Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Date delinking/Workshop

This is a page for working on Arbitration decisions. The Arbitrators, parties to the case, and other editors may draft proposals and post them to this page for review and comments. Proposals may include proposed general principles, findings of fact, remedies, and enforcement provisions—the same format as is used in Arbitration Committee decisions. The bottom of the page may be used for overall analysis of the /Evidence and for general discussion of the case.

Any user may edit this workshop page. Please sign all suggestions and comments. Arbitrators will place proposed items they believe should be part of the final decision on the /Proposed decision page, which only Arbitrators and clerks may edit, for voting, clarification as well as implementation purposes.

Motions and requests by the parties

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Proposed temporary injunctions

Mass delinking injunction

1) Propose that all editors cease mass linking or delinking of dates until the conclusion of this arbitration.

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Posted at the Proposed decision page. Wizardman 02:19, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Shouldn't be a big deal, there's no damage to the encyclopedia if these activities are halted until a decision is reached. —Locke Cole • t • c 00:13, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Cross-posted from User talk:Newyorkbrad#Clarification requested on the proposed temporary injuctionA few months ago (September), Lightmouse wrote a javascript tool that can help delink dates AND convert them all into one format. It is not a fast-working tool at all; it would take at least 10 minutes to do maybe even 20 articles. And that's working quickly. I sometimes use this while reading articles and doing some generic gnoming. Would the use of this be against temporary injunction 1.1? NuclearWarfare _(Talk) 03:45, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

I didn't specify script or bot in my original proposal, but 1.1 does mention scripts/bots/tools/otherwise. It was my intent that this injunction cover large scale edits as well as smaller scale edits. FYI: Lightmouse's script (unless there's another one) is one of the major tools used by parties of this case to engage in these mass delinkings. —Locke Cole • t • c 04:04, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

The injunction applies to mass delinking. If you are doing 2 articles every minute for any extended period of time, I would view that as concerted push to delink articles. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 04:11, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

But say, one article every 15-20 minutes (which is roughly how long it takes to read military history articles) would be OK then? NuclearWarfare _(Talk) 04:15, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

I doubt that would raise an eyebrow. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 04:25, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm a bit perplexed about all this. From my observations, Lightbot has been delinking dates for ages (long before the autoformatting deprecation), and no fuss was ever made. Originally, of course, it left the "autoformatting" dates alone. Now we have agreed (everyone accepts this now) that autoformatting is no reason to link dates, and so naturally there is no longer any reason for the bot to leave those alone. Nothing else changed - no other new class of date has been found to require linking. So the bot is just continuing to do what it's always done, but now in accordance with the new policy on autoformatting. With the greatest respect to Locke, I would suggest that he has become rather tied up in this issue, and is now being motivated to obstruct the work of the bot (and other automated tools) not by properly thought-out reasons, but by the personal animosities - and gut conviction to "stop date delinking" - which arose during the debates on autoformatting (which are now over). Locke, is there any chance you could engage in an amicable manner (maybe you've already tried, I don't know) with the delinkers, to iron out the real (but fairly minor) technical problems that exist with the delinking process, rather than continue with this all-out confrontational approach? Perhaps offering to drop the arbitration case in return for good-faith dialogue? I know there has been wrong behaviour in the past (on both sides), but we ought to be making peace now and moving forward. --Kotniski (talk) 08:09, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

The date links at issue are primary bare year dates (eg [[2009]]), which are not considered by date autoformatting. The RFC at MOSNUM resulting in such year links should be made selectively but neither always nor never. Thus, any bot that strips year links may be stripping a year link that should be kept. --MASEM 13:54, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Can you give an example of a class of year links that the RFCs have decided should be kept?--Kotniski (talk) 14:08, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

That's part of the rub - we know there's some (the RFC says this), but the exact qualification of when hasn't been made (and a related is, when one should use a year-in-field link (2008 in sports) instead of a bare year). In other words, the push to remove dates as soon as the RFC passed without analyzing all of the results was not appropriate to do until it was clear exactly what links should be removed. --MASEM 14:13, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

(ec) Again, I don't follow the chronology. If it's now bare year links we're talking about, then bots and human editors have been removing these for ages, without the least controversy. It certainly wasn't something that began after the RfCs ended. What might have begun recently is the removal of autoformatting links, but that isn't controversial any more. And if people genuinely want to change the long-standing standard that bare years are not linked, we would expect to be hearing proposals as to what classes of years are to be linked. There have been such proposals - none of them got anywhere, and there seems little sign of any others. The only cases where linking has been shown to be appropriate have been oddities like year 0, years as topics on dab pages, and the like - and of course the big exception, links within date articles, which I trust the bots are not touching anyway. So practically speaking, the number of year links that the bots are removing but which would normally find consensus to be kept is extremely minuscule and can easily be dealt with by human correction, as has happened (I hope successfully, if not we can work it out) with 2000 at MM.--Kotniski (talk) 14:45, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Until the last few months I have not witnessed any bots removing bare year links, though that's not to say that it didn't happen, I'm just not aware of anything of the same scale and negative feedback that what is happening now. (eg this arbcom case fell out of this discussion) Once the effort was made to remove all date linking (both date autoformatted links as well as bare day/month and year links), that created questions on if there was any consensus for how bare-year links were made, and thus that's why I included the question in the RFC (as I recall, I cannot remember seeing anything in MOSNUM or elsewhere stating when bare year links should be made) But, importantly, the RFCs established that not all bare-year links are bad - what classes haven't been discussed in full so there's no way a human (much less a bot) can determine which is which. That needs to be discussed, and that hasn't happened yet, particularly when you get someone like Greg L involved who believes the year pages are a mess of trivia. The lack of discussion post-RFC and pre-bot runs is what is an issue here. --MASEM 15:22, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

I can assure you that all these things have been dicussed, ad extreme nauseam, mostly at WT:MOSNUM (see archives). The volume of discussion to date, particularly after the two RfCs, is surely sufficient to decide anything we want to know about what the community thinks without having any more of it. The failure of anyone, throughout all this, to successfully make a case for any particular group of year links is surely ample proof that any individual act of delinking is considered by the community at worst to be not harmful (though of course you'll always get a few people jumping up and down now and then when you do something on this scale).--Kotniski (talk) 16:17, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't doubt that the issues have been discussed in great depth on MOSNUM well before August 2008 - the problem is that they were only discussed on MOSNUM, so when the time comes to implement a process that affects nearly every WP article, a localized consensus is a weak case to support that. When I came into the process as "neutral" (as least, as I saw my participation) in August 2008, the "consensus" being used by Tony et al to push date autoformatting deprecation was about a dozen editors (all regulars of MOSNUM), and Tony's counterevidence of the lack of feedback when he applied his monobook script to various FA pages across a dozen-some projects. Is that sufficient to launch the wiki-wide change? There's no set answer, but personally I don't think so, my experience with WP:FICT tells me that any significant change to policy or guideline really needs an open RFC to verify a significant global change. Certainly the issue at the time was that there was place that could be pointed to to say that the deprecation has strong consensus (for or against) outside of MOSNUM. Which is why I felt an RFC was the right approach, and thus eventually got to it end of November. It confirmed one and for all that DA should be deprecated.

But now we're on a different issue, when and how date fragments are to be linked. If there's past discussion and/or consensus of the limited cases when they should, it has not been brought up. The RFC above set that there is to be some limited linking but the exact cases of when or how was not explored in depth as to prevent bloating the RFC. There are users looking for any consensus (for or against) bare date linking and none can be pointed to beyond the RFC preliminary recommendation. While bare year links are not as predominate as autoformatted dates, its a large enough issue to affect many articles on WP. Thus, as it was for date autoformatting, there needs to be a better discussion before any steps to automate the removal of such dates en masse.

And no, this isn't necessarily an attempt to prevent any MOS changes without going to Vogan levels of bureaucracy. Tony et al should continue to make changes to MOS that they see fit via local consensus but if these are met with significant resistance, it is time to open up for larger discussion. --MASEM 17:07, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Linking of date fragments is partly a secondary effect of autoformatting links. Some editors were told "all dates must be linked". Other editors just copied the house style from what they saw. If the primary source of date linking (autoformatting) is removed, there will be less reason for the secondary effect (date fragments). A way forward would be to eliminate a major cause of links where there is little disagreement i.e. removal of autoformatting. Lightmouse (talk) 17:50, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

That's certainly what happened with me when I first started editing. But Masem, if there were any new class of date that was desired to be linked, then that would surely have come out the discussion. The absence of anything like that is surely evidence that the "sometimes" means just isolated cases - even if it were a few percent of the total, the bots are still doing far more good than harm by removing all links. The few that people want can be put back any time - and will be all the more valuable by not being mixed up with a lot of distracting, unwanted links.--Kotniski (talk) 18:25, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

I have no problem trying to work with MOSNUM regulars, but they appear to have a problem working with me (and others who disagree with them). Hence why we're here. There's nothing stopping meaningful (good-faith) dialog from occurring outside of this arbitration. —Locke Cole • t • c 00:33, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Lightbot does not yet have approval to remove autoformatting. But it could apply for approval to do it. Would you (User:Masem and any other reader) support Lightbot removing autoformatted links? Lightmouse (talk) 14:32, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Well of course, that's the one thing that has been agreed now.--Kotniski (talk) 14:45, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

I see no reason not to concurrently apply for it since the RFCs clearly showed that they can be removed (this is more about bare links for years and day/months), though likely this injunction will prevent it from being run until the case is decided. --MASEM 15:22, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

There are a few people around talking about a yet to be created 'son of autoformatting' coming Real soon now. From what I understand, they oppose removal of autoformatting because they want to recycle the links from the old broken version for their newer better version. The approvers will reject an application if it gets bogged down with such talk. Lightmouse (talk) 15:19, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, LM. Best not to go there yet. You'll be on a hiding to nothing. As a result of these battles, LB has taken a lot of flack although you have demonstrated that it has been working faithfully according to its permitted scope. I believe that "son of DA" has been one important plank of the strategy to stymie date-delinking all along. Ohconfucius (talk) 05:27, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

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Proposed final decision

Proposals by Septentrionalis (Pmanderson)

Proposed principles

MoS a guideline

1) The Manual of Style is a guideline; it is not binding on editors.

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Strongly support. Too often the MoS is used as a hammer to beat editors into submission. —Locke Cole • t • c 17:56, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Oppose because at the top of each MoS it says just this, and has done for a long time. Why waste ArbCom's time by asking it to reiterate what already exists? This is redundant, and worse, weakens all policy and guidelines that have not yet received some kind of stamp of approval by ArbCom in this way. Bad move, IMO. Tony (talk) 17:38, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

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Proposed. Reformulation of Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Jguk#Principles: "The prescriptions of Wikipedia's manual of style are not binding," Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:23, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Shorter Tony: it's true, we already say it, and therefore I oppose it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:05, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Support. Even if the Manual of Style had "I am a policy, not a guideline" language, there would still be the fundamental and insurmountable problem of the specific (local article consensus) prevailing over the general (Manual of Style). Tennis expert (talk) 19:14, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment/Oppose. I think in general Wikipedia should have a Manual of Style (building on consensus), which is binding except in well-argued exceptions. This is on which a coherent encyclopedia is founded. Whatever consensus has emerged among a few editors on particular articles should not override general rules. If we allow for this, we just get a random collection of, well, randomly styled articles. This would be very detrimental for the credibility of Wikipedia.--HJensen, talk 20:28, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Support, Guidelines are intended as just a guidebook to norms of style and behavior, which should mostly be followed under normal circumstances. However there will always be sensible exceptions and reasons to do otherwise per WP:IAR. This probably needs to be made clearer to people. G-Man ^? 21:27, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Guidelines are consensus

2) Guidelines are intended to collect what we currently agree on. Their wording should reflect the current consensus of Wikipedians on a subject; where there is none, they should be silent or explain there is a disagreement.

The authority of guidelines consists of the persuasiveness of the reasons given in them and the strength of the consensus which supports them.

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Oppose the making of such a statement for the same reason as above (weakens all policies and guidelines that haven't been "reiterated" by ArbCom. This is redundant, and reflects Anderson's three-year campaign to weaken the role of the style guides. It's so vague as to have no meaning in the real conduct of business, anyway. Tony (talk) 02:42, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

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Proposed, per above and WP:PRO. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:54, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

There are disagreements about almost anything. Much of the value of guidelines comes from the fact that they say something rather than nothing (to prevent multiple, essentially identical disputes from breaking out in other places). Stability and uniformity are both (up to a point) beneficial to the project in themselves. So this statement needs to be carefully qualified.--Kotniski (talk) 13:25, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

I would say instead, "The persuasiveness of guidelines depends upon the reasoning for them and the strength of the consensus that supports them." Tennis expert (talk) 13:30, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Anderson's three-year campaign to render style-guides weak and ineffectual has failed dismally; this is not the place to try to perpetrate the same pet peeves you pursue on the talk pages (where you're free to do so without the bounds of civility). The relevance to this case is flimsy at best. Tony (talk) 17:41, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

My PoV is that making them consensus is making them effectual. Making them a ratification of Tony's prejudices has brought them into well-deserved contempt, and so made them ineffectual. The resulting frustrations may mitigate Tony's behaviour. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:46, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Bot approval

3) Bots and their tasks should be approved by consensus.

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Proposed. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:23, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Support. Consensus should apply to bot operations like any other edits. Tennis expert (talk) 19:13, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Consensus is not necessary for each specific case though (at least, not if it means consensus among the few people actually discussing the matter at BAG, who may not represent the will of the community as a whole, which is best expressed through clear and stable policies and guidelines). --Kotniski (talk) 13:29, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

If MOSNUM represented consensus, it wouldn't be protected. If Kotniski thinks there is a wider consensus for Lightbot, he is welcome to provide evidence; until then, this is conjecture. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:03, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Opposed bots

4) Bots to whose activities there is repeated opposition should stop doing them. whose activities are opposed by multiple established editors should stop.

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• Not acceptable, as "multiple" needs to be a sizeable number, and not just four or five. Also, this rule should not be subject to consensus, per se, but per the WP:BAG. Ohconfucius (talk) 06:07, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

• Wikipedia works on consensus, not majority voting. —Locke Cole • t • c 14:36, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

"Multiple editors"? That's two or more. Um ... Tony (talk) 02:44, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

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Proposed. Wording could be improved.

This wording would allow one objector to ask twice and force a stop. This is called a "blocking minority". I'd rather not see that enshrined in an ArbCom decision --RexxS (talk) 03:53, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

I congratulate RexxS on the skill of his Wikilawyering. ArbCom is free to rephrase (oft repeated?), if they do not find my wording clear; but the danger is non-existent. ArbCom does not act by precedent precisely to avoid such things as reading this as "twice", even if some future Arb were fool enough to do so. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:37, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

"Repeated" is subjective. Perhaps it should read "opposition from multiple established editors"? — Arthur Rubin (talk) 23:35, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Done. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:38, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Opposed here should mean opposed with good reason, based in policy or on genuine problems that are coming to light. Opposition of the type "I don't like it" mustn't be allowed to count.--Kotniski (talk) 13:31, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Not material here. All of the objection to Lightbot was based on policy or guideline. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:08, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

As Tony said above, multiple editors means two or more editors. Maybe "a considerable number" is what you are looking for here. Dabomb87 (talk) 04:34, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Support the general idea, but the wording does need some work, as expressed above. Mlaffs (talk) 05:11, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Bot tasks

5) Bots should be set to well-defined non-controversial tasks which have consensus to be done.

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Oppose. Bots are already subject to considerable controls. Allowing one or several editors the ability to trash a bot simply by branding its function as "controversial" would effectively reduce the role of bots on WP to the utterly anodyne and trivial. Bots have an important and expanding role in sparing editors the manual labour of housecleaning and achieving consistency throughout the project. May I remind everyone that WP's site-wide consistency is one attribute that places it above most other google hits. It's part of the brand, the identity. Much of that consistency (and, indeed, good style) concerns millions of tiny details. There will always be petty disputes about these, but they should not be allowed to stub out automation. Let's keep in mind the advice in this video (around 30 mins in) of a WikiMania address by researcher Dr Bill Wedemeyer, Faculty of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Michigan State U., who conducted an extensive study of the quality of (mainly) scientific articles on WP. To paraphrase to point: increasingly sophisticated automation is the key to the application of our style guides. Tony (talk) 03:01, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

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Proposed. (added non-controversial because it comes into discussion below.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:23, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

This seems the same as 3). "Non-controversial" needs qualification; many good things on WP are controversial, and we harm the project and its editors by laying down blanket rules which may mean such things can't be done in the most efficient way.--Kotniski (talk) 13:34, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

I leave it to ArbCom to decide we want bots doing controversial edits. I don't. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:09, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

MOS editing

6) WP:MOS and its subpages may be edited by local consensus, like other pages; but when guidelines which affect much of Wikipedia receive significant opposition, the question should be discussed more widely.

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Strongly support. Had this been recognized and accepted earlier much of this dispute could have been avoided saving months of wasted time. —Locke Cole • t • c 17:59, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose just on the grounds of the language, the practicality, and because it's redundant. ArbCom's decisions should not involved vague concepts that are neither enforceable nor practical. What is "much of Wikipedia"? Where would the boundary lie between "significant" and non-significant opposition; "discussed more widely" might be definable in solid terms, but the current system whereby dissenters can launch and widely advertise RfCs etc serves this purpose already. This sounds like sour grapes to me. Tony (talk) 03:07, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

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Proposed. From Masem's comments above. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:26, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Support.--Kotniski (talk) 13:35, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

This is too airy-fairy for a proper judgement. Too many of the items cannot be well-defined (what is "much of WP" or "significant opposition"?). It will lead down the same push-and-pull path that exists now. This is pointless instruction bloat that will change nothing. Methinks this comes down to the seeking of approval to bulldoze anything Anderson, Cole et al. don't like on this basis. Recipe for a breakdown and chaos. Tony (talk) 17:45, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Not legislation

7) Wikipedia's policies and guidelines are descriptive, not prescriptive. They represent an evolving community consensus for how to improve the encyclopedia and are not a code of law. Editors and administrators alike should seek to uphold these rules only when doing so would produce a better result for the encyclopedia, never simply because they are "rules". Insisting that something must (or cannot) be done simply because of policy is a form of wikilawyering.

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• No, all style manuals in the world are both: a mixture of prescription and descriptive. It is idle to propose that one or the other be exclusive. This seems like forum shopping by Anderson, who sees cracks in the system through which he can slip his favourite little agenda items that fail on the talk pages. Why is it relevant to this case? Tony (talk) 17:48, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

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Proposed. WP:NOT#LAW, quoted in full. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:40, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

• Tony asserts that a style manual cannot comply with this, which is policy. I'm not convinced that that's true; but if it is, then it follows that a style manual cannot be a guideline. Hence my proposed remedy below, making it not one. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:12, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Past consensus

8) A past consensus which is unchallenged is still presumed to be consensus. If a significant number of editors disagree with it, there is no consensus until a new "consensus develops from agreement of the parties involved. This can happen through discussion, editing, or more often, a combination of the two."

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Support. As shown in my evidence at least as many editors needed to dissent to the change showed up over the two month period following the consensus reached in August to make the matter a "no consensus". Still that discussion was held up as sacred and unchallengeable by proponents of the change whose only claim to fame from the two years of debate was that they simply outlasted the opposition. —Locke Cole • t • c 18:47, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Oppose: Redundant (see RexxS below), and who are "the parties concerned"? Sounds as though the agreement of the specific users who supported the previous consensus must be gained. Hmmm ... This unviable wish-list of Anderson's is cluttering up the process. Tony (talk) 03:12, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

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Proposed. The quotation is from WP:Consensus. This is how our policies and guidelines actually evolve, and the way we have long since chosen to avoid policy warring; derived from the policy in the previous section.

Some arguments in other sections would imply that a gathering of three editors two years ago can establish a "consensus" which all must follow, even if the majority of a larger discussion now disagrees; this confounds our guidelines with legislation. We are not a legislative body, and we do not permit the original three to own the guideline until consensus is formed against them. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:07, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Denied. A full reading of WP:CON clearly illustrates how consensus changes. An old consensus is replaced by a new consensus when a change is accepted by a majority of the interested editors. There is no right for any group to declare "no consensus". To the point, this would lead to the situation where a group of editors, disliking a current consensus, could simply say "no consensus" in order to justify editing contrary to a documented consensus. The onus is on the dissenting editors to establish a new consensus. Wikipedia may not be a democracy, but it certainly is not an anarchy. --RexxS (talk) 05:37, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

And when, in between, the old consensus is denied by editors about as often as it is confirmed, it ceases to be consensus, and we look for a new one by editing and discussion. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:56, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Support Rexx is incorrect, Wikipedia is not a democracy. Majorities are not required for a consensus to end. -- Kendrick7^talk 22:32, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Not democracy

9) Wikipedia is not an experiment in democracy or any other political system. Its primary but not exclusive method of determining consensus is through editing and discussion, not voting. Straw polls should be used with caution, and are no more binding than any other consensus decision.

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Proposed. WP:NOT#DEM, quoted in part. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:40, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Support. This essentially is what I have been saying all along. A consensus developed by editors for a particular article can prevail over a consensus that purports to cover all articles, as previous Wikipedia practice clearly proves. This is analogous to the legal principle that the specific prevails over the general and illustrates the fundamental problem with the Manual of Style, even if it were policy instead of being a mere guideline. Tennis expert (talk) 19:11, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

The problem is that "straw poll" is an unclear term. If it intended to mean a call for votes on a talk page, then clearly they have no value at all. We all agree consensus is created by discussion, not voting. If it is intended to mean WP:RfC, then editing in denial of a consensus established there may be considered disruptive editing. RfC's are an established process, covered by the policy WP:Dispute resolution and accepted throughout the encyclopedia as a means of finding consensus, which should be respected. Breaching consensus is only permitted when to do so improves the encyclopedia. That is the absolute standard. This proposal would benefit from removing the last sentence. I understand the problem TE has, but would suggest this is not the correct venue to seek to change the statement "Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale." in WP:CON. --RexxS (talk) 06:02, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

On the contrary, this principle affirms, even depends upon, "Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale." That applies equally well to a "consensus" of three editors bvack in 2006, as to any other place and time. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:01, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Tempest in a teapot

10) On each article, the advantages and disadvantages of linking dates are trifling. There is no rush to optimise; we have no deadline. The reason to act here is the annoyance, incivility, and waste of time produced by this dispute.

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Proposed, in response to Apoc2400's statement in Evidence. Where's the fire? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:18, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Support per WP:TIND. -- Kendrick7^talk 07:48, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Couldn't possibly support more. Mlaffs (talk) 05:16, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

ArbCom's powers

11) ArbCom can disapprove bots if that is best for the encyclopedia.

