This is an archive of past Clarification and Amendment requests. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to file a new clarification or amendment request, you should follow the instructions at the top of this page. |
Archive 70 | ← | Archive 73 | Archive 74 | Archive 75 | Archive 76 | Archive 77 | → | Archive 80 |
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.
Initiated by Someone not using his real name (talk) at 18:53, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
Apparently Toddst1 was desysopped in some drama I have not followed closely, and consequently Holdek (originally blocked by Toddst1) was unblocked (by Worm that Turned/ArbCom). Holdek now seems to claim that his block for socking was overturned [1]. Has the committee decided that Holdek was not socking? Someone not using his real name (talk) 18:53, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
@Writ Keeper: Worm That Turned, in his rather convoluted write-up there, does not clearly say there whether he thinks Holdek was not socking (to harass Ymblanter). Also, I want to know if this was a committee decision. The "not socking" IP is still blocked for about two years, by the way [2]. Someone not using his real name (talk) 19:08, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
Looks like. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 19:01, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
I have made an unblock request so that the IP's block log, where my username is mentioned as "clearly a sock" (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=block&user=&page=68.50.128.91&year=&month=-1&tagfilter=&hide_patrol_log=1&hide_review_log=1&hide_thanks_log=1), is updated. I'm not sure if that was the best venue to make the request, but I couldn't find any instructions for an alternative. Holdek (talk) 20:45, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
Update: Request was accepted on March 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:68.50.128.91&diff=598082168&oldid=598006520. Holdek (talk) 21:41, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Initiated by NE Ent at 01:48, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
Back in December Arbcom '13 declined an appeal of a warning issued under the existing discretionary sanctions, and my read on the situation is that the committee really doesn't anyone wasting time arguing about whether an editor being notified was actually guilty of misconduct (a reasonable position). In a recent ANI thread SMcCandlish indicated that an arbcom page linking to an accusation that he felt unable to defend himself against was interfering with his ability to contribute to the encyclopedia. Sandstein stated during the December filing "I recommend that the appeal is declined because warnings or notifications are, in my view, not in any meaningful sense subject to appeal or revocation. Their purpose is not to restrict their recipient in any way, but to inform them about future possible sanctions, as required per WP:AC/DS#Warnings." Therefore, to satisfy both SMcCandlish's desire to be free of the badge o' shame and Sandstein's point there be a record of notification, I renotified the four editors with the most neutral statement I could come up with [3] and substituted those notification in the log [4].
Sandstein however objected to this awesome solution on the AC clerk's board [5], so it appears that is not the notification which is important but his notification with its finding of fault. So I'm asking the committee to simply decide whether the finding of fault must remain on the case page, or whether a simple drama free neutral notification would do.
Note: if you review the case there's a minor conflict between myself and Neotarf because I screwed up and totally forgot a prior discussion we had had, which is why I put his prior notification back here [6]
Please re-think this issue because the claim that "it's just a warning" are totally incorrect. A simple solution is available—issue a motion that the original warnings are vacated and are replaced with something new—something which does not declare that the recipients are guilty of a wikicrime. A simple "reminder of the importance of civility" in the motion would be sufficient.
There were exhausting discussions regarding titles, and one editor argued and argued and argued in multiple locations regarding the outcome of the discussions. That editor was not alone in believing that the original decision was flawed and so was encouraged to continue beyond human endurance. Despite the opposition, there was a clear consensus for the previous decision (and a larger consensus that the outcome should not be further challenged because any decision was better than indefinite arguing). The dispute was extremely problematic, but it continued on an on because it was "civil".
As part of the battle, an AE request was brought against an editor: Apteva, 22 January 2013.
A counter-claim followed: Noetica, 27 January 2013.
It was decided that the second claim should be closed with standard warnings issued to four editors: diff + diff + diff + diff. An extremely problematic log of the issue was then made here. The last puts the four editors who were defending the consensus decision in the same public stocks as an indeffed user.
The "warning" is unduly pompous and includes the following text:
The warning strongly implies that each of the four editors had failed to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, and asserts as fact that each had misconducted themselves. That is not a reasonable interpretation of the saga. Johnuniq (talk) 05:23, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
In my view, the log entries in the current version correctly reflect the warnings as they were made at the time they were issued. Should the Committee now prefer that the log entries be changed in some way, they are of course free to instruct the clerks to make whatever changes they consider appropriate.
In addition, it is not clear to me what business of NE Ent's (who is neither an administrator nor an arbitration clerk) it is to make any alterations to arbitration logs created by administrators. The same goes, of course, for Neotarf, who has also been editing the case page to remove logs of the warnings at issue. I recommend that the Committee restricts NE Ent and Neotarf from changing arbitration case pages, or that it adopts a general rule of procedure that restricts all but clerks and uninvolved administrators from creating or changing log entries. Sandstein 11:36, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
In general, I think it's up to the Committee to determine whether and how warnings, notifications and the like should be logged. To date, the Committee has not made any rule about this, but the generally observed practice is to log such actions in a format like "User:Foo warned/notified per AE thread, signature." If the Committee prefers a different format, I think that it should say so and require the use of this format for all log entries, rather than only in this one case. That's also because I consider, as I have said in the many previous proceedings, that particularly in SMcCandlish's case the warning was merited on account of his conduct. I issued it because of his overly aggressive and personalizing comment to the AE thread, in a manner specifically forbidden per WP:ARBATC#All parties reminded, such as: "His (and [name]'s WP:TAGTEAM) tendentious-to-death-and-beyond nonsense". The other commenting administrators agreed that a warning was appropriate. For these reasons, any accusation of misconduct that SMcCandlish believes to be implied by the warning and log entry at issue is, in his case at least, merited.
That said, Salvio giuliano, if you think that my work at WP:AE does more harm than good, I'm happy to quit it if you would like me to. I'm not interested in helping out where I'm not welcome to, and I really have no time for all of this. Sandstein 16:09, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
I certainly don't enjoy wasting my time here, whether writing or reading War and Peace, and I don't want to be accused of being disruptive. But I'm fed up with Sandstein's stonewalling and hiding behind the technicality that once a person cannot be "unwarned" once they have been warned, so I'll just thank Johuniq for summing it up so very nicely. Please Arbcom, don't conflate the warning with the unfair accusatory part that I would like to see withdrawn. -- Ohc ¡digame! 12:22, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
My preliminary reaction to this, if it's not gamed and distorted yet again, is: yes, this will go a long way to resolving the chief concerns we've been raising for well over a year now. I am the very one who proposed this solution to begin with (and kudos to NT Ent for getting this ball rolling). The recent ANI request about this generated simultaneous suggestions to take the ethical dispute with Wikipedia to the level of an RFARB case, and the behavioral issues with Sandstein to an RFC/U.
Yet, if Sandstein's falsely accusatory old ARBATC threats/warnings are removed entirely or at worst replaced with neutrally-worded ARBATC notices, like what NE Ent used, the #1 issue all four affected editors have raised is just instantly resolved, painlessly. Regardless of Sandstein's intent, his warning/accusation/threat text demonstrably is being interpreted (not just by the accused) as accusations without proof, i.e. personal attacks, in direct contravention of the very ARBATC discretionary sanction conditions ostensibly being warned about! The clearly reasonable, ethical thing to do is to remove problematic wording like this, no matter why it was put there or by whom.
