Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive218
Playalake
| Indef blocked as a standard admin action for not being here to build an encyclopedia, then CU linked as a sockpuppet. All non-AE actions, not logged. Closing as no AE action is needed. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 00:32, 16 July 2017 (UTC) |
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This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below. Request concerning Playalake
Account is pure SPA. From their 1st edit here, this person made it clear that they had no interest in editing Wikipedia per the policies and guidelines, but came here to WP:RGW driven by a petition at change.org. They have never attempted to understand WP nor the policies and guidelines, and they are now just all-caps yelling personal attacks.
Discussion concerning PlayalakeStatements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator. Statement by PlayalakeAll positive statements about acupuncture are removed from Wikipedia and only insults remain. They remove everything! Studies from great journals are deleted because they say the authors of those studies are Taiwanese! So any Asians are problems for Wikipedia? Asian scientists are incapable of proper science? I am Asian American and Wikipedia now wants me to be internment it seems! That is how you deal with all of us, by deleting all of us from your encyclopedia. I am offended by your policies and will fight to expose this. I found the unjust article from change.org where it is shown that Wikipedia doesn't follow its own policies because they want to hurt acupuncture. We will create many more petitions now! Statement by (username)Result concerning Playalake
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Debresser
| I'm going to assume good faith and believe Debresser's explanation that he didn't mean anti-semitic, he meant anti-Israeli-political-objectives. That is still focusing on editors and not edits, still a personal attack and, as far as I can see, battleground behaviour. We edit collaboratively, not by assigning each other to factions. I don't think this amounts to an indefinite sanction, but I do think it amounts to sanctions. Consequently, Debresser is banned from all edits and articles related to the Arab-Israeli conflict, broadly construed, for two months. I am very tempted by an indefinite IBAN between Debresser and Nishidani, but will (probably unwisely) leave it until next time.
The idea of a "casting aspersions" restriction is a curious one to me. I accept that it has worked well in another area if others say it has, but casting aspersions and classifying people by their nationality or politics or religion or whatever is prohibited anyway. If someone wants to introduce this restriction as an AE action then they are very free to do so; I'm not going to as part of this close because I don't personally see what it adds to the existing policy. It is a bit disturbing to me that some editors here seem to consider the idea of not casting aspersions on the basis of ethnicity/nationality a novel one and something we should do. Other editors are reminded: (1) This is arbitration enforcement and you are expected to behave with decorum here. (2) Evidence presented should be evidence that adds to the record, or uninvolved opinion that advances resolution, not, as BMK lightly puts it, statements ex cathedra (thank you for that touch of humour, even if I did feel I had to hat it). (3) When someone makes a mistake and owns it and corrects it, you should consider it done, not something to whip them with repeatedly (thus Debresser's edit summary). (4) While it is true that arbitration enforcement may take the opportunity to scrutinise the activity of everyone involved, presenting a string of months-old diffs is not relevant and not welcome. GoldenRing (talk) 07:54, 17 July 2017 (UTC) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Request concerning Debresser
tl, dr: Debresser calls me (and Nishidani) anti-Jewish, i.e., racist. He does not retract this, even when asked multiple times.
