Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment/Archive 128

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Clarification request: Contentious topics restrictions

Original discussion

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

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Initiated by EggRoll97 at 03:36, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

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

• EggRoll97 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (initiator)

Statement by EggRoll97

Multiple pages protected under contentious topics procedures this year alone (see WP:AEL#Armenia-Azerbaijan_(CT/A-A) for just a sample) have been protected under arbitration enforcement but have no editnotice or other restriction notice applied to the page. This is despite a line recurring in contentious topics procedures pages being, in part, When a page has active page restrictions, the following template must be used as an editnotice, and the contentious topics procedures page itself stating that an editnotice is required prior to blocking an editor for a violation, even if they are aware of contentious topics procedures, with the language of However, breaches of a page restriction may result in a block or editor restriction only if: The editor was aware that they were editing in a contentious topic, and The restricted page displayed an editnotice ({{Contentious topics/page restriction editnotice}} or a derived topic-specific template) specifying the page restriction.

Because of this, I ask for clarification as to whether these editnotices can be added to pages by any editor if the enforcing administrator has not done so, or whether they may only be added by the administrator who has applied the page restriction.

ToBeFree Based on your statement, would I be correct in assuming there would be no problem (procedurally-wise?), if, for example, I went through the list of pages logged as "indef ECP" or similar in the enforcement log, and added topic-specific editnotices to them? While I've seen some commentary below about the efficacy of these editnotices, I personally find it helpful to have these types of editnotices present on pages just for the purposes of having a big banner to tell me a certain page is applicable to CTOP. EggRoll97 ^(talk) 23:07, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Selfstudier

The edit notice can be added by editors with the page mover permission. Idk whether the idea of CT was to do away with this requirement but I don't think it did so in my usual area (AI/IP), the Arbpia edit notice (and talk page notice which can be added by any editor) is needed in general.Selfstudier (talk) 08:43, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Firefangledfeathers

Editnotices can be created by administrators, page movers, and template editors. If an editnotice exists, most editors can edit it, and I'd support non-admins rectifying clerical errors wherever possible. Speaking of which, if someone wants to collect some pages that need editnotices, I'm happy to cross a bunch of them off the list.

Arbs, I'd suggest that common practice has moved away from such editnotices being necessary. Between admins forgetting, banner blindness, and mobile editors not seeing them at all, I don't think the notices are meaningful in generating awareness of the restriction. Enforcement of restrictions these days tends to be dependent on both formal CTOP awareness and a request to self-revert being ignored or declined, meaning a few other checks are in place to avoid unwarranted sanctions. Would the committee consider changing this requirement to a recommendation? Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 18:43, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Statement by {other-editor}

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

Contentious topics restrictions: Clerk notes

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

Contentious topics restrictions: Arbitrator views and discussion

• My read of the procedures is that edit notices are not required when an entire topic area is under a particular restriction (e.g. 1RR) or if an individual administrator changes the protection level under the CT procedures. They are required id an individual administrator places a page restriction (other than protection) on an individual page. The key phrasing is, for me, An administrator who imposes a page restriction (other than page protection) must add an editnotice to restricted pages using the standard template ({{Contentious topics/page restriction editnotice}} or a derived topic-specific template), and should generally add a notice to the talk page of restricted pages.(formatting removed). Barkeep49 (talk) 22:06, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
• The main purpose of these edit notices, to me, is informing users about a restriction so they can adhere to it. This is not needed for page protection; MediaWiki both displays details about the protection and prevents restriction violations at the same time. The protection text already contains the needed information (Wikipedia:Contentious topics § Logging). All users automatically adhere to page protections, which is probably why Wikipedia:Contentious topics § Restriction notices explicitly exempts them from the editnotice requirement.
  Topic-wide restrictions such as the extended-confirmed restriction can be enforced with blocks as long as a user is (formally) aware of the restriction; edit notices are not required for the imposition or enforcement of topic-wide restrictions. A user restricted from editing about weather must not edit about weather, and they may be blocked to prevent them from continuing to do so even if the affected pages didn't display a huge "this is a weather-related page" edit notice above them.
  This makes the actual question less relevant than EggRoll97 may have thought, but the answer is that {{Contentious topics/editnotice}}, which explains topic-wide restrictions, may be added by anyone technically able to do so, and {{Contentious topics/page restriction editnotice}} is for use by administrators who impose a different page restriction than page protection. It will rarely be missing where it is actually required, but it if is actually clearly missing somewhere, I'd recommend simply asking the enforcing administrator to fix the issue. The existence of a page restriction (other than page protection) begins with the creation of the edit notice to my understanding, so failing to place the edit notice doesn't do the action incorrectly, it simply fails to take action at all. This is why, to me, page restrictions other than page protection can't be "fixed" by anyone else. They simply don't exist. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 22:41, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

  EggRoll97, I think adding {{Contentious topics/editnotice|XYZ}} as an edit notice to pages clearly fully related to XYZ would be helpful, even if no protection has happened yet.
  Adding {{Contentious topics/editnotice|...|section=yes}} as an edit notice to pages related to XYZ closely enough to justify an existing CTOP page protection would also be helpful.
  There's an exception though: I wouldn't add {{Contentious topics/editnotice|blp}} to BLPs, as being in Category:Living people already causes {{BLP editnotice}} to appear. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 23:24, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

  I think this can be closed as answered. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 23:16, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

• To answer whether these editnotices can be added to pages by any editor if the enforcing administrator has not done so, yes; adding an edit notice where one is missing is something anyone (with the correct permissions) is able to do. Primefac (talk) 13:55, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

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