This fix would not necessarily resolve every issue each of these editors may have with Sandstein (and they differ), but it resolves the very serious problem for ArbCom and for WP more broadly of WP:ARBATC's notification log being misused (inadvertently or not) for blatant character assassination instead of for ARBCOM's case-administration needs. It's wrong to allow a formal WP dispute resolution procedural page like that to be used as an admin dirtlist of accusations of "continue[d]" "misconduct" with no proof (and only against certain specially targeted editors – Sandstein himself doesn't log all editors he formally gives ARBATC warnings to, like these two, and clearly hardly anyone else ever bothers logging anyone there at all. It has set a very bad precedent and cost the project a ton and a half of good-faith, productive editorial contributions. For nothing helpful in any way. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib. 13:27, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
"I'll try this week to write some motions to resolve these issues. AGK [•] 23:16, 10 February 2013 (UTC)"(at ARCA over a year ago). — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib. 13:45, 19 March 2014 (UTC) Revised 14:15, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
@Sandstein
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The points you raise are mostly irrelevant to the question raised in this ARCA, so I'm hatting this response. The Arbs themselves have been seriously divided on appeal procedures for such AE measures as your accusatory log entry, including ARBCOM, AE and AN/ANI as suggested venues. Your insinuation of tendentiousness is without merit here; you have no reasonable basis for opposing our use of the suggested venues, nor being angry with us that each venue keeps passing the buck, due to the unclear guidance. And I've been largely just absent and content to be "retired". Other parties have mostly been reopening this dispute, and I end up getting notified about it by someone digging me up on Facebook or whatever. I agreed to try again this time because I see some hope, which I had totally lost, of this actually finally be resolved. Here, however, you now seem to be complaining at me over Neotarf frequently bringing the dispute back up, but Neotarf isn't an active party (yet?) at this ARCA request, which neither of us opened, but which was opened because of your own totally unnecessary Clerks Noticeboard request along related lines. That seems to be casting imprecise, off-topic, projective aspersions to be combative, which is pretty much exactly what your "warnings"/accusations against us were ostensibly for to begin with. As you've been repeatedly informed, the parties whose names we're eliding were in fact already found at WP:AN to be tag-teaming, and tendentious, and pursuing anti-consensus, frivolous and obsessive WP:LAME disputes (i.e. nonsense), which is exactly what I said, and what you said I said. To this day you still pretend that the AN and RFC/U against the editor who filed the AE in question isn't relevant or isn't there; to the contrary, it collectively is the very evidence your accusations claimed did not exist for what the four of us were warning AE about with regard to that editor's WP:PARENT-shopping request there! You admitted to not having read that or any other relevant AN case: Third, a number of editors, admins among them, have questioned your faith in this matter, not because of failure to assumption good faith but due to the WP:DUCK/WP:SPADE effect eventually wearing those assumptions down, because of your insistence on your own infallibility here, relying on your tenure and standing as an admin to evade corrective action, including for AGF issues of your own. The one and only reason this has dragged out, that this project has lost so much productivity over your false accusations, and probably permanently lost a very good contributor, is that you just will not stop fighting every attempt to resolve this, even when I and others go out of our way to suggest a remedy that can be made without it even being a direct critical reflection on you. |
[I speak independently, and it would be utterly unfair to visit consequences upon anyone else for the detailing or the tone in what follows.]
As noted on this page, I have retired from editing Wikipedia. I thank SMcCandlish for informing me by email of the present action.
For myself, I am indifferent to the outcome here, having from the start of this sordid and desperately mismanaged affair noted Sandstein's intransigence and systematic failures of insight. I understood immediately, and said explicitly enough, that the best response when he is involved is to withdraw to another environment where reason, balance, and natural justice prevail. That was easy for me, and I have left Wikipedia well behind. If vindication were needed for this stance, the evidence is right here on this page, or linked from it (astonishingly insensitive statements so far by Sandstein, Roger Davies, AGK, and Carcharoth).
No, I am here for the editors who innocently spoke up when I was taken to WP:AE by a vindictive and now indeffed editor (Apteva) who caused immense wastes of time for dozens of Wikipedians – aided by deeply involved ex-admin SarekOfVulcan. The editors and admins who spoke up for me were ignored. Three editors were sanctioned when they spoke up for me (I had overtly withdrawn from my own defence, so manifestly and hopelessly biased was the WP:AE process, as were involved admins who commented in the guise of uninvolved admins, turning the decision against me). I feel a responsibility to speak plainly about the matter now, when it may help editors who suffered at Sandstein's hands.
I wholeheartedly support the idea of "an un-diffed log", so that Sandstein's mistake is removed as an embarrassment to the Project and a continuing slander on hard-working Wikipedians – or indeed, on those ex-Wikipedians whom Sandstein has casually swept from the Project in the interest of simplistic obedience to simplistic rules (his own, essentially) and a superficial appearance of good order. I may one day consider returning to offer my expertise: if Sandstein is removed as an admin, or shows recognition of his errors and apologises without reservation for his mistakes and relinquishes any connection with WP:AE work. (Other well-known admins could be named as culpable in connection with my brief brush with Sandstein's Star Chamber; but we all know how futile that would be, also. In this present forum. ☺)
Noetica (talk) 04:12, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
Why was a topic-banned user even permitted to file an AE case, much less against the very editor who drafted the “motion to close” of their topic ban RFCU? Contrast with this clarification request, where a user with an interaction ban was immediately blocked. Looking at both the case against Apteva and the case against Noetica, I see no evidence that the closing AE admin took this topic ban into consideration, or was even aware of it. The case against Noetica should have been closed as obvious retribution.
@Sanstein: Please be accurate. I did not "change or remove any warnings in the form you logged them", I removed changes made by NE Ent, who is not an admin, and who changed them out of process, as I noted both in the edit summary and on the talk page. And the conclusion of the ANI thread was not that "the warnings violated no policies", it was "I haven't seen any evidence that Sandstein has actually violated any Wikipedia policies." They didn't see any evidence about you, because whether you have violated any policies or not, I have not accused you, which is more consideration than you have given me.
@Roger Davies: If the current discretionary sanctions review is going to provide some thing that will "help deal with the current situation" why hasn't it been presented yet? It has been three months since that was promised at my RFAR, and six months since the beginning of the review. The last DS review, completed in in 2011, took two years. The current proposal says none of the new policies will be retroactive.
This argument is being used in a circular manner, refusing to resolve my situation because of the ongoing review, and being callously dismissive of any of my statements at the review because my current situation has not been resolved. This makes for neither good policy nor good encyclopedia building. And it makes it look like the policy review is being conducted in order to cover up Sandstein's controversial actions. Better to lose some of us to the project, than to make a policy that does not address the needs of the project as a whole. Chances are some of us may not edit again no matter what you do.
@Carcharoth: "...what is most damaging the reputation of some of the users notified is their (by now) over-reaction to the notification, which will be remembered long after the original dispute has been forgotten.
The accusations, from over a year ago, are being made over and over again. [9] [10] [11] And it's not true. But there is nothing, nothing, nothing I can point to when someone throws this in my face, to prove that it is not true.