After 16:13, 14 July 2017 Debresser has had several requests to strike the anti-Jewish comment. He has not done so. I consider this extremely insulting, in my country to call someone anti-Jewish is basically saying that they are racist. I ask that Debresser either
User:Debresser: You have no reason to blame this AE report on Nishidani, Nishidani actually advised me to "sleep on these things overnight and reconsider" when I said I would bring this to AE if you didn't retract your words. I thought you has been given plenty of chances already, therefor this report. Huldra (talk) 17:41, 16 July 2017 (UTC) User:No More Mr Nice Guy: Whaw, finding a 3 year old edit from me, proving ...what exactly? The sources given were Source 1, Source 2 People can check for themselves if they think I did a good summary, or not, Huldra (talk) 21:51, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
Discussion concerning DebresserStatements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator. Statement by DebresserNishidani is only back from his latest month-long ban since July 12, although he had promised to retire,I'll retire from Wikipedia.Waiting for it to be archived so I can put in a permalink, and then goodbye and already he has managed to escalate what has been a very quiet WP:ARBPIA area for the last month. I will not hide that I am less than thrilled about his return, and for good reason. That, however, is not a crime, and should not be held against me. This post is likely some kind of payback for that ban. Regarding Huldra. She can hardly be said to have clean hands herself, see this WP:ANI thread, where she was shown to hide POV edits behind the innocent "ce" edit summary. If that is bad editing in general, in the WP:ARBPIA area this is reason for sanctions. Please also see User_talk:Black_Kite, where Black Kite mentions that this is indeed a WP:AE issue. Per WP:BOOMERANG, Huldra should be sanctioned for making such misleading and POV edits in the WP:ARBPIA area, and then having the gall to report me. What it is I am being accused of precisely? I saw 6 edit summaries above, of which the first is Huldra's, and another two are Nishidani's. By the way, I already stated more than once on the talkpage, that I have no problem with Huldra's proposal. All I said which seems to have struck the wrong note with Huldra, is that the agreement of only a few editors is too feeble, and that I would like some outside input. Seeing the same group of editors time and time again, and noticing that they always agree with each other, makes one suspicious of team work, and so I felt that asking for outside input was the right thing to do. Surely that is reasonable. Regarding team work, please notice this, and see also the comment of another editor here, so I think some suspicion is not out of order, and asking for outside input is always a good idea. Debresser (talk) 01:11, 16 July 2017 (UTC) Additional comments by DebresserBased on Huldra's "additional comments", I now see that she has taken offense to the fact that I asked for input from editors who are not "anti-Jewish/Israeli". Contrary to what she claims, I did not call her "racist" or "anti-Semite". All I did was notice, that her stance on the Israeli-Palestine conflict is such which shows her to be on the Palestine side of these political matters. As a matter of fact, I have not mentioned any editor by name, and she has decided herself that the shoe fits. As a matter of fact, I had first written "anti-Jewish", and when Nisdani asked me to strike that, I did so, precisely because I meant the political side of things and "anti-Jewish" has another connotation than the one I had in mind. When I later had time for further consideration, I added "/Israeli", to clarify that I meant the political issue only. I am surprised that Huldra has ignored that clarification of mine, and is using the old version as an excuse to open this WP:AE post. I think that my subsequent commentaries on the talkpage in that section make it sufficiently clear that I had only the political issue in mind, nothing more. Whether Huldra has misread om good faith, is anybody's guess, although I think that in view of the WP:ANI thread just a few days ago in which I showed her to be hiding POV edits under misleading edit summaries, there is place for doubt in this regard. All cries here and elsewhere as though I called somebody anti-Semitic, are baseless and obvious attempts by the usual editors at discrediting me. Debresser (talk) 01:23, 16 July 2017 (UTC) @Sandstein I struck out "anti-Jewish, as soon as Nishidani pointed out to me the problem with that term. How many more times do I have to say that? I changed it to "anti-Jewish/Israeli", because in the framework of the political situation in the Israel-Palestine area, the problem is between the Jewish Israelis and the Arab Palestinians. In other words, I made it unequivocally clear that I was referring to the political issue only. See also admin GoldenRing's comment to your post. Debresser (talk) 14:28, 16 July 2017 (UTC) @Nishidani I never "followed" you to Shuafat. That article is on my watchlist since May 2016. Please do not demonize the enemy. Debresser (talk) 14:30, 16 July 2017 (UTC) @All Regarding my edit with the edit summary "The source does not say "no longer", just states a different opinion." All editors who are crying to high heavens how this was a mistake, conveniently ignore that I was the first to acknowledge the mistake in my following edit: More true. So let's simply ignore all those who raise that issue (like Nishidani and Johnuniq). Debresser (talk) 14:32, 16 July 2017 (UTC) Statement by Seraphim System