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Since this has now been twice denied, on the grounds that BAG approves bots, and so ArbCom can't disapprove them, I thought I would ask ArbCom's opinion. The same argument would prove that ArbCom can't desysop admins, since bureaucrats create them, which is plainly false. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:21, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Why would ArbCom wish to take on extra powers? Bot approval, supervision, disapproval, etc. is devolved to BAG and that is spelt out in WP:BOT. ArbCom indeed does not desysop admins. If they request a desysop, a steward will perform the action. Similarly, an ArbCom request for disapproval of a bot would be carried out by BAG (and a bureaucrat would deflag the bot). Separation of powers is not a bad idea. To the point, I see that there is a dispute over Lightbot's approval. If you wish this to be debated here, would it be courteous to notify User:ST47 who closed the BRFA as approved? --RexxS (talk) 04:50, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Why would ArbCom wish to take on extra powers? To settle this case. (They're not extra; but that's a detail.) If ArbCom thinks banning Lightbot will end this dispute and get most of these editors back to productive editing, then they should wish to exercise that power; if they don't think it will work, they shouldn't exercise it, no matter how firmly they have the right to. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:59, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Support A Bot is just an instrument of a given user. If ArbCom can ban my mouse and keyboard, which are just similar less efficient instruments, they must likewise have complete dominion over any program I would create as their proxy. -- Kendrick7^talk 07:52, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

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Proposed findings of fact

Lightbot's approval

1) Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Lightbot 3 is hopelessly vague; was not approved by a consensus; and has been opposed since.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

• Not acceptable Approval of Lightbot, as well as all other bots, are subject to the consensus of the expert group, WP:BAG. Oppose the opening up of bot approvals to general consensus would be unnecessarily bureaucratic, and risk clogging up the system for dealing with mundane repetitive maintenance tasks. Ohconfucius (talk) 06:24, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Proposed. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:23, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

No offense, but this wording is a bit vague. What parts of the BRFA was vague? What consensus opposed? Where has it been opposed since approval? MBisanz ^talk 05:14, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

See my evidence. The powers proposed for Lightbot were vague, amounting virtually to This bot can do anything about dates, linking, and metric units Lightmouse wants it to - and any other edits Lightmouse considers incidental. It was opposed before approval, by MZMcBride, BJ, and Belhalla (who are, I gather, bot experts, not involved in the present discussion) on these grounds of vagueness, by Gerry Ashton because Lightbot had too high an error rate, and by Tennis Expert and myself. I do not claim that we were consensus to oppose, since half the parties in this arbitration approved their own tool, but there was no consensus to approve. For the request to reconsider the approval, which was endorsed by Carcharoth among others, see Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Lightbot 3#Reconsideration. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:11, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Support. In constitutional law, this would have been an unconstitutional delegation of power because Lightmouse had essentially no restrictions on Lightbot's activities and then interpreted the RFA in whatever manner he believed expendiant. This should never happen again. Tennis expert (talk) 19:05, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Support, in part. The approval would allow it to make any changes to a date which its operator feels like doing. Even if WP:BAG is willing to certify a bot to do almost anything, the community appears not to be so willing. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 14:32, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

No consensus

2) There is no consensus to delink all dates

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Support. —Locke Cole • t • c 18:57, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Stop this circus. This is arse about face. Per WP:Consensus and per RexxS above: "The onus is on the dissenting editors to establish a new consensus. Wikipedia may not be a democracy, but it certainly is not an anarchy." Instead of scaling the Reichstag in between the time 'lack of consensus was claimed, a full-scale assault on the Everest could have been attempted. Instead, the proposer waited until late November. Ohconfucius (talk) 02:07, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

• Tony’s RfC was quite clear that it is a rare date indeed that should be linked in body text. It was also clear that the community consensus is that bot operators don’t have to get pre-approval to have their bots implement edits that are in compliance with what is on MOS or MOSNUM. Further, bots are extraordinarily complex and difficult to write. If we were to place an onerous hurdle on bot operators like Lightmouse, where they had to have a hundred opinions from others to do this or that, they’d all say “phoey” and quite. We certainly don’t want that. Greg L (talk) 05:37, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Except that Lightbot was also removing links that were in full compliance with MOSNUM, a problem that was raised at Lightmouse's talk page, and ended up at AN. Mlaffs (talk) 05:29, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Proposed. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:23, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Not helpful, since it obscures the fact that there is consensus that most dates should not be linked. --RexxS (talk) 04:14, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Bad faith, since the objection to bot removals being made here is that they can't remove only the useless date links, but must remove all (or none), as the next finding of fact says. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:40, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

I see how you can reach that conclusion and will strike my comment as it can be interpreted in that way. I was merely trying to get across the point that if only one useful link exist on wikipedia, then your line of reasoning would still forbid using a bot to remove two million useless links. --RexxS (talk) 05:00, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Were I endeavouring to express myself with mathematical precision, or to a bot, I would be using a symbolic calculus.

• But Rexx's argument is fallacious. That is not my line of reasoning at all, If it were certain that there were only one useful link out of two million, there would be, almost certainly, consensus to remove all (and probably to guard that one); in that case, the bot would be enforcing consensus. My objection is, again, that there isn't such consensus. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:08, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

• But a what point does that line of reasoning come unstuck? 10 useful links; 100? 1000? What I really don't know - and suspect nobody else does either - is how many useful date links exist. If it is a very large number, then forbidding the bot is reasonable; if it is a very small number then using the bot makes sense. Until we have some idea of how many useful date-links exist. how are we to determine whether using a bot to remove the others is a good idea? --RexxS (talk) 22:32, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
  • It comes unstuck where there ceases to be consensus; I feel as though I have said that a hundred times to the same editor; what part of it is hard to understand? It's not my decision nor Rexx's, but a group decision; that's why we put things up for discussion. (How many useful links exist is a matter of taste; we could do worse than letting each set of editors make up their own minds on the matter.)

• I think we could do a lot better than letting each set of editors make up their own minds on the matter. That is precisely what has led to the current dispute. --RexxS (talk) 04:57, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

This sounds alot like a content decision, and arbcom generally doesn't make those. MBisanz ^talk 05:13, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

No, it would only be a content decision if ArbCom offered an opinion on whether dates should be linked. This is a finding of fact. -- Earle Martin [^t/_c] 12:10, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. I guess I'll say it again for the umpteenth time, deprecated does not mean removed as fast as possible. Mr.Z-man 18:53, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Support. Aside from the big problem of the "deprecated" language, the Manual of Style was and is a mere guideline. It is not authority to go around Wikipedia making mass changes to articles. Tennis expert (talk) 19:07, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

• • The "onus" for hiding a date from lightbot requires absolutely no change to Lightbot, just masking dates to be kept via templates. However, bots are expected to have certain controls in place to stop them if they go off kilter or the like per BAG, so there are certain requirements they have to meet. --MASEM 05:57, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment; as noted below, part of this dispute is that there is a disgreement as to whether there was even a consensus that autoformating was bad, and that there are presently matters where this is disagreement as to consensus. If there's isn't generally agreement as to consensus, then there is no consensus. But this may not be in the perview of ArbCom, even though it appears necessarily for semi-stability. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 14:39, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Support While delinking months and days of month had consensus, there was never consensus to de-link all years, eras, and centuries, for all of time, which is what the bot was performing. -- Kendrick7^talk 07:56, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Support. While it may well indeed be useful to delink many or even most dates, there was no clear consensus to delink them all, particularly where links were removed that were in clear compliance with MOSNUM. Mlaffs (talk) 05:29, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Strong support This is clearly what the recent RFC demonstrated. All we had was a limited consensus that the old system of autoformatting was depreciated which applies only to days of month links. That does not give any support to mass delinking of year, decade and century links, and edit warring whenever someone tries to put some back, which is what has been happening lately. G-Man ^?

Not an AI

3) Lightbot does not possess the editorial judgment necessary to delink some dates and leave others.to determine whether a date-link is relevant to its context, nor can it determine when a link will be helpful to readers.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Indeed it doesn't, hence why delinking year links (when there is consensus for "sometimes" linking years) is inappropriate for this bot. —Locke Cole • t • c 20:35, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

• According to Lightmouse, there is 15 pages of code just for one task. None of us have the experience necessary to pass judgement on such an esoteric issue. As User:Dweller once wrote: “What consenting mathematicians get up to behind closed doors is their business, but please don't do it in public.” Greg L (talk) 05:40, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Proposed. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:23, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Support. The bot is not a human editor. Tennis expert (talk) 19:15, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment. The bots possesses just as much "judgement" as Lightmouse programs into it. It can avoid particular categories and links which are determined by a regex, as well as pages marked with a given template. That's plenty of "judgement" to delink some dates and leave others. Whether those are the correct (by consensus) ones is a different question. --RexxS (talk) 22:39, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

That's not the appropriate level to satisfy this FoF. His bot would need to be able to tell if a date link is relevant to it's context or not per the community-wide RFC, and since we can't even agree on what the consensus of that is, it's impossible for the bot to. —Locke Cole • t • c 22:43, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

If this FoF stated "Lightbot does not possess the editorial judgement necessary to determine whether a date-link is relevant to its context", then I'd agree with you 100%. But that's not what is proposed here, and the current wording of this FoF is patently untrue. --RexxS (talk) 23:44, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Done. Although this is again irrelevant; we're not drafting legal opinions, we're giving ArbCom ideas. If Lightmouse can create an AI, he's wasting his time here. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:50, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Support per Tennis above. This should be a human decision. -- Kendrick7^talk 07:57, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Support. This couldn't be more obvious. Mlaffs (talk) 05:31, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Poll results

4) Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)/Date Linking RFC shows consensus on two things: against the proposals to link all years and all dates. It is divided on whether to link some or none of them. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:44, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Support, though it also shows support for deprecation of date autoformatting (not entirely relevant here I imagine, but worth mentioning maybe). —Locke Cole • t • c 18:03, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Due to the heavy backspin, this one is a contender for the Award for Best Makeup. See Tony's deconstruction of the results. Ohconfucius (talk) 02:12, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Proposed; there are seven voices for each all statement, out of a large poll (unfortunately unnumbered), but no other !vote is anywhere near so large. In particular, there are eighty voices for some system of autoformating, and it is not clear that MoS is warranted in claiming consensus to deprecate. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:44, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Summary

5) I cannot rule out that the three or four non-filing parties intend to improve Wikipedia; that's what WP:AGF means. In practice, however, their efforts result either in a campaign for a New and Improved, politically correct, English, or in preferences for Tony's native dialect over others. When they fail to accomplish that, they resort to obscenity, abuse, and efforts to blackball editors out of MOS, as here.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

I am glad that Pmanderson quoted the following conversation, as I was personally disturbed by the attitude it exemplified. -- Earle Martin [^t/_c] 19:31, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

I have said substantially this elsewhere; since I believe it a fair summary of the evidence, I shall say it here. The link leads to GregL saying to an editor who disagrees with him who queries his response to Locke Cole's announcement of this RfAr: [note: corrected summary here -- Earle Martin [^t/_c]]

• [Locke Cole announces RfAr]
• GregL: "Yeah, we were laughing about that this morning."
• Earle Martin: "What do you mean we, Kemosabe?"
• GregL: "Some of us besides you, Tonto". Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:41, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Template

6)

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Proposed remedies

Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.

Bot Disapproval

1) Lightbot is hereby disapproved, and Lightmouse is barred from constructing, designing, or advocating bots to enforce any portion of WP:MOS or its subpages. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:23, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Much too strong. Evidence doesn't support this, at any rate (unless I've missed something). Your other proposals seem reasonable though. —Locke Cole • t • c 00:36, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

• Stop this circus: contender for award for Best Short Film - Novelty . Not a million miles from a motion to lifeban a hard-working and talented programmer. Ohconfucius (talk) 06:39, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
• No. Wikipedia needs bots and their operators. This proposal is just a mean-spirited ploy to get a backdoor win after having lost in a huge RfC. There are millions of dates that have to be delinked. That is far too big of a task to do manual. The proponents of this proposal know this. Greg L (talk) 05:43, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia needs bots which operate according to consensus, and operators who listen to complaints; but why does it need this bot, and this operator. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:15, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Proposed. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:23, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

added title --Rocksanddirt (talk) 00:34, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

I may contribute something to this, waiting for feedback/permission. MBisanz ^talk 00:50, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Feel free to draft. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:52, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Support, except that Lightmouse also should be barred from transferring Lightbot (or the equivalent) to another editor. Tennis expert (talk) 19:17, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Support primary clause; neutral on secondary clause at this time. Even Lightbot approval #1 was too vague to determine whether its edits were within the scope. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 23:43, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Bot Disapproval

1.1) Lightbot is hereby disapproved, and Lightmouse is barred for one year from constructing, designing, or advocating bots to enforce any portion of WP:MOS or its subpages. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:23, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

• Stop this circus - It's an issue the proposer should take up with the WP:BAG, who are vested with autority to accept or refuse. Approved bots which carry out edits according to their defined scope and within policies and guidelines should not be unnecessarily impeded. Ohconfucius (talk) 06:55, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
• See my above post. This is a mean-spirited proposal to get a backdoor win after having lost an RfC. There are far too many links to fix them by hand. Greg L (talk) 05:45, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Revised. But I think Lightbot is the real problem. Given his habit of writing this bot can do anything I want specifications, I see no other way of keeping Light2bot from returning to the same stand. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:49, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

We got most dates linked for autoformatting, back around 2004, by persuading most editors that that was the right thing to do - at which point they went around linking dates when they found them unlinked. In a year's time, we should persuade most editors to unlink dates when they find them linked (presumably about half of them will make some exceptions for useful links). In time, this will reduce linked years back to what they were before autoformatting, and Lightbot will have no job to do. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:20, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

I feel that this is a punitive measure—it's not Lightmouse's fault that his bot was approved. Dabomb87 (talk) 23:54, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

It is Lightmouse's fault that he drafted a request for approval which let him do whatever he wanted; it is also Lightmouse's fault that he ignored the protests on his talkpage. Let him find something to do for a year which will do less harm. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:09, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

This seems a strange proposal. The fact that so many people on all sides have acted improperly at one time or another in this dispute is rather evidence of systemic failings, not reason to punish anyone a long time after the supposed offence, adn we certainly shouldn't be picking out particular individuals to "suffer" sanctions (it would be the project that suffered anyway). Lightmouse doesn't seem to have done anything particularly disruptive anyway, he was just running a bot doing things that had never been controversial until very recently (when those who had lost the debate on autoformatting decided to move the goalposts just to keep the drama going).--Kotniski (talk) 13:45, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Sigh; so many misunderstandings, so little space. Most of us who oppose Lightbot also oppose autoformatting; this is a red herring. Lightbot's actions have always been controversial. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:29, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, let's please abandon the fallacy that this whole exercise is entirely about two irked editors trying to take multiple cracks at a battle they "lost". Lightmouse's talk page was not without its share of visitors concerned about Lightbot's rampant date edits. Many of those visitors — myself included — had absolutely no dog in the autoformatting fight and are not regulars at MOSNUM. We simply had good faith concerns about the date de-linking done by the bot, particularly with regard to its removal of links that conformed with MOSNUM and other valid chronological links that provide context. That it took escalating those concerns to AN and AN/I on separate occasions highlights the extent of the problem. Mlaffs (talk) 05:40, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Support Although I would revoke this user from bot construction for life, yet if WP:BAG is giving editors an open pass to write a bot to muck up the project in however a way they see fit, ArbCom needs to put a stop to such shenanigans. -- Kendrick7^talk 08:02, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Partial support. Lightbot would be a useful tool in the right hands, provided that its scope was properly defined. Mlaffs (talk) 05:40, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Cutting the Gordian knot

2) WP:MOSNUM is declared historic. It shall be tagged {{historic}} and kept protected; neither it, nor any of the material it now contains, shall be considered to have any more force than an editor's opinion, for all purposes including WP:WIAFA.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Proposed. I am quite serious; the abuse of MOSNUM is the fundamental problem here. It's not consensus (that's why it's protected); it's the center of innumerable edit wars, and it is of doubtful service to the encyclopedia. Let's get rid of it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:35, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

• I’m quite serious. I think that is galactically stupid proposal. Greg L (talk) 05:46, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
• I find most of this series of 'Academy Awards' amusing, in that almost everything being proposed by Locke and the Tennis guy is the continuation of some pretty thinly-disgused forum-shopping, personal attacks, point-scoring, or are otherwise waste of ArbCom's time to discuss these issues. This Locke 'award' in particular is really quite droll, and is itself probably worthy of the "WP is not reality TV" award. My mind immediately associates this with Monument status: which one of the various monumental assaults led by the proponents to assault the Reichstag did you have in mind to declare historic?? MOSNUM, like plastic bags, is here to stay. You cannot uninvent them, and even if you could, they are so useful that someone will invent them all over. Ohconfucius (talk) 05:54, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

The service it does is evidenced by the amount of controversy is generates. Remove MOS, and that controversy is multiplied by the number of articles it applied to, as identical disputes break out all over the place. Even if it doesn't enjoy everyone's unanimous support (few pages do), even the fact that it says something often significantly benefits the project.--Kotniski (talk) 13:49, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

No, providing controversy is not a service; if that were evidence, the oft-deleted GNAA page would be the most servicable page we've ever had. (Most of the controversies are internal to the talk page, unlike this one; so it doesn't even show influence.) The argument that it keeps the notation cranks in a single pod is a good one, though; perhaps simply tag it historic, and make it an offense to remove it until publication or all of them agree, whichever comes first. ;-} Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:20, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Oppose Guidelines appear to be useful; the issue is pedantic editors who can't tell black from white and thus refuse to acknowledge there is such a thing as gray, and they program bots and use automated tools to eradicate gray from the project. -- Kendrick7^talk 08:08, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Oppose — the guidelines are useful. All involved need to remember, however, that they're neither the sermon from the mount nor the fruit from the poisoned tree. Mlaffs (talk) 05:42, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Renaming MOS

3) WP:MOS is hereby renamed WP:WikiProject Style; its subpages are to become Project pages. They are neither policy nor guideline, and shall not be so tagged.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

• I think I will be ignoring the rest of these galactically poor proposals. He says he is serious. I’m not buying it. Greg L (talk) 05:48, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Proposed, per suggestion by HJensen below. Since MOS behaves like an exclusive project, let's make it one. Since it does not express WP-wide consensus, but only the consensus of a handful of editors, let's acknowledge that. When and if they are consensus (or indeed English usage), they can win attention on their merits. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:48, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

I shall be adding evidence on abuse of FA to win editing disputes shortly. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:51, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose This back door delisting of WP:MOSNUM as a guideline is much more original than repeating ad nauseum that "MOSNUM is only a guideline (so I don't have to comply with it)". So for me, it is a possible contender for Best Original Song. Ohconfucius (talk) 05:59, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

As above. Very unhelpful proposal.--Kotniski (talk) 13:51, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

As for Kotniski and Ohconfucius. Anderson has been conducting a concerted war against the status of the MoS for more than two years. It's boring and destructive to one of the contributing factors to WP's authority on the Internet (a modicum of consistency and quality in style and formatting, especially for FAs and FLs). Tony (talk) 09:32, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Oppose, as per 2) above. Mlaffs (talk) 05:43, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

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Proposed enforcement

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1) {text of proposed enforcement}

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2) {text of proposed enforcement}

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Proposals by RexxS

Proposed principles

MoS is a guideline reflecting consensus

1) The Manual of Style is a guideline reflecting consensus; it is binding on editors to the same extent as any other consensus is.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Oppose. This sounds like a finding of fact, and those require evidence. —Locke Cole • t • c 21:53, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Oppose. Redundant and inappropriate for an ArbCom finding. Tony (talk) 09:33, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Proposed. Synthesis of Wikipedia:Manual of Style and Wikipedia:Consensus. --RexxS (talk) 01:42, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

WP:MOS states "This guideline is a part of the English Wikipedia's Manual of Style. Editors should follow it, except where common sense and the occasional exception will improve an article." WP:Policies and guidelines states "Policies and guidelines express standards that have community consensus." WP:CON states "This page documents an official English Wikipedia policy, a widely accepted standard that should normally be followed by all editors." Those three statements directly demonstrate the truth of the proposed principle (which is why it is not needed as a FoF). If you wish to deny any of those statements, get a consensus and change them. That is what we accept until they change. The intention is that this principle be used when considering the actions of editors who may edit contrary to the guidelines within MoS. --RexxS (talk) 05:20, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Strongly denied. In particular, WP:MOSNUM does not reflect consensus, and never has; it's protected now, and has been protected repeatedly in the past, for some of the lamest controversies in Wikipedia. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:40, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

The amount of edit warring and endless discussion is pretty clear evidence that this isn't true. Mr.Z-man 18:55, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Oppose. Then why does the MOS itself use the "guideline" language? Clearly, if it were intended to be binding policy, it would say that directly. Whenever Wikipedia intends for something to be policy, "policy" is used, not "guideline". Tennis expert (talk) 19:19, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Support. If a Manual of Style for a project should not be followed, then it should have a different name. Wikipedia is one big project, and it is detrimental if articles on literature use different styles than articles on biology, just because different editors feel like it. So a Manual of Style is a global thing to be followed by all.--HJensen, talk 21:37, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Renaming it would be an excellent idea. If the same handful of editors were to be making the same claims at WP:WikiProject Style, they would be greeted with the skepticism they deserve. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:42, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

We're in luck, there's already a WikiProject: Wikipedia:WikiProject Manual of Style. I have no objections to consistency, but I do have objections to needless rules-lawyering to force your (MOS) view on the rest of the community without consensus. —Locke Cole • t • c 21:50, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Ignoring all rules relies on consensus

2) The policy, WP:Ignore all rules is not applicable to overturn a consensus

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Proposed. "A rule-ignorer must justify how their actions improve the encyclopedia if challenged… In cases of conflict, what counts as an improvement is decided by consensus." --RexxS (talk) 01:42, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't see how this is material, since I have not seen anyone allege WP:IAR as justification. But if it means that IAR cannot be applied to a guideline claiming consensus, it is also wrong; all our guidelines claim consensus. But they can be ignored; a new consensus decides afterward whether the user who ignored them as justified - this may be as simple as nobody complaining. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:47, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

I think I've seen IAR used enough times during the MOSNUM debates, et seq. The purpose of this proposed FoF is to establish this: When an action taken against consensus is challenged, if the challenged editor simply claims IAR, then that in itself is insufficient justification. The onus is on the challenged editor to establish a consensus for their action. --RexxS (talk) 23:57, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Of course it's insufficient just to claim IAR; that's one of Raul's Rules. But you share a common error with the MOSNUM regulars: that there must be consensus for any rule there isn't consensus against. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:21, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Bot approval requires consensus

3) Bots and their tasks must be approved by consensus

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

• As I’ve mentioned above, no. Greg L (talk) 05:49, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
• So the current system is bad? News to me. This attempt to knobble bots sounds like sour grapes to me. Tony (talk) 09:35, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Proposed. Unlike a human editor, the tasks that a bot may undertake have to be approved according to the rules set out by the Bot Approvals Group. --RexxS (talk) 01:43, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Response to Tony1

This proposed principle describes the current system, which is approval by consensus when the bot approval request is made. The point of this principle is that the current system is the best means of allowing bots to edit. Permitting bots to edit without any prior approval is a recipe for chaos. Requiring every bot run to be subject to scrutiny by the "peanut gallery" would soon bring the use of bots to a halt. What do you propose as an alternative? --RexxS (talk) 18:11, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Stopping bots

4) Bots to whose activities there is a consensus of opposition must stop performing those activities.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Agree with Septentrionalis, much too weak. —Locke Cole • t • c 16:25, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Proposed. A consensus of concerned editors should always be able to stop the bot’s actions. Wikipedia has mechanisms to create that consensus, therefore no single editor may take it upon themselves to force a cessation without establishing consensus. This may be over-ridden in the case of emergencies, as with any other editor, by an administrator blocking the bot. --RexxS (talk) 01:42, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

• Much too weak. If a bot is opposed by half the concerned users, it is no longer implementing consensus; but there may be no consensus to stop it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:44, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

• Bots have already been received consensus to do a task under the approval process (see 3 above). If 6 concerned users supported stopping the bot, and 6 concerned users opposed stopping the bot, then there is indeed no consensus to stop the bot. But you seem nevertheless to want to make the wishes of those wishing to stop the bot override the equal number wishing it to continue and the initial consensus? I can understand your view, but think it would be better to obtain consensus to stop the bot, bearing in mind that there was consensus in the original approval. --RexxS (talk) 04:07, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
  • This bot hasn't got a prior consensus. See the application. More voices opposed than support, by my count.
  • Bots should only be permitted to do what present consensus approves, in any case. That's why we permit them to edit; because almost all Wikipedians agree with the edits they do make. Permitting past consensus to cover present disagreement (especially when it is a small consensus to begin with, as all too often) will ensure us the evils that WP:Consensus is intended to prevent. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:03, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

• First, "Polls are structured discussions, not votes" - from the policy page WP:Consensus. Second, past consensus is still consensus until sufficient people disagree and change it - this has not happened in this case. Finally, this is a proposal of principle, to be read with (3) above; I was hoping that something general could be agreed, rather than saying anything about a particular bot. --RexxS (talk) 05:34, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
  • This is very...incomplete. To quote the same page further: Consensus develops from agreement of the parties involved... an effort to reach a compromise that everyone can agree on. Consensus happens when editors generally accept a decision, and it is our standard in order to encourage people to modify their positions until they find one that all concerned (or at least the overwhelming majority) will stop fighting against. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:47, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Agree with Septentrionalis and Locke Cole. With few exceptions, bot tasks should be non-controversial. A consensus opposing the task should not be necessary; merely lack of consensus for the task. Mr.Z-man 18:57, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Proposed findings of fact

Consensus exists on date delinking for autoformatted dates, bare years and bare months

1) A full reading of the two RfC’s of November–December 2008 establishes that consensus exists for the wording , as of 13 January 2009, contained in Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links)#Overlinking and underlinking and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links)#Chronological items.