@arbs: What would be the rationale for leaving our names on the case record? Does anyone really believe we are not aware of WP:ARBATC and need to be "notified" that it exists? All four of us participated in the case (it was my 30th edit ever, as a new user). There was plenty of chance to present diffs and to look for any problems in our editing during the case, but the committee did not see fit name any of us in the final decision. How then can AE see fit to add our names to the case decision without warnings, without diffs, and without giving us a chance to defend ourselves against the accusations? If the arbs think it's such an insignificant thing to have your name on such a list, would they be willing to add the names of ALL the editors who participated in that AE case, and not just a few of us non-admins, selected at random? Would they be willing to add their own names, and that of Sandstein as well to the list? —Neotarf (talk) 18:33, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
Initial comments
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I agree with Roger. I would also add that making disparaging comments on indefinitely blocked users is to be avoided if at all possible as they are unable to respond to comments made here. There is no principle of equivalence operating here. Someone being blocked indefinitely at some point after a notification doesn't tar others who were notified at the same time with the same brush. Rather, it may be an indication that the notifications worked to the extent that the users notified backed off, or were sensible enough not to engage in conduct to get themselves blocked - which is a good thing! Currently, what is most damaging the reputation of some of the users notified is their (by now) over-reaction to the notification, which will be remembered long after the original dispute has been forgotten. Roger, did you mean Neotarf, not SMcCandlish? Carcharoth (talk) 08:51, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
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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.
Initiated by SarekOfVulcan (talk) at 16:17, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
During my last RFA, the interaction ban was a reason for at least one of the opposes. It has been in place for a year. I would like to establish that this ban is no longer necessary before running again, so I ask that it be removed so I can work on establishing a track record.
No way, if it is up to me, unless it is part of a complete revocation of all restrictions against me, including a ban on my editing in NRHP area, and unless there is an explicit promise by SarekOfVulcan that he shall not follow and combat me, and that should be enforceable (i.e., in effect be a continuing interaction ban). The interaction ban was a result of arbitration begun by SarekOfVulcan, following long campaign of following my edits and combatting which dragged down my reputation, including multiple ANIs and AFDs and discussion at Jimbo Wales Talk page, and so on, and which I and some others perceived and still perceive as unjustified bullying, and the interaction ban was the only good outcome of the case. SarekOfVulcan has not communicated any meaningful apology for his actions, publicly or privately; his comnents in recent RFA were patheticly inadequate. I cannot see what he could say publicly or privately that would be adequate, either. --doncram 18:01, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
I think that Doncram has done an impressive job of abiding by very biting restrictions on his editing. I urge the Arb committee to lift these sanctions so he can return to making positive contributions. The restrictions have been a loss to Wikipedia and his fellow editors. I oppose a one-sided removal of restrictions. As Doncram has noted, the problems were in large part a result of Sarek's combative behavior. Sarek promises that he has learned form past mistakes. Doncram has been punished long enough. And the NRHP editing environment has gotten worse without his presence, enormously useful contributions, and assistance to fellow editors. Candleabracadabra (talk) 02:43, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
I tried to refrain from commenting here, but here I am, anyway. Seeing that it's been a full year since this arbcom case closed and both parties have apparently successfully abided by the mutual interaction ban, I think it would be timely to remove the imposed ban on mutual interaction and replace it with a voluntary agreement to avoid interaction.
I call your attention to some prehistory of this case that I believe is relevant background on the interaction ban: ANI discussion from July 2012. SarekOfVulcan started that discussion by expressing concern about several statements that Doncram had made about me that Sarek (and I) deemed to be serious personal attacks. That discussion led to a (temporary) voluntary moratorium on interactions (between Doncram and both Sarek and me). The voluntary moratorium was proposed by User:Cbl62 in a comment that stated, in part: I really don't care to get into a "blame" or "fault" game, but the relationship between these good people has been very negative for more than a year. ... I don't see [Doncram] reacting with similar venom except toward Orlady and Sarek. Given the past history, any criticism he receives from Sarek and Orlady is received with extreme sensitivity.
As I see it, the principal reason for avoiding interactions between Sarek and Doncram (and between Doncram and me) was and still is Doncram's "extreme sensitivity" to interactions with Sarek (and me) -- and his history of displaying that extreme sensitivity by reacting in an uncivil fashion. Arbcom's decision to apply an imposed interaction ban (in lieu of a voluntary "ban") between Sarek and Doncram seems to have been motivated mainly by the fact that Sarek had deliberately edit-warred, violating 3RR. Given the apparent nature of Doncram's perceptions of and reactions to Sarek (and what appears to be a more severely negative perception of and reaction to me), it is understandable that Doncram would oppose any relaxation of the ban. However, both of these editors are grownups who should be able to regulate their behavior and their emotions without a ban. If the year-long interaction ban was not long enough to allow Doncram to "get over" the effects of edit-warring that occurred in 2011, that does not bode well for any future requests he might make to vacate other restrictions that resulted from this case.
I believe that both parties would abide by a voluntary agreement, and if they do so, the history of success possibly could help Doncram support a future request to review the other restrictions. --Orlady (talk) 16:09, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
Also, since interaction bans are reciprocal in nature and are meant to protect both editors from the negative effects their interactions usually have, they should be lifted only if a. both editors agree or b. there is a very important reason to do so. The desire to run for adminship, for me, is not reason enough to override Doncram's objection. Salvio Let's talk about it! 09:55, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Initiated by — Cirt (talk) at 04:39, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for your consideration,
— Cirt (talk) 04:39, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
One, I'm not sure why the original order seems so unbalanced: Cirt's alleged misdeeds seem relatively minor, and characterized more by sloppiness than ill-will. But they got two perpetual bans on content editing -- one very, very broad! all political-related bio articles -- AND status change (de-sysopping). The other editor's alleged misdeeds I personally find more troublesome, and there was very little remedy attached -- just a warning. Both users appropriately were restricted from interacting with each other.
Two, the original order is overbroad -- the restrictions on Cirt are not time-limited, and they're really broad.
Whatever the reasoning behind the original order, I suggest that in light of the time passed, and its breadth, that it should be reconsidered. Cirt is, in my experience, an exemplary editor, who has contributed a lot to Wikipedia content. From conceiving of the Intellectual freedom portal, bringing it to fruition, advancing it to "Featured" status -- and doing the same with a lot of content in that section, Cirt has been an awesome (in the sense of inspiring awe, rather than in the Bill-and-Ted sense) contributor to Wikipedia.
Cirt just asks for a minor modification. I have no idea why. The content restrictions should be completely lifted, since they should have been time-limited in the first place. The desysopping is already time limited, because it can be re-added with a request. User interaction orders could reasonably be perpetual, and I express no opinion about the ones at issue here.
Lquilter (talk) 15:50, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
I urge that the editing restrictions against Cirt be totally lifted. I think the original action against him was a vendetta, that the matter was decided wrongly, and the resulting punishment mindbogglingly draconian. Cirt has lost tools and done his time in the penalty box, time to return him to valuable content work. Carrite (talk) 02:38, 10 March 2014 (UTC)
This request should either be for a full lifting of the topic ban or identify specific topic areas where he wishes to resume editing. Any granting of the request as framed would be little different from granting Cirt the ability to resume editing in all the areas where his prior activities were a problem. If Arbs feel he can be trusted with those articles then they should presume he can be trusted with any articles in those topic areas. Should they feel he cannot be trusted with those articles then it should be a question of whether he can be trusted with some topic areas he is banned from or none.--The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 04:12, 10 March 2014 (UTC)
I don't see any compelling reason to allow Cirt to touch anything related to Scientology or L. Ron Hubbard unless we want to be back here in a year or two you yet another RfArb. --In actu (Guerillero) | My Talk 15:31, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
I would support removal of restrictions on Cirt. I'm hoping to bring an article or two with him to FA, but due to various RL and WP commitments/distractions, am not immediately available to do so.--Wehwalt (talk) 00:37, 28 March 2014 (UTC)
I don't understand how allowing Cirt to edit three articles after 2 1/2 years is "too much too fast". You seem to offer processes for appeals and exceptions, but reject them categorically, leading to understandable confusion. I also don't understand how we, as an encyclopedia, can decide by broad community consensus to feature Fuck (film) on the Main Page as our best work, but then you can hold such a high accomplishment against the person who did the work to make it worthy to run there. I might also ask why Cirt would be expected to notify an editor with whom he has an interaction ban about modification of an old remedy not directly pertaining to him. Last and not least, ArbCom seems content with how often other parties from the original "Manipulation of BLPs" case have returned to them with opponents to have sanctioned, and the appearance this gives of a systematic purge. Wnt (talk) 01:21, 29 March 2014 (UTC)
I also feel that the manner in which Cirt's Wikiquote activity was evaluated is deeply flawed and deserves a more general reevaluation. (see talk) Wnt (talk) 12:41, 29 March 2014 (UTC)
Remedy 2 (the BLP restriction) specifically says "if Cirt conforms his future editing to applicable policies and the principles set forth in this decision and Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Manipulation of BLPs, he may submit a request for amendment after one year from the date of this decision seeking a relaxation of this restriction". It's been 2 1/2 years. It's time to either relax it, or admit that suggesting how it could be relaxed was a mistake.