@SpacemanSpiff: I think the idea of an Aspersions restriction is not a bad one, as so many discussions in this area do seem to focus more on the alleged POV of an editor, then the content of the edits or WP:RS. But there are a few problems - how would it be enforced? Tying it to allegations of Nationality would not seem to address the particular problems in this area where so many of the aspersions are worded as "anti-Jewish" or "anti-Zionist" or "anti-Israel" — I'm not sure if this is different from the Pakistan/India area, but in ARBPIA we don't really see aspersions about actual nationality as often as we see aspersions about alleged political or ideological POV (anti-Zionist, anti-Jewish, anti-Israel) — calling someone "anti-Jewish/Israeli" is not a statement about their nationality. This would really have to be specific to the problems in this area, which may not be identical to problems in other area ("Indian nationalist POV" etc.) It would be like, if one side were saying "You are an Indian nationalist" and the other was saying "You are anti-Indian nationalist" — if this proposal isn't worded precisely, it would go from being potentially beneficial to an absolute disaster that could exacerbate systemic bias in the area over a semantics issue - for example most Wikipedia editors are male, most are from Christian-majority countries, most are English speakers - so a Muslim woman's POV, for example, would be a net benefit to Wikipedia, because this group is severely underrepresented. In the India/Pakistan section, our own figures show participation is quite healthy due to the English language education in those countries. But this is not the case most Muslim majority countries, so we have to consider that those who are trying to improve content related to Palestine are usually engaged in a good faith effort to balance the encyclopedia. I would recommend broader discussion about the specifics before something like this is implemented, and not simply leaving the implementation open to interpretation. Seraphim System (talk) 04:51, 17 July 2017 (UTC) Statement by Power~enwikiRegarding the specific content dispute: I'm not sure that this neighborhood should be portrayed as having an independent history from East Jerusalem. Regarding the editors involved; they might all need a topic-ban based on the continuing hostility at Talk:Shuafat. Power~enwiki (talk) 02:33, 16 July 2017 (UTC) I note a recent AN/I thread involving these editors that had no action. Power~enwiki (talk) 02:33, 16 July 2017 (UTC) User:No More Mr Nice Guy has taken offense to my reversion of one of his edits here that was clearly in violation of Arbitration rules and had already been reverted once. [4] Power~enwiki (talk) 03:22, 17 July 2017 (UTC) Statement by Nableezy
Statement by Nishidani
Statement by JohnuniqI confirmed that Nishidani's claim of "source falsification" is correct. Debresser changed the meaning of Nishidani's edit five minutes after Nishidani made it, using edit summary ' Statement by Malik Shabazz
Statement by KingsindianI think Debresser did not mean to accuse Nishidani or Huldra of anti-Semitism, and most likely referred to a political POV. But their choice of words was bad and clumsy, and they should have struck it out when asked. I think Debresser doesn't realize even now that their usage was inflammatory. It might be simply be a language issue. Leaving aside anti-Semitism issue, the charges about personal attacks are correct. As I said in the last AE request, some amount of heat is to be expected in this area (and other political areas). The questions which should be asked are the following. Does the overall discussion concentrate on the content? Are the participants trying to argue in good faith, and are amenable to compromise? I believe this is true (this was true of the last request as well, but the admins thought otherwise). This matter should simply not have escalated this far. I don't think an indefinite ban would be proportionate to the offence. Something milder should be pursued first. Finally, a word about the "source misrepresentation" issue. Debresser is clearly wrong in their edit summary. The source clearly uses the words; Debresser either didn't read carefully or didn't care, and didn't accept their error. They, however, did edit their own text in the article to mitigate some of the error (which is still not enough) Anyone can make a mistake, but one hopes that they accept it if it is pointed out. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 13:57, 16 July 2017 (UTC) Statement by Icewhiz
Statement by Nomoskedasticity
Statement by Beyond My Ken
Statement by No More Mr Nice Guy
Statement by K.e.coffman
Statement by (username)Result concerning Debresser
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Arbitration enforcement action appeal by Debresser
| Appeal is declined. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 15:16, 18 July 2017 (UTC) |
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Procedural notes: The rules governing arbitration enforcement appeals are found here. According to the procedures, a "clear, substantial, and active consensus of uninvolved editors" is required to overturn an arbitration enforcement action. To help determine any such consensus, involved editors may make brief statements in separate sections but should not edit the section for discussion among uninvolved editors. Editors are normally considered involved if they are in a current dispute with the sanctioning or sanctioned editor, or have taken part in disputes (if any) related to the contested enforcement action. Administrators having taken administrative actions are not normally considered involved for this reason alone (see WP:UNINVOLVED).
Statement by DebresserI would like to see this sanction lifted for six reasons: 1. The main reason for the topic ban was "Seeking input from a wider group of editors is good; classifying the input of those already involved based on their perceived politics or ethnicity is not."[15] When an article relates to the Israeli-Palestine conflict, and all editors commenting are members of WP:WikiProject Palestine, then it makes imminent sense to ask for input from editors who are members of WP:WikiProject Israel, and forbidding to do so is neither in the best interest of creating good articles, nor is it fair. 2. The admins who stressed that I had previously written "anti-Jewish" have not sufficiently paid attention to the fact, that I struck that later and replaced it by "anti-Jewish/Israeli", which is clearly and only a political distinction, since the conflict is between Jewish Israelis and Arab Palestinians. See the "Jewish Israelis"? Therefore, Sandstein is mistaken when he says I called another editor "anti-Jewish", because I struck that, and rightfully so. Likewise Peacemaker67 is wrong when he says that the later edit is "confirming their original comment was fully intended". How can he even say that, when I have explicitly stated and explained so many time the precise opposite. 3. The reporting editor came with unclean hands, since she herself was reported just a few days before for hiding POV edits in the IP-area behind misleading edit summaries, and has herself violated 1RR in the IP-area just today: [16][17], for which she should be sanctioned herself. Or is the unclean hands doctrine not applicable on Wikipedia? 4. None of the admins related to my accusation that Huldra was just trying to get back to me for my report of her (as mentioned above), and she and Nishidani are just trying to get back to me for having Nishidani topic banned for one month (see Nishidani's talkpage, where he keep extensive records regarding my edits). 5. I think that the decision in the WP:AE case was made too early, within less than 48 hours. I think that more admins would have added their input, with some likely agreeing with the point of view of The Wordsmith, that this is not actionable. I myself would have reacted to comments by admins, and possibly been able to make them change their mind. Pressures from real life have prevented me from going online regularly, but less than 48 hours is not enough to fully discuss issues which, as the admins section itself clearly shows, are not unequivocal. 6. From the notification on my talkpage, I understand that my edit was perceived as WP:BATTLEGROUND behavior. Although I do understand where that comes from, please also see my edit in context. Huldra's edits, like [18] and [19], are systematically trying to remove anything related to Jewish history from as many Israel and Palestine-related articles as possible. In view of such blatant POV-violations, how can one not acquire somewhat of a battleground attitude? And again, I think Huldra should be sanctioned for her editing. Debresser (talk) 19:53, 17 July 2017 (UTC) @Nomoskedasticity I was at the time of that edit not aware of the ban. As you can see, I made that edit a few minutes before I noticed the notification on my talkpage and replied to it. In addition, if I had added a category, that would have been POV-pushing, but adding a See also is not. See also the stated rationale in the edit summary. Debresser (talk) 20:07, 17 July 2017 (UTC) Statement by GoldenRingI'm just off to bed, but here are some quick notes:
Statement by Huldra
Statement by NishidaniI had no intention of commenting here, but seeing the following obliges me to:
This contextually suggests that I for one, in asserting that '"anti-Jewish/anti-Israeli" necessarily means anti-semitic', displayed 'troubling behavior.' There are 2 points here.
Discussion among uninvolved editors about the appeal by Debresser
Result of the appeal by Debresser
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Consensus Required restriction in American Politics
Recently the remedies in place in the Arab-Israeli topic area have been modified to remove the following restriction:
In addition, editors are required to obtain consensus through discussion before restoring a reverted edit.
This was, I think, done because the restriction has proved more trouble than it is worth.
The American Politics case(s) have no such restriction imposed by the arbitration committee, however individual administrators have imposed this restriction on individual pages using their authority under discretionary sanctions. So far, 32 pages have been tagged so this year and another 14 last year in American Politics, and a single page in Armenia-Azerbaijan 2. These have been duly logged in the discretionary sanctions log.
I propose a wholesale conversion of these sanctions to a straightforward 1RR restrictions, for all the same reasons the same move has been made on the ARBPIA case - the restriction is confusing, easy to get wrong and too easy to game.
I think seven admins have imposed all of the restrictions of this type logged on individual pages: @Coffee:, @Doug Weller:, @BU Rob13:, @Ks0stm:, @Laser brain:, @DeltaQuad: and @Bishonen:. Of those, at a discussion at Dennis Brown's talk page, Doug Weller, has indicated he has no problem with the removal of the consensus required provision for pages he has tagged and @The Wordsmith: has indicated he has inherited Coffee's administrative actions and has no problem with this proposal. Of the remainder, I'm guessing Bishonen, Amanda and Ks0stm are unaware of the discussion and Laser Brain I understand has retired. To avoid annoying them all and chasing those who have retired, I'm proposing a bulk conversion through a consensus of uninvolved administrators at AE (though if those involved want to give their thoughts that would be helpful, too. GoldenRing (talk) 12:27, 21 July 2017 (UTC)
- I believe that in every case, articles which have been placed under the "consensus required" restriction are also under 1RR. So when I say, "wholesale conversion" above, I suppose I really mean "remove the consensus required restriction."
- I would be very happy to instead convert these to the restriction suggested by BU Rob13 below - I take his point that 1RR favours new content and his suggestion seems a more straightforward way to slow down edit wars and encourage discussion. GoldenRing (talk) 13:53, 24 July 2017 (UTC)
Discussion concerning Consensus Required restriction in American Politics
Statements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Administrators may remove or shorten noncompliant statements. Disruptive contributions may result in blocks.
Statement by The Wordsmith
I was pinged above. Yes, I promised Coffee that I would take care of things on Wikipedia for him, during his absence. I'm certain that if he knew how poorly things were working, he would endorse this proposal. I also endorse it, as this particular sanction has failed and we need to (ahem) Repeal and Replace.
However, given that I consider myself WP:INVOLVED on Trump- and 2016 Election-related articles (where the bulk of these sanctions reside), I'm not commenting in the uninvolved admin section. I'm also not sure whether Arbitration sanctions can be legitimately "inherited" by another admin, but I think there's a valid IAR case here. The WordsmithTalk to me 14:58, 21 July 2017 (UTC)
Statement by Nomoskedasticity
Please LOOK CLOSELY at Rob's point [22]. A blanket 1RR is the wrong solution. The problem needs fixing, but with something more subtle/suitable. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 15:24, 21 July 2017 (UTC)
Statement by SPECIFICO
1. Is this the right page for this discussion?
2. What typically happens is that tag-teams of shall we say "highly motivated" editors reinsert challenged content without violating 1RR. I thought it was a mistake to remove the the consensus requirement. It was done in the context of a flurry of dissent by a relatively small group of editors who felt that the majority and consensus mainstream views were "wrong." I'm not aware of this provision causing any objective dysfunction at the articles where it remains in effect. Or certainly nothing near the slo-mo multipartite edit-wars and interminable talk page horse-beating on the talk pages of articles where it's been removed.
How can any rule that depends on "consensus" be a critical problem? If we cannot define or apply "consensus" this entire project makes no sense. SPECIFICO talk 17:32, 21 July 2017 (UTC)
Let's compare 2 articles. Donald Trump has the consensus restriction and runs pretty smoothly. Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections omits the consensus requirement and is mired in slow-mo edit warring, the threat of which leads to endless talk page tail-chasing. @Dennis Brown: I understand what you're saying about diffs, but that puts the burden on other editors to collect evidence, articulate a complaint, and then defend themselves against the usual counter-accusations and whataboutism from the disruptive editor and cronies. Fed editors have the stomach to get involved in that kind of thing. It's easier to back away or stop editing altogether. Now, I understand that you and other Admins have chosen to volunteer an extraordinary amount of time and attention to WP but we need to retain the broader population of editors who participate less intensively. Equally as important, however, I believe that the consensus requirement encourages editors to be more careful about their edits.e an edit is challenged and a talk discussion is underway, what good reason is there for reinserting the disputed material? The consensus requirement helps the less disciplined among us to focus on talk rather than revert warring. And when it's 3-5 editors doing the reverting, it's extremely rare that an AE or ANI thread really sorts things out very well. If Admins were actively patrolling the ARBAP2 pages, that would be a big improvement. But for whatever reason we do not have much of that kind of oversight and so the consensus requirement reminds editors not to be disruptive, even if they technically do not violate 1RR. It promotes voluntary restraint. SPECIFICO talk 19:04, 21 July 2017 (UTC)
@Dennis Brown: I know that you have been one of the most active and energetic among the Admins in these DS. I hope that in the future more admins will actively enforce these things to save us all from enforcement threads. Thanks for your reply. SPECIFICO talk 22:31, 21 July 2017 (UTC)
@MelanieN: The disagreement among Admins as to what constitutes a "revert" would seem to directly contradict any view that 1RR is by itself a meaningful way to ensure constructive editing. In fact, a lot of contentious nonsense can be found at this page and at various Admin's pages relating to denials that a revert is a "revert" and enlisting Admins of one view or another to support a number of conflicting views. Like the disagreement on "consensus" (if such disagreement exists) the documented inability of our most dedicated editors, the Admins, to agree on the definition of "revert" is a critical problem for WP today. SPECIFICO talk 19:05, 22 July 2017 (UTC)
Statement by Sagecandor
Essentially agree here with Dennis Brown that the prior practice was too nebulous. Agree with Bishonen that it was too troublesome as well as difficult to understand. And agree with Masem that this proposed change follows the KISS principle which would be helpful here. Sagecandor (talk) 17:38, 21 July 2017 (UTC)
Comment by Newyorkbrad
Responding only to SPECIFICO's question 1: Yes, this is the best place to address this issue. Newyorkbrad (talk) 22:55, 21 July 2017 (UTC)
Statement by JFG
While it seemed like a good idea at the time, and it sometimes worked to reduce slo-mo warring, this restriction has truly created a lot more drama than it has spared. Good-faith editors on both sides of an issue have sometimes spent more time bickering about who violated what and how than constructively working towards consensus. As the underlying content issues do not get resolved, they emerge again weeks or months later, sometimes prompted by a newcomer's edit, and the drama recurs. AE cases trying to enforce this rule have been mired in controversy, encouraging whataboutism from participants and surely frustrating for admins. 1RR is much simpler and can be adjudicated as a bright-line policy.
I would also approve a trial period for the suggestion by BU Rob13 of imposing a 24h do-not-restore limit on top of 1RR. This would solve elegantly for the case where Editor A adds content, editor B reverts and editor A counter-reverts: technically editor A has not violated 1RR but they have managed to impose their content without discussion: this goes against the spirit of BRD. Same thing when editor A removes something, editor B restores it and editor A nukes it again. Rob's suggestion would encourage editors to move such cases to a debate, let them calm down and allow other people to voice their opinion. Perhaps this "extended 1RR" could even become the standard 1RR after some time of experimenting in the field. — JFG talk 17:12, 22 July 2017 (UTC)
The "Current Consensus" mechanism
I would like to supplement SPECIFICO's observation that the Donald Trump article runs smoothly with the consensus-required restriction while Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections doesn't without it. The difference is not linked to having the special clause vs having standard 1RR: Russian interference used to be under the special restriction and that didn't help. Bishonen reverted to a simple 1RR after witnessing a few trainwreck AE cases stemming from interpretations of that restriction-that-keeps-on-giving. I would point out that the Trump article used to be mired in endlessly-recurring debates in the same vein of what is happening at Russian interference, so what changed? The topic certainly didn't get less controversial after Trump took office. The stabilizing factor at Donald Trump is the "Current Consensus" mechanism.
Frustrated by litigating perennial issues over and over, a bunch of "regulars" at the article and an admin (Coffee) developed a mechanism to properly document the questions that have been settled by prior debates. Every time an RfC is closed or a discussion ends with near-unanimous consensus among participants without going through RfC, the outcome is documented in a special section Talk:Donald Trump#Current consensus pinned at the top of the talk page. Consensus items are linked to the archived discussions in which they were determined, and hidden comments in the article text warn editors against changing the agreed-upon text without discussing it first per WP:CCC. This avoids frustrating debates along the lines of "it's been settled, just read the archives / no way, you read the archives", by listing exactly what has been settled and where. Finally, a prominent edit notice encourages editors to read the current established consensus before writing, which is especially useful to people unfamiliar with article lore. I would strongly support the implementation of this mechanism on articles such as Russian interference and in other controversial places where the present restriction hasn't worked satisfactorily. — JFG talk 17:40, 22 July 2017 (UTC)
- I can attest to the efficacy of this list, at least at Donald Trump. We have set a fairly high bar for inclusion in the list, including only the clearest consensuses (less than half in my estimation), and I think that has been key to avoiding another battleground. Per opinion by Coffee, which can be found somewhere in that page's archives, reverts to the listed consensuses have been exempt from 1RR, and no more than one revert has ever been needed (i.e., editors have respected the list once they were made aware of it). ―Mandruss ☎ 20:06, 22 July 2017 (UTC)
Statement by MelanieN
I think scrapping the "consensus to restore" rule is good idea. It is hopelessly confusing. There was a discussion about this at my user talk page last year, [23] inspired in part by a particularly contentious user who liked to delete longstanding content from articles and declare in the edit summary that people must not restore it without consensus.[24] Under that rule, the default always favored the deleter. In discussion it turned out that there are strong differences of interpretation among administrators, about when something is an "edit" and when it is a "revert" (making a distinction between removing recent edits and removing longstanding content), so that it was unclear what kind of removal requires consensus to restore. Some people were hauled to AE for following, in good faith, one of the interpretations rather than the other. That guideline is never going to be clear. Just get rid of it. --MelanieN (talk) 17:58, 22 July 2017 (UTC)
Statement by Doug Weller
I agree with the removal of consensus required but I'm concerned that its removal without any replacement of some sort might cause problems at articles such as Donald Trump. I like BU Rob13's suggested replacement "Editors cannot restore edits which they have introduced within 24 hours if the edits have been reverted." Including its addition to some articles under Wikipedia:General sanctions/Syrian Civil War and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Doug Weller talk 12:54, 23 July 2017 (UTC)
Statement by Bastun
Disclosure: I am not an admin (do I need to be to comment?), and edited American politics related articles some months ago, around the time of the US election, where I became aware of this and related issues. Prior to that most recent election, the "requirement for consensus" was used to effectively prevent addition of relevant, sourced, material, by the simple expedient of calling an RfC on its inclusion. This happened on several occasions on several related articles, to my knowledge. This had the direct effect of preventing inclusion of material for up to 30 days. This is a very easy system to game, to prevent inclusion of material unfavourable to one's preferred candidate, or politician, or affiliation, or position. I therefore support its removal. There is nothing so special about American politics that it requires different rules above and beyond normal editing standards, whether that's 3RR or 1RR. BastunĖġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 13:24, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
Statement by (username)
Result concerning Consensus Required restriction in American Politics
- This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the sections above.
- Support - The "consensus" rule might be good in theory, but in practice, it is too nebulous in meaning. Two out of three can technically be a consensus, at least in their eyes. Converting all those to 1RR (and not using any additional restrictions if they aren't needed) is much better. For starters, it is way easier to enforce and the diffs tell the story. Trying to decide what is and isn't consensus guarantees different results depending on who is arguing the case and which admin are participating, since we all see it a little differently. I can list a dozen ways to game the consensus rule, and will if asked, but by now it should be obvious there are problems. It was implemented in the best of faith, but it is time to change. The most fair thing we can do for editors is making this rule change, applied to any and all ArbCom restricted areas that ArbCom has not specifically add this provision to. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 13:33, 21 July 2017 (UTC)
- SPECIFICO, we have had this come up twice in the last two weeks. Things like slow motion edit wars are pretty easy to determine using diffs. For me as an admin, having to judge if there is a consensus for a version, and what that version is, is problematic. No system is perfect. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 18:21, 21 July 2017 (UTC)
- SPECIFICO, I can still block someone for WP:DE if they are forcing an edit against consensus, and in fact, I have often done just that, as a standard admin action instead of an WP:AE action. Done as a standard action, I can indef and the threshold is lower. For other instances, using Arb restrictions is better, although there is a lot more paperwork. There are so few articles affected, I don't think removing this problematic (and easy to wikilawyer at appeal) provision will hurt enforcement. I imagine it would help if it simplifies things. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 22:28, 21 July 2017 (UTC)
- The Wordsmith as to inheriting, I see it as a giving "power of attorney" to speak on his behalf on those actions only, or as a proxy for him, so I agree under IAR you should be able to do so under those limited circumstances. I've seen this before and no one had a problem as long as it was limited in this fashion, and not the power to "vote" in a discussion. And to BU Rob13 I have no issue with trying something new. If it causes problems, we can always revisit it later. Your restriction sounds well thought out. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 19:06, 22 July 2017 (UTC)
- Support. User:GoldenRing mentioned me as one of seven admins that have imposed the consensus restriction on an American politics page. Yes, I have, once, but soon regretted doing so, and withdrew the restriction in February 2017, as being too troublesome as well as difficult to understand. Please see my explanation, and my hopes that the template would be changed, here. I support removing the restriction altogether, and as Dennis says, from all ArbCom restricted areas. Bishonen | talk 14:29, 21 July 2017 (UTC).
- I would support changing "consensus required" on the articles I applied it to to the following: "Editors cannot restore edits which they have introduced within 24 hours if the edits have been reverted." This achieves the same basic policy goal while causing less problems. The issue with 1RR is that it inherently favors new content, not status quo, which is not intended. ~ Rob13Talk 14:34, 21 July 2017 (UTC)
- To be clear, if this closes with support not to use "consensus required", I intend to apply the above proposed sanction to all affected pages as a replacement that preserves the original intent of "consensus required" without the associated issues. ~ Rob13Talk 19:51, 21 July 2017 (UTC)
- Support per above - KISS principle applies to areas like this, and 1RR seems much much simplier to judge and review than the "consensus needed" statement. --MASEM (t) 15:15, 21 July 2017 (UTC)
- I agree with BU Rob13 here. The reason I applied consensus required was to favor the status quo. It has been wildly effective, from what I've seen, in keeping articles stable, since it prevents multiple single reverts over the same material by different editors. Ks0stm (T•C•G•E) 17:28, 22 July 2017 (UTC)
- I've dropped a note at WP:AN asking for more input. I think we should leave this open for a while and get a broader consensus and/or other ideas. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 11:06, 24 July 2017 (UTC)
- As a supporter of the "consensus" rule, my instinct was to oppose this. That this rule creates so much trouble seems to me to show that slow motion edit wars have become the norm in sanctioned areas, and that editors have settled into a battleground mentality in relation to 1RR with each side squaring off with their personal 1RR "entitlements". The "consensus" rule is designed to break by requiring genuine discussion and consensus building. However, I cannot ignore the comments of so many - both those involved in the topic areas as editors and admins to whom it falls to police the rule - that, in practice, it has been a net negative. So with some reluctance, I would therefore support replacing the rule with that suggested by Rob13. WJBscribe (talk) 11:33, 24 July 2017 (UTC)
- This mirrors my thoughts very closely. I'm proposing my looser rule because I see the writing on the wall, but I find most arguments against "consensus required" to be unconvincing. If an editor claims you must get consensus when it was actually the status quo (and therefore has consensus via WP:SILENCE), get an admin. If an editor claims they have consensus when they don't, go to WP:ANRFC to get a close on the relevant discussion. Those things take time, but Wikipedia has no deadlines. When I've said these things in the past, the arguments have quickly boiled down to "But I want to revert now!" which is an edit-warring mentality. Slow rate edit-warring is the second most significant issue in discretionary/general sanctions areas behind sockpuppetry. ~ Rob13Talk 21:25, 24 July 2017 (UTC)
- This may need a larger discussion. Some believe (and have evidence) that "consensus required" works in a small number of places, but not everywhere it is used. ie: it is more complicated than I (we?) first thought, so a wide reaching consensus is going to be difficult to get here. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 13:02, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
Icantevennnnn
| Icantevennnnn is strongly warned that casting aspersions (making claims such as COI or sockpuppetry without presenting evidence at an official board) is a sanctionable violation of WP:CIVIL and other policies. Using these unsubstantiated claims to undermine the credibility of other editors in a talk page discussion is unacceptable and if this continues, strong sanctions will be used. Everyone is advised to try to create a more collaborative environment on the article, which can be tough, but deescalating drama is a worthwhile goal that starts with each of us. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 00:10, 26 July 2017 (UTC) |
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This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below. Request concerning Icantevennnnn
This is a fairly clear-cut case of an editor casting aspersions in an effort to gain the upper hand in an apparent content dispute; they have now repeatedly leveled the entirely-false accusation that I have a conflict of interest with regards to Linda Sarsour and thus am improperly editing the article. I have no such conflict and so, of course, this user will not and cannot produce any evidence to the contrary. Asking them politely hasn't worked, so my hand has been forced. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 08:30, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
Notified here. Discussion concerning IcantevennnnnStatements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator. Statement by IcantevennnnnI have nothing personally against this user. I am not interested in talking with them at all. I am just trying to bring some neutrality to what I think is a deeply biased article which is protected from any disagreeing view. I request those who come across this comment to check the article in question. That is all that interests me. Statement by KingsindianThe content on Linda Sarsour falls under WP:ARBPIA3, and the editor in question does not satisfy 30/500. The whole page does not fall under ARBPIA3 (there are many sections which probably don't), but Sarsour is a decently well-known activist on Israel/Palestine related issues, and the edits in question (like the section on whether she is "anti-Israel"), obviously comes under the area. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 21:07, 25 July 2017 (UTC) Statement by (username)Result concerning Icantevennnnn
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