Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Naming Conventions/Evidence

Evidence Length

The opening of this evidence page says "Please limit your evidence to a maximum 1000 words". Accoring to MS Word, Elonka's is already at 1,370 with a section yet to begin. Have we thrown out that limitation? —Wknight94 (talk) 00:27, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

AGF please. thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 00:32, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

That's of no use. Can someone actually answer my question please? I'm trying to squeeze into 1,000 words but I won't bother if I'm the only one. —Wknight94 (talk) 01:30, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Relax, it's only been like 2 hours. Like I said in the Waldorf arb case, the arbitrators have requested concise evidence presentations. I won't go so far as to say that they pay less attention to long unfocused presentations, not being a mind reader, but I feel safe in saying that having the longest evidence section does not give you an advantage. I just checked and my evidence here is about 1400 words, and I think it was about right for the case I was trying to make. I think the main thing is to encourage evidence over argumentation. You should take as much space as you need to say what you need to say, but be focused and concise and let the diffs speak for themselves as much as you can. Hope this helps, and you can always ask the clerks for advice. Thatcher131 02:21, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Note, my last post was not impatience at no one answering, it was impatience with MatthewFenton's trademark unhelpful snide response. I should have added emphasis, "Can someone actually answer my question please?" —Wknight94 (talk) 02:41, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

That's ok. I do look in on things quite often, but you caught me at choir practice, and thank heavens my cell phone is too old and outdated to do web surfing. Thatcher131 02:44, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Rebuttal

Are we allowed to add comments to other people's evidence sections? Or can we only argue against another editor's "evidence" in our own evidence sections?

Because the evidence provided by a certain editor includes a 2-word-long quote from a talk page message that has been taken completely out of context. --`/aksha 11:05, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Please only edit your own section, but you can certainly add a subsection Reply to Editor X Thatcher131 12:24, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Outside parties

Is there a recommended procedure for new (involved or uninvolved) parties to offer a statement?. Should they just start a section at the evidence page and state their view of things, or should they be posting somewhere else? I'm not sure how to best advise them. --Elonka 21:03, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

General comments go at Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Naming Conventions. Specific evidence goes on the evidence page in a new section. Thatcher131 21:10, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Editing my evidence

The correct course of action is to ask *me* to edit my evidence I have provided - my evidence is signed, and should not be edited. thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 23:51, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Oh please, stop being melodramatic. I fixed my own name and wknight's name on your evidence because you seem to be unable to capitilize it correctly. IIRC, we've had this conversation before the last time you decided Shakla was a plausible "typographical error" for Yaksha'.

Anyhow, i'm asking now. Will you go and fix my name on your evidence? I don't even know why i need to point this out - but my name has just one capital letter and that's the 'Y'.--`/aksha 00:06, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to know why Matthew insists on preserving incorrect capitalizations of others' usernames. Why, Matthew? --Milo H Minderbinder 00:24, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Because she made an edit to my *signed* evidence. thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 19:39, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

So now you've been asked to fix it. Is there some reason you haven't done so? --Milo H Minderbinder 19:51, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes. thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 19:52, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

So now that it's obvious you're aware of the fact that youre mispelling our names wrong, why have you not changed it? Deliberately mispelling people's names...seriously...this has gone from a soap opera to a kindergarten playground. --`/aksha 01:41, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Every time I think this dispute can't become any more petty, I'm proven wrong. Shakla? More like Shaka, when the walls fell. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 05:33, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I alluded to the same and ended up with yet another line in the evidence [1]. —Wknight94 (talk) 05:40, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Arbitration policy/Past decisions#Changing other users' contributions says: "A user may not edit another user's comments except to make insubstantial changes (such as archiving/moving, formatting, or correcting typos) or with express permission from the other user." I don't know why the typos in either Matthew's or Elonka's statements haven't been fixed, even after multiple requests to do so. I'm fixing the typos. --Milo H Minderbinder 22:23, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Christmas

Thatcher, could you please give some guidance on timing? I've been spending hours each day on providing evidence, but Christmas is intruding, and my wiki-time is probably going to be curtailed over the next couple weeks (like when I'm driving cross-country to spend time with family). With the quantity of posts that are coming in from the "glued to their watchlist" editors, I'm getting a bit concerned that I have to make time for Wikipedia each day. In other words, I'm worried that I'm going to spend a day Christmas shopping, and then I'm going to login the next day and see something like, "Well, Elonka didn't post yesterday, so she obviously doesn't care anymore." There have been multiple other accusations like that through this process, like Wknight94's accusations that I was exhibiting "passive incivility" by not posting, or his accusation that my posting only once per day was "inflammatory," or Ace Class Shadow saying that since I hadn't answered his question within 7 hours, I obviously didn't care anymore. I still have a fair amount of evidence I'd like to present, so, can you please advise as to how hard I need to be working to participate on Wikipedia every day throughout the holidays? Or is it a case that the arbitrators are going to be busy too, so we should work on providing evidence when we can, but the substantive discussions won't be happening until January anyway? I know that ArbCom proceedings tend to take months, but some advice on how much wiki-time that I need to personally budget for the next couple weeks would be helpful. --Elonka 19:37, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

When did I say you were uncivil for not posting? What I actually said was that when you finally did post, you didn't acknowledge many of the legitimate points and hints that were made by many people while you were absent. Two totally different concepts... —Wknight94 (talk) 21:13, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I'd second this - the complaints about not responding to proposals and not answering questions were generally not because posting didn't happen fast enough, but because responses were posted, but they ignored what had been asked. If there are diffs that truly are about not responding fast enough, I'd like to see them. --Milo H Minderbinder 21:19, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Diff of Ace Class Shadow complaining that I hadn't posted within "several hours": [2]. --Elonka 11:42, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

In that diff, he observes that you haven't posted in several hours. But I don't see how you could interpret that as complaining that you haven't posted by any stretch of the imagination? --Milo H Minderbinder 15:59, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't really know what to expect from the arbitrators over the holidays. Fred is working on the Waldorf case and there are two more ahead of you, so I would guess he will not get to this one for at least two weeks. We will also have new arbitrators and they may change procedures; I don't know. You should get all your evidence in place before the arbitrators start concentrating on this case; they will generally look more at editor behavior than precise details of content issues, if that helps to focus your efforts. Other than a direct question from the arbitrators, which they ocassionally ask, there is certainly no hurry in responding to workshop proposals. You don't have to respond at all unless you want to. Thatcher131 00:37, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Hiya, I'm back, to some degree. I was one of the travellers who got stuck in the New Mexico blizzard (the entire Interstate was closed for days), but I've successfully navigated back home to St. Louis at this point. Details are in my blog if anyone's interested. Anwyay, I am obviously weeks behind on the ArbCom case, and it's going to take some time to dig through the backlog, for both this and other projects that I'm involved with. I do see that the case has gone into a "voting" phase, so I could use advice on how to proceed. When I left on holiday wiki-break on 12/22, I was in the process of posting evidence -- shall I continue where I left off, or is it pretty much moot at this point since voting has already started? If I do continue, the main sections I had left to add involved diffs of incivility and harassment. --Elonka 19:37, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Look at the proposed decision and see if you can live with it. If you think there is something drastic missing, or want clarification, post to Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Naming Conventions/Proposed decision‎. You can also try contacting the arbitrators who have already voted to see if they would be open to additional remedies, but usually at this stage what's there is there, unless you can make a case that something major is missing. Thatcher131 19:47, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Re: Elonka's section on the poll

Couldn't help but point this out, but Izzy Dot is the one who formatted the RfC for a poll, not Argash. -- Ned Scott 20:58, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Fixed. --Elonka 22:44, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Please correct my username as well. I'll accept just plain Anthony if hitting Alt-0254 is too hard, but please not "Anpony". –  Anþony  talk  23:10, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

List of involved parties

I'm not sure what's the best way to respond to it, but I don't think the "List of involved parties" is an accurate picture of my "stand" at all. Based on the way Elonka has misrepresented my position in the past, and made false accusations, I suspect the same goes for others mentioned as well. The section isn't really even evidence since it just makes generalizations about "gangs" of people without any actual diffs to back it up - "evidence" seems like it should be pointing out specific actions and statements of an individual, not sweeping generalizations about groups of editors. Is there any point in refuting any of it, or will it likely be ignored by the arbcom folk? --Milo H Minderbinder 17:20, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

That's a question each has to answer on their own. Personally I say no and it's not even worth rebutting. If anything, labelling and generalizing everyone involved makes her look bad and I kind of hope she leaves it in. Its very existence might even be worth using as evidence of inappropriate characterizing (and it came from some subpage under user area so it's been in the works). —Wknight94 (talk) 17:32, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

From Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/How to present a case#Context and the ArbCom: "The ArbCom members do not read up on disputes that might reach them eventually. It is very unlikely they know the history of the dispute going on — that someone is a known advocate of a point of view, that someone has a history of defending problem users, or that everybody who has ever dealt with a user recognizes them to be a complete lunatic. Point these things out to them.". --Elonka 18:04, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

The diff after my name in this section isn't a post of mine and doesn't mention me - what's the point of it? --Milo H Minderbinder 21:31, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Copy/paste error, sorry. Fixed. --Elonka 00:25, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the fix, although I don't see how those diffs support any of the claims you make above them. --Milo H Minderbinder 00:32, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

If Elonka wants to keep it, let her keep it. It's her evidence section. I'm sure the ArbCom people are experienced enough to deal with it intelligently. Although i do agree that grouping people like that is inappropriate, good thing you (Milo) proposed it on the workshop page. --`/aksha 01:16, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

"Controversial moves were causing disruption in many areas around Wikipedia"

Is there going to be more evidence to support this one? I've been dying to have this "disruption" finally pointed out after having it mentioned so often. All the three diffs in this section show is some people complaining, which is not disruption, is it? And that complaining comes from a grand total of two people not already involved in this discussion. The diff for the wire shows that the only complaining in that case came from Elonka. Seriously, the evidence of disruption is "Hey look, I complained!"? You've shown minor dissent (incredibly minor, considering that as you pointed out, hundreds of pages have been moved), now where's the actual disruption? --Milo H Minderbinder 16:10, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

My guess is that the ArbCom will agree with you. When someone you disagree with comes up with junky evidence, that's a good thing!  :) —Wknight94 (talk) 17:16, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. I'm just curious if she just hasn't got around to adding diffs for the "real" evidence, or if she actually thinks those three help her case more than they hurt it. --Milo H Minderbinder 17:41, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

If the silence persists, that will be your answer. ;D —Wknight94 (talk) 18:07, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

An interesting edit on the evidence page

Since it looks as if the committee's decision will confirm that there was a consensus at WP:TV-NC, I won't bother going through another point-by-point analysis of Elonka's updated evidence. I do thank her for removing the claim that I violated WP:CIVIL. I'd just like to point out that in this edit, Elonka does something rather extraordinary. She had previously cited this edit of mine as an example of my supposed incivility. Now, she's using the same edit as evidence of Ace Class Shadow being cautioned for his incivility. The new purpose is actually a better reflection of my intentions in that edit, but I felt that the repurposing was worth noting as an example of how Elonka uses the same evidence for two completely different purposes. This reflects the manner in which she has used evidence throughout this case, skewing edits to create a misleading impression of the situation. (A close examination of the diffs she lists as evidence that "controversial moves were causing disruption in many areas around Wikipedia" will show that the conversation concerning this issue spread to many different pages, but the regular editors of those pages were rarely disturbed by the moves themselves. If there was disruption, it was caused by the debate spilling over from WT:TV-NC, rather than by the page moves.)

Fortunately, it seems that the ArbCom is not likely to be misled by this "evidence", at least on the central issue of whether consensus was achieved. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 02:15, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

What I don't understand is why Elonka is not being sanctioned for all the disruption she has intentionally caused. --Serge 03:19, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

(Edit conflict with PKtm's comment below) The impression that I get from the proposed decision is that the ArbCom is saying that Elonka's failure to accept the consensus was due in part to a flaw in Wikipedia's consensus-reaching procedure: namely, that in the absence of a formal "closer" it is possible for editors to fail to recognize when a consensus has been reached. What I see the ArbCom saying is that admins should take more responsibility in closing discussion once it's over, and non-admin editors should accept that. Elonka's tendentiousness, while frustrating, stemmed from a good-faith misunderstanding of the situation, and so the ArbCom is letting her off the hook on that. If in future, with a more clear closing procedure established, Elonka (or someone like her) were to attempt a campaign like the one we experienced in the matter of episode naming, I'd say that a block or further penalties might be warranted — but since there was no such closing procedure, her actions were within previously established bounds.

I assume that once the decision is closed and the remedy about "Closing of a consensus decision making procedure" is passed, there will be some discussion at Wikipedia talk:Consensus about how best to implement this to ensure that this sort of thing doesn't happen again. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 03:58, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Reading the above, I can't resist coming out of a self-imposed, disgusted Wikibreak of 6 weeks now (see my user page for why) to note the following:

• Reasoned, polite disagreement, even when persistent, is not "intentional disruption". Labeling it that way is simply a way of demonizing your opposition, and I find that both offensive and counter to the spirit of sober discussion on Wikipedia.
• Josiah's post(cited in Elonka's diff), contrary to his claims above, is quite legitimately a good example of both his own incivility and of his admonishment of Ace Class Shadow for incivility. That was the irony of it. Language can do that: be two things at once.

So, go ahead and hop all over me now for speaking up. I must say that's certainly been the trend throughout this dispute. And once again, shame on Wikipedia, and shame on the participating admins in this travesty.

-- PKtm 03:52, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

In order not to "hop all over" you (tempting as that may be, given your attempt to "shame" admins who have done no significant wrong), I will merely point you and anyone reading this to my explanation of the context of that remark here. I'm sorry that this experience has soured Wikipedia for you, PKtm, but I fear that your attempt to place the blame at the feet of those trying to enforce a clear consensus is mistaken. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 04:14, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't see Elonka's participation as "reasoned, polite disagreement". She has move warred, declared a guideline invalid without consensus, votestacked, taken others' words out of context and even flat out lied about the situation, tried to disrupt legitimate Request Moves, tried to get users blocked for consensus moves, and made many false accusations about other editors. It's obvious that Elonka goes out of her way to word her posts politely. But I believe that civility is about the content of your edits, not whether they are worded in a "nice" way. --Milo H Minderbinder 13:57, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Josiah, there's nothing wrong with your remark. It's not even worth responding to. WP:DNFT. —Wknight94 (talk) 14:31, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

On a related note, a section of hers I had rebutted seems to have been cut. [3] (The edit summary was "Updating and condensing (still reviewing the diffs for accuracy, too)") It seems I am now rebutting nothing... or rebutted too well. --BlueSquadronRaven 22:18, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

My initial evidence section was meant as a collection of diffs and timelines throughout this process, but it was obviously way too long, and included a lot of "general info" stuff as opposed to actual evidence. I reworked the section to shrink it down to the more egregious examples. In some cases, I removed mentions of specific editors because even though they had instances of (what I regarded as) poor conduct, the events were more isolated. Or in other words, sometimes people can just have a bad day, so one rude comment shouldn't necessarily be held against them. If you feel that this makes your evidence more difficult to understand, you have the option of removing/editing your section, or if you really want, I can add some of my own evidence back for clarity's sake, even though it would make my own section longer (I wanted very much to get it down to 1,000 words, but couldn't manage it). Which part would you most like to see re-added? --Elonka 22:44, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

No need to re-add anything, thanks. I'll let the history diff above suffice. --BlueSquadronRaven 20:37, 20 January 2007 (UTC)