After some thought, I believe I support revising Remedy 1 so that it only prohibits editing articles related to Scientology, and undoing Remedy 2. I would suggest instead something more tailored to the Finding of Fact, such as "Cirt is prohibited from placing undue negative weight in topics on new religious movements and political BLPs, and from following poor sourcing practices. If he is determined to be doing so at WP:AE, original Remedies 1 and 2 can be reimposed by any uninvolved admin." Or something to that effect. --Floquenbeam (talk) 14:56, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
Cirt is granted an exemption to remedies 1 and 2 of the original case for the following articles:
The committee will not consider further exemption or modification of these restrictions for a minimum of three months from the date this motion is passed.
Remedies 1 and 2 of Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Cirt and Jayen466 are vacated with immediate effect. Cirt is reminded that if the issues that led to these sanctions were to surface again that further, more severe sanctions will be the likely result.
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.
Initiated by Lecen (talk) at 20:47, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
Almost a year ago I brought to the attention of the committee that Cambalachero and MarshalN20 were systematically spreading misinformation on several articles related to Latin American History, using sources scorned by mainstream historians, who regarded them as pieces of political propaganda published by Latin American fascists.
At the end the committee agreed with me and Cambalachero and MarshalN20 were both topic banned indefinitely. I also showed to the committee that both users had continuously harassed me in an attempt to scare me off. Thus I eventually requested a mutual interaction ban, which was granted. The problem was that months later I made a good faith comment on this case right here which resulted on a one-month block for myself. This is something that I want avoid from occurring again.
I request the committee to make one simple modification to the mutual interaction ban that could allow me and the other two users to comment on each other in here, and only in here. I am not asking to be allowed to talk with them or about them on talk pages or anywhere else. I am not even asking to be allowed to talk directly with them in here, only to comment on them. To be more precise: Cambalachero asks for his topic ban to be lifted. I would like to comment on his request, to make my point whether or not it should be granted. That's all. Certainly the committee could show some faith on this experienced editor.
Opening Statement(s)
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For Heaven's sake, this user needs to STOP claiming that I was topic banned for "systematically spreading misinformation." I have requested this casting of aspersions to be stopped both here at Arbitration Requests ([21]) and at the Administrator's Noticeboard ([22]). This needs to stop NOW, once and for all. I have exhausted all the formal venues to ask for these aspersions to stop. I don't know what else to do! Administrators and/or arbitrators, please take care of this situation.
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To summarize, all I am interested in is that the mudslinging stop. If a user cannot make a simple request without resorting to insults (thereby aggravating the situation) or to "retire" if things do not go as planned, then WP:COMPETENCE trumps over any consideration of exceptions. Since this issue is nowhere near resolved, I plead the arbitration committee to please amend the case with an enforceable ruling that expands on the "casting aspersions" principle (which is not being followed); this enforceable ruling would apply to all sides of the dispute. I further ask that this enforceable ruling be applied in relation to the case, thereby preventing any third-party from continuing the trashy accusations. Best regards.--MarshalN20 Talk 14:40, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
Am I the only one who finds a one-month block based on these two posts to be grossly disproportionate? Lecen himself requested the interaction ban to prevent the other two editors from slandering him, and as the person who filed the original arbitration case, it would make sense that he participates in subsequent amendment requests. I'm not saying that Lecen has never made any mistakes, but he is nevertheless a very productive editor who cares about the integrity of the encyclopedia. Are we really resorting to long-term blocks against positive contributors over something so trivial?
Where's the ANI thread about this incident? And why didn't Lecen press for an unblock from the very beginning? He has every right to have his voice heard. Kurtis (talk) 00:20, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
Lecen has been warned again and again to stop mischaracterizing the reasons behind Marshal's topic ban. He has been advised that making such false statements constitutes a personal attack. Yet again, he mischaracterizes those reasons. Is there any GOOD reason why Lecen is not currently indefinitely blocked for a) continual personal attacks, b) massive battleground behaviour, and c) what now appears to be an utter inability to act and behave within the community norms that they agreed to? Any desires to comment on someone else's requests, based on their history of making false and unfounded comments on users across the board, is simply spurious and unacceptable. ES&L 11:00, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
I think that this request is completely pointless. The discussion where the interaction ban was enforced has been over since months ago, and there is no ongoing discussion where Lecen can't comment. He says "Cambalachero asks for his topic ban to be lifted", which is not true. I am not asking for that anywhere. If I ask for that someday, then that day he can simply ask some arbitrator for an exception, and it may be granted or not according to the circumstances of the moment and the arbitrator's best judgement. Or perhaps I will never request that: I may leave wikipedia in discontent, be blocked for some other issue, have to leave for real-life issues such as getting married or having sons, or lost the interest in history; and in either case Lecen would not need to say anything about anything.
Now, as for the request itself: all the drama after the topic ban that led to the interaction ban was precisely located here, not in our user talk pages or other project pages. By the way, I requested the interaction ban, not him, see here. So, making an exception only for Arbitration discussions is precisely returning to the very problem that we initially tried to fix with it. Still, there is a point in that he should have the right to take part in discussions about a case that he initiated. There's a possible solution: allow him to take part in such discussion, if it ever takes place, but focusing on some of the conditions drafted at Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Archive 8#Conduct at AE. Basically, zero unsupported allegations, provide evidence without histrionics, no misrepresentation of evidence. And I might add, comments stricly focused on whatever it is being requested, and not using the discussion as an excuse to vent old grudges, pass judgements over other editors or praise himself. Those rules should apply for the 3 of us (Lecen, MarshalN20 and me), and enforced when needed. Under this conditions, I may accept Lecen to take part in such discussions. I leave it up to Arbitrators to decide if such rules should apply to this specific case or became a standard for all Arbitration discussions.
By the way, I would feel more confident in thinking that Lecen may follow such rules if he edits his original request here and remove all the parts of it that would go against those proposed rules. Cambalachero (talk) 13:49, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
I must admit to being unsurprised that this case continues to fester. I felt the original ruling by Arbcom failed to address the issue of battlefield behaviour based on my interaction with User:Lecen at Talk:Paraguayan War here back in 2012. A very minor comment of mine [26], pointing out the article name Paraguayan War was a minority term used predominantly in Brazil and that the predominant term in the English language was the War of the Triple Alliance prompted this bizarre response. I commented on his WP:BATTLEFIELD mentality during the arbcom case. I see nothing has changed.
If you are unfamiliar with Latin American history you may not be aware of the Revisionista movement in Argentine history, which seeks to revisit historical events from a Peronist perspective. It is a revisionist approach to history that to a certain extent rewrites historical accounts to fit a modern political agenda. An example would be the perspectives on Argentine dictator Juan Manuel de Rosas, who is regarded rather differently by the Revisionistas where he is generally regarded in a positive light. The revisionist view is pretty much mainstream in Argentina but not outside of the country. I am not aware of User:MarshalN20 supporting those views and as he is a Peruvian historian this is not entirely unsurprising.
As I see it, there is an unhealthy attitude within WP:BRAZIL, with a group of editors who act in co-ordination. Paraguayan War vs War of the Triple Alliance being one such example, where the article is maintained at a minority term not used in English due to the co-ordinated lobbying of editors is just one example. Its irritating to someone familiar with the subject and in a way damaging albeit in a minor way. At one time I demonstrated the redirect was hit 3 times more often than the article direct, so its not great from a server load perspective. What is of more concern is that having been unable to comment due to the interaction ban, other within this cabal continued to do so. Examples [27], [28], [29]. Lecen has been getting away with battlefield behaviour for years now, it seems that his prodigious output of FA articles has left him immune from criticism, his behaviour is also condoned by those in his group who lament every time he "retires".
The accusations of academic dishonesty have been repeatedly show to be unsustainable. It really is time that this was put to bed and this particular boil lanced. This request for clarification is yet another example of the system being used to continue to cast aspersions rather than a genuine need for any clarification. There needs to be a clear statement that these allegations aren't true and that there will be an exscalating series of blocks if they're repeated. Wee Curry Monster talk 13:37, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
The original Arbcom case does not state, suggest or imply that Marshal was topic banned for "systematically spreading misinformation on several articles related to Latin American History". OTOH it does find as a matter of principle that "[i]t is unacceptable for an editor to continually accuse another of egregious misbehavior in an attempt to besmirch their reputation" - which is what Lecen is doing here. The fact that he repeats the attack in his request demonstrates why the ban is needed.
Lecen is appealing the scope of the interaction bans, not the topic bans. He does not need to comment on the reasons for the topic bans to make his argument. And these sorts of attacks are precisely the sort of the behaviour the interaction ban is in place to prevent. I would suggest that the spirit of WP:BANEX does not allow editors appealing an interaction ban to throw around accusations unrelated to the appeal about the editors with whom they are banned from interacting. So IMO the original comment should also be treated as an interaction ban violation. Kahastok talk 20:04, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Initiated by Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) at 08:59, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
Fram (talk · contribs) submitted an arbitration enforcement request regarding some recent edits by Rich Farmbrough (talk · contribs). I've copied the applicable contents of that request below so that they are recorded here with this request, I won't copy Rich's statement across in case he wishes to say something different in this context.
- 04:49 8 April 2014: whether the original page was created using automation may be hard to prove (although everything points in that direction as well). But this subsequent edit is clearly not manually made. Every instance of " (*" (an opening bracket preceded by a space, plus every character after that on the same line) has been removed, no matter if that was wanted or not. The result is that you get changes like:
- Albategnius (al-Battani) (1333*) to [[Albategnius
- Alhazen (al-Haitam) (2490*) to [[Alhazen
- Alicia (344*) Boole (340*) to [[Alicia
- Julia (1945*) Bowman (1924*) to [[Julia
- ibn Sina (1984*) (1965*) to [[ibn Sina
- Anna (530*) Johnson (516*) to [[Anna
- Lord (2752*) Kelvin (2702*) to [[Lord
- Leonardo of Pisa (2250*) (2223*) to [[Leonardo of Pisa
And about ten further instances of the same pattern. Perhap others will see this as a manual edit nevertheless, but to me it certainly matches "For the purposes of this remedy, any edits that reasonably appear to be automated shall be assumed to be so.".
- 06:27 6 April 2014 This one is taken from the end of this document, pages 104-105 (or from a different site with the same information and formatting, his page lists no source); note how, in Rich's article, four companies have a name ending in (a); 79 TOTAL Deutschland GmbH(a), Germany, 191 TOTAL Petrochemicals & Refining S.A. / NV(a), Belgium, 192 TOTAL Petrochemicals & Refining USA Inc. (a), United States, and 207 TOTAL UK Limited (a), United Kingdom. These just happen to be the same four companies that have a "*" after their name in the original document, indicating a footnote for "multi-segment entities". It seems unlikely that Rich Farmbroug made the same typo four times, matching exactly these four "starred" companies, the only ones to have that extra bit.
The administrators discussing the enforcement request could not agree if using the find and replace function meets the criteria set down by the Committee and if it does what an appropriate sanction would be. Given the disagreement regarding this and considering the Committee's motion that further violations will likely lead to a site-ban I thought it was best to refer this to the Committee for appropriate action. I'll close the AE request with a message that I've referred the issue to here. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 08:59, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
I was just about to close this as a 'close call but not actionable', but I was too slow and was edit conflicted twice, so I will post my draft closure decision here.
Most of the other admins here believe this doesnt fit within the arbitration committees decision, for a variety of reasons. Only Sandstein sees it that way, but I dont think it is healthy for him to be the leading enforcement admin on the third AE regarding Rich in a row. Given the other input to this AE, I dont think this is worth a clarification request. If Rich is trying to see how much he can get away with, it wont be long before there will be more a actionable AE request. These diffs are different from previous two reported to AE, and the general thrust of prior editing problems. The first diff is userspace, which should be ignored unless it is disruptive due to side effect on other users, which hasnt been claimed here. The second diff is a list article created by Rich (articles of this type are often created offline by manipulating other datasets) and the very minor issues in the initial version are within acceptable levels given the size of the page. It would have been easy to miss those '(a)'s even in a close review of the wikitext. If Rich regularly leaves small bits of junk in new content pages, this would be actionable, but not for just one instance. Rich, if you are going to create articles in this manner, I strongly suggest that you first of all push the data elements into Wikidata, and extract the data from there to obtain your draft wikitext table to be incorporated into the new Wikipedia article. That will reduce errors like the one Fram found, as it separates data extraction from data reporting, and utilises Wikidatas datatypes to validate the data. John Vandenberg (chat) 09:04, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
Considering the surprisingly intense disagreement among administrators (and other users of unclear involvedness) responding to the AE request, I recommend that the Committee examine whether the restrictions imposed in Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Rich Farmbrough should continue to apply as written (in which case, in my view, Rich Farmbrough's apparent use of search-and-replace functionality violates the restrictions and should lead to an enforcement block), whether the site ban announced in the decision as a likely consequence of violations should be imposed, or whether the sanction should be modified or lifted.
I have not followed the original case and therefore express no opinion as to whether or to which degree the restrictions are (still) needed to prevent damage or disruption to the project. Sandstein 10:58, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
I do implore ArbComm to review this situation, determine if the supposed transgression was indeed a transgression, and if it was, cast your stones upon the transgressor in the manner that you see fit.
Let me start by saying that I do not believe that I have been one of Rich's supporters in the past.
Personally, I find the AE Enforcement filing to have been distasteful, inappropriate, and simply "someone looking for a reason - weak as it was - to get Rich booted". In that light, I would actually desire sanctions imposed that would prevent such divisive and inappropriate behaviour from ever happening again, be it WP:IBAN, blocks, whatever. No editor should be targetted so regularly, and for such small things.
I suppose the predecessor to that, however, will be determining if using Find...Replace is considered to be an "automated tool" to make "automated edits", in contravention of the meaning and spirit of RF's restrictions.
I don't want to sound like a wikilaywer, but you'll also have to define what "editing Wikipedia" means. Is it the action of clicking "save" once? Or, is it sitting down, reading, searching, referencing, typing, copying/pasting over an entire editing session. For example, I may make some edits, go to ANI, use CTRL-F and search for a specific report, make some comments, go elsewhere and make article edits ... is all of this considered to be "editing Wikipedia", or just the few times I clicked "save" - this is important, because if I have a restriction against using a so-called "automated tool", and you consider Find...Replace to be "automated", then so is using CTRL-F because it prevents me from having to manually scan a page of words using my own eyes. If CTRL-F is "automated", I'll bet you'll need to block Rich a dozen times a day.
You'd then have to define if Copy...Paste is also an automated tool? Always? Sometimes? Never? It depends? For example, if I go to the article on Trinidad and Tobago right now, select a small amount of text, copy it, open the article on Tobago and paste it in ... am I using an "automated tool" because it prevents me from having to type the words manually? If copy and paste between articles is verboten as automated in that case, what about when I go to the top of the page and highlight the entire URL of the page I'm looking at, then paste it into a new browser window ... was that a use of an automated tool while editing Wikipedia?
Define the differences? Is there a difference between an "automated tool" and an "editing tool", or an "automated process", or "automated edits".
So, yeah, I was a bit cheesed off last evening when I saw the AE Enforcement request as I considered it petty, wrong, and harassment. So please, clarify for everyone edits, editing, automated proccesses and editing tools. Then, you'll need to cast stones in one of 2 directions ... or both. ES&L 11:29, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
While some of the admins at AE expressed surprise that search-and-replace would fall under this definition, there can actually be no argument that a software routine which makes edits as specified by a human editor is not a manual edit, but the use of automation. Search-and-replace is so familiar to us that we don't think of it that way, but this is nonetheless true.Rich Farmbrough is indefinitely prohibited from using any automation whatsoever on Wikipedia. For the purposes of this remedy, any edits that reasonably appear to be automated shall be assumed to be so. (emphasis added)
So, given the clarity of the remedy, and the fact that search-and-replace is undeniably automation, what's being asked for here is, in fact, not really a clarification of the remedy, but the rescinding of it, because it seems "nonsensical" to some. Perhaps they are right, perhaps it is "nonsensical" -- but it is also abundantly clear, and has been already used to block Farmbrough for a year. There is no difference here, despite Farmbrough's attempt to Wikilawyer the remedy into submission by reference to a definition of automation used in a different part of the Committee's decision (Principle 3.1), which does not and cannot overide the clear definition of automation given in the remedy.
Given all this, the Committee should reaffirm its previous remedy and sanction Rich Farmbrough appropriately. BMK (talk) 11:51, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
EatsShootsandLeaves starts with "Let me start by saying that I do not believe that I have been one of Rich's supporters in the past.", but forgots to add that he is one of my more vocal opponents, having forbidden me to go to his talk page in the future, and concluding "Just when one thinks that someone is improving as a person AND as an editor - WHAM! - they fuck it up badly (✉→BWilkins←✎) 14:00, 25 June 2013 (UTC)" When one points out that one is an objective commentator, it may be more correct to indicate the position one has about both editors, certainly when he concludes "Then, you'll need to cast stones in one of 2 directions ... or both.", as if the possibility that no stones will be cast doesn't exist. As for the substance of his comments: the difference between his examples and what happened here is that the result is what counts; how you browse or read pages is of no consequence, how you find things is your business, but if someone chooses to replace hundreds of instances of "A" with "B" in one unsupervised go, including some "A"s that shouldn't have been replaced, then yes, that is automation as defined in the rstriction, and similar to the one that led to the previous year-long block. What message are you trying to send with wanting to silence the one person that did most of the legwork in establishing that there was a pattern of problematic editing in the first place, and who corrected hundreds of such edits after the case ended and it became obvious that no one else would? Fram (talk) 12:08, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
@EatsShootsandLeaves "close you down once" = told me not to come to your talk page again, with the clear wish that some other admin would block me if I did. "To be forced to restate the same thing to you every time you re-hash the same stupid "he hates me" thing, again, it doesn't make me a "vocal opponent".": let me count the ways: "restate", "same", "every time", "rehash", "same", and "again" in one sentence (and a few more in the next), wow, there must have been countless times I have made such "he hates me" statements. Shouldn't be too hard to find a few examples then. As far as I can remember, I raised the issue once before this. Please refresh my memory on all these other times. Fram (talk) 12:57, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
@Everyone who thinks I shouldn't be the one making these reports. While I can see your point, the problem is that the mantra some people use of "someone else will see it" isn't correct. As an example: I opened Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Rich Farmbrough in April 2012, and it closed on 15 May 2012. Lots of his edits (account and bots) were scrutinised at the time, but even so, a long series of errors (first made from his account as an unapproved bot test, then ran as an approved but buggy bot task) wasn't found until some weeks after the case closed (and then only accidentally, because I was checking edits made by another user, User:Jaguar), and then corrected. I started these corrections on 30 May 2012[31] and finished a few hundred error corrections later on 5 June 2012[32]. I have no interest in waiting until such things happens again, so I try to prevent this by checking early. It is not really logical that the "reward" for researching a case, bringing evidence, showing the harm done by the problems, convincing people through a long and laborious process (with lots of abuse from some people), and correcting the problems, is that one would not be allowed to follow up on it, to check that the problems don't start again, and even get threatened with an interaction ban by an admin (I thought that usually for an interaction ban, a series of problematic interactions should be established, not someone repeatedly but correctly pointing out problems with the edits by another user). Obviously, if the conclusion of the Arbs is that userspace edits, or single page edits, are not actionable under the restriction, then I will not bring such edits to AE again. But whether an edit is a violation is not dependent on who reports it. Fram (talk) 07:33, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
Arbcom '12 messed this up. "Automation" is one of those words that we bandy about without thinking about too much -- it seems to have some sort of meaning so we're comfortable using it. It's a vague general nebulous concept, not something that is crisp and well understood. As an intentionally absurd argument, consider: on 4 April RF edited Poundworld, and since that time maybe 200 folks have viewed that page. Did RF make that edit 200 times -- no, it's automation! Or the text substitution of a ((u|NE Ent)) template is (or isn't), or the spell check built into the browser -- at one point Arbcom '12 members were arguing about whether that counted or not.
"may make reasonable inferences regarding the probable use of such tools on the basis of several factors, including the speed, number, timing, and consistency of the edits". Okay, so what if RF makes a series of 20 edits that are exactly 18 seconds apart? What if the 20 edits vary from 17 to 19 seconds, but are uniformly distributed instead of Gaussian -- or should "normal" editing be a Poisson distribution???
More ridiculous examples upon request.
The bottom line is that, despite Arbcom '12s good intentions, it is just inherently unreasonable to use "reasonably" in a remedy that references something as ill-defined as "automation." I think Arbcom '14 has to open this back up and provide a remedy that is clearly and unequivocally understood.
Note: I commented in the case pages under prior username Nobody Ent NE Ent 13:15, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
What Pine said. NE Ent 11:35, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
The devil lies in the detail. The Arbcom definition of automation cited above remains very subjective and leaves a lot to be desired. In truth, our notions of what constitutes automation evolves with the state of technology. My take is that in today's world, where we rely on computers to do routine and mundane things, performing calculations (instead of longhand or mental arithmetic) or copy–paste (instead of handwriting) is so off-the-scale in terms of what might reasonably be defined or considered "automation". Clicking on the undo button for a series of articles is equally not automation. The beginning of true automation lies somewhere between running a single regex and a 20-regex script over more than a small handful of articles. The edits brought here as examples look like one-off edit of one single and simple regex at worst. Poundworld is not an automated edit. Even if this were in mainspace, it's the product of a simple regex that I'd be inclined to dismiss as a piss-take. This extraction seems like something that can be manipulated with a spreadsheet or word processor. It seems so limited end of my definition that it would be unreasonable to consider it a breach. In addition, RF's editing seems not to have fallen foul of the "speed, number, timing, and consistency of the edits" criteria either. -- Ohc ¡digame! 15:40, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
I'll repeat what I said at AE:
I hadn't planned on commenting, but I am taken aback by the suggestion that Find and Replace searches aren't automated searches edits. As a software developer for the past 15+ years, I can say that using a text editor's search and replacement feature is absolutely an automated process and one that requires special attention to each and every edit. While I don't know the specifics of RF's ArbCom history, apparently this user has screwed this up so many times that the community has decided that they cannot be trusted to do this again. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 22:01, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
I have little to add to what has been said, at the moment.
I would just like to remind Arbitrators (or point out if they didn't already know it) that it is not pleasant having people impugn one's motives at the best of times.
All the best, Rich Farmbrough, 23:32, 9 April 2014 (UTC).
@Harry: "Write an article..." what are John Valentine Wistar Shaw and Cayley's Sextic, chopped liver? And what is chopped liver anyway? All the best, Rich Farmbrough, 01:39, 11 April 2014 (UTC).
@Roger: You ask:
"If you're able only to edit by typing into a box and pressing [save page], does editing Wikipedia have any long-term attraction at all for you?
Or, to put it another way, are you simply marking time here, until the moment when your bot privileges are restored?"
Here are two completely different questions, both, if I may say so, rather confused. I think I made it clear in my email to the committee that I am mainly catching up on edits I wanted to make while I was blocked. And I think I also made it clear, that just because I ran bots and used tools, it did not mean that I was not a content creator - albeit overshadowed in my fields by people like Matt Crypto, Charles Matthews, MIcahel Hardy, Oleg Alexander, etc.. I do not like to sit comparing dozens of pairs of texts as if I were searching for V1 launch sites (perhaps an apt comparison). However I do like to see the encyclopaedia improved. I find it strange that people would fix an error without asking themselves "How widespread is this sort of problem" and "How can we prevent it happening" and "How can ewe fix it everywhere?" So does Wikipedia hold a long term attraction for me? Yes, if we are talking in the realms of a few years, I will continue to fix errors whether they are substantive such as this, or stylistic. I will even search them them out, so for example the previous mentioned error was discovered after finding a dubious statement supported by unreliable sources in one article, that was also present in about ten other articles. These statements are linked to the Jagged 85 case, which means they have been on Wikipedia for 6 years and are propagating across the Internet and print media, and back into other WP articles. (We do not have the manpower to deal with this sort of thing, despite tremendous efforts by some editors - kicking out someone who might make a contribution there seems crazy.)
Similarly I tagged some 3000 incorrect ISBNs in 2012, 2600 of them remain (and probably some have only had the tag removed) and another 3-4000 ISBN errors have been made since. As far as I know, no-one has made a concerted effort to fix these in my two years absence. I am most of the way through fixing the 24 Featured Articles, and have fixed about a dozen others, including some of the 100 odd Good Articles. In the process I have done the following:
In the process of writing Cayley's sextic I also used the "Greek" gadget to insert π and θ (knowing full-well that there exits some combination of "alt" and numbers that will generate the symbol). I also cut-and-pasted the details of the references. And above, I cut and pasted the url of a diff.
So really the type of edit that is prohibited by the motion that is responding to my two mis-clicks in 2012 is pretty much inclusive of any serious editing. "But nobody would be such a jerk as to invoke the restriction for edits like this" I hear you cry. That, of course, is exactly what I thought. The purpose of this over-broad restriction, was to prevent what was seen as (perhaps reasonably) a work-around to previous restriction. In fact it provided another layer of "gotchas". I wonder if you can imagine what it is like working under these restrictions, and having people who don't know the facts say like "violation of all manner of BotOp, administrator, and consensus policies" or "apparently this user has screwed this up so many times".
The fact of the matter is, that, rightly or wrongly, the committee wanted to stop me using "automation tools", defined as "a technology designed to facilitate making multiple similar edits" - and this has resulted in me being blocked for a year over a single edit that provided references to an article, the only problem with that edit being a single character that was typed (or not typed, I forget) by hand. This was not, I believe the aim of the restriction.
So does editing Wikipedia hold any attraction? If people are going to edit cooperatively, then sure. If they are going to throw obstacles in my path for the sake of it, then not so much.
Am I marking time? Hardly! I think I have been pretty productive, I have in your area of interest, created at least stubs, or redirects for half the articles on this list. I have yet to attend to this problem with Elliot Roosevelt, and, have abandoned for now planned improvements to Carolingian Renaissance, because of the time I am spending on this, but please look at the work I have done in the last 2 weeks. It only scratches the surface, of course, but it is at least workmanlike, and an improvement. I also have spent some time at Teahouse and Help Desk, (which are the fora for being welcoming, rather than abrasive).
As to Fram's pathetic claim that he is forced to run around after me fixing my errors, I have always said that I will fix any errors brought to my attention. Fram reported three minor errors (two typos) on Jimbo Wales talk page, while I was blocked. Fixing them was the first thing I did when my block expired - Fram was happy to hunt for them to besmirch my name, but not to tell me about it. Similarly the Arb case was brought as a BLP issue - the world was about to implode because we were revealing who had had sock allegations made against them (this was debunked pretty quickly) my fourth edit was to address that issue. Although it was apparently vital enough that I should be whipped about town, have my rights removed etc. no-one was actually concerned enough to make sure that these details weren't exposed - except me. By their fruits shall ye know them.
All the best, Rich Farmbrough, 18:54, 11 April 2014 (UTC).
@Roger Davies 2: "The purpose is to permanently wean Rich off high speed edits with collateral damage to a slower considered style where every edit moves the article forward and requires no external intervention to fix." It would be interesting to see how either of the edits complained about contravene this purpose. Notably one is not to an article, and could never be an article, the other complaint is based on some crazy hypotheses that I would replace all occurrences of "(a)" with "*". RF 22:48, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
@T. Canens: No one has pointed out why these edits are "problematic". No one has pointed to any editing since the arb case that is problematic. Sure I worked on a lot of turtle articles, and using the same reference format as a colleague introduced a reference with a capitalisation error in it ("Vertebrate zoology" instead of "Vertebrate Zoology") into many of them. But it was correcting the error I was sanctioned for, not creating it.
Similarly the one year block which resulted from your previous "go ahead" to Sandstein was for adding references to an article. One. Article. Not for "making many similar edits to many articles" and certainly the only error there was a single character that was typed (or omitted, I forget which) by hand.
All the best, Rich Farmbrough, 22:58, 11 April 2014 (UTC).
A number of people have suggested that I am "testing my limits" or "pushing the envelope" - this simultaneously ascribes a level of both stupidity and bad faith that verges on bad faith and personal attacks - so much for claims to be "dispassionate".
Strange as it seems when I am editing my mind is not on "testing the limit" (which would be playing Russian roulette) or "not acting like a human" (which is a nasty turn of phrase), but helping people. I did not create Cayley's sextic out of some perverse desire to annoy ArbCom, but because it is an useful article. I did not clean up copy-violations such as Hidden Blade because I am "testing my limits", but because they break the law. I did not remove incorrect claims from articles as an act of defiance, but because they are misleading. I am not creating pages for Trinidad and Tobago portal to annoy other editors, but to be welcoming to Trinidadians and Tobagans. I am not working on [[Igbo] culture out of a sense of spite, but to redress systemic flaws in our coverage. I am not fixing ISBN numbers to... but you get the picture. Or I hope you do.
All the best, Rich Farmbrough, 03:27, 13 April 2014 (UTC).
@Roger Davies I do wish people would stop telling me what I am thinking. It is bad enough having them make inaccurate statements about my actions. It seems likely that I will continue to edit on this project in my own small way, in whatever ways the community and I agree are reasonable and desirable. I have just produced some code that will, I hope, assist another editor to fix 11,000 articles. Of course I published it off-wiki. And I have just produced for another editor a list of over 5,000 red-linked palaeontology articles, also published off-wiki, under CCBYSA3. I I have also helped editors gain massive speed-ups on their bots, and use semi-automated tools to make impossible tasks feasible. I don't really care, for myself, if I never run another bot on this project, there are other, just as important and much harder things that need doing. I do, however, care deeply about the following three things:
It seems to me common sense, given the wide community support here, that the type of disruptive stalking that started the AE (and a host of other like actions before it) should be put a stop to once and for all, and that the Motion of May 2012 is long past its sell-by date, serves no useful purpose (if it ever did) and should be gracefully retired.
Thank you for reading this, Rich Farmbrough, 04:07, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
I would like Arbcom to revise/clarify the restriction to allow use of copy-and-paste in user space. Rich's recent edits clearly did violate the restriction as worded, but it appears to me that the wording of the restriction went beyond the scope of what was called for in the Arbcom discussion. Using copy-and-paste tools in Wikipedia user space is indeed a violation of the restriction as worded, but I can't see how it does any harm. However, it harms Wikipedia's image (i.e., Wikipedia looks pretty foolish) if Wikipedia blocks or bans a productive contributor for that kind of edit. --Orlady (talk) 19:28, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
The real question ought to be, in an environment that is not punitive, whether Rich knew he was trespassing on an Arb Com restriction. I don't see that he did in which case he should be warned that this too is a way in which he cannot edit, rather than punish for ignorance, especially when even the arbs do not agree on whether he trespassed his restrictions . How can you sanction someone for not knowing. If that is the WP environment than as a collaborative project this fails. Further the tone of some of the arbs, and I do respect the job arbs have to do, is less than civil or respectful. That an editor may have transgressed does not mean they deserve to be treated in a less than respectful manner.(Littleolive oil (talk) 19:36, 10 April 2014 (UTC))
My first thought on seeing that this had come up again was "oh, for fuck's sake", which is still a fairly accurate summary of how I feel.
Fram: move on. You've been following Rich around for years, and if you subjected anybody to the sort of scrutiny you've been subjecting Rich to, you could find grounds to sanction them. I thoroughly endorse Beeblebrox's suggestion that you find something else to do. If Rich is a problem and continues to be so after this clarification request, others will pick up where you left off and, frankly, the complaints would have a lot more credibility if they weren't all made by the same person.
Rich: go and write an article or something. I'd love for you to keep participating in this project, but you do so on the terms of its community or not at all. It is difficult to imagine that community (or its representatives on ArbCom, think of them what you will) permitting you, at any time in the foreseeable future, to edit in a way that involves mass changes to multiple articles, such as with AWB and/or bots. I can see the argument that the current restriction is overly harsh or cumbersome, but you are not going to get it lifted by testing its boundaries, and even if you succeed in having it loosened, you will still not be permitted to make those sorts of edits. So I'm afraid your options for the time being are either to find something else to do which is permitted by your restrictions, or to find another way to fill your time. Don't just while away the time until you can get back to what you used to do, because (quite apart from the fact that you'll be waiting for many years at the very least) that's not healthy for you or for the project.
Arbs: I don't think there's much to be done for the time being. Either Rich will find something that he can work on without violating his restrictions, or he has no interest in contributing in a way that the community finds acceptable. Much as I hope it's the former, whatever the case, his intentions will soon become apparent. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:11, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
Rich should not do a search-and-replace in an article to rearrange whitespace or anything else—just edit text that will benefit from editing, and leave bot-like cleanups for others.
However, no bot-like cleanup has occurred in this case, and there is no reason to prevent Rich from doing search-and-replace while preparing an article in user space. Sanctioning an editor for saving a bad user-page draft would be Kafkaesque. Johnuniq (talk) 23:29, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
As I understand it, Rich is being condemned for making edits that are "clearly not manually made"; to wit, using a regular expression search-and-replace.
If a logged-in user goes to Preferences → Editing, and enables both "Enable the editing toolbar" and "⧼wikieditor-toolbar-dialogs-preference⧽", they get the button when editing - it's close to the upper right corner of the edit window. This, when clicked, opens a dialog box for a search-and-replace function which handles regular expressions. It has buttons Find next Replace Replace all; the operation of these should be familiar to anybody who has used, for example, Windows Notepad. Automated process it may be; but then, so is the action that is triggered by clicking [edit], Show preview, or Save page - or by simply following a wikilink. These set in motion a number of SQL requests - they are automated processes.
I recall that Rich was required to blank his .js pages: I am not aware of any requirement that he should also disable features included within the standard MediaWiki interface. I think that it is unreasonable to expect Rich to use a subset of those standard facilities which are available to any logged-in editor. He may have been required to disable all gadgets - but the abovementioned search-and-replace function isn't a gadget.
The intent of the original judgement was surely to prevent Rich from making identical edits on multiple pages in a short time frame - edits that might violate, say, WP:AWB#Rules of use. The interpretation of this judgement has been twisted to the point that Rich cannot even make one edit to one page without it coming under scrutiny. No evidence has been provided that two or more pages have been subjected to identical edits. I would ask how Fram discovered the first edit given in evidence: it's in Rich's userspace (specifically, User:Rich Farmbrough/wanted/mathematicians), and is a page that has never been edited by Fram, so is not likely to be on Fram's watchlist. There are two ways that he can have become aware of that edit: either he is stalking Rich's edits, or was tipped off. I cannot say which of these actually occurred, but it does seem to me that certain parties are out for blood, which they intend to get by any means possible. If the edits that Rich made to a page in his own user space are not in accord with WP:USERSPACE, there are several available routes: (i) edit the page per WP:UP#On others' user pages; (ii) put it up for WP:CSD (see WP:UP#DELETE); (iii) take it to WP:MFD. There is no need to make a whole drama out of a non-issue.
Finally, I would like to point out that one of those complaining made this edit, to this very clarification request; notice that in the added paragraph, it includes the phrases "using a text editor's search and replacement feature ... requires special attention to each and every edit" and "this user has screwed this up so many times". I invite you all to observe what happened to the post immediately preceding the newly-added subsection. How did all those punctuation marks become altered to hash signs, if not by an inattentive screwed-up edit? --Redrose64 (talk) 23:16, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
The edit in discussion does not appear automated. In any case, it did not require copy, paste, and search. Instead of just looking at the diff and assuming that it is automation, I opened the original page for editing in a window. Then I saw that setting up the new version is merely a matter of deleting numbers and punctuation after each link in the list, and deleting some blank lines. Nothing fancy was needed to do that. Italick (talk) 09:59, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
well, here we are again. has arbcom learned yet that micromanaging editors is problematic? when will there be civility enforcement toward admins here? i see we have an admin who is blocked at bugzilla, acