2018 (UTC)

sample alternate case names
Original case name Possible alternate case name(s)
Arthur Rubin Unsubstantiated accusations 1
Magioladitis 2 Automated cosmetic edits 2
Magioladitis Automated cosmetic edits 1
The Rambling Man Collaborative behaviour 2
Michael Hardy Collaborative behaviour 1
Gamaliel and others Working towards consensus 3
Wikicology Sockpuppetry, accuracy, and self-promotion 1
Kevin Gorman Admin tool usage and privacy 1
Catflap08 and Hijiri88 Editor interactions 1
Neelix Admin tool usage and redirects 1
Kww and The Rambling Man Edit-warring and working towards consensus 1
Lightbreather Working towards consensus 2
Technical 13 Understanding policy and working towards consensus 2
OccultZone and others Understanding policy and working towards consensus 1
Collect and others Working towards consensus 1
Toddst1 Admin tool usage 1
Wifione Neutral editing 1
Well, first you would not need ordinal numbers at all, if as I have suggested you always keep the filing number so: Aspersions/Admin Conduct 2018-1 and Aspersions/Admin Conduct 2220-5. Also, it's rather easy to choose something like Harmful automated edits, POV editing/failure to communicate, or Attacks/Consensus disruption, etc as titles, or even more specific, that gets the point across. Besides, in general we are to avoid focusing on who the editor is, we are to focus on what went wrong. --Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:54, 28 January 2018 (UTC)
I agree, we can always come up with a name (and that's why I went through the exercise). But like I said, many of the cases have common themes such as failure to communicate adequately to build a consensus (what I called "Working towards consensus"), so the names will have a high degree of similarity. I haven't disagreed with shifting away from editor names; I've simply said it will be tricky to meet the desire to choose a concise memorable name, particularly when the name is chosen at case acceptance time. isaacl (talk) 16:41, 28 January 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for preparing this very useful exercise. I agree with Alanscottwalker that it would not be particularly difficult to come up with names that are more specific than the ones in the table. And I really think that there is no situation in which such names would be impossible, which means that there is a very real possibility of doing away with person casenames. I also found it interesting that one of the relatively few examples in which you had to number a "case 1" and a "case 2" was for "Automated cosmetic edits", which were about the same user and occurred rather closely together in time. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:58, 28 January 2018 (UTC)
I don't believe the ones mentioned were significantly more specific than the ones I came up with, but you're welcome to look at the cases yourself and try to think of some names. (The one suggestion that did not have a direct analogue with one in the table is "consensus disruption", and none of the cases really fit this description.) A failure to work well with other editors to reach consensus was the key issue in six of the cases, and admin tool usage in three, so I feel there is a lot of commonality in case names. I am not arguing against using thematic case names; I'm just saying that for better or worse there will likely be a lot of similar names. (In situations where a specific incident triggered the case, a brief description of that could be used and be more memorable, but as I mentioned, since the actual problematic behaviour is usually broader, I generally chose names that focused on the editor behaviour being examined, to avoid limiting the scope of the case.) isaacl (talk) 23:20, 28 January 2018 (UTC)
But I think that it still is workable, and would be an improvement. We need not let the perfect be the enemy of the good enough. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:23, 28 January 2018 (UTC)
I agree it is workable, and am a strong champion of trying new changes, evaluating, and then trying something else if desired. isaacl (talk) 23:36, 28 January 2018 (UTC)
  • Issac1 - the current proposal is not to assign the name until closing the case. At that point, every arb will have a very good idea (presumably) what the case is about - and can be as specific as language will allow (they will also, be guided, I think, by concepts in our policies and what breaching those policies is). -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 01:32, 29 January 2018 (UTC)
    • Yes, I know. Tryptofish (and others) suggested that a meaningful case name be assigned after case acceptance. Accordingly, I gave the idea a test run. isaacl (talk) 01:37, 29 January 2018 (UTC)
      • Oh, OK, that's why you were hamstrung by trying be very "neutral' in case names - but after the finding is made that there were 'attacks', we can name the case 'attacks' - in general, the name will really be focused on whatever the final decision is and was. Alanscottwalker (talk) 01:43, 29 January 2018 (UTC)
  • Ugg, no - especially not for administrator reviews - the primary reason a case is needed here is because the community has decided that only arbcom can desysop, the case is about the behavior of a specific editor. — xaosflux Talk 03:45, 29 January 2018 (UTC)
    • In the interest of keeping the feedback on the proposal in one location, can you consider moving your comment to the section above? This section is just a side branch. isaacl (talk) 06:06, 29 January 2018 (UTC)
  • @Xaosflux: Yes, the community decided that, but if the case is so singular that a person needs desysopping we don't need a case, a motion on the sysop rights is sufficient (arbcom does that regularly). If we need a full case it means there is ambiguity whether the situation is bad enough, and then there is the possibility that there is more a situation at play than an editor (which still may mean that editors get admonished/desysopped, but the focus is whether the situation warrants sanctions on editors, not the editor). In any case, we should NEVER anchor on case requests, that should the earliest be done at case acceptance, and possibly only at case closure (when you know that one editor was indeed the crux of the problem, though I would still hope that we avoid the anchoring for cases where editors did not get a desysop). Moreover, anchoring on cases that do not give a desysop result in a double jeopardy-ish situations ('oh, but we dragged him before ArbCom 5 years ago and he was just admonished, you see, he must be bad') --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:41, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