Comments by Arbitrators:'

Comments by parties:

Do not support as the requests for comments do not support this assertion. —Locke Cole • t • c 16:23, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Comments by others:

Proposed. A determination on this issue will allow any other consequent issues to be decided with relative ease. I am uncertain whether ArbCom will feel able to decide this, but if they are, then the issues around bot approval and civility should be much easier to settle as they can be examined without this issue clouding that process. --RexxS (talk) 01:42, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

• The sections concerned say:
  • An article is said to be underlinked if subjects are not linked that are necessary to the understanding of the article or its context. However, overlinking[1] is also something to be avoided. A high density of irrelevant links makes it harder for the reader to identify and follow those links which are likely to be of value. Provide links that aid navigation and understanding; avoid cluttering the page with obvious, redundant and useless links
  • Items such as days, years, decades and centuries should generally not be linked unless they are likely to deepen readers' understanding of the topic.[3]

One small minority would still like autoformatting; another, louder, but still small, minority believes no yearlink aids navigation and understanding. A much larger contingent disagrees with both stands, and to them these are vacuous. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:54, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

• I was thinking firstly of "What generally should not be linked: dates (but see Chronological items below)", but your quotes are equally relevant. In my humble opinion, much more than a small minority would like some means of autoformatting as long as it was not confused with linking. Apart from within the infoboxes in date-related articles, I have found one link (on MM) that I believe satisfies the requirements and exceptions you quoted. I hope you can agree that there are more than the two stands you suggested, and I believe this proposal identifies a majority group who support a particular stance: the wording as stated. --RexxS (talk) 04:52, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
  • A reasonably sized minority would like autoformatting; few of them are willing to support the present mechanism for autoformatting. (I am not one of them; I would prefer a WP:ENGVAR solution of "leave date formatting alone unless there is good reason to change it." ) A plurality would like to link some dates on the rare occasions that they are useful to the reader. For us, this is vacuous boilerplate; but we nonetheless object to delinking everything. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:58, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Oppose. Consensus may exist that most date links are inappropriate, but there's no specific consensus for mass delinking, as there is a weak consensus that some date links, even outside of chronological and timeline articles, are appropriate. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 23:47, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Oppose per Arthur. -- Earle Martin [^t/_c] 17:30, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Oppose No rationale has ever been presented for de-linking historical years, which like geographical links, provide context to our readers who were not alive during such a given year, in the same way the average user had not been to such and such a place. -- Kendrick7^talk 08:11, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Oppose Per Arthur Rubin and Kendrick7. G-Man ^? 21:47, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Proposals by Locke Cole

Proposed principles

Conduct of editors

1) Wikipedia users are expected to behave reasonably, calmly, and courteously in their interactions with other users; to approach even difficult situations in a dignified fashion and with a constructive and collaborative outlook; and to avoid acting in a manner that brings the project into disrepute. Unseemly conduct, such as personal attacks, incivility, assumptions of bad faith, harassment, disruptive point-making, and gaming the system, is prohibited.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Proposed. —Locke Cole • t • c 15:26, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

• Check mirror. Greg L (talk) 05:50, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
• Support: Looking so angelical, wearing a shining halo and gleam in his perfect white teeth, the proposer is my leading contender for Best Actor in a Leading Role Ohconfucius (talk) 06:43, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Another personal attack. -- Earle Martin [^t/_c] 19:56, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

• Um ... aren't these already policy and guideline requirements? Why is ArbCom's time being wasted in reiterating this? Tony (talk) 13:55, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

• It's not uncommon for common or agreeable principles to be restated. —Locke Cole • t • c 14:42, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

No, in fact it would undermine all policies that have not been "restated" by ArbCom. Policies are policies—or are they so tenuous that they have to be reinforced? Do we need a two-tiered system of those have have been re-uttered by ArbCom and those that don't have that special stamp? Who wants WPians to think "Oh, that one hasn't gone through ArbCom, so I'm not taking it as seriously"? My advice is not to create such a two-tiered system out of respect for the integrity of the policy system (which draws directly on one of the Pillars). Tony (talk) 15:54, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Support as a basic necessity. NuclearWarfare _(Talk) 22:43, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Support per NW. I think this one may be the most critical policy. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 23:49, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Support without reservation. --RexxS (talk) 00:00, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Support as the most basic of necessities. Also, I find it quite convenient that certain editors obviate the need for diffs when they directly post examples of their incivility right here in this section. It's refreshingly direct. - Dravecky (talk) 07:44, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Support The issue is a failure to compromise or in any other way act collaboratively or even constructively. Which is very bad form as removal of links is destructive at the outset. -- Kendrick7^talk 08:16, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Support. Unfortunate that anyone needs reminding of this, but all too clear that there are those represented on this very page who do. Mlaffs (talk) 05:46, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia editorial process

2) Wikipedia works by building consensus through the use of polite discussion – involving the wider community, if necessary – and dispute resolution, rather than through disruptive editing. Editors are each responsible for noticing when a debate is escalating into an edit war, and for helping the debate move to better approaches by discussing their differences rationally. Edit-warring, whether by reversion or otherwise, is prohibited; this is so even when the disputed content is clearly problematic.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Proposed. —Locke Cole • t • c 15:26, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Support. And check mirror please. Greg L (talk) 05:51, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

• Stop this circus. The proposer is my leading contender for Best Actor in a Leading Role. Ohconfucius (talk) 06:44, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Another personal attack. -- Earle Martin [^t/_c] 19:56, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Support. The essence of the matter. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:24, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

'Support as a basic necessity. NuclearWarfare _(Talk) 22:43, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment: Again, I support the sentiment (who wouldn't?), but not the proposal that ArbCom should make pronouncements on what exists now: that policy/guidelines are to be obeyed. Such pronouncements, by being seen to be somehow necessary, will weaken the whole ship. These suggestions that ArbCom restate current policy/guidelines appears to be the only thing left for the complainants to do: railroad everyone into supporting a "motherhood" statement. Meta-comment: I believe that these suggestions should be excluded from future such pages (guideline in the lead?) as encouraging bad practice in ArbCom's decision-making and as bloating the page with redundant wish-lists. Tony (talk) 03:27, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment Why is such obvious statements proposals at an RfA? I thought this was about date delinking. --HJensen, talk 21:49, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Obiously support, but why are we restating policies and guidelines known by most established editors (and certainly those in this Rfar)? Dabomb87 (talk) 21:59, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Because if we'd all followed this process we wouldn't be here. —Locke Cole • t • c 22:12, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Common sense

3) Not every aspect of Wikipedia activity can be exhaustively prescribed by written policy; experienced editors are expected to have a modicum of common sense and understanding, and to act in a constructive manner even if not explicitly forced to do so.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Proposed. —Locke Cole • t • c 15:26, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Agree. However, it would appear from this whole farce that some individuals are vested with considerably less common sense than others. Ohconfucius (talk) 08:42, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Another personal attack. -- Earle Martin [^t/_c] 19:56, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Support. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:24, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Motherhood statements to which just about everyone in their right mind will sign up are not useful as stand-alone pronouncements by ArbCom. They are useful only in the broadest-picture lead to a more specific statement by ArbCom, but even then, are of questionable value in that context. Since what ArbCom is to decide has never been established (it should have been, in clear terms, IMO), this case is encouraging parties to put forward their own agendas. It's not surprising that they consist mainly of redundant statements of the existing or the obvious. Tony (talk) 03:40, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Role of bots and scripts

4) Bots are processes that modify Wikipedia content in a fully or partially automated fashion. Scripts are also computer algorithms utilized to automate or semi-automate certain types of editing. These tools are extremely valuable for the purpose of facilitating the making of multiple edits that would be unduly time-consuming or tedious for a human editor to perform manually. Approval from the Bot Approvals Group is generally required before an editor may use a bot for automatic or high-speed edits.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Proposed. —Locke Cole • t • c 16:02, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Opposed. Each type of tool is subject to its own approval process. This proposal violates WP:BURO. Ohconfucius (talk) 08:43, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

And was also copied verbatim from the final decision in Requests for arbitration/Betacommand 2. —Locke Cole • t • c 07:07, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

What about AWB usage? That has been abused just as much as scripts and bots, if not more so. Tennis expert (talk) 19:21, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

AWB would fall under "scripts," I'd believe. AWB might be better put under the Findings of Fact. NuclearWarfare _(Talk) 22:43, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

(e/c)I would also add that such edits should also be non-controversial. Mr.Z-man 19:23, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Proposed below as 4.1. Feel free to suggest rewordings. —Locke Cole • t • c 23:30, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Role of bots and scripts

4.1) Bots are processes that modify Wikipedia content in a fully or partially automated fashion. Scripts are also computer algorithms utilized to automate or semi-automate certain types of uncontroversial editing. These tools are extremely valuable for the purpose of facilitating the making of multiple edits that would be unduly time-consuming or tedious for a human editor to perform manually. Approval from the Bot Approvals Group is generally required before an editor may use a bot for automatic or high-speed edits.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Proposed. —Locke Cole • t • c 23:30, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Not quite strong enough in the last sentence. WP:Bot policy#Bot usage states "Operation of unapproved bots, or use of approved bots in unapproved ways outside their conditions of operation, is prohibited ..." and that's policy, not just a guideline. --RexxS (talk) 00:07, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Proposed as 4.2 below. —Locke Cole • t • c 00:10, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Role of bots and scripts

4.2) Bots are processes that modify Wikipedia content in a fully or partially automated fashion. Scripts are also computer algorithms utilized to automate or semi-automate certain types of uncontroversial editing. These tools are extremely valuable for the purpose of facilitating the making of multiple edits that would be unduly time-consuming or tedious for a human editor to perform manually. Approval from the Bot Approvals Group is required before an editor may use a bot for automatic or high-speed edits.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Proposed. —Locke Cole • t • c 00:10, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Suggest adding after the second sentence: "AWB is a type of script whose usage is governed by Wikipedia policy as set forth in the AWB rules of use." Tennis expert (talk) 10:24, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Responsibilities of bot operators

5) Like administrators and other editors in positions of trust, bot operators have a heightened responsibility to the community. Bot operators are expected to respond reasonably to questions or concerns about the operation of their bot. An editor who (even in good faith) misuses automated editing tools such as bots and scripts, or fails to respond appropriately to concerns from the community about their use over a period of time, may lose the privilege of using such tools or may have such privilege restricted.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Proposed. —Locke Cole • t • c 16:02, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Patent nonsense to suggest Bot operators are in any way like Admins. Ohconfucius (talk) 08:46, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

This is actually copied verbatim from Requests for arbitration/Betacommand 2 where it was part of the final decision. Restated here due to relevancy. —Locke Cole • t • c 07:04, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Strong support. Bot usage carries with it responsibility and accountability. -- Earle Martin [^t/_c] 17:33, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

You mean, this isn't policy? Strange. It should be. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 23:51, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

I haven't checked WP:BOT lately, but even if this isn't there, this was a principle from Betacommand 2. So, in that sense, it already has the backing of ArbCom. If WP:BOT doesn't have language similar to this, perhaps it should be added on the basis of the prior decision. —Locke Cole • t • c 07:04, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

The first and second sentences are underinclusive because they do not include scripts. Tennis expert (talk) 10:25, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Strong support. Mlaffs (talk) 05:49, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Fait accompli

6) Editors who are collectively or individually making large numbers of similar edits, and are apprised that those edits are controversial or disputed, are expected to attempt to resolve the dispute through discussion. It is inappropriate to use repetition or volume in order to present opponents with a fait accompli or to exhaust their ability to contest the change. This applies to many editors making a few edits each, as well as a few editors making many edits.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Proposed. —Locke Cole • t • c 18:06, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Pages are not owned

7) Wikipedia:Ownership of articles provides that Wikipedia pages are not owned by particular individuals or groups. Even on those pages where relatively narrow conventions exist regarding who may edit, the community at large is expected to enforce the convention, not the individual or group who, by convention, edits the page.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Proposed. —Locke Cole • t • c 18:06, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Is the proposer concerned about the efforts of a certain individual who through his/her username lays claim to being an expert in a particular racket sport? It appears to be the only blatant example I've seen during this entire dispute. Ohconfucius (talk) 02:21, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

This is particularly germane when a wiki-project has established a local convention that contradicts a community wide convention. Some input from any affected projects would hopefully be welcome. --RexxS (talk) 00:14, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Response to Kendrick7

Try to avoid the temptation to vote. Workshop is for suggesting proposals and comment on them based on the evidence. This kind of evidence-free insinuation is not helpful. In August 2008, some two dozen users took part in the debate on the talk page to find a consensus on date autoformatting; it was announced, and comment invited, at the Village pump, and attention was drawn to Tony's collection of earlier comments by numerous editors. In November 2008, two RfCs were started, attracting comment from hundreds of users, and announced throughout the wiki. Where is the basis for your accusations? --RexxS (talk) 21:39, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Support clearly the main issue here. In addition, a handful of users shouldn't attempt to change guidelines in a way that effects every article on the project without any community notification, and redouble this slight by insisting, when new editors come complain about the change, that it's too late to change consensus, and that it was reached through some wide ranging discussion, while, oops, suddenly no one can remember where this very recent discussion occurred. -- Kendrick7^talk 18:42, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Assume good faith

8) Editors on Wikipedia are expected to assume good faith in the absence of evidence to the contrary. This keeps the project in-line with our long-standing tradition of being open and welcoming. However, as oft-quoted from Jimmy Wales, "our social policies are not a suicide pact".

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Proposed. —Locke Cole • t • c 18:06, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Wikipedia is not Survivor

9) The goal is not to "outlast, outedit, outword", the goal is to create a free encyclopedia that anyone can use. Editors should not treat disputes like a game which can be "won" or "lost". Likewise disputes are not resolved (in a good manner anyways) by trying to wait out the other party. Reasonable discussion, good faith and compromise work best at resolving disputes quickly.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Proposed. One of the earlier proposals probably says this in a similar fashion, but this rolls some of them together I think. —Locke Cole • t • c 07:42, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

We do not need ArbCom for this - The proposer can attempt to insert that into WP:NOT through the usual channels. Ohconfucius (talk) 02:24, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

The substance of this is already in WP:NOT#BATTLE. If, as his comment suggests, OhConfucius disagrees with it, it may be useful for ArbCom to affirm it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:47, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Support This more or less describes my experience at WT:MOSNUM, that I was simply going to be outworded and outwaited until I gave up trying to reason with the editors who wanted to remove all chronological links from the project, which I finally did. -- Kendrick7^talk 19:23, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Proposed findings of fact

Delinking consensus (August 2008)

1) Community consensus for mass delinking was not established in the August 2008 discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers).

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Proposed. —Locke Cole • t • c 15:23, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Support. -- Earle Martin [^t/_c] 17:34, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Disagree: it was a consensus, albeit one with a relatively small number of participants. "Editors can easily create the appearance of a changing consensus by asking again and hoping that a different and more sympathetic group of people discusses the issue. This is a poor example of changing consensus, and is antithetical to the way that Wikipedia works.". Ohconfucius (talk) 02:35, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't understand the relevance of the quotation or the link. —Locke Cole • t • c 22:19, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

You don't have to; Ohconfucius has been bandying around accusations of "forum shopping" all over the place. I suggest ignoring it. -- Earle Martin [^t/_c] 15:47, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Support. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:58, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Definitely true. Tennis expert (talk) 19:22, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment. I doubt that any uninvolved editor could read the archive of the discussion on the talk page, the discussion collection of quotes on Tony's subpage and the posts to Village pump, and conclude other than that a genuine consensus was reached, establishing that dates should be autoformatted. That much is certain. Reading the discussion referred to, there seems to be a presumption that dates would be delinked, but in the absence of any firm statement "Dates are to be delinked", this proposed FoF represents a valid stance. Of course, there is no agreed statement "Dates are not to be delinked" either. The nearest likely consensus from the recent RfC's would appear to be something like "Dates should only be linked rarely (or when they add value)". --RexxS (talk) 03:03, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

There is no discussion at the VP (just a notice and a response a week later by Tony declaring consensus). And that userspace subpage of Tony's does not count for anything except an interesting collection of quotes chosen almost exclusively by Tony. Which leaves the discussion at WT:MOSNUM of late August which asked about deprecating date links, not performing mass delinking. —Locke Cole • t • c 04:26, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

There was indeed no discussion at VP - I didn't mean to infer otherwise; merely that he had drawn attention there to the debate at MOSNUM. I do agree that your phrasing, "collection of quotes" is a better description of Tony's subpage than my use of "discussion" (only a few others edited the page), so I have struck accordingly. I assume that anyone reading that page will realise that Tony has assembled the quotes, but disagree that renders them valueless. Readers, I am sure, will be able to evaluate their worth in their context. --RexxS (talk) 04:48, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

If the quotes page is somehow convincing I'll happily create a page of my own with quotes expressing disapproval with date delinking. But I don't see the use in cherry picking comments out of context and saying they represent consensus. —Locke Cole • t • c 08:23, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Make the page - such a page would be evidence supporting your proposed FoF. Reading Tony's subpage does show a lot of comments in favour of the removal of date autoformatting, as well as his pov on those negative comments also reported there. I'm sorry you can't see the use in examining Tony's assembly of comments during August last. I think it does shed some light on the view that a consensus was properly reached on August 24, but each reader will need to make up their own mind. --RexxS (talk) 18:59, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Well technically it's already been made: here (as well as responses to questions three and four). There's also my evidence presented (where something like nine[?] editors expressed objections). —Locke Cole • t • c 22:19, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

True I was in discussions around this time, and did not consent to de-linking historical years extending beyond living memory. There are four dimensions, time and space, and beyond our lifetimes, all 4 coordinates are useful to provide context to our readers. Anyone who programmed a bot to de-link all geographical locations would be laughed out of the project. Wikipedia is not a democracy or even a pluralocracy and yet my viewpoint was simply ignored and the bots continued. -- Kendrick7^talk 06:20, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Support Anyone reading of the debates on this issue at Talk:MOSNUM, or of the various edit wars, (or indeed this page) would come to the conclusion that this issue has caused considerable disquiet which has rumbled on for months. This hardly suggests any consensus was or has been reached. G-Man ^? 22:05, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Delinking consensus (MOSNUM RFCs)

2) Community consensus for mass delinking was not established in either of the Manual of Style RFCs.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Proposed. —Locke Cole • t • c 15:23, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Support Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:59, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Disagree If it is consensus in the MOS that dates should not be linked, then I think (by mere nature of the MOS as indeed a MANUAL OF STYLE) that all articles written before the emergence of that consensus should have dates delinked. No specific consensus need to be formed about that; it is a natural byproduct of the new consensus. Say, if consensus arises that all numbers should be written in letters, then it is, of course, implied that existing articles should adhere to this principle as well. Otherwise, any new consensus is meaningless, as it will only apply to new articles. The result is a stylishly completely inconsistent encyclopedia. So, delinking of dates in existing articles is an implication of the consensus of not linking naked dates.--HJensen, talk 22:01, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

A couple of things:

1. The consensus of the RFC only supports deprecation in the case of auto formatting. No consensus exists to delink all dates that may have been intentionally linked.
2. It is clearly wrong to think that a MOSNUM local consensus can impose standards on the rest of the community, especially standards which they wish to impose via automated or semi-automated means, without consulting the community in an RFC. If that were the case I could go to an article (any random article from Special:Random), suggest that all dates be linked, then start making bots and scripts to impose that consensus. That doesn't work of course, for the same reason the MOSNUM discussion from August doesn't work for what it's proponents are saying it does. The real problem here is that when objections were raised they were brushed off citing the August discussion as "consensus".

At any rate, this proposal is about the latter RFCs which still didn't establish consensus for mass delinking (but I get the impression your response was geared more towards the prior proposal). —Locke Cole • t • c 23:11, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

There is a rather strong distinction between a global consensus such as "Dates should not generally be linked" which applies to all articles, a local consensus such as "The article title should be the scientific or recognised medical name rather than the lay term" which applies just to medical articles, and an article-specific consensus such as "The reference, 'blah', is not a reliable source and should not be used". I refer anyone who is unsure about how consensus forms to re-read WP:CON:

• A user makes an edit; if it sticks, that edit has consensus;
• If it is reverted, then discussion takes place and whatever the result, that is the consensus;
• If there is no result, then the steps in dispute resolution are followed (WP:EA, WP:3O, WP:RfC, etc.) until consensus is established.

Consensuses that are global are collected together in guidelines; local consensuses affecting numerous articles are sometimes collected together, as in WP:MOSMED. Article-specific guidelines will usually be documented on the article talk page. To take your example, if you edited a large number of random articles, and your changes stuck, then you would indeed have a strong argument to have that consensus documented in MOSNUM. If that sticks, then go ahead and make the bots. You would have consensus. --RexxS (talk) 00:00, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Support Per my previous comments. G-Man ^? 22:15, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Tony1 has been disruptive

3) Tony1 (talk · contribs) was disruptive when he created his own Request for Comment with the knowledge that another similar RFC was already prepared and about to be initiated.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Proposed. —Locke Cole • t • c 17:15, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Rejected. —Prescription from the doctor: 1) Check Tony’s block log. 2) Check Locke Cole’s block log. 3) Think—for two milliseconds—about the industrial-strength hubris it took for Locke to write this. 4) Laugh so hard and so long you can cure pancreatic cancer. Greg L (talk) 05:56, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

• Reject "Tony is evil": It's not 5 November (date link deliberate) , and Tony is not Guy Fawkes. Drop it, and look in the mirror, Locke. WP:RFC says: "All editors (including anonymous or IP users) are welcome to provide comment or opinion, and to assist in reaching agreements, by responding to requests for comment." - it means there is no monopoly on RfC. Ohconfucius (talk) 08:23, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

First and only comment: "disruptive" seems to be whatever goes against what Cole wants; same for "uncivil". Many of the diffs are like being assaulted with a feather. I was under the impression that the "detailed" RfCs were in a mess (they were, actually, and I've recently shown how they contaminated their own evidence); thus, as I said at the time, I felt we needed clear consensus on a few matters. I can't mind-read other people's intentions WRT to the preparation of RfCs; in any case, mine were very different from the set of so-called detailed RfCs.

Creating a frenzy of hatred here appears to be an attempt to remove me from the equation, and possibly to create the impression for arbitrators that chaos and rudeness abound at MoS, MOSNUM and lots of other places. Furthermore, it neatly links with a strategy to convey the impression that date-linking is creating chaos, against the clear evidence that complaints are rare given the thousands upon thousands of articles that have been date-audited. Tony (talk) 15:49, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

I'm afraid I can't support this one, exactly. It's possible he wasn't aware of the other RfC, as it was worked on primarily in userspace. It's certainly possible that he wasn't aware that the other RfC was almost ready. And it's certainly the case that he said the other RfC is too complicated to be interpreted. I think his RfC is disruptive per se, as "proposing" specific "straw man" changes, but not because of the other RfC. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 23:55, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

(see here: Community RFC development began): Masem initially made a section on WT:MOSNUM in which Tony participated, then Masem moved it to a subpage of MOSNUM later that day. Tony did not contribute to the subpage process (what little there was, really), but he most certainly was aware of the RFC since he made comments on the WT:MOSNUM portion of the discussion. The onus was on him to ensure his actions weren't disruptive. Finally, even after being made aware that the other RFC was less than 24 hours from being initiated he refused to back down from his RFC developed in a vacuum. Most of this is in my evidence, and I can add additional diffs showing his participation in the MOSNUM portion of the talk if that would help. —Locke Cole • t • c 00:05, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

I never saw any problem with contributing to two simultaneous RfC's and I can't see how either disrupted the other. I would question the implication that any RfC prepared by a single editor is somehow less valid than one prepared by several - no RfC's are developed "in a vacuum" and it is the prerogative for anyone to call for a RfC. I think to AGF is a better course in considering Tony's action. --RexxS (talk) 00:37, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

It unnecessarily diluted contributors between two RFCs asking similar yet different questions. Further, it was created well after Tony was aware of an RFC asking these questions being in development. Finally Tony attempted to use his RFC as an excuse for why neither RFC would be widely promoted (defeating the purpose of creating the RFC in the first place). More importantly this finding of fact doesn't go to "intent", it goes to result. The result is indisputable: there was disruption caused by his posting of an RFC with similar questions that were carefully worded by him (or else there wouldn't have been a report on AN/I about the edit war regarding changes to it, nor two attempts by an uninvolved administrator to close the discussion early, etc). —Locke Cole • t • c 00:44, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

• Scarecrow. Locke, you say it with such conviction that someone who didn't know you might agree it's fact. I'm disputing it. Ohconfucius (talk) 08:49, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Support The RfC was written as a strawman misrepresenting the dispute and thus was not in keeping with the consensus building process RfC's are meant to help. This speaks volumes about the underlying WP:OWNership issues. -- Kendrick7^talk 22:25, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Tony1 has been incivil

4) Tony1 (talk · contribs) has been incivil to other editors, particularly those he disagrees with.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Proposed. —Locke Cole • t • c 17:15, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Tennis Expert, please make your own section at the Evidence page and link your diffs of behavior there. —Locke Cole • t • c 20:31, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Inane and irrelevant. That doesn’t have anything to do with what the community consensus is regarding whether bots can remove all those dates that the community obviously doesn’t want linked. Greg L (talk) 05:58, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Reject "Tony is evil": It's not 5 November (date link deliberate) , and Tony is not Guy Fawkes. Drop it. Ohconfucius (talk) 08:24, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

My little piglet has distorted just about everything on this "Get Tony Page". See, for example, Karanacs's point below on just the "animal" issue. Some of the other comments were in genuine concern after he announced he had retired; I am well aware of the pernicious effect WPian antics can have on people (having experienced hounding back in 2005), and was concerned for his health. However, he rather rudely rejected that explanation when he first started drumming out his complaints from the roof-tops. It's like being kicked in the teeth for offering concern. I do not intend to engage further in this subsection; no time for mudfights in the kiddies' playground. Tony (talk) 15:21, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Yes, he certainly has; by the same token, what you quote is really quite mild, especially for Tony. If ArbCom is interested in Tony's use of vulgarity and insult as negotiating tools on past issues, they should say so; but your evidence strongly suggests that Tony is improving. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:12, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

I won't dispute you (you've been involved in MOS affairs much longer than I have), but even if this is improvement, it's still unacceptable wouldn't you agree? His incivility has actually kept progress from being made (the repeated remarks regarding discussion being a "waste of time" sticking out the most to me, followed closely by insulting editors for "not helping" by engaging in the actions they oppose). —Locke Cole • t • c 18:20, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, he has. Calling editors fanatics and pigs (among other things) and alleging that they have mental disorders (and doing so directly and by gossiping on various discussion pages) is the epitome of incivility. Tennis expert (talk) 19:25, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry to hear that. ArbCom will need diffs. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:51, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Accusations of having a major depressive disorder can be found here, among other places. Here are some examples of disparaging names Tony1 called me: "Tennis pest", "Tennis fanatic", "pig", "very eccentric". And those are only the ones I know about. Tennis expert (talk) 20:17, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Isn't "you're making a pig of yourself" different from saying "you are a pig"? Isn't "I'm concerned that he may have lost all sense of proportion—possibly a major depressive disorder?" different from an accusation of having a major depressive disorder (note the "may" and "possibly" in the quotes)? I think so. Why not stick to the central subjects here?--HJensen, talk 21:43, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Grant all HJensen would suggest; is this the sort of language and environment WP:CIVIL was written to encourage? I gather however that Tony thinks of this sort of thing as jesting, and he has certainly said much worse. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:11, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Tony1 has abused FAC/FAR

5) Tony1 (talk · contribs) has abused Featured article candidates and Featured article review to penalize editors not cooperating with his view of consensus regarding the Manual of Style and to gain quid pro quo in disputes.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Proposed. May need rewording, I might be abusing "quid pro quo" here. :P —Locke Cole • t • c 23:15, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Reject "Tony is evil": Clearly preposterous. Stop this circus Drop it. Ohconfucius (talk) 08:26, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

'Reject. No evidence provided, and my experience is that he does a lot of constructive things there.--HJensen, talk 16:56, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Date delinking/Evidence. There are three examples given (two by me, one by another presenter). Constructive work elsewhere is not an excuse for misconduct. —Locke Cole • t • c 17:09, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

So, potential misconduct here should help decide on the basic subject matter? Strange. I thought this was about date-linking and/or date-delinking. Should I start dig up what I feel has been incivility by others? Will that be relevant in settling the basic issue? No, I think not, so I definitely won't waste time on that. Stick to the subject.--HJensen, talk 19:49, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

I am sticking to the subject: the behavior of Tony and others has directly harmed discussions trying to resolve this. I can't state it any more plainly than that. The arbitrators, in accepting this, stated an interest in looking at behavior, and that's where a large portion of my evidence and proposals have been focused. Some deals with the underlying dispute, but I'm uncertain how far ArbCom is willing to go (will they say one way or another that the RFC settled this, etc). —Locke Cole • t • c 20:42, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

There have been and still are red herrings in the petition and in this "workshop". The "harm" is yet to be proven. This is not the worst, but will show up what a frivolous complaint this whole shebang it is in reality. For me, User:Mbisanz posting citations (1 -principally the 'name and shame' remark- and 2), neither of which have any relevance whatsoever, and are an order of magnitude worse, and a serious contempt of the Arbcom process, IMHO. Ohconfucius (talk) 03:22, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Greg L has been incivil

6) Greg L (talk · contribs) has been incivil to other editors, particularly those he disagrees with.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Proposed. —Locke Cole • t • c 02:15, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Support. -- Earle Martin [^t/_c] 15:43, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Proposed remedies

Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.

Tony1 restricted

1) Tony1 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is prohibited for six months from making any edit to pages relating to the Manual of Style, including talk pages and pages created that deal with the Manual of Style (deletion discussions, etc.), to be interpreted broadly. Should he violate this restriction, he may be blocked for the duration specified in the enforcement ruling below.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Proposed. —Locke Cole • t • c 17:32, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Rejected. —This proposal is a metric ton of weapons-grade bullonium. Further, this proposal is the product of an editor with an atrocious record (block log) of editwarring and incivility. It is totally absurd. I further request that as a penalty for this absurd proposal, that the arbitrators focus extra hard now on looking at the RfCs to determine just two issues:1) what is the community consensus regarding those millions of linked blue dates, and 2) what is the community consensus regarding requiring bot operators to get approval from others before they slave over their bots and all that code. Finally, when you render your findings and judgement in 100% opposition to this mean-spirited wikilawyering, I hope you coin a new verb (to be “Locked”) which means to have an outcome blow up in your face after pulling a mean-spirited stunt. Greg L (talk) 06:14, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Reject "Tony is evil": Tony's work for FA is acknowledged by many; he's not the piñata; an important element of FA is style. Stop this circus Acceding to it would be detrimental to the WP project, to my mind. Motions to censure Locke Cole will be posted in due course ;-) Ohconfucius (talk) 08:30, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

If this includes FA, it would be, for Tony, equivalent to a ban (or an invitation to spend all his time "Coordinating" his User:Tony1/AdminReview project). Do we want either? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:38, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Given evidence I've recently presented (the Lazare Ponticelli diffs) I'm tempted to suggest he also be prohibited from editing WP:FA and related pages, yes. He seems to have abused the FA process to take an editor to task for not immediately giving in to his MOSNUM demands, and that's a situation that's wholly incompatible with editing on Wikipedia. Especially considering the fact that the RFCs were still in progress (only a week and a half in to them I believe). —Locke Cole • t • c 20:46, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Your rhetoric really needs to be toned down. An "abuse" of the FAR process implies that an article that should not have been nominated was; this article was found to have serious deficiencies - and Tony brought those up on the article talk page before taking it to FAR. Karanacs (talk) 21:51, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Hardly rhetoric, his actions speak for themselves. I've since added a diff detailing changes made since the article was granted FA status, and the changes are minimal and minor. It's his behavior that's the problem here. —Locke Cole • t • c 21:58, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I must agree; the most likely story is that Tony nominated that article in vengeance, just as he threatened to "knock back" any article which used the {{E}} template (he thinks the spacing "squashy". But I do not support this measure, unless no other solution for the abuse of power here can be arranged. MOS and FA form an arrangement by which the petty can have their way in unimportant things, thus wasting the time which FA could use in real review. Whether Tony is an example of that is secondary; we should repair the opportunity of abuse, before deciding to punish those who have used it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:07, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure what kind of remedy could address this type of misconduct short of topic bans. Of course if he's topic banned from one it precludes him from using it in the other (or vice versa). So perhaps this remedy would be enough to discourage that kind of behavior? —Locke Cole • t • c 23:17, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Take "Follows the style guidelines" out of WP:WIAFA point 2; leave the specific points. That's the handle on Tony's club, and it's divisive and inflammatory. (Also, without it, Sandy won't have to run around after every little change to MOS; FA can decide which of MOS's thousands of sentences they want to enforce.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:31, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Pmanderson, you keep maintaining the view that FAC is full of MOS nitpickers and that nothing constructive besides MOS fixes come about? Can I see just one FAC where that is the case? Also, I strongly oppose removing the line about MOS; part of what makes FAs professional and our best work is their consistency in good writing and formatting. I also ask that Locke and PManderson reconsider their views on Tony's FAC/FAR contributions. While that date link may have been the impetus for the FAR, there were clearly other issues. Dabomb87 (talk) 23:48, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Since I did not say FAC "is full of MOS nitpickers and that nothing constructive besides MOS fixes," and don't believe it, I see no need to defend it. The chief problem with FA is that all its standards (except perhaps some purely mechanical ones) are applied inconsistently; for example, the original review of Lazare Ponticelli hardly considered the prose at all; thus permitting Tony to find some weaknesses when he looked. (Nevertheless, part of his criticism was purely captious.) Similarly, many FACs don't consider MOS issues at all, except when some reviewers wish to make a point of it.

Anybody who believes FAs are generally of professional quality has limited knowledge of their subject matters. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:02, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

The only thing surreal about the Lazare Ponticelli discussion is OhConfucius's depiction of them. There was a single edit, discussed off and on at MOSNUM, followed by two days of editing and discussion, which resulted in a stable compromise.

The bold part of OhConfucius' post are only predictable; there's one sort of editor who always screams about bullying in bold-face. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:15, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) Anyway, if this outrageous proposal somehow passes, I will look forward to the reaction of FAC regulars when they are told that one of their best prose reviewers has been banned for some petty reason. I wonder how long the ban would last then. Dabomb87 (talk) 20:01, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Er, this restriction is only about being prohibited from participating in MOS discussions, not FAC. —Locke Cole • t • c 20:45, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Oh. I was commenting based on "I'm tempted to suggest he also be prohibited from editing WP:FA and related pages, yes." If you have since changed your stance, then forget about what I said. Dabomb87 (talk) 23:39, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

---

[I comment only here, specifically on the proposal against Tony, but also generally against abuses of this ArbCom process that threaten individual editors. –Noetica]

Preliminary observations

As the statistics show, Tony and I have been the most prolific contributors at WP:MOS, and I have therefore come to know intimately both his operating style and the substance of his work. I have had differences with him concerning each. How could it be otherwise – for independent, competent, and energetic editors working on the same project? But we have forged an excellent working relationship, and I am proud of the advances in MOS since he and I became seriously involved with it. It is fatally easy to dwell on small perceived flaws in substance and style, as many in their submissions here have done: as if imperfections were not inevitable in such major undertakings at Wikipedia generally. But let any independent observer review the remarkable progress at WP:MOS, and at WP:MOSNUM (where statistics show Tony as the most prolific contributor). Tony has also been extremely productive at WP:FAC; and that includes, as it should, seeing that candidates respect the explicit FAC requirement to respect MOS guidelines. The consequent improvement in these articles – the public face of Wikipedia, for interested onlookers – is beyond reasonable doubt.

I no longer intend to participate at WP:MOS and WP:MOSNUM, and I have given my reasons for that decision elsewhere. Briefly, I find that progress is impossible beyond a certain ceiling. Holding back from mention of individual editors, I diagnose flawed protocols, inadequately understood principles, and generally a lack of common purpose. If these matters are not addressed systematically, with participation from the wider WP community, ArbCom will have many more fruitless disputes on its hands than the present one. And untold hours and days of editors' time will also be wasted.

Opposing the proposed measure against Tony

I object in the strongest terms to this opportunistic abuse of ArbCom to censure or sanction particular editors: Tony, Greg L, or anyone else. As a fundamental principle in such proceedings as this, the issues have to be rationally distinguished and classified. At least this has been achieved, in the bizarre Bleak House complexity of the current case. But this process of distinction and classification is only a first procedural step, and not a justification for spurious additions to the case. Some proposals ought to be peremptorily ruled out as entirely alien to the case, no matter how neat the headings appear or how subtly they are grafted on to the true matter that is to be decided.

This opportunistic attack on Tony is one such proposal. So, I should add, are proposals concerning other editors; so are Locke Cole's proposed findings of fact that lead in solemn sophistic procession up to this attack; and so are very many proposals that with nefarious but transparent intent waste ArbCom's time to re-affirm the bleeding obvious. Why not add "Go placidly amid the noise and haste ...", while we're at it?

Tony is a true asset to Wikipedia, and I will not stand by and see him assailed on specious grounds by less constructive editors, in a case concerned with other matters. When those editors are as productive and progressive themselves, or have a tenth as much to their credit as Tony has, then they might have some credibility. Let them yap away, in their own forums; but let them waste no more of ArbCom's time on such captious nonsense as we see here. Any editor who seeks to make real changes and real improvements will attract censure from those who have not yet developed such vision and competence. I wish for some of Tony's detractors that they will eventually experience this themselves.

Meanwhile, the dogs bark, but the caravan moves on. I throw them this proposal to chew on, to counter the jungle of verbiage in which they have sought to entangle us: "... remember what peace there may be in silence".

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 02:52, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

---

Greg L restricted

2) Greg L (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is subject to an editing restriction for one year. Should he make any edits which are judged by an administrator to be uncivil, personal attacks, or assumptions of bad faith, he may be blocked for the duration specified in the enforcement ruling below.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Proposed. —Locke Cole • t • c 02:24, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Support. -- Earle Martin [^t/_c] 15:41, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Proposed enforcement

Enforcement by block

1) Should any user subject to an editing restriction in this case violate that restriction, that user may be briefly blocked, for up to a week in the event of repeated violations. After 5 blocks, the maximum block shall increase to one month. All blocks are to be logged at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Date delinking#Log of blocks and bans.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Proposed. —Locke Cole • t • c 17:33, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Support. -- Earle Martin [^t/_c] 19:52, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Question to Locke: can you remind me how many times you've been blocked? Ohconfucius (talk) 08:31, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

That's irrelevant and a personal attack to boot. -- Earle Martin [^t/_c] 19:52, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Proposals by Masem

Proposed principles

Bots are useful and necessary for large-scale policy/guideline enforcement

1) Certain tasks placed on editors from policy and guideline are much better suited to the use of automated bots once they are approved by WP:BAG. This typically includes tasks that are enforced on the bulk of Wikipedia's articles (in the present case, date autoformatting), most which do not have active editors.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Proposed. Clearly a bot is needed for the work based on removing date autoformatting. This is exactly the type of task I'd not want to do manually. --MASEM 16:24, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Bots cannot make decisions that require human consideration

2) The average bot cannot make decisions that require human consideration. The ability to do such requires significant programming of algorithms and the use of artificial intelligence methods to simulate that, but even then there will be false positives and negatives.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

"Cannot" or "should not"? It doesn't make logical sense as currently worded. You seem to assume a distinct boundary between "decisions that require human judgement" and those that do not. How would you establish that boundary? Tony (talk) 03:47, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

It all depends on the task; in the case of MOS, how explicit and exact the rule. For example, a bot can be used to enforce "references follow punctuation" or "use nbsp between a measurement's unit and its unit" as there are either no exception, or what exceptions there are are spelled out and the bot can figure out that difference without looking at the meaning. Trying to determine whether to keep a year link, however, requires the bot to understand why the date was linked, and thus cannot be used. Basically, if there's any allowance of editor discretion, the bot cannot determine the right course of action 100% of the time. --MASEM 13:10, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Claiming that a bot can't be allowed to unlink dates because it can't know whether that link was intentional is completely empty, because a human editor can't know that either, short of a detailed scrutiny of the article's talk page and its archives - and how many articles have any discussion whatever on that subject? Almost all these links were made blindly and unthinkingly when an editor came along and linked all the dates for autoformatting, and no-one commented on it, or when other editors, mistakenly thinking it was the official style, linked all the bare years. A bot would simply reverse that mass linking process that's left us with vast numbers of valueless date links. The very small number that might really be useful can easily be put back. Colonies Chris (talk) 14:31, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

It could be done that way, or you could protect such dates before the bot is run to make sure any dates editors want to keep are protected. The latter is more towards the spirit of working cooperatively with all editors. --MASEM 14:43, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

And also note, I am not trying to prevent bots that operate on judgement calls to be run. It is merely to acknowledge bots are not human and can't make certain decisions. (This point is thus to justify the opt-out mechanism for such actions below). --MASEM 14:47, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

I believe you are a party to this arbitration, CC, not an "other". In any event, you are essentially arguing in favor of the intentional introduction of errors into articles with the clean-up to be done by others coming behind you. That's irresponsible, disruptive, and counterproductive. Tennis expert (talk) 19:42, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Then I suggest you support my proposal below for a protective wrapper. Or are the conditions too onerous for you? Colonies Chris (talk) 21:53, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Proposed. Bots are not perfect and cannot make judgment calls. --MASEM 16:24, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

ascertaining whether or not a date link is considered valuable shouldn't have to be a judgement call. it's been repeatedly pointed out that some method is needed for designating date links that someone considers valuable - until we have that, there's no way for human editors or bots to recognize them. Sssoul (talk) 13:58, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Bots should not be used to enforce policy or guideline under dispute

2) When a policy or guideline falls under significant dispute, and one or more of a bot's approved tasks (per WP:BAG) is the implementation of that policy or guideline, the bot should disable performing those tasks until the dispute is resolved. Users using semi-automated tools such as AWB and are aware of such disputes should consider avoiding performing the same type of tasks on large numbers of articles until the dispute is resolved.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Proposed. Part of the dispute here is the operation of Lightbot after the claimed August 2008 consensus was called into question by more than a few editors; In the same manner, editors should not be making the changes under contention if they know very well there's an issue, but as editor changes are easier to revert due to much lower numbers, it is not imperative they stop. --MASEM 16:24, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Couldn't possibly support more — this is the crux of the issue. Mlaffs (talk) 05:53, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Support WP:MOSNUM has been protected since November, and yet I have pages on my watchlist which continued to be delinked well after that date. There is no doubt in my mind that Lightmouse was 100% aware the dispute had not yet been resolved. -- Kendrick7^talk 18:47, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Support Per Kendrick7. G-Man ^? 22:18, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Proposed findings of fact

Consensus for Deprecation of Date Autoformatting

1) The deprecation of using MediaWiki's existing form of date autoformatting as of Jan. 1, 2009 (using double square brackets to enclose dates as to return linked dated formatted based on specific rules) has been affirmed by consensus through two separate but concurrent WP:RFCs (Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)/Date Linking RFC and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)/Three proposals for change to MOSNUM) held during the month of December 2008.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

No problem with this. Not sure if ArbCom will consider these though, given the whole content dispute side of things. But guidance here would be helpful. —Locke Cole • t • c 15:29, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Proposed, should be obvious from the responses. Setting a date in case a MediaWiki patch that may change the linking behavior is ever applied, these results are understood to be true. --MASEM 15:11, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Consensus for Partial Use of Bare Date Links

2) Bare date links—those date fragments that are linked not to evoke date autoformatting but to link to chronological pages, such as day-month (e.g. March 1) , years (e.g. 2009), and year-in-field pages (e.g. 2008 in sports)— has been determined to be appropriate for limited conditions, but neither are never to be used nor to be be used for all such bare dates, by the same RFCs.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

No problem with this. Not sure if ArbCom will consider these though, given the whole content dispute side of things. But guidance here would be helpful. —Locke Cole • t • c 15:29, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Proposed. Note that for day-month links, normal linking will still evoke date autoformatting, but it is possible to mask the date to have date autoformatting ignore it but still provide the useful link eg [[March%201]]. This fact is based on those types of links. --MASEM 15:11, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

There is a much stronger agreement against always using them than against never using them. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:48, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Support As much as certain parties would like to a consensus to exist "to link to no when no where" and to enforce it by bot, there is a mountain of evidence to belie this as fantasy. -- Kendrick7^talk 18:53, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Broadly support, We need some more guidance on what the conditions would be, but that seems to be broadly what the majority opinion seems to be. G-Man ^? 22:24, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

The use of date autoformatting, and when dates are to be linked, are two distinct issues

3) The use of date autoformatting (per MediaWiki as of Jan. 1, 2009), and when dates should be linked, are two distinct issues. The former is about end-user usability and features, while the latter is in regards to interwiki-web building and providing relevant information germane to an article. Both issues must be considered in different lights, despite the fact that the date autoformatting methods does produce linked dates.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Proposed. I think a key point to remember is that these two areas regarding dates do not fall under the same umbrella, and technically, the former is the MOSNUM issue, while the second is more under MOSLINK, and unfortunately have been comingled due to both the behavior of the autoformatting system and the bots that are attempting to clean both at the same time as it is easier to clean both at the same time. --MASEM 15:18, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Support. A blatantly obvious statement in fact. G-Man ^? 22:28, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Proposed remedies

Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.

Bots enforcing policies and guidelines with some human discretion need to have some opt-out mechanism

1) Bots that are used to enforce policy or guideline that allows for some type of discretion by editors need to have some type of opt-out mechanism that editors can used to prevent the bot from making such changes. Editors should not abuse this opt-out as to keep articles significantly out of alignment with established policy or guideline, and standard dispute resolution processes should be performed to address editors that do use the opt-out feature inappropriately. Such opt-out mechanisms need to be tested, disclosed on the bot's page, and announced to the community at large prior to the large-scale operation of the bot.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Proposed. Note that I am well aware that there was a call at BAG to have all bots have a formal opt-out mechanism (after BetacommandBot fiascos), but this is not proposed a standardized way, only that there's some way to prevent the bot from making the change. In the specific case of Lightbot, all that has to be done is to make a template to protect the bare date fragments (see my FoF #2) that editors feel they need to keep, this requiring no change to Lightbot. --MASEM 16:34, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Strong support. Mlaffs (talk) 05:55, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Template

2) {text of proposed remedy}

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Proposed enforcement

Template

1) {text of proposed enforcement}

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Template

2) {text of proposed enforcement}

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Proposals by User:Kotniski

Declaration of interest

I run a bot (unrelated to dates or linking) which has attracted controversy in the past.

Proposed principles

Civility

1) Civil behaviour is essential for the building of an effective and welcoming community. Incivility has no place in any discussion on Wikipedia and must be strongly deprecated by all parties, including bystanders. Neither inappropriate behaviour, nor protracted discussion about that behaviour, can be allowed to interfere with productive discussion of matters of substance. Administrators are encouraged to engage in firm dialogue at an early stage in any instance where there is a danger of this happening, and to take decisive action if warnings are ignored.

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Waffle, perhaps, but this case certainly indicates a need to get this message across.--Kotniski (talk) 15:40, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Nature of policy

2) Wikipedia policy is defined essentially by what is customary, as modified by whatever changes have been explicitly agreed by consensus. For the avoidance of dispute, it is highly desirable that true policy so defined be accurately and currently reflected by the body of written "policies" and guidelines, and editors are encouraged to make efforts to ensure that this is the case in practice.

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This probably sounds like waffle as well, but it's supposed to be profound.--Kotniski (talk) 15:40, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

How about "what is actually [or usually] done in article space"? Then we avoid the next argument about what customary means. And we may want to distinguish policy from guideline; this case does not involve WP:V, which has more than custom behind it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:57, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't see the improvement in wording (policies can relate to much more than article space anyway). And I don't see a straight distinction between policy and guideline in this abstract sense (rules form a continuum in terms of their degree of ignorability); there may be value in the distinction between policy and guideline pages. I would like to think of a better word than policy for the unwritten concept though.--Kotniski (talk) 12:49, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

But if policies don't eventually relate to the content of the encyclopedia (or to editor behavior), they're not talking about anything we should care deeply about. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:02, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Disputes over consensus

3) Disputes about "what the consensus is" must not become protracted. It is unreasonable to expect people to play both advocate and judge in the same debate. If involved parties are not able to agree on what consensus has been reached, then the issue should be settled by uninvolved parties of good standing. It may be beneficial to develop procedures for resolving such cases.

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This seems to be the most profound systemic failing in this case. In most discussions consensus is pretty clear, but since there's no definition, genuine disputes can break out as to whether something has consensus or not, and if you think about it, we have no reasonable way of settling those disputes except by an enforceable system of arbitration. (The only alternative is to try to reach a consensus on what the consensus is, and ad infinitum.)--Kotniski (talk) 15:40, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

We should then revert to the definition of consensus implicit in WP:PNSD: we have consensus when we have a form of words that (almost) everybody will accept, or at least stop arguing against. Establishing consensus requires expressing that opinion in terms other than a choice between discrete options, and expanding the reasoning behind it, addressing the points that others have left, until all come to a mutually agreeable solution. This is why polling should be limited to demonstrating consensus, which has never existed over most of this issue. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:04, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Another critical point. Unless ArbCom can suggest guidelines as to determining consensus, this may very well happen again, although probably not on as large a scale. Of course, we would need a consensus that the claimed consensus has consensus… — Arthur Rubin (talk) 00:00, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

I've been mulling over the differences between how AfD, RfA and RfC are closed. Perhaps it is unworkable, but is there any chance that a mechanism could be created to allow very large RfC's (particularly Style RfC's, such as the recent two) to be closed by an uninvolved administrator who then declares what consensus, if any, has been reached? It's probably a can of worms and we might end up with "RFC Review", if we don't restrain ourselves, but is it worth considering? --RexxS (talk) 01:01, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Well yes, that's what I was getting at. Nothing wrong with such a review process either, that's effectively what it's come to here in this case, after going through a whole lot of unnecessary and damaging drama along the way. Why should we design efficient processes for deciding whether or not some minor manga character has crept over the notability threshold, but decline to make any formal provision for deciding disputes that might affect millions of articles? Indeed, no reason to confine this process to large disputes; even if it's something minor, better to get it settled than to let it rumble on generating doubt and possibly ill-will. --Kotniski (talk) 12:56, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Limitations on bots

4) Bots benefit the encyclopedia if the good they are doing (as defined, in case of doubt, by policy) clearly outweighs any incidental harm, provided that all reasonable efforts are made to keep that harm to a minimum. All bots (like all human editors) will do the wrong thing sometimes; both bot owners and affected editors must engage in civil and constructive dialogue to resolve problems as they arise.

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Let's keep the overriding goal of improving the encyclopedia uppermost in our minds. We don't need any new restrictions on bots; policy or common sense tells us what's good, and bots are good for the encyclopedia (and should therefore be allowed to run) if they're doing more good (much more good, let's say) than harm. (I don't just mean number of good edits versus number of bad edits, of course.) Again, this is a call that someone impartial has to make, but in this case we already do have a process for that (BAG).--Kotniski (talk) 15:40, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

First, do no harm. This case itself is a sink of time and good will; it would not have arisen if some editors had not insisted on having their way, and used bots where no bot should have been used.

Hmm, it would also not have arisen if other editors... Anyway, this is a general principle; for application to this case, see below.--Kotniski (talk) 13:00, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

It is not clear whether the alleged good, slightly fewer links (and how many dates will one article have?) is greater than the harm of missing a useful link. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:12, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Again, see below for application to this case. The principle seems sound to me ("do no harm" is quite impossible, for doctors, wikieditors or anyone else, if it's taken anything like literally).--Kotniski (talk) 13:00, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Proposed findings of fact

Interest in keeping date links

1) There is no strong desire in the community for any particular class of date links to be retained, other than those defined at WP:MOSLINK#Dates (those appearing in articles about other chronological items).

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In the very extensive debates that have now taken place on date linking, the absence of any strong push for any such class of links is ample evidence of the statement. --Kotniski (talk) 15:40, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Interesting wording. There is a definite desire to retain several classes of date links; NuclearWarfare's evidence contains most of them. I would add linking to April 23 from Saint George, and linking to August 10 when it means the events of August 10, 1792 (for which this is the customary and neutral name, like 18 Brumaire). Whether this amounts to strong desire is a verbal question, but linking birth and death dates had about 50% support here. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:27, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

OK, there are isolated exceptions certainly. But I think these can be dealt with by the processes described (they would probably have to be marked "to be kept" somehow anyway, since human editors would tend to remove them in time).--Kotniski (talk) 13:02, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

That depends on how we communicate with other editors. If date formatting had been dealt with by "agree to disagree" five years ago, these would stay as links somebody finds useful. We should prune date links back to what somebody finds useful, or we can start a crusade against them; the former seems prefereable, and if we do that, isolated year-links should be left alone. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:20, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Oppose I for one have a strong desire to keep links to historical years beyond living memory in order to provide historical context to our readers. -- Kendrick7^talk 07:32, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Oppose. I don't believe this statement can be supported by the evidence. There are clearly wide ranging opinions on this matter. G-Man ^? 22:35, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Treatment of routine links

2) In line with current policy, it is desirable that the vast majority of date links (virtually all, in practice) be removed, except in chronological articles.

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That ordinary date links have long been routinely and uncontroversially removed in the process of article improvement is a matter of ordinary editing experience, even if it is contested whether that comes explicitly out of the RfCs. The customary exception (autoformatted dates) has been abolished by explicit consensus, and there is certainly nothing even approaching resembling consensus (or even a proposal) to start routinely linking dates - and virtually all the dates we have (except those in chronological articles) are just ordinary routine ones. --Kotniski (talk) 15:40, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

This proposal relates to article content, which is explicitly not under the purview of ArbCom, nor was it what this arbitration was requested for . I request that it be struck. -- Earle Martin [^t/_c] 20:06, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

There is nothing that explicitly excludes article content from the purview of ArbCom, although ArbCom have always - quite rightly - strongly preferred to have such judgements made by the community. This is a proposal within our workshop and Arbcom is quite capable of making their own decision on its merit. It is helpful to remember that ArbCom reserves the right to examine all aspects of a case, not being rigidly confined to the purpose you had had in mind when you called for it. It is better in this place to discuss constructively what is proposed. With that in mind, it is clear that one of the plaintiffs' arguments is that a bot removing valuable date-links causes more harm than the good gained by removing worthless ones. To be able to weigh that requires a determination of the relative proportions of valuable to worthless date-links. This proposed FoF, if true, goes some way to establishing some idea of that proportion. For that reason, it should be worth determining the veracity of this FoF. --RexxS (talk) 01:27, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Oppose as above. Month and day of the month links I don't care about, but year, century and era links provide context for the average reader. It's the inability for certain editors to make the distinction that has been the source of the problem. -- Kendrick7^talk 07:36, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Oppose I agree with Kendrick7. G-Man ^? 22:38, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Potential harm done by bots

3) Even if we are anticipating that some new class of dates may be nominated for linking, and even if editors wish to mark certain isolated dates as permanently linked (not to be delinked by bot), there is no actual gain in terms of human effort by asking delinking bots to hold off waiting for this to happen.

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This is obvious when you think about it; it is almost inconceivable that all the dates in an article are suddenly to be linked, so in any case it would require a human edit to bring it in line with the guideline, whether or not the bot had first visited.--Kotniski (talk) 15:40, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Not at all obvious. If such a date is unlinked by bot before any of these things is done, relinking it is a waste of human effort. Small in each case; but the trouble with bots is that they produce millions of cases. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:51, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

The human effort saved by removing the undesirable links, though, greatly exceeds that caused by making people put back the (far smaller number of) supposedly desirable ones (and there will be a net gain even within a given article in most cases).--Kotniski (talk) 13:09, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

I didn't immediately see it as obvious. Nevertheless, on consideration, if editors need to mark "date-links-to-be-kept" in some way, the effort of doing that to a date which has been delinked is equivalent to the effort to mark a similar "date-link-to-be-kept" which is still linked. In fact, it spares the editor the effort of finding the date - if the page is on their watchlist! I do agree though with PMA, that the sum of all these efforts needs to be considered, even though I doubt it would run to thousands, let alone millions. Each one is a "nuisance" for some editor somewhere. --RexxS (talk) 01:37, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

And each date link that the anti-bot side would prevent the bot from delinking is a nuisance for an editor too - and there the number is much larger.--Kotniski (talk) 13:09, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Oppose — if we've learned anything from this experience, I'd argue that we should have learned that there would have been a substantial actual gain in terms of human effort if the delinking effort had commenced with greater thought, concern, and planning. We wouldn't have wasted all the black on this page, at the very least. It makes far more sense to mark links that editors believe should be kept and to discuss where other editors respectfully disagree with that assessment, than it does to remove all links and have to discuss about whether they should be put back — inertia will be a powerful force once links are removed. Mlaffs (talk) 06:01, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Net contribution of bots

4) The good to be done by a bot that strips links from date items, in all articles except chronological articles, and respecting an agreed format for marking certain links as non-removable, vastly outweighs any harm it might do.

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This is hopefully now obvious; the number of links removed correctly certainly vastly exceeds the number removed incorrectly, and the human time and potential human error saved by having a bot carry out this task instead of human editors is enormous. It can be asserted, of course, that one harmful edit might have far greater weight than one good edit (as in the case of automated spelling correction, presumably), but in the absence of any clear desire in the community for any particular class of date links to be retained, it is hardly conceivable that any great weight is attached to the retaining of any particular link; in any case, not such as to outweigh the huge ratio between numbers of bad and good links. (Anyway, such allegedly harmful edits would eventually be made anyway, by humans in the ordinary course of article improvement.)--Kotniski (talk) 15:40, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Not at all obvious. In any case, this is an argument that there ought to be consensus to delink, which is probably beyond what ArbCom should decide. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:53, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

This seems obviously false to me, but I think we can find consensus that it's not clearly true. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 00:02, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

It's a conclusion from the foregoing statements - if those are not accepted, then this one might not be either.--Kotniski (talk) 13:13, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment. A determination on the truth of this FoF will also determine whether Lightbot takes on the task of date delinking in the future. ArbCom may indeed prefer to ask the community to decide the consensus on this. For this to be true, the number of valuable date-links likely to be removed needs to be small, probably no more than the order of hundreds. Many editors, myself included, suspect that to be the case. Other editors, whose opinion is worth at least as much as mine, disagree in good faith and estimate it to be tens-of-thousands or more. Please correct me if I am misstating anyone's views. --RexxS (talk) 01:56, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Only if ArbCom wants to make the content decision, and allow a bot to implement it.Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:34, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Well ArbCom could do nothing; presumably that would mean the matter gets handed back to BAG. --Kotniski (talk) 13:13, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Oppose bots need to act on real consensus, not two or three users pretending and arguing ad nauseam that such a consensus exists. -- Kendrick7^talk 07:41, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Proposed remedies

Conditions for use of delinking tools

1) Willing editors are encouraged to make use of approved bots and other automated tools to remove links from date items in Wikipedia articles, provided they take steps to ensure that those tools do not affect articles covered by the chronological articles exception, and that they inform the editing community of a simple syntax in wikitext that can be used to produce a linked date which a bot will not remove.

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They're doing good (see above), so let them do it.--Kotniski (talk) 15:40, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Oppose, as above. No consensus to do this. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:22, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

To do what? Is there consensus to stop them? There seems to be consensus (from Tony's RfC) that separate consensus is not needed for bots to be allowed to perform specific tasks - that's presumably why BAG exists.--Kotniski (talk) 13:15, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Support, with the proviso that the syntax to be used to protect date links must require a reason to be supplied (see my suggestion below for a template). It's not acceptable just to be able wrap a date without specifying why, that would just be licensing anyone who doesn't agree with the MoS to opt out from it. Colonies Chris (talk) 14:01, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

I believe you are a party to this, CC, not an "other". In any event, what "reason" would be acceptable and who would determine whether the reason is acceptable? Obviously, a bot cannot do it. Aside from these problems, the Manual of Style is just a guideline; so, claiming that people have to "opt out of it or comply" is erroneous thinking. Tennis expert (talk) 19:44, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

The reason to have a "non-removable" date-link in a given article would, of course, be decided when the edit making that link was done. Just like any other edit, if it sticks, then consensus is presumed, if it's challenged and reverted, discuss the reason for making it with those editing the article. I'm sure WP:OWN, ILIKEIT and IDONTLIKEIT would soon be abandoned in favour of reasoned argument.

Could you clarify what you mean by "the Manual of Style is just a guideline"? Surely you can't mean "... so I can ignore it"? Guidelines express standards that have community consensus and editing against consensus may be disruptive editing. Editing here is a collaborative process and respect for guidelines is part of that process. --RexxS (talk) 01:01, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

• MOSNUM demonstrably does not have community consensus. That's why it's protected. Please stop begging the same question over and over again. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 06:48, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Oppose If I'm reading an article with a significant event occurring in 471, I want to be able to click on that as a hot link and find out what else was going on in the year 471, whether it is a "chronological article" (whatever that means) or not. -- Kendrick7^talk 07:44, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Oppose Agree with PManderson and Kendrick7. G-Man ^? 22:44, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Prevention of further disruption

2) The syntax referred to above may not be inserted disruptively, only in cases where there is an identifiable, unusual benefit in retaining the link on a particular date.

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Just as a precaution - we don't want any more wars...--Kotniski (talk) 15:40, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Oppose The benefit is to the reader of a given article, and should be left up to human (not bot) judgment on a case by case basis. -- Kendrick7^talk 07:46, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Proposals by Tennis expert

Proposed principles

AWB rules of use

1) AWB's rules of use are binding policies.

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AWB usage: controversial edits

2) AWB's rules of use prohibit an editor from using AWB to make controversial edits. This means that AWB may not be used to make edits that there is even a possibility of someone disagreeing with (aside from when the AWB editor indisputably is in the right, such as correcting the spelling of a word).

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This is Iridescent's interpretation of the AWB rule of use concerning controversial edits. Tennis expert (talk) 20:11, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Some words. "Correcting" the spelling of colour, or editing to jewellery to jewelry is controversial, and against WP:ENGVAR; but this is just narrowing the exception. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:32, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

AWB usage: insignificant or inconsequential edits

3) AWB's rules of use prohibit an editor from using AWB to make insignificant or inconsequential edits. The delinking of a full date or an individual year, month, or day is both insignificant and inconsequential. This means that AWB may be used to delink a full date or an individual year, month, or day only when combined with a significant or consequential edit.

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AWB usage: speed of edits

4) AWB's rules of use prohibit an editor from using AWB to make more than a few edits each minute. The purpose of AWB is to make supervised but repetitive editing tasks easier, not to increase the speed of edits or convert what is supposed to be a supervised editing process into an unsupervised one.

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Not exactly accurate. The AWB rules of use states this:

• Don't edit too fast; consider opening a bot account if you are regularly making more than a few edits a minute.

which is an injunction not to edit too fast and a recommendation for those AWB-assisted editors regularly editing faster than a few edits per minute. It is drawing an unwarranted conclusion to say this is a prohibition on editors making more than a few edits per minute (however many "a few" might be), as the statement clearly contains advice for those editors. --RexxS (talk) 03:48, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

That's a very strange argument. The rules of use specifically say, "Repeated abuse of these rules could result, without warning, in the software being disabled." The "don't edit too fast" rule specifically is one of the rules of use. If the rules of use are inteneded merely to be suggestive, then why are possible penalties mentioned? And why have penalties actually been imposed in the past? Tennis expert (talk) 12:55, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

AWB usage: intentionally making errors to be cleaned-up later

5) An editor may not use AWB to make erroneous edits, even if the editor intends to correct those edits later or believes that another editor intends to correct them later.

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I have a problem with this one. Can one use AWB to change one erroneous statement to another (possibly less) erroneous one, with or without the intention of correcting it later? — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:09, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

AWB usage: the obligation to clean-up errors

6) An editor who has made an editing error while using AWB is required to correct the error immediately after realizing that the error was made.

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AWB usage: handling of complaints concerning violations of the rules of use

7) An administrator may not close or otherwise adjudicate a complaint that an editor has violated an AWB rule of use if the administrator's own use of AWB has ever been similar to the complained-about practice. This would be a conflict of interest.

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There may be a point here about defending something only because you would have done it yourself. But I can't support this phrasing, which is much too broad. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:56, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

The six proposed principles above have merit. In this proposal, we should reflect on the fact that administrators have (by definition) the trust of the community. To assume that an admin who uses AWB would not be able to adjudicate fairly is a denial of AGF. It would really be better not to suggest enshrining that in an ArbCom principle, rather we should deal with any possible abuses by using existing procedures. --RexxS (talk) 03:29, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

I have said nothing about doing away with AGF. However, there are certain actions that should be prohibited - always, regardless of whether the administrator acted in good faith. This has to do with avoiding even the appearance of impropriety, which is a well established principle of law to promote confidence in decision makers and should have equal application here. Tennis expert (talk) 12:58, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Certain behaviors on Wikipedia are prohibited

8) Incivility, disruption, edit warring, or any other unconstructive behavior violates Wikipedia policy.

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Semi-automated tool usage: unsupervised edits

9) The use of a script or any other semi-automated tool, including AWB, to make an unsupervised edit or the factual equivalent of an unsupervised edit is prohibited.

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Oppose: Completely empty. Anyone can make mistakes, with or without a tool or script. Who will decide that a certain edit is "an unsupervised edit or the factual equivalent of an unsupervised edit"? Would that be Tennis expert again, in his favourite role of judge, jury and executioner? Colonies Chris (talk) 16:43, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

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In principle, probably a good principle, but badly phrased and untestable. We know that many of the date delinkers (isn't that a good name for a rock band) have been using AWB for automated edits (hitting OK without looking at the changes), but how can we prohibit something we can't prove? — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:13, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

FWIW, the community did find a way in their community editing restrictions for BetaCommand, limiting the number of edits per minute, and requiring Beta to seek out approval before doing bot-like types of edits on 25 or more pages. --MASEM 15:16, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

The "factual equivalent of an unsupervised edit" language is aimed at the extreme cases (such as editing one page every 4 seconds) where it would be virtually impossible for a human being to have supervised the edits. Tennis expert (talk) 18:46, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Reply to Colonies Chris: what you said ("his favourite role of judge, jury and executioner") is incivil and untrue. Tennis expert (talk) 18:43, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Semi-automated tool usage: intentionally making errors to be cleaned-up later

10) An editor may not use a script or any other semi-automated tool to make erroneous edits, even if the editor intends to correct those edits later or believes that another editor intends to correct them later.

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This would be fine except that Tennis expert defines an 'error' as anything he disagrees with. Colonies Chris (talk) 16:37, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

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Concern: Same as above; changing one erroneous statement to another (perhaps less) erroneous one may be perceived as an erroneous edit. Suppose we have statements which appear similar to someone not familiar with some of the twists of the English language; but the first is grammatically incorrect, and the second is factually incorrect. Changing from one to the other might be considered "erroneous"… — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:18, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't think so. A person who fails to correct an erroneous statement in an article does not put his stamp of approval on that statement. Tennis expert (talk) 18:48, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Reply to Colonies Chris: what you said is incivil and untrue. Tennis expert (talk) 18:41, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Semi-automated tool usage: the obligation to clean-up errors

11) An editor who has made an editing error while using a script or any other semi-automated tool is required to correct the error immediately after realizing that the error was made.

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This would be fine except that Tennis expert defines an 'error' as anything he disagrees with. Colonies Chris (talk) 16:38, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

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Concur, in principle. Could be problems in practice in determinging whether someone had complied ("immediately"). — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:21, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

What deadline would you propose? Tennis expert (talk) 18:40, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Reply to Colonies Chris: what you said is incivil and untrue. Tennis expert (talk) 18:40, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Proposed findings of fact

Lightmouse's use of AWB

1) Lightmouse used AWB often at the rate of more than one article per minute. For example, he edited 75 articles in 8 minutes using AWB on December 8, 2008, which is 9.38 articles per minute or one article every 6.4 seconds. On December 9, 2008, Lightmouse edited 197 articles in 26 minutes, which is 7.58 articles per minute or one article every 7.9 seconds. On December 10, 2008, Lightmouse edited 1,777 articles in 114 minutes, which is 15.59 articles per minute or 1 article every 3.9 seconds. On December 15, 2008, Lightmouse edited 75 articles in 19 minutes, which is 3.95 articles per minute or 1 article every 15.19 seconds.

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The AWB rules of use would require Lightmouse to consider opening a bot account. He already did. --RexxS (talk) 03:50, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

And he should have used the bot to make extremely rapid edits, not AWB, which leaves me wondering why he chose to make the edits using AWB. Was it because his bot was blocked or threatened to be blocked? (I'm not making an accusation. I'm just curious.) Tennis expert (talk) 13:00, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Reedy's use of AWB

2) Reedy on September 24, 2008, used AWB to edit 162 articles in 61 minutes, which is 2.66 articles per minute or 1 article every 22.6 seconds. On August 8, Reedy used AWB to edit 193 articles in 24 minutes, which is 8.04 articles per minute or 1 article every 7.5 seconds.

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What does this have to do with anything? Reedy isn't even a party to this case. Mr.Z-man 04:29, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

The AWB rules of use would require Reedy to consider opening a bot account. It may be that TE wishes ArbCom to remind AWB users of that or possibly he may wish to draw a conclusion about Reddy's impartiality per the next proposed FoF. --RexxS (talk) 03:55, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

This is simply a finding of fact, which forms the factual basis for a proposed decision. Tennis expert (talk) 13:01, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Reedy's closing of a complaint about Lightmouse's use of AWB

3) Administrator Reedy on December 10, 2008, created an impermissible conflict of interest by improperly closing a complaint about Lightmouse's use of AWB and threatening to block the complainant. Reedy's own use of AWB was substantially similar to Lightmouse's; therefore, Reedy should have refrained from acting.

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As above, Reedy isn't a party to this case. Mr.Z-man 04:31, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

It is remarkable though that in 2006 this behavior by the same person got numerous blocks, while in 2008 users are threatened with a block simply for pointing it out. Project administration has gone to hell in a handbasket, if this is any indication. Oh well. Sic transit gloria mundi! -- Kendrick7^talk 21:46, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Ohconfucious's refusal to correct errors made by him while using AWB

4) On December 12 and 15, 2008, Ohconfucius was notified by two editors that he had committed errors to 60 articles while using AWB. To date, Ohconfucious has neither denied that those errors were committed nor corrected those errors.

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Unless policy has been violated, there is no rule which states that Tennis expert has to do anything Ohconfucius asks him to, and he certainly has not. The reverse also holds true. The work done was to ensure that all date formats are uniform. The proposer of this motion has failed to explain why the date format within any article itself, if left unchanged, would be in any way harmful to the interests of WP. Ohconfucius (talk) 08:55, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

I would hope that an editor who has the best interests of Wikipedia in mind would want to correct errors he or she has made, regardless of who notifies the editor about the errors. But I guess Ohconfucius is an exception. Tennis expert (talk) 09:56, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Now, such sarcasm is very incivil in my opinion. So should I dig up more of Tennis Expert's incivility? (I have felt his attitude towards me incivil several time, and he has felt that I was incivil towards him; this is so subjective.) No! This is not the point of this strange monster document, that appears to be a big "getting back at someone" rather than a productive forum for relevant discussions.--HJensen, talk 16:01, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

• Yes, judging by the motions of censure, the opponents of date delinking have mounted this dog and pony show to seek their pound of flesh. They are making Tony1 and Ohconfucius as public enemy for our steadfast opposition; retribution is also sought against Greg L for his lack of political correctness and Lightmouse for his marvellous talent of removing date links faster than anyone else in WP history. I am indeed proud to be in such company. Ohconfucius (talk) 14:47, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Please do not insult your readers' intelligence by comparing adult civility with political correctness. -- Earle Martin [^t/_c] 15:38, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Incivility, disruption, and unconstructive behavior by Ohconfucius

5) Ohconfucius has been and continues to be incivil, disruptive, and unconstructive. He has called Tennis expert stupid. He has said that certain administrators are communists and Stalinists. He has said that certain people he disagrees with are terrorists. He has denegrated a contributor with "BIG YAWN" and another contributor with "ZZZZzzzz". He has accused Tennis expert of being a drama queen and a princess. He has accused a contributor of being defensive-aggressive. He has accused Tennis expert of being part of a clique. Concerning this arbitration case, Ohconfucius said, referring to Locke Cole and Tennis expert and with an obvious failure to assume good faith and in furtherance of his clique theory, "The shooting from behind Locke's and Tennis' trench is getting more intense if anything, not less. anyone who has ever dared to cross their paths is fair game. I don't think they have ever cared who gets caught in their crossfire, or how much damage is caught". Ohconfucius deleted my post on a third party's discussion page on January 20, 2009.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Tennis expert should stop this dog and pony show. If only Tennis expert would have enough guts to come out from behind that protective screen which he calls "not being a party" to this dispute... Ducking behind Locke, when he is in fact one of the main protagonists is rather disingenuous. Ohconfucius (talk) 15:04, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

• I received this message of thanks from the said third party after I had deleted disingenuous and juvenile remarks posted by Tennis. Ohconfucius (talk) 03:31, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Agree. I have repeatedly seen accusations and incivility emanating from Ohconfucius during this farrago of disagreements. -- Earle Martin [^t/_c] 15:36, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Agree. It's nice of the target of the finding to supply his own evidence in this file. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:06, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Colonies Chris repeatedly has edit warred to delink dates

6) Here are some examples:
Anna Kournikova (1), (2) (repeatedly unlinking "November 20, 2000")
Stan Smith (1), (2) (repeatedly unlinking "December 14, 1946")
Judy Tegart Dalton (1), (2) (repeatedly unlinking "December 12, 1937")
Alexandra Fusai (1), (2) (repeatedly unlinking "November 22, 1973")
Kelly Liggan (1), (2), (3) (repeatedly unlinking "February 5, 1979")
Roscoe Tanner (1), (2) (repeatedly unlinking "October 15, 1951")
Lesley Turner Bowrey (1), (2) (repeatedly unlinking "August 16, 1942")
Jill Craybas (1), (2) (repeatedly unlinking "July 4, 1974")
Stephanie Rottier (1), (2) (repeatedly unlinking "January 22, 1974")
Tatiana Panova (1), (2) (repeatedly unlinking "August 13, 1976")
Wilmer Allison (1), (2) (repeatedly unlinking "December 8, 1904")
Jelena Dokic (1), (2) (repeatedly unlinking "August 19, 2002.")
Debbie Graham (1), (1) (repeatedly unlinking "August 25, 1970")
Flavia Pennetta (1), (2) (repeatedly unlinking "25 February 1982")
Anna Smith (tennis) (1), (2), (3) (repeatedly unlinking "25 August 2008")
Casey Dellacqua (1), (2) (repeatedly unlinking "July 28, 2008" and "September 29, 2008")
Christine Truman (1), (2) (repeatedly unlinking "January 16, 1941")

Although the evidence is clear, Colonies Chris has denied ever edit warring on this issue. He also has publicly declared his intent to engage in tag-team edit warring regarding the delinking of dates, here and here. And he was previously warned about his date delinking edit warring.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

This soap opera is taking on epic proportions. I just want to say that all of Colonies Chris' edits above are very helpful and productive edits. The ones I have bothered checking were unfortunately reverted by Tennis Expert. Quite disruptive behavior imo. (I myself have tried to delink some dates, but I was also reverted by Tennis Expert who claimed I was making "blind" edits. Very incivil accusation!) --HJensen, talk 16:31, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Like you, Colonies Chris has engaged in a fair number of blind reversions, none of which I have listed above, although I probably should have. Anyway, because you brought up your own blind reversions here, I'll list them for you so that you can refresh your memory and see that they truly were blind. (A) Mats Wilander article where you not only delinked dates, but also reverted unrelated edits and a large table (B) Goran Ivanisevic article where you not only delinked dates but eliminated a large table (C) Andriy Medvedev article where you not only delinked dates but deleted fact tags and rolled-back improvements to the article (D) Mats Wilander article where you not only delinked dates but reinstated the wrong name of the "US Open", rolled back numerous improvements that had nothing to do with date linking, and deleted a large table. It's disruptive and harmful to the encyclopedia for an editor to revert another editor's edit in its entirety when your attitude is that you just cannot be bothered to leave unaffected the portions of the edit that you don't have a problem with. Yes, it's harder to pick-and-choose exactly the things you want to undo, but it is absolutely your responsibility to do so. Never edit blindly. Tennis expert (talk) 17:55, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Check a mirror. Look at your, by your standards, "blind edit" at the Wilander article; what a blunder. Also, the table I removed was repetitive information that you without explanation insisted should remain. Your behavior is disruptive and counterproductive beyond imagination. Never edit blindly! And your accusation that I "cannot be bothered to leave unaffected the portions of the edit that you don't have a problem with" is exceptionally nasty and hurting. I suggest you read WP:AGF and WP:CIVIL and cool down your nasty and derogative insinuations about other editors.--HJensen, talk 18:13, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

There was nothing "blind" about my Mats Wilander edit. At the time, I intended every one of those changes. Tennis expert (talk) 19:05, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Oh, it was intentional that you wanted the uncropped picture to appear right under the cropped one? Why didn't you revert me when I corrected it then? Oh yes, and all my edits were intentional as well. So please hold back your incivil insults. You are acting in a very, very harmful manner. --HJensen, talk 19:50, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

If you have evidence of my so-called blind reversions, post it here. Otherwise withdraw your accusation. Colonies Chris (talk) 09:02, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Despite what the username might seem to suggest, no ownership rights of tennis articles can be applied or may be assumed. Just a cursory glance at any history of the above articles is enough to determine multiple reverts by TE over the period of the month of November. There is no point arguing what constitutes a "blind revert", for I believe TE's definition is any revert which he disapproves of. Ohconfucius (talk) 15:18, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Both Colonies Chris and Ohconfucius are parties, not others. Tennis expert (talk) 16:17, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Colonies Chris has advocated the use of scripts to delink dates in an unsupervised manner

7) On the Lightmouse discussion page, an editor nicely asked Lightmouse to make sure that before he delinks a date using a script, he spends a little time exercising discretion to determine whether the date link serves any useful purpose. Colonies Chris interjected this: "CR, since you aren't prepared to suggest any practical means for an editor, human or bot, to make such a determination, your question is both empty and tendentious and LM is quite right not to answer it." See also this, where he repeats that position and then adds that the urgency of date delinking is almost equivalent to an emergency situtation.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Dabomb87 repeatedly has edit warred to delink dates

8) Here are some examples:
Worteh Sampson: (1), (2) (repeatedly unlinking "25 June 1981")
Winston Churchill: (1), (2), (3), (4), (5) (repeatedly unlinking numerous dates)
Vultee Aircraft: (1), (2), (3) (repeatedly unlinking various dates)
Vietnam Veterans Memorial: (1), (2), (3) (repeatedly unlinking numerous dates)
USS Monitor: (1), (2), (3), (4) (repeatedly unlinking numerous dates)
Steve Shak: (1), (2), (3) (repeatedly unlinking various dates)
Ramsay MacDonald: (1), (2), (3) (repeatedly unlinking numerous dates)
Maria Sharapova: (1), (2) (repeatedly unlinking several dates)
Martina Hingis: (1), (2) (repeatedly unlinking numerous dates)
Mel Parnell: (1), (2), (3) (repeatedly unlinking various dates)
List of the verified oldest people: (1), (2) (repeatedly unlinking numerous dates)
List of the verified oldest men: (1), (2) (repeatedly unlinking numerous dates)
Lazare Ponticelli: (1), (2), (3), (4) (repeatedly unlinking various dates)
Julie Coin: (1), (2), (3), (4) (repeatedly unlinking various dates)
Josephine Kablick: (1), (2), (3), (4) (repeatedly unlinking years)
Jessica Moore (tennis): (1), (2), (3), (4) (repeatedly unlinking various dates)
James Lucas: (1), (2), (3), (4) (repeatedly unlinking various dates)
Hurricane Fifi-Orlene: (1), (2), (3) (repeatedly unlinking various dates)
Gabriel Fauré: (1), (2), (3) (repeatedly unlinking two dates)
Emily Hewson: (1), (2), (3), (4) (repeatedly unlinking various dates)
Elizabeth Needham: (1), (2), (3) (repeatedly unlinking various dates)
Edna Parker: (1), (2) (repeatedly unlinking a year)
Donald McGill: (1), (2), (3) (repeatedly unlinking two dates)
Clement Attlee: (1), (2), (3), (4) (repeatedly unlinking numerous dates)
Catherine Hagel: (1), (2), (3), (4) (repeatedly unlinking various dates and years)
Carly Gullickson: (1), (2), (3) (repeatedly unlinking various dates and years)
Ana Betancourt: (1), (2), (3) (repeatedly unlinking two dates)
Tennis expert (talk) 21:46, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Thanks once again to TE for finding so many examples where he and/or Locke Cole (and AN Other) have been engaged in edit-warring. Legitimate changes to the above articles per WP:MOS were reverted. Keep those diffs coming. ;-) This motion is unproductive as it is just another attempt to settle the score, and deserves to be thrown out. Ohconfucius (talk) 03:41, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

HJensen repeatedly has edit warred to delink dates

9) Here is the list:
Mats Wilander:(1), (2), (3), (4), (5).
Guillermo Vilas: (1), (2), (3), (4).
Alexander Vladimirovich Volkov: (1), (2).
Novak Djokovic: (1), (2), (3).

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Proposed remedies

Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.

Compliance with the AWB rules of use

1) Lightmouse, Ohconfucius, Reedy, and every other editor who uses AWB to edit shall comply with the AWB rules of use.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Oppose, this is an ad hominem. Ohconfucius (talk) 16:17, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Again, Reedy isn't a party. Mr.Z-man 03:35, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

• OhConfucius would have done better to link to ad hominem itself, which would have told him this is not one. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:37, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

• which is why it wasn't linked there ;-) Ohconfucius (talk) 15:20, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

That doesn't make any sense. What are you trying to say? -- Earle Martin [^t/_c] 15:35, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Repairing errors made while using AWB

2) Not later than the fifth day after this arbitration decision becomes final, Ohconfucius shall repair all known errors he has made while using AWB, including the errors that have been listed on his discussion page by other editors.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Oppose No reason given for the five days. Why not two or 11?--HJensen, talk 16:34, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

2.1) Any editor who makes an edit using AWB, is informed the edit is in error, and doesn't either deny the report nor correct the error, shall have his AWB flag revoked.

Comment by Arbitrators:

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Comment by others:

Proposed modification. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 18:11, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

That's OK with me, although it probably should be added to the proposed principles list instead of being a remedy. Tennis expert (talk) 19:28, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

ArbCom shouldn't be setting policy. Mr.Z-man 04:33, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

There already is policy on this. It is in WP:Awb#Rules of use: "Repeated abuse of these rules could result, without warning, in the software being disabled." --RexxS (talk) 04:03, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

No, there isn't. "Could" and "shall" have different meanings. The first implies merely a possibility. The second is a requirement. Tennis expert (talk) 11:21, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Ohconfucius - Civility Parole

4) Ohconfucius (talk · contribs) is subject to an editing restriction for twelve months. Should he make an edit that is adjudged by an administrator to be uncivil, a personal attack, or an assumption of bad faith, he may be blocked for the duration specified in the enforcement ruling below.

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Colonies Chris - Revert Parole

5) Colonies Chris shall for one year be limited to one revert per page per week, excepting obvious vandalism. Further, he is required to discuss any content reversions on the page's talk page.

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Colonies Chris - Script Usage Injunction

6) Colonies Chris is permanently enjoined from using scripts or any other automated or semi-automated editing tool, including AWB, to make an edit that is in actual fact unsupervised or is the factual equivalent of being unsupervised. He also is permanently enjoined from encouraging any other editor to use scripts or any other automated or semi-automated editing tool, including AWB, to make an edit that is in actual fact unsupervised or is the factual equivalent of being unsupervised.

Comment by Arbitrators:

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Dabomb87 - Revert Parole

7) Dabomb87 shall for one year be limited to one revert per page per week, excepting obvious vandalism. Further, he is required to discuss any content reversions on the page's talk page.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Oppose A year is completely excessive given this evidence. I'd want to see evidence that this user not only drank the kool-aid but was dishing it out, and in the manner other parties to the dispute were. Given the seemingly large number of edits this user does in general using scripts, it's somewhat possible he just hasn't found the break pedal yet -- we see this happen all the time -- and, if that is so, then, sure, strapping his foot to the brake pedal for a month or two might help. However, from my short conversation with him today, he seems entirely capable of open communication, being reasonable, making compromises, and seeking a consensus. If other parties to this case had been like this over these past months I'm certain we wouldn't be here. -- Kendrick7^talk 03:35, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

He is a party to this case and communicated regularly with the date-link-deletionists who also are parties to this case. So, his edit warring was not as innocent as it might seem. Tennis expert (talk) 14:37, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

HJensen - Revert Parole

8) HJensen shall for one year be limited to one revert per page per week, excepting obvious vandalism. Further, he is required to discuss any content reversions on the page's talk page.

Comment by Arbitrators:

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Proposed enforcement

Blocks and bans concerning Ohconfucius

1) Should Ohconfucius violate an editing restriction specified in this case, he and his alternative account Date delinker may be blocked, up to a week in the event of repeated violations. After 5 blocks, the maximum block shall increase to one month. All blocks are to be logged at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Date_delinking#Log of blocks and bans.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Blocks and bans concerning Colonies Chris

2) Should Colonies Chris violate an editing restriction specified in this case, he may be blocked, up to a week in the event of repeated violations. After 5 blocks, the maximum block shall increase to one month. All blocks are to be logged at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Date_delinking#Log of blocks and bans.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Blocks and bans concerning Dabomb87

3) Should Dabomb87 violate an editing restriction specified in this case, he may be blocked, up to a week in the event of repeated violations. After 5 blocks, the maximum block shall increase to one month. All blocks are to be logged at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Date_delinking#Log of blocks and bans.

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Blocks and bans concerning HJensen

4) Should HJensen violate an editing restriction specified in this case, he may be blocked, up to a week in the event of repeated violations. After 5 blocks, the maximum block shall increase to one month. All blocks are to be logged at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Date_delinking#Log of blocks and bans.

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Proposals by Earle Martin

Proposed findings of fact

Greg L has repeatedly been incivil

1) [[::User:Greg L|Greg L]] ([[::User talk:Greg L|talk]] · [[::Special:Contributions/Greg L|contribs]]) has repeatedly been incivil to other editors involved with the date formatting discussions on WT:MOSNUM.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

If this finding is agreed upon I will leave it to the arbitrators to decide what remedies and enforcement are appropriate. -- Earle Martin [^t/_c] 20:16, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Support, but need more evidence/diffs to support this I think (but it's out there). —Locke Cole • t • c 20:39, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Done. -- Earle Martin [^t/_c] 20:47, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Support without reservation. —Locke Cole • t • c 20:49, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

• Indeed, Greg L is a poopy-head. Now let’s try to address the real issues here. Greg L (talk) 06:48, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Support. A defense that some have made concerning Greg L's behavior is that everyone knows he doesn't intend any of his incivility to be taken personally. Aside from the ridiculousness of that defense, it is factually false as many editors have expressed genuine offense at the incivility. Tennis expert (talk) 09:59, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

• Well… the trouble with that is it doesn’t pass most reasonable-minded editors’ *grin tests*. As with Locke’s proposals (regarding Tony and Lightmouse) to muzzle two of Wikipedia’s most valuable editors, this is all about an intransigent cabal trying to silence the most formidable road-blocks to those who chronically refuse to accept the community consensus. Note Locke’s block log. It shows an atrocious, chronic pattern of editwarring and incivility. That is why we’re all here wasting our time. Locke et al. were no longer getting their way by editwarring because there was a clear majority who would revert them, so he resorted to wikilawyering. And here we are.

  As for me? Well… same story. Except rather than editwar with you people, I influence minds by writing essays such as Wikipedia:Why dates should not be linked and Sewer cover in front of Greg L’s house. And in debate on WT:MOSNUM, I expose the absurdities of you guys’ arguments and make you feel foolish. Most unfortunate; but if you don’t want to be exposed for being foolish, don’t write foolish things. And don’t accrue the most atrocious block log in existence on this pale blue dot by editwarring and incivility. And cease with inane tactics like proposing that one of Wikipedia’s most respected and valuable editors should be banned for six months from the very place where he is needed most. Let’s see… Locke Cole (block log) for a *leader* on WT:MOSNUM and ban Tony from a venue that is a marketplace for the exchange of ideas. Gee… sorry, that’s not passing my *grin test* here. Greg L (talk) 17:52, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Your incivility is nothing more than immature forum bullying. If you truly wanted people not to take your harsh words and "you're a fool and an idiot" criticisms personally, then your edit history would be full of apologies. The fact is that you almost never apologize and seem to take an inordinate amount of pride in putting people down. Wikipedia is not the venue for your kind of behavior. Ideas should flow freely here but always in a civil manner with high regard for the feelings of others, especially given that this is a written medium. And no amount of your Wikilawyering smoke screen is going to obscure the real issue here: your longstanding incivility and rudeness to virtually everyone who disagrees with you. Tennis expert (talk) 18:15, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Ohconfucius has repeatedly been incivil

2) [[::User:Ohconfucius|Ohconfucius]] ([[::User talk:Ohconfucius|talk]] · [[::Special:Contributions/Ohconfucius|contribs]]) has repeatedly been incivil to other editors involved with the date formatting discussions on WT:MOSNUM.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

See evidence here and here. Same comment regarding remedies and enforcement as for Greg L case above. -- Earle Martin [^t/_c] 12:43, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Lack of vocal disagreement is not an indicator that the activity has wide acceptance

3) Lack of vocal disagreement with year links being removed is not an indicator that the activity has wide acceptance, as has been suggested by some parties.

Some editors may agree; others may not know where to disagree. It is extremely difficult for the casual editor to find out where to discuss this issue when faced with a typical Lightbot edit; the edit summary is only "Units/dates/other", with no link to any policy documents, and its user page only links to its three requests for bot approval, which are filled with a mass of verbiage.

It is also possible that editors may have found their way to WT:MOSNUM eventually but were too intimidated by the atmosphere and/or scale of previous discussions on the topic to participate. Again, this cannot be proven or disproven from an absence of edits.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

The second possibility came to mind through my personal experience, when I almost left the discussion alone at first sight and had to force myself to participate. -- Earle Martin [^t/_c] 12:35, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Over the last few months I have unlinked thousands of dates. I'm not a bot, anyone can contact me at my talk page if they want, but only seven editors have objected there - and three of those were satisfied once I explained about the deprecation. There's no evidence of any widespread opposition to unlinking. It's reasonable to presume that if people don't object, that means they don't object. Colonies Chris (talk) 13:10, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

So what you're saying is, you've performed less date removals than Lightbot, and during that time you've received more complaints that you were unable to satisfy than those you were able to. -- Earle Martin [^t/_c] 13:27, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

No large-scale change will ever be entirely without opposition. In two of those four cases, I just chose to allow their revert to stand. And in the remaining two, the objection was in terms so immoderate ('trash', 'vandalism') that I think any change at all made without their prior permission would have been unacceptable. Colonies Chris (talk) 13:59, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Worth considering in this proposal: Wikipedia:Silence means nothing (the opposite essay being WP:SILENCE). And strongly agree with the conclusion made here, the atmosphere at MOSNUM is uninviting and adversarial. Not at all what one would expect. —Locke Cole • t • c 14:53, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

LC's opinion of the atmosphere at MOSNUM is completely irrelevant. My talk page is readily accessible, by a just a couple of clicks from the edit history of any article I've worked on, and contains no long heated discussions to put anyone off, and yet almost no-one chose to complain or object there. This is an excellent example of your habit of disregarding evidence that doesn't suit your case. Colonies Chris (talk) 16:26, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

It's not helping that you're doing the delinking with AWB, which most people trust: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]. But again, silence is not assent: Wikipedia:Silence means nothing. —Locke Cole • t • c 17:06, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

(ec) Chris, I think that you're both radically overestimating the resourcefulness and creativity of most casual editors, as well as the interest in many random articles. This is also an example of where numbers speak louder than assertions, so perhaps we should do some edit counting to see what proportion of the issue your activities represent. -- Earle Martin [^t/_c] 17:14, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

I would caution against basing a FoF on an essay (Wikipedia:Silence means nothing) which reflects the consensus of 3 editors. The opposite essay WP:SILENCE is the consensus of only a couple of dozen editors. The accepted policy in WP:Consensus is "Silence implies consent if there is adequate exposure to the community." You would be better served by looking for FoF's consistent with that. --RexxS (talk) 07:36, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

My finding of fact is not based on any essay. Please do not make out that it is. -- Earle Martin [^t/_c] 12:30, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

You will find that building a consensus useful for ArbCom to consider is best done by not telling other contributors what to do, even if you include the word 'please'. Let's concentrate on what the proposal says and the accompanying commentary. Locke, above, clearly references that essay, and I was simply trying to be helpful in putting that essay into context. To establish the truth of your FoF, you will need evidence that shows how it complies with the policy "Silence implies consent if there is adequate exposure to the community." Hope that helps. --RexxS (talk) 16:49, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

No. The entire point of this finding is that editors at large may not know how to respond to these delinkings. What consent is implied by the silence of someone who doesn't speak your language? As the positive assertion in this case ("consensus exists") is being made by you, it lays the burden of proof upon you. Nothing said so far has demonstrated anything of the sort. -- Earle Martin [^t/_c] 17:20, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry but I can't accept you base a FoF on the belief that editors don't know how to react to an edit they disagree with. They revert - and it doesn't matter what language they speak - and then discuss. As I've said numerous times, that is the start of building a consensus where differences exist. If you want to construct an alternative means that denies WP:CON, then please provide some evidence why anybody, let alone ArbCom should take it seriously. For your second point, I do indeed start with the assumption that WP:MOS is what it says on the label: a documented set of consensuses, like all other guidelines. By definition, a guideline has consensus. If that consensus changes, then the guidance is changed. The two things go hand-in-hand. Now I do understand that you need to discredit the notion that there is consensus for the contents of MOSNUM in order to underpin your case. Otherwise the respondents in this case win by default - they would be editing in accordance with the consensus in MOS. But you have produced no evidence that MOS is not consensus. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, anyone is free to urge ArbCom to rule that consensus exists on MOSNUM in exactly the same way, by definition, it exists on all guidance. --RexxS (talk) 00:51, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

The fact that it's been protected four times a year due to disagreements, the most recent that detailed by Mbisanz in \Evidence, should be enough to refute any assumption that that mess is consensus. I did not participate in any of the edit flurries involved in those protections, and some of the issues involved are trivial beyond belief, but I judge there is no consensus on any of them. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:59, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Strong support This is the problem in a nutshell. -- Kendrick7^talk 21:32, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Broad support. Although it's impossible to prove. My hunch is that a lot of editors assume that as these changes are being carried out en masse by scripts and bots, and the misleadingly official sounding edit summaries provided by the date delinkers (linking to policy pages etc) mean that this is a new policy with overwhelming consensus. And so no point in raising it. G-Man ^? 22:57, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Proposals by User:Colonies Chris

Proposed findings of fact

Incivility

The have been instances of incivility on all sides, but not beyond the bounds that might be expected in a heated debate. All parties are admonished to remain civil in their dealings.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Not supported by the evidence or the civility policy. Mr.Z-man 04:35, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Date unlinking

There is clear community support for the deprecation of date formatting and clear support for the operation of bots that bring WP into line with the MoS. There is very limited support for linking of certain dates or date fragments in special circumstances.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Exactly my understanding. --HJensen, talk 16:36, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Simply not true. Maybe I've misunderstood.-- Kendrick7^talk 21:20, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

No reasonable editor could read the comments in the first RfC Proposals 1 and 3 and the second RfC Question 1 and disagree with this proposed FoF. --RexxS (talk) 21:51, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

OK, maybe I'm misunderstanding the use of the term "date." If the meaning is just months and days of months, I think the FoF is basically correct. However, if this is counting years as "date fragments" then I don't think its at all reasonable to even count Tony's strawman RFCs. The support for sometimes linking years is not "very limited" given the whole remainder of the so-called second RFC. -- Kendrick7^talk 22:10, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Agree with Kendrick7. G-Man ^? 23:00, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Proposed remedies

New template

A template is to be developed that will allow editors to wrap individual dates and date fragments in order to protect them from automated unlinking. The syntax of this template will require a textual justification to be provided.

example syntax: {{keepdatelink|date-fragment|because=xxxxx}}

The justification may be disputed by other editors in the same way as any other edit to an article. In particular, claims of a 'local consensus' in a subject area require clear evidence of such a consensus involving more than one habitual editor of articles in that area. A period of two weeks will be allowed for editors to apply this template to links they wish to protect. After that period, Lightbot and any other similar processes, whether automated, scripted or manual, will be allowed to proceed with delinking, on condition that they respect this protective tagging and continue to bypass chronological articles. Any further attempts to obstruct the operation of such processes will be considered disruptive behaviour.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Support, this seems like the most obvious solution and of the same ilk I've suggested several times; everyone gets what they want at the end of the day. --MASEM 16:45, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Partial support. Facility to protect date links against automated removal where they're appropriate is a good idea. A requirement to code a rationale into each protected link goes a bit too far, though. Two weeks is not long enough, given the number of articles and how long it's taken for links to be applied in the first place, both good and bad. Remove "continue" from "…continue to bypass chronological articles", as they have not been doing so in all cases thus far. Mlaffs (talk) 06:10, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

The requirement to provide a rationale is absolutely crucial. There will always be exceptional cases where the encyclopaedia would be improved by ignoring a general rule, but the rationale for doing so needs to be documented, so that current editors can discuss it and future editors can understand the reason for the exception without having to comb throughs reams of old discussions. And the requirement to provide a few words of explanation is not at all onerous unless you're wrapping a lot of dates, which shouldn't be happening - this is meant to cater for the occasional exception, not a bucketload. Colonies Chris (talk) 09:21, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Oppose per WP:KISS, WP:CREEP, and WP:BURO. To quote the Al Gore character on Futurama : "Not all problems can be solved by chess, Deep Blue. One day, you'll understand that." We could add all sorts of special templates that the humans have to use to make life easier on the bots, but, come on, who is really in charge here? Although, again, I'd be happy if bots just left year links alone prior to ~75 years ago, which are, I imagine, 1% of the links but 99.9% of my concern (I mean, the project is still 95% Pokemon articles, AFAIK). I don't think it would be hard to automate {{current year}} - 75. -- Kendrick7^talk 06:36, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Lightmouse

Lightmouse is commended for his excellent work on improving the encyclopaedia, and on his unfailing politeness in the face of provocation and incivility, and his readiness to acknowledge and fix errors made by Lightbot and to correct Lightbot to avoid future errors.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

While I have found him to be polite, my (admittedly limited) experience hasn't been that he's corrected Lightbot (or his own AWB usage) to avoid future errors (see my evidence). Sarcasticidealist (talk) 17:26, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but no. While I don't feel that Lightmouse is the devil he's been made out to be by some, I'd take issue with both the idea that his politeness has been unfailing and that he's always been ready to acknowledge and fix errors and to correct the bot. Lightbot's edits in November wouldn't have ended up at AN had that been the case, nor would its edits in December have ended up at AN/I. Mlaffs (talk) 06:13, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Strong oppose Is this a joke? His bot continued to remove links well after he was made aware that there was no consensus for the behavior. Not just once was he made aware, either, but repeatedly over a five month period, by dozens of editors, via the bot's talk page, discussion at MOSNUM, and at his own talk, and via several RFCs on the issue. That's hardly "acknowledging and fixing errors." That's being deliberately obtuse. -- Kendrick7^talk 19:21, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

And, furthermore, he was pulling the same shenanigans back in March of 2006 under a different username, which at the time got him a block. To quote the blocking admin's response to his unblock request:[7]

No, I blocked you because you continued your edits despite saying you were not going to continue them, and have failed to provide adequate reasoning for these mass changes despite having two failed bot requests, and a clear lack of consensus for the changes you wish to be made in both of them. Because you have shown no regard for requests, pleas and warnings to stop and discuss, you are leaving me with no choice but to block you so you may discuss it. Your insistence on continuing to make the edits when you are fully aware there is significant disagreement with implementing these changes is entirely unhelpful. ... -- Talrias (t | e | c) 16:06, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

It appears nothing has changed here. -- Kendrick7^talk 19:33, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Proposals by User:MBisanz

Proposed findings of fact

Locke Cole - Edit Warring

1) Locke Cole (talk · contribs) has edit warred.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Locke Cole - Incivility

2) Locke Cole has been uncivil.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Tony1 - Incivility

3) Tony1 (talk · contribs) has been uncivil.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Tony1 - Edit Warring

4) Tony1 has edit warred.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Unsupported by evidence germane to this case. MBisanz's evidence suggests that Tony has, on some occasions, gone as far as 2 reverts in 24 hours over MOSNUM; another single instance of 2RR can be found on Lazare Ponticelli. Tony is disputatious, yes; but this is not edit-warring in any useful sense. Since the evidence against Tony is far the most extensive, the rest of these findings of editwarring should fall with it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:21, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

WP:EW != WP:3RR. To the best of my knowledge, Tony1 has not violated the prohibition against reverting three times in 24 hours. As the edit warring policy says:

The 3RR metric is not an exemption for conduct that stays under the threshold. For instance, edit warring could take the form of 4+ reverts on a page in a day, or three, or one per day for a protracted period of time, or one per page across many pages, or simply a pattern of isolated blind reverts as a first resort against disagreeable edits.

Based on the evidence documented at the evidence page, I believe such a finding is warranted. MBisanz ^talk 21:15, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

A few cases in which he has repeated a revert, however, don't amount to an edit war either. More importantly, we could all now be under the one-week parole which MBisanz proposes, and keeping it; this case would be just as much a mess as it is now. The behavioral problem is incivility and mass-editing, not edit-warring . Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:28, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Greg L.

5) Greg L (talk · contribs) has been uncivil.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Tennis expert

6) Tennis expert (talk · contribs) has edit warred.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Agreed A cursory investigation of edit histories of all the articles to whose diffs posted on the evidence page by Tennis (which allege edit-warring by Tony1 and by Colonies Chris) will reveal very obvious signs of slow edit-warring by him (mainly in the month of November 2008), suggesting some sort of assertion of ownership.

So Tennis expert, not being a party frees you up to edit-war? Please explain. Tony (talk) 09:46, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

I am not a party to this arbitration. See this list of involved parties. Tennis expert (talk) 12:44, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

• Meaning presumably that you believe you have immunity to sanctions? I wouldn't gloat if I were you: I'm sure ArbCom can make you a party if it so desires. Ohconfucius (talk) 09:41, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Pmanderson

7) Pmanderson (talk · contribs) has edit warred.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

He (or she) is not a party to this arbitration. See this list of involved parties. Tennis expert (talk) 12:49, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

The evidence for this consists of two exact reversions, in a short period of time, at Lazare Ponticelli; I also made a novel edit. After that I walked away; as did Tony, who is being accused of edit-warring largely on the same sequence. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:03, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Arthur Rubin

8) Arthur Rubin (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) has threatened to use administrative tools in a dispute in which he was an involved editor.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Acknowledged. However, at least two of the pieces of evidence submitted relevant to that were not threats of _admin_ action, one of them may have been; but it's not clear that blocking an apparently malfunctioning bot, even if the proper function of that bot were one I would disagree with, would be a restricted admin action. And, considering the number of a bad edits a bot could make, block first and request confirmation probably would be in the best interests of Wikipedia. I admit that my threatend actions may have been somewhat ambiguous. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 03:45, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

He is not a party to this arbitration. See this list of involved parties. Tennis expert (talk) 12:49, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Lightmouse - Socking

9) Lightmouse (talk · contribs) has misused alternative accounts in a deceptive manner.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

The evidence against Lightmouse appears to be circumstantial at best. Even if it were proven that Lightmouse was the user behind User:Bobblewik and User:Editore99, these accounts appear to have been abandoned since 18:31, 4 October 2006 (UTC) and 13:55, 23 May 2007 (UTC) respectively. The accounts were successive in their operation and without any overlap at all, and such use does not appear to violate policy. - I refer to WP:SOCK#Clean start under a new name. Ohconfucius (talk) 06:05, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

From WP:SOCK#Clean start under a new name, a "genuine, clean, and honest new start" would likely not involve starting right back into using the scripts that got you blocked repeatedly in the first place. I'm surprised nobody caught on to this sooner (especially considering Jimbo Wales warned him to stop on his talk page!. —Locke Cole • t • c 06:30, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

• How, pray, are you going to prove it was not a "genuine, clean, and honest new start"? Anyway, you DON'T KNOW FOR SURE it was LM; secondly, anything written on WP is GFDL, so a talented programmer should easily be able to adapt a script written by someone else. The problem lies not with the tool itself, but the use to which it is put. Ohconfucius (talk) 06:53, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

• You're changing the question. I answered your original question, if you have have doubts about the connection between Bobblewik and Lightmouse I suggest you take it up with MBisanz. —Locke Cole • t • c 07:08, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

• Call it a supplementary question, if you like - do you have problem with that? Ohconfucius (talk) 09:52, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Lightmouse has now admitted being Bobblewik. -- Earle Martin [^t/_c] 15:26, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Of course this is valid, given the FoFs above. If he has switched account in this manner, he has gotten permission to run a bot that Bobblewik, with several blocks for inconiderate delinking of dates, could never have gotten. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 06:29, 20 January 2009 (UTC)-

Seems to be clear even prior to Lightmouse's admission regarding being the owner of the previous accounts. Mlaffs (talk) 06:15, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

I've placed some ponderings on this topic at Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Date delinking/Workshop, any helpful answers would be appreciated. MBisanz ^talk 17:53, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Lightmouse - Deception

10) Lightmouse (talk · contribs) has sought approvals based on community trust without revealing his prior controversial activities.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Oppose I am of the belief that our editors deserve certain basic human rights, and I count among them the right to remain silent. -- Kendrick7^talk 19:45, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Support. This is merely a finding of fact that is irrefutably true. Tennis expert (talk) 20:33, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

But calling this "deception" is an opinion. -- Kendrick7^talk 20:47, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

I highly doubt arbcom will copy any of the proposals on this page from anyone. It has been my experience they read it over and synthesize their own decision, without regard to what we write or what our opinion is of what other people have written. MBisanz ^talk 20:56, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

In my experience as well. My point is while it's a "fact" it's a loaded fact; Lightmouse was under no obligation to reveal his prior activities. -- Kendrick7^talk 21:16, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Lightmouse - Socking 2

11) There is sufficient evidence to conclude that Lightmouse (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has repeatedly engaged in prohibited sockpuppetry and/or contribution history concealment.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

At least strongly supported by MBisanz's evidence; admins may be able to find more. The end of Bobblewik's edits certainly includes editing three articles in a minute, repeatedly, under the summary "units and links"; searching for his appearances on ANI turns up several complaints about this. A similarity of pattern exists. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:10, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

I suggest you look at the initial edits by Lightmouse and Editore99 to their talk pages and monobook.js files, you will see the connection stronger there than in the edit style. MBisanz ^talk 03:26, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Make that support. Lightmouse admits that he changed account twice; there's nothing wrong with that if you want to walk away from your old history, but the new accounts continued the same mass delinking that Bobblewik had been repeatedly blocked for. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:05, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Lightmouse - Socking 3

12) The evidence shows that Lightmouse (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has operated a total of at least three accounts, well outside of policy and established norms.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Again, at least strongly suggested. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:11, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

As above, support. Lightmouse admits the three accounts; if he had done so when Lightbot was approved, it would not have been. In addition, when Lightbot began to attract criticism last October, Lightmouse requested a new bot to do Lightbot's job without admitting that this was a substitute for Lightbot, that Lightbot had been criticized, or his past history.

To his credit, the mission of Cleanbot was actually well-defined, but it was denied permission anyway. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:18, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Proposed remedies

Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.

Locke Cole - Banned

1) Locke Cole (talk · contribs) is banned from editing Wikipedia for a period of 6 months.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

In the past few months, I have disagreed with just about everything that Locke Cole has had to say, but this is too much—unless there is something I don't know from a previous Rfar. Dabomb87 (talk) 03:55, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I'll freely admit to having engaged in behavior that probably wasn't helpful, but I avoided engaging in the same behavior that's under scrutiny here (mass edits over thousands of articles) precisely because I view that as edit warring. Is there something in particular in the evidence that you think warrants something this extreme? —Locke Cole • t • c 20:17, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

(to MBisanz) Yeah, somebody else explained that to me earlier. I will strike my earlier comment. Dabomb87 (talk) 21:13, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Reject. This is totally over the top. -- Earle Martin [^t/_c] 15:28, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Totally reject. This is becoming a medieval trial. As I've pointed out already, given the length of the debate and the importance that has been attached to it, occasional frayed tempers were to be expected. I do not believe that anyone on this page deserves to be punished like a school-child who has smoked cigarettes behind the toilet block. That would do nothing for reconciliation and harmony. Tony (talk) 09:13, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Just to clarify, I still think it is too much. While Cole's block log may be substantial, it seems to me that he has improved significantly in his conduct in the past half year (compared to the allegations in the arbcom incident two years ago). Dabomb87 (talk) 13:28, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

I based it on the extensive prior block log [8], the prior RFAR, and the edit warring documented in this RFAR as an indication of a long term behavioral problem that is not resolvable with other means. MBisanz ^talk 21:11, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Most of the extensive prior log is from 2006, as is the prior case; there's been one block (retracted) since June. This is a prime example of an editor who learns from his mistakes. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:34, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

One wonders just how long I'll be taken to task over things that happened three years ago. I've been far more restrained during this dispute than I was in the AUM dispute and I would hope any decision would reflect that. —Locke Cole • t • c 22:28, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

• One wonders just how long Lightmouse'll be taken to task over things which may have happened three years ago... ;-) Ohconfucius (talk) 06:34, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
  • He's being taken to task for not admitting to them last October, when he tried to get another bot (botpuppet?) to do anything he wanted. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 06:53, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Oppose I'm actually quite proud of this user for bringing this issue to the attention of ArbCom, whatever his past sins. I tried to reason with the editors at Talk:MOSNUM that just because a billion articles link to 2008, doesn't mean we need to auto-delink the 6 dozen articles that link to (e.g.) 471 but ran into an ideological wall, and decided to simply protect my own watchlist from Lightbot's non-consensus behavior. Let's not shoot the messenger. -- Kendrick7^talk 05:55, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Oppose The proposed remedy is way too extreme. Tennis expert (talk) 16:12, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Arthur Rubin - Warned

2) Arthur Rubin (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) is strongly warned that even the threat to use administrative tools in a dispute in which one is an involved administrator is prohibited under policy and will be viewed as a breach of policy by the Committee.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Per Arthur's comments above this is a bit much. —Locke Cole • t • c 21:02, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Arthur is almost certainly more aware of the importance of the WP:UNINVOLVED policy now, and I suspect he intends to fulfil his obligations to it; a specific ArbCom rebuke would be unnecessary in this context. Tony (talk) 09:20, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

He is not a party to this arbitration. See this list of involved parties. Tennis expert (talk) 12:47, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Tony 1 - Revert Parole

3) Tony1 shall for one year be limited to one revert per page per week, excepting obvious vandalism. Further, he is required to discuss any content reversions on the page's talk page.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Agree with Septentrionalis, unsupported by the evidence. Particularly with the idea of warning against removing dispute tags (which was a big factor in the reverts over MOSNUM). —Locke Cole • t • c 21:02, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Unsupported by the evidence; an admonishment to be more careful to produce new wording and not remove tags would be more suitable, and probably more useful. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:23, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

There is evidence that he has engaged in the most serious kind of revert warring: blind reversions. However, the penalty proposed here is too severe. He should instead be warned not to edit war in the future and not to remove dispute tags. Tennis expert (talk) 16:09, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Tony 1 - Civility Parole

4) Tony1 (talk · contribs) is subject to an editing restriction for nine months. Should they make any edits which are judged by an administrator to be uncivil, personal attacks, or assumptions of bad faith, they may be blocked for the duration specified in the enforcement ruling below.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Tony's usually very direct in his communication because he likes to get straight to the point -life's too short. Why employ five words when one will suffice? Sure, Tony's been blunt at times, haven't we all? Isolated comments taken out of context can easily show the wrong picture by ignoring the style of the relevant ongoing discussions. Ohconfucius (talk) 04:41, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Suggest starting with an admonishment. Or shortening this to three months. —Locke Cole • t • c 21:02, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

That would be a block for the period of the parole less about 12 hours. I actually don't think it's a good idea, in spite of my disagreements with Tony, but let's be honest as to the consequences. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 03:35, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Needs to be more clear. What one person considers "uncivil", another considers a gentle prod. Dabomb87 (talk) 03:57, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Well I just copied it from the ScienceApologist Civ Parole finding, so I'm certainly no expert on how to make it read clearer. Any ideas on a better definition of the terms? MBisanz ^talk 04:00, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I guess there is nothing wrong with the wording, but I have a problem with the whole "one administrator" thing. Dabomb87 (talk) 04:10, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Science Apologist has always behaved much worse than any editor involved in this case (possibly except Bobblewik), and his sanctions have grown from an admonishment to the present mentoring over four or five cases. A finding that the community does not approve of obscenity and abuse, coupled with a warning, would seem called for here; but I would prefer to remove the invitation to offense, which is MOSNUM. If Tony didn't have his "authority" to defend, he would have no reason to be abusive. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:36, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

• Does Ohconfucius mean to defend Tony's discussing his own feces as "direct communication"? Some of us are tired of it. (See my evidence; he copyedited the remark, and defended it when challenged; it's not a momentary lapse.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:30, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
  • This is a prime example of the nonsense prevailling here about "civility". The question that Tony is responding to can be interpreted as way more incivil than Tony's response. The question implies that Tony has lost it. That is quite strong. His answer is rather composed in my opinion. As written here somewhere, all this is so subjective. So we should stop waste time on these things, unless we are dealing with direct threats and namecalling (and the examples given are not persuasive in that direction). After all this is about date delinking. Not about people's ways of expression. --HJensen, talk 17:42, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
    • The post to which Tony was responding was, in full, Dear Tony: Your frequent personal aspersions, which are personal attacks and fail to assume good faith, are uncivil and also counterproductive (that is, they are the opposite of persuasive). Please examine your behavior. Thank you. Who else responds to that from his toilet bowl?
    • This did follow a remark which could reasonably be interpreted as a personal aspersion, and Tony followed his obscenity by the declaration that that was exactly the right amount of information.
    • If WP:CIVIL is not intended to advise against posts like this, what is it policy for? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:33, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
      • Could just as well be for protecting editors about accusations of "personal attacks", "fail to assume good faith", and so on. As I said, I think the post he is responding to is just as uncivil. Talking about his "stool" is to me not "obscene", maybe just a bit childish.--HJensen, talk 22:59, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
        • No, that would be WP:AGF. But we are not required to continue the assumption indefinitely against the evidence. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:03, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

HJensen: "this is about date delinking. Not about people's ways of expression." Er? I think you've made a grave misunderstanding. The introductory statement to this RfAr states:

"This has been an ongoing content dispute for the past six months that has repeatedly degenerated into incivility and poor behavior.... I urge the committee to accept this case so the behavior (incivility, edit warring, stalking, personal attacks, and so forth) of those involved can be looked at."

The acceptance statements from ArbCom members clearly indicate that it was accepted on this basis. -- Earle Martin [^t/_c] 20:08, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I have overlooked that. What a shame that people are forced to make moral judgements on whether "stool" is "obscene" and not whether strong accusations about editors' personal aspersions are fine. I'd say that these aspects are storms in teapots. Hopefully the ruling will eventually reflect this.--HJensen, talk 22:59, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

No, what a shame that this coterie of editors chooses to conduct their affairs this way. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:34, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

• Mandy, it is evident to me that Tony's wit is beyond the grasp of many. The fact that this very humorous remark (and obviously intended to be humorous) has turned into the above *splat* is evidence enough to me. I know that all is lost if you have to dissect a joke, but I am still prepared to do so for your better appreciation of Tony's strong sense of humour. The key word linking Tony's reaction with the preceding comment is "examine". Examination of one's stools is often recommended to individuals above a certain age by physicians. Also, I sense the animosity in your communications whenever talking about Tony, and I suggest that you buried it. Ohconfucius (talk) 03:02, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
  • It is possible to be funny and not be vulgar; it is possible to be funny and vulgar; but one should be really be one or the other. I read Dean Swift for pleasure, and my edit summaries have occasionally referred to him; but this is not Swift, nor was meant to be. This is one tactic by which a bully gets his way; it should be replaced by the means suitable to reaching consensus, as policy would recommend.
  • On a minor note: one should really write better than I suggest that you buried it, if one intends to set up as a Master of English, controlling all Wikipedia from the Manual of Style. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:27, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Tennis expert - Revert Parole

5) Tennis expert shall for one year be limited to one revert per page per week, excepting obvious vandalism. Further, he is required to discuss any content reversions on the page's talk page.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

I'll say it here (makes as much sense as anywhere else), but if one editor is placed on revert parole then everyone involved should be on revert parole (not just named parties). So if any of these are voted on and pass, it only makes sense to do them for everyone else as well. —Locke Cole • t • c 21:02, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

We may have serious disagreements, but each of us clearly believes s/he is a worthy editor who applying particular expertise for the larger benefit. Punishing people—which is what such a measure in effective would be—for energetically engaging in a long debate is likely to be counterproductive. WP (whether ArbCom or admins) needs to explore ways of improving the culture and reducing tension other than with a hammer. Such "paroles" may seem to be a simple fix, but have a degrading impact on a user that is, in the final analysis, more likely to damage the project than heal a local set of tensions. Tony (talk) 09:32, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

I am not a party to this arbitration. See this list of involved parties. Tennis expert (talk) 12:44, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

• Locke Cole's comment here is the principle that a good editor confronted with a troll should receive the sanction due to the troll. I dispute this. We will disagree, doubtless, on which the good editor is, and which the troll, but "that's quite another thing." Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:20, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
• The evidence that Tennis Expert has been editwarring over date delinking consists of two series of edits in which he does one revert every few days. That's not enough to warrant this. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:20, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Is this indication of just "two series of edits in which he does one revert every few days"? I would not think so. But I oppose any sanctions towards anyone. --HJensen, talk 21:38, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I meant the evidence in Evidence here. But HJensen's view consists largely in reverting changes to his own posts on his own talk page, sonething on which there is a sound case for leniency. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:49, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

No, my view has nothing to do with behavior on the talk page.--HJensen, talk 08:40, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Then what, if any, is the point of your link, which shows some twenty edits to User talk:Tennis expert? (Several of them do appear to be reversions.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:41, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

1) Scroll down and watch all the reversions. There are 500 edits to look at—a significant number is (to use TE's language) "blind reverts." That was the point of my link. 2) Your wording "if any" is exceptionally insulting and condescending (you are implying that I obviously had no clue about what I was doing), and is in my view way, way more incivil than Tony talking about toilet contents. There you see. Persons percieve different things differently. That is why this whole civility stuff and civility paroles are laughable in my view. --HJensen, talk 23:07, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

If this ever happens again, please include the diffs which are blind reversions, as ArbCom requests; failing that, use an offset which begins with the edits you want people to look at. I will strike the if any; but this point still seems magnificently obscure. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:32, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

I see your point. I just thought a single link was sufficient to present the overall picture, given the large amount of datelinkings made within the 500 edit search frame that includes edits from five days (November 16 to November 20). Of these edits I think that more than half of them are evidence of editwarring. These are:

diff1, diff2, diff3, diff4, diff5, diff6, diff7, diff8, diff9, diff10, diff11, diff12, diff13, diff14, diff15, diff16, diff17, diff18, diff19, diff20, diff21, diff22, diff23, diff24, diff25, diff26, diff27, diff28, diff29, diff30, diff31, diff32, diff33, diff34, diff35, diff36, diff37, diff38, diff39, diff40, diff41, diff42, diff43, diff44, diff45, diff46, diff47, diff48, diff49, diff50, diff51, diff52, diff53, diff54, diff55, diff56, diff57, diff58, diff59, diff60, diff61, diff62, diff63, diff64, diff65, diff66, diff67, diff68, diff69, diff70, diff71, diff72, diff73, diff74, diff75, diff76, diff77, diff78, diff79, diff80, diff81, diff82, diff83, diff84, diff85, diff86, diff87, diff88, diff89, diff90, diff91, diff92, diff93, diff94, diff95, diff96, diff97, diff98, diff99, diff100, diff101, diff102, diff103, diff104, diff105, diff106, diff107, diff108, diff109, diff110, diff111, diff112, diff113, diff114, diff115, diff116, diff117, diff118, diff119, diff120, diff121, diff122, diff123, diff124, diff125, diff126, diff127, diff128, diff129, diff130, diff131, diff132, diff133, diff134, diff135, diff136, diff137, diff138, diff139, diff140, diff141, diff142, diff143, diff144, diff145, diff146, diff147, diff48, diff149, diff150, diff51, diff152, diff153, diff154, diff155, diff156, diff157, diff158, diff159, diff160, diff161, diff162, diff163, diff164, diff165, diff166, diff167, diff168, diff169, diff170, diff171, diff172, diff173, diff174, diff175, diff176, diff177, diff178, diff179, diff180, diff181, diff182, diff183, diff184, diff185, diff186, diff187, diff188, diff189, diff190, diff191, diff192, diff193, diff194, diff195, diff196, diff197, diff198, diff199, diff200, diff201, diff202, diff203, diff204, diff205, diff206, diff207, diff208, diff209, diff210, diff211, diff212, diff213, diff214, diff215, diff216, diff217, diff218, diff219, diff220, diff221, diff222, diff223, diff224, diff225, diff226, diff227, diff228, diff229, diff230, diff231, diff232, diff233, diff234, diff235, diff236, diff237, diff238, diff239, diff240, diff241, diff242, diff243, diff244, diff245, diff246, diff247, diff248, diff249, diff250, diff251, diff252, diff253, diff254, diff255, diff256, diff257, diff258, diff259, diff260, diff261, diff262, diff263, diff264, diff265, diff266, diff267, diff268.

In total, 268 edits. I hope my point comes across now.--HJensen, talk 17:41, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Unbelievable! But don't worry, it still won't be enough to make the point to those who will not see.  HWV258  21:38, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. I have only looked at a sample, and some of them produce the flawed result [[May 20]] [[2000]], where the comma is mandatory; but that is concealed by autoformating. Beyond that, reversion is not, by itself, editwarring; it is disagreement. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:35, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Pmanderson - Revert Parole

6) Pmanderson shall for one year be limited to one revert per page per week, excepting obvious vandalism. Further, he is required to discuss any content reversions on the page's talk page.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

See my comments above. This would be a counterproductive measure. Tony (talk) 09:35, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

He (or she) is not a party to this arbitration. See this list of involved parties. Tennis expert (talk) 12:46, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

• My comments on this are on the Evidence page. This one I know to be weak; the evidence for other editwarring I believe to be equally weak. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:08, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Greg L. - Reminded

7) Greg L. is reminded to respect all policies and guidelines, in spirit as well as letter, when editing pages concerning editorial style. This applies in particular to matters of good faith and civility.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Strangely this is the one I think could use some more teeth, specifically a civility parole, probably for at least six months. —Locke Cole • t • c 21:02, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Concur with Locke here. -- Earle Martin [^t/_c] 15:29, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Concur with Locke Cole here. Tennis expert (talk) 16:04, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

UC Bill Reminded

8) UC Bill (talk · contribs) is reminded to abide by the civility policy at all times.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Oppose this, don't think it's appropriate at this point. —Locke Cole • t • c 21:02, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

He is not a party to this arbitration. See this list of involved parties. Tennis expert (talk) 12:46, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Lightmouse - Banned

9) For violating the community's trust, Lightmouse is banned from editing for a period of nine months.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Why the odd length? —Locke Cole • t • c 21:02, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Unwarranted Per my response to #Lightmouse - Socking above. LM seems to have kept his nose clean since opening of this account. Ohconfucius (talk) 06:15, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Lightmouse's nose is reasonably clean, yes — only one block, although it should be no surprise that it's the result of delinking of dates. Lightbot's nose, on the other hand, is materially less clean. Mlaffs (talk) 06:41, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Support; and suggest extension to a full year's ban for deceptive practices. -- Earle Martin [^t/_c] 15:30, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Well the longest ban the arbcom can give is one year, and I've seen far more destructive sockpuppetry than this, but at the same time this was on a massive scale of 100,000+ edits over five years makes it unique in size, so 9 months seemed like the medium between a 90 day ban and a 1 year ban. MBisanz ^talk 21:06, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Support. The record of Lightbot is part of the record of Lightmouse. Tennis expert (talk) 16:03, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Lightmouse - Lightbot

10) Because of the deception used in seeking its approval, Lightbot (talk · contribs)'s bot approval is revoked. Lightmouse must seek re-application to the bot approval's group if he wishes to resume such tasks.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Agree. —Locke Cole • t • c 21:02, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Unwarranted Per my response to #Lightmouse - Socking above. LM seems to have kept his nose clean since opening of this account. Ohconfucius (talk) 06:17, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

As above, Lightmouse's nose is reasonably clean, although Lightbot's nose, on the other hand, is not. Mlaffs (talk) 06:43, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Agree. -- Earle Martin [^t/_c] 15:31, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

This, and the next, refer, it appears, to Lightmouse being User:Bobblewik, who escaped sanction for date-delinking back in 2006 by promising to stop delinking. Both premises should be findings of fact. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:05, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I saw there was date-related controversy back in 2006 that seemed to cause him to leave. But I couldn't find a specific sanction discussion, outside the old-style RFC. Did I miss something? (he did have 65,000 edits). MBisanz ^talk 22:22, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

All I find for now is Bobblewik's Block log, which ends with two long blocks both for delinking dates when several admins have told him not to, and and an unblock so he can discuss it at ANI. (date August 15,2006, for anybody who wants to check the edit history of ANI.) This is almost as old as Locke Cole's offenses, but if Lightmouse is Bobblewik, he should certainly have mentioned it to BAG. (This depends on the FoF that he is Bobblewik, of course, but I rmemember Bobblewik being used as a bad example when I began to edit.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:44, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I tacked on some more findings, take your pick. MBisanz ^talk 02:16, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Lightmouse has admitted to being Bobblewik. Tennis expert (talk) 12:05, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Lightmouse has also provided a rationale for his actions at his talk page. Dabomb87 (talk) 13:58, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Both of these comments refer to the same post. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:32, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Agree, except that a flat-out, permanent revokage of his bot usage would be more appropriate. Tennis expert (talk) 16:01, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

TE, you said on Tony's page that you were a lawyer? I always thought the noun for 'revoke' was 'revocation'. ;-) Ohconfucius (talk) 16:29, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Ladies and gentlemen, that is flat-out incivility right there. Is there anyone else here that Ohconfucius would like to suggest is a liar? -- Earle Martin [^t/_c] 16:46, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

He wrote "lawyer", not "liar", so are you being incivil? Note that the emoticon ";-)" shows that it was intended humerous.--HJensen, talk 17:34, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

You misunderstand. Ohconfucius is suggesting that Tennis expert is not, in fact, as he has stated, a lawyer, because he has made a spelling mistake. The smiley means nothing; he is fond of putting them after accusations he makes. -- Earle Martin [^t/_c] 19:45, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

No, he was asking for clarification in a lighthearted way. "I always thought" and the emoticon at the end show that Ohconfucius was not being serious. That is not in any way uncivil. Dabomb87 (talk) 22:24, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

I think we've had enough "light-heartedness" of that kind; how does it contribute to the encyclopedia? I request that Arbcom put an end to it; per my FoF 5, this is an instance of abuse. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:58, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

• Earle, I know some people might be confused because both 'liar' and 'lawyer' start with an 'L', and end with an 'R'. While I am at it, let me utter a word which starts with an 'F', and end with an 'K' ;-) Anyway, I don't honestly give a toss whether TE's a lawyer or not. I would just point out that 'revocal' is nonsense, and the noun for 'revoke' is a word that even a first-year law student should be able to spell. Ohconfucius (talk) 02:44, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

• PS, did anyone guess the word I uttered above was 'firetruck' ;-) Ohconfucius (talk) 04:21, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

• No, I had a four letter word in mind (fork). And let me say that while I don't think your comment to TE was especially uncivil, I take great offense at your use of the phrase "even a first year law student". Sarcasticidealist (talk) 18:59, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

• Unfortunately, ArbCom asked for it against some sage advice. I am amazed how it could imagine this being a way forward? This whole workshop page has been turned into a dog and pony show, with no end of recriminations flying. The only benefit I can see is that the rather unhealthy discussions have been drawn away from WP:MOSNUM. Ohconfucius (talk) 02:47, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Apologies for interrupting this ever-so-interesting thread of clever language and thin veneer of "humour", but support revocation. Would support the bot's operation by another user that could be trusted to operate it appropriately, as the bot itself isn't inherently bad. Mlaffs (talk) 06:19, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Lightmouse - AWB

11) Because of the deception used in seeking its approval, Lightmouse (talk · contribs)'s AWB permission is revoked. Lightmouse must seek re-application to the AWB developers if he wishes to resume using the tool.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Agree. —Locke Cole • t • c 21:02, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Agree. -- Earle Martin [^t/_c] 15:32, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Unwarranted Per my response to #Lightmouse - Socking above. LM seems to have kept his nose clean since opening of this account. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ohconfucius (talk • contribs)

Comment by others:

Agree, except that a flat-out, permanent revokage of his AWB usage would be more appropriate. Tennis expert (talk) 15:59, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

I think that's a little extreme. There's plenty of good and uncontroversial work that Lightmouse could still do with AWB. -- Earle Martin [^t/_c] 16:48, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Users should be judged based on their actions, not on whether a tool did them. "I was using AWB" is no defence. It is impossible to fully prevent a user from editing the encyclopedia using AWB other than by blocking them (by virtue of the fact that the tool is open source). This must be borne in mind. Restrictions on using AWB, and when AWB can be used again by the user, should be determined by the community (overkill) or by this committee at an opportune moment in the future. Martinp23 20:48, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Lightmouse - Scripts

12) For his past history of abuse of assisted and automated editing tools in editing numerical terms, Lightmouse is indefinitely restricted from making script-assisted edits.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Agree. —Locke Cole • t • c 21:02, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Unwarranted Per my response to #Lightmouse - Socking above. He's a talented and responsive programmer, and this remedy is like try cutting off his hands. LM seems to have kept his nose clean since opening of this account. Ohconfucius (talk) 06:34, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Agree strongly. Lightmouse had his chance, and blew it. -- Earle Martin [^t/_c] 15:33, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Agree, although I would substitute "indefinitely prohibited" for "indefinitely restricted" and would specifically mention AWB. Tennis expert (talk) 15:57, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Scripts are things people place in monobook.js and monobook.css pages, AWB is a software program that runs independent of those pages. MBisanz ^talk 17:00, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Lightmouse - Accounts

13) Lightmouse (talk · contribs) is limited to using one and only one account to edit. They are to inform the Committee of the account they have selected, and must obtain the Committee's approval if they wish to begin using a different account.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Agree. —Locke Cole • t • c 21:02, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Unwarranted Per my response to #Lightmouse - Socking above. There is no evidence that LM is using any other account, but otherwise, WP:SOCK should be complied with by all. Ohconfucius (talk) 06:34, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Agree. Tennis expert (talk) 15:58, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Proposed enforcement

Blocks and bans

1) Should any user subject to an editing restriction in this case violate that restriction, they may be briefly blocked, up to a week in the event of repeated violations. After 5 blocks, the maximum block shall increase to one month. All blocks are to be logged at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Date_delinking#Log of blocks and bans.

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Proposals by User:Z

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