Comment I would go as far as to say that the categories should be taken one level higher. For example, a broad category of "Editor Behaviour" could encompass: collaborative editing, personal attacks, tendentious editing, battleground editing, etc. This primary category could be presented to the filing editor during case creation. The filer would then have the option of adding in a secondary, or even tertiary category, which would be free text. The primary category could be drawn up based on a broad assessment of the most critical issues editors may face. For example, a (not exhaustive nor exact) list could be

  1. Editor behaviour
  2. Admin tool usage
  3. Harassment and/or stalking
  4. Bot usage
  5. etc etc

The list should be as small as possible and should be viewed as a tool for encouraging the filer to focus on the primary cause of them filing an ArbCom case. For example, the TRM and Gamaliel cases could be, respectively, something along the lines of

  1. Editor behaviour and collaborative editing
  2. Editor behaviour and working towards consensus

It's a bit bureaucratic but that's what this discussion is heading towards. Blackmane (talk) 01:50, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

Arbitration motion regarding Catflap08 and Hijiri88

Original announcement

Joefromrandb and others case closed

Original announcement
@Kostas20142: The "Original announcement" link goes to Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard#XY; is this intentional? ansh666 19:27, 4 March 2018 (UTC)
@Ansh666: now it doesn't, thank you for the ping --Kostas20142 (talk) 20:49, 4 March 2018 (UTC)
International Women's Day: the experienced women on the committee did not support the final decision. "Hope is precious and great joy is found in living" (received in 2015). --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:05, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Civility in infobox discussions closed

Original announcement

Ouch, Remedy #5 really cuts into my "Infoboxes should be limited to mostly politicians & sports figures articles" argument :( GoodDay (talk) 13:21, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

I wonder if it's necessary to have both the probation and the normal discretionary sanctions at once. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 13:24, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
They argued that one was more for a person, the other for an article. - I hope we'll never need any, one or the other. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:28, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
The probation is a discretionary sanction. It is just a predefined one. I think that is better, because as I said on the PD talk page, we already have defined procedures for how to deal with DS. I also agree with Gerda about hoping we won't need either in practice. TonyBallioni (talk) 13:31, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
I assume the purpose of the Committee's decision was not to encourage editors who have recently been formally warned regrding their behaviour in an infobox case...to immediately go and do something like this? WP:POINT, much? —SerialNumber54129 paranoia /cheap shit room 13:36, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
Wow that is a dickish move. Maybe Volvlogia should also be placed on Infobox probation aswell ? .... Just a suggestion. –Davey2010Talk 16:38, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
No need for probation. I'll let things simmer, won't happen again like that. Scout's honor. --Volvlogia (talk) 16:55, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

Remedy #4 requires somebody to kick the ball off, so I've created a first-stage RfC at the Village Pump. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 21:17, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

  • Just yesterday someone said "...decision of whether to include an infobox should rely on the judgement of the article's main authors..." (diff not included, lest I be accused of canvassing). In the light of this outcome, what should be the response to that? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:25, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
  • ...and how about the comment "Infoboxes are not compulsory, articles are written for people to read, the lead provides a summary if an infobox conveys all that is necessary then the article seems somewhat redundant."? Do not both of my examples fall foul of "editors are reminded... not turn discussions about a single article's infobox into a discussion about infoboxes in general"? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:17, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
    • Outside of any context, that would appear to be a violation of the "editors are reminded..." warning iff it is a comment made in a discussion about a single infobox. However without the surrounding context it is impossible to know for sure. Thryduulf (talk) 10:34, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
      • It is indeed in the discussion of a single specific artcile's infobox, on the talk page of that article. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:26, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
        • OK so it's potentially against the reminder, but it's still not possible to be certain without the full context. You're currently skriting close to the spirit of both WP:VAGUEWAVE and WP:ASPERSIONS - either provide the full context or drop the matter. Thryduulf (talk) 15:05, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
          • "infoboxes are not compulsory, articles are written for people to read, the lead provides a summary if an infobox conveys all that is necessary then the article seems somewhat redundant." is a perfectly reasonable argument to not have an infobox on an article where an infobox is just duplicating information already present and clear in prose. That the same argument can be applied to many many articles does not make it 'general about infoboxes' it just means the same problem that some editors have with infoboxs is widespread. Its an incredibly badly worded 'reminder'. Only in death does duty end (talk) 16:06, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
          • What part of "diff not included, lest I be accused of canvassing" are you having trouble understanding? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:41, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
            • The bit where you provide context so it can be looked at without your cherry-picked selection. Either pony up a diff or accept you wont get a straight answer. Only in death does duty end (talk) 22:45, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
            • Ah I see its good old Talk:Buckingham_Palace where the context is provided that numerous people have *already* made specific note that the information in the infobox in that article is already in the article, the infobox is ugly and adds nothing, and the quoted statement is *directly* below your own post where you want to include an infobox claiming it has info that is not in the lede. So, less an editor wanting to "turn discussions about a single article's infobox into a discussion about infoboxes in general" and more editor "responding to the discussion already in progress". (The 'articles are written for people to read' is probably a direct response to your machine readable argument.) Only in death does duty end (talk) 23:00, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

An arbitration decision cannot constrain community policy-making or guideline-writing, and this one does not purport to. Comments in the RfC cannot violate the decision by their content, though they should be civil, free of personal attacks, etc. Newyorkbrad (talk) 11:01, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

If anybody isn't certain about the Arb ruling? that's what WP:ARCA is for :) GoodDay (talk) 18:25, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

Guidance requested

I wanted to post this to the case talk page last week, but didn't have time and then case has now closed so posting here to request guidance. An infobox was added on March 26th to Annunciation (Memling). Article inception is here, history is here, FAC is here. I'd prefer not to have the infobox for the following reasons: 1., the article is about an art piece and is better served to show that art piece unadulterated next to the lead; 2., on my monitor the infobox falls into the first body section and shoves down the images there, which were purposely chosen and placed to highlight the accompanying text. Is there recourse based on the current infobox ruling? Apologies in advance that I didn't follow the case closely, nor have I followed any other discussions. Will, however, keep this watched and am interested in feedback. Thanks. Victoriaearle (tk) 18:40, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

The recently closed case did not rule on content matters. You’ll need to discuss on the article’s talk page and reach a consensus. ~ Rob13Talk 19:24, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
As a personal view, agree that that specific infobox adds little value and the article was better without it. As clarification of the case outcome, agree with BU Rob13 that there was no change to WP:INFOBOXUSE re the requirement for case-by-case consensus on infobox inclusion or exclusion. -- Euryalus (talk) 20:06, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
I'd advise you, Victoria to open a discussion at Talk:Annunciation (Memling) and concentrate on explaining why you and Ceoil chose not to have an infobox when you wrote the article and took it through FAC. As the principal author, you are the expert on the topic and your opinion should be listened to, although it has no special privilege beyond that. If your decision was primarily aesthetic, that's okay, but remember that other viewers are entitled to their own aesthetics. It's important also to understand that on my big monitor (2560 x 1440 px) the lead image even without the infobox pushes down the images below it, and on my phone, it's impossible to see any of the images accompanying text in the way that you do on your monitor. Half of our page views are on mobile, so much of our audience isn't going to see the article as you intend. On the other hand, it can be argued that that the infobox presents its information in a structured manner, making that information easier for third-parties to reuse. The infobox chosen doesn't make much use of microformats, so that aspect will carry less weight than in other articles. The infobox does present more information "at-a-glance" than your preferred version, so you need to address the issue of whether the extra information is likely to be of much value to a reader. Remember that discretionary sanctions will be applicable to edits and discussions surrounding the question of an infobox, and that it's always better to wait for some consensus to emerge before reverting in these cases. HTH --RexxS (talk) 20:55, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
I don't doubt that you mean well RexxS, but I for one am getting rather tired of this kind of ArbCom sanctioned bullying. Eric Corbett 21:23, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
I'll vouch that RexxS does certainly mean well and is not now nor ever has been a member of arbcom. But its all a bloody mess all the same. What to do. Ceoil (talk) 21:28, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
I've remove it, on the basis that it was a wikidata template, which I dont understand, cannot edit, or control. I often create articles with infoboxes in situ, dont really have a philosophical position one way or the other. But here made an editorial decision. Please infobox warriors, dont make this another test case, that would be most tiresome. Ceoil (talk) 21:34, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I'm sorry you see it as bullying, Eric. I have offered my feedback as honestly and openly as I can, without trying to take any side in this. Like Ceoil, I'm tired of perennial battles over what is really a very small issue in the grand scheme of things. I sincerely believe that the issues I've outlined represent the bulk of what ought to be discussed on the talk page, although if you can see anything relevant that I've missed, I'd be delighted to see you add it. --RexxS (talk) 21:36, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
RexxS, you have your opinions and others have theirs. But the hypocrisy of saying on the one hand, well I am tired of the "perennial battles", while two second later recommending that this instance "ought to be discussed on the talk page", that really goads and paints the pro infobox people as grind-them-down-slowly merchants. WTF a way to treat other fellow decade into wiki colleges? Ceoil (talk) 21:41, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
You know, that's really unfair, Ceoil. You've no right to call me a hypocrite for advising Victoria to use the talk page. If she simply reverted, why wouldn't someone else re-revert? And so on. You know very well that an ounce of discussion is worth more than a cartload of reverts, so why pick on me for advising discussion? Okay, I've had enough of being pilloried for speaking the truth to you. Sort it out yourselves by reverting back-and-forth if that's your preferred method of dispute resolution. Arbs: just see for yourself how much you've solved with your worthless "All editors are reminded to maintain decorum and civility when engaged in discussions about infoboxes." platitudes. --RexxS (talk) 00:33, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
RexxS the issue I wanted clarified, and that Sarah seems to have provided the answer to below, is whether it's necessary to open a discussion, whether reverting would have triggered the DS alert. So far I've not seen an arb answer that satisfactorily but I'll let it go. I wouldn't have reverted back and forth. Btw - I didn't get your ping earlier. Might not be a bad idea if someone came along and archived this discussion. I think it's illustrative and has served its purpose. Victoriaearle (tk) 01:02, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
The issue is this and I'd like to have very clear answers. I want to remove it for the reasons Ceoil outlined. I made the decision not to have the infobox, it went to FAC and passed without the infobox, it's not been on the main page yet and I want to know, again in clear language, what my options are as a steward. Do I: 1., undergo strife to present a position, 2., does removing trigger a DS alert to show up on my page and what about the person who added? I've been unwell for most of a year and frankly am not up to a long conversation and think the best option is to ignore, log out, and stop tending all FAs such as these where time and effort have been volunteered but positions are now very unclear. I'd like to hear from other arbs who all voted to some sort of a decision that I don't understand. Victoriaearle (tk) 21:45, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
Maybe as a survival mechanism, we aught to let others have their toys? I was never so much enamored by maniacal people, who will never change, so the choices are go mental and incur huge psychiatric bills or move on. Wiki is big, the world is bigger. Ceoil (talk) 21:48, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
Victoria, you could have removed that box. The arbcom decision means only that "standard discretionary sanctions are authorized", but certain warnings have to be given first, then there would have to be bad behaviour (assuming everyone was being fair). In addition to that, "any uninvolved administrator may apply infobox probation as a discretionary sanction". I don't know what that means over and above the first remedy; that strikes me as superfluous. But again it would only be triggered by bad behaviour, and that wouldn't include removing a box from an article you had written, so long as you weren't repeatedly reverting. Having said that, I understand the nervousness. SarahSV (talk) 22:22, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
Yes, exactly. I'm very nervous. Thanks, though, for explaining. Victoriaearle (tk) 22:31, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
Nervous also. See [29] and note the timestamp and sequence - seconds after I said to Rexx that the wars is of attrition. The talk page is now a mess. Ceoil (talk) 23:42, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
As a note, sure, you might get a notice, Victoriaearle. It wouldn’t be anything bad though. It just tells you the situation in this topic area, which is that admins have a couple more tools at their disposal than they normally do to try to keep the debate civil and focused on content, not contributors. The point is to make it easier to contribute in this area, not harder. Think of it this way: not only do the notices tell those who might stir trouble to keep it under control, they also tell editors like yourself that there are options to keep discussions from getting out of hand if someone else starts acting poorly. ~ Rob13Talk 01:53, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
I have the feeling that the message might be reworded to show that (good) intention. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:29, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
The second sentence of the message overtly states "It does not imply any misconduct regarding your own contributions to date." It would be difficult to make it any more clear without being condescending. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 13:33, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
Don't tell me, - I received the notice and said thank you, but what do you tell an editor who left because it was obviously not clear enough, not even with two people explaining? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 23:17, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

I deeply regret posting a question here and in my view the thread can be closed. To recap: confused about the recent ruling I presented the case of an article I tend where an infobox was added in the past week. An editor saw this thread, looked at the article, and took the opportunity to change images sizes, which is another matter entirely. No one, except Sarah, provided a clear answer to the infobox question. DS alerts have now been handed out - which is what I'd wondered about but had to push for the answer. BU Rob13, you seem quite invested. May I ask that you place an alert on my page too, for having opened the can of worms. Won't happen again. Victoriaearle (tk) 14:11, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

I'm invested in the sense that I'd like to make sure the community understands our ruling, sure. And yes, if you'd prefer, I'll hand out a notice your way too. ~ Rob13Talk 14:14, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

In light of the situation with Sagaciousphil (which is only the latest of many), might I point out that:

  1. while notices are given by editors, it is inevitable that some will be offended, especially when the criteria for issuing the notices are variable and arbitrary.
  2. trying to convince an editor who has been offended that they shouldn't be is pointless as emotional responses rarely respond to logic.
  3. rewording the notice (again) is not going to achieve anything.
  4. ArbCom have had these issues raised on numerous occasions and achieved little progress with this problem, which has been known for many years.

As far as I can see, while template warnings are issued in some cases in preparation for an AE report, where wrong-doing is suspected or anticipated, and in other cases they are issued with no allegedly problematic edit precipitating it – and therein lies the problem. I would like to propose a better approach. Hand over all notifications to a bot. The bot would issue notices on some objective criteria (first edit to a DS-active page, first revert, first talk page post, whatever) that was chosen by ArbCom. In that way, it is possible to make it clear to every editor notified that the advice is issued on an ArbCom mandate and only when the criterion or criteria are met. The lack of notifications by other editors would demonstrate that the individual editor was not targeted by the posting editor or that the posting is alleging anything. It would save editors from the need to issue DS alerts at all. As long as editors retain discretion to issue the template and choose who to target (or not target), there is reason for taking a notification as an implied accusation of wrong-doing, no matter what the wording states. EdChem (talk) 01:26, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

The problem is that we'd need to specify a list of all pages subject to DS, which is not possible. At some point, we can't worry about offending editors when the offense defies logic and is outweighed by the benefit of discretionary sanctions in an area of issue. We should do everything we can to minimize misunderstandings, but I don't really think there's anything more that can be done. The notice can't be much clearer. ~ Rob13Talk 01:59, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
Why can't a bot detect article talk pages with DS notices? EdChem (talk) 02:02, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
I agree with EdChem but submit that it's off topic here. I strongly suggest raising it elsewhere. here's your list of all pages subject to DS: Category:Wikipedia pages under discretionary sanctions. ―Mandruss ☎ 02:05, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
I'm sorry but this is hair brained. Dont template exists for good reason, and now we are thinking of a commissioning a *bot* to run out there issuing warnings? There are practical matters of right of reply, dignity and what have you that need to be considered. I cant see this ending well, though it may seem possible to coders. Ceoil (talk) 02:15, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
They are not warnings but rather informational alerts. The fact that many editors interpret them as warnings is precisely the point. The alerts are already required to be issued by editors, and the fact that a minority of editors know how to do that is part of the problem. The proposal is to eliminate that part of the problem, ensuring that alerts are always given where needed, while also eliminating the tendency for some editors to perceive the alert as a warning regardless of what it clearly says. Since there is no rationality test (or any other tests) for entry to Wikipedia editing, we need processes that take irrationality into account where possible. And the phrase is "hare brained", referring to the rabbit. ―Mandruss ☎ 02:23, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
Forgive me Mandruss but your myopic and harsh rules is rules take no prisoners approach as evidenced last night is exactly I would be horrified to trust you to make a bot to go around "warning" people. I predict disaster. Ceoil (talk) 02:33, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
I forgive you. I sincerely believe that you can't help it. ―Mandruss ☎ 02:36, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
No worries. But I do fear your mindset, and if you get traction here, urging robo admin warnings, well god help us all. You are obviously trying to bait now. Ceoil (talk) 02:37, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Ceoil, I have edited in an area under DS in the past. I wondered if I would be targeted for templating by someone who disagreed with me (I am a scientist and so think pseudoscience should be called what it is), and I wondered how I would respond. I don't recall it ever happening, but my gut feeling is that if I was suddenly template out of (apparently) nowhere as Sagaciousphil seems to have been, I would have been irked and offended... and likely asking for evidence of some rational reason for implying wrong-doing. I would have felt that way even knowing that the templates are supposedly informational and not a warning because the (unspoken) caveat that comes with them is often "now I can drag you to AE and push for sanctions."
If ArbCom really wants them to be a routine piece of information, issued genuinely without any accusation of misdeeds and as a standard part of participation in a DS area, then my suggestion is (I think) a way to achieve that. I also think that I would not have the emotional reaction to a bot notification posted to all participants in the area that I might have to receiving it from a (potentially partisan) editor in the area. I think the idea of uniform notifications is bad, but less bad than the current situation, less bad than the warnings being only for alleged misconduct (and with the resulting conflict), and (frankly) less bad than the other options I have encountered to date. I would love to hear a better solution to the wider problem, but in the meantime, losing editors as is happening at the moment is something that should be stopped, and I believe that what I am proposing could work.
BU Rob13, another (though bureaucratic) approach would be as follows:
  1. A protected page lists all articles under DS and the case under which they apply. The initial list could be created from the existing category noted above.
  2. To add a page to within DS, a proposal is made on the article talk page by any editor, open for discussion by all.
  3. After seven days, the discussion is closed by an uninvolved admin (perhaps a new WP:AN list for closures of these proposals?) based on the quality of arguments for needing DS and evidence of disruption.
  4. The bot then adds the page to the list, adds the DS tag to the article talk page, and begins notifying editors from that point forward.
In this way, new articles could come under DS only with consensus. A parallel strategy could be used to propose removing a page from under the purvery of DS. I am sure that ArbCom can come up with other alternatives. The basic question is, however, would bot-issued notifications based on objective criteria be practical and in line with ArbCom's intent? EdChem (talk) 02:51, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
I cant believe I have to point out the impractical implication if this; deeply invested editors being warned by bots and the problems that might cause. Apart from anything, you are assuming you can reign in SPAs like Mandruss, who will instinctively want to police this. I agree with your over all analysis of the impasse, however. Ceoil (talk) 03:09, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Here ye go a an example of the licence yer are offering, and how this will fall out. Ceoil (talk) 04:23, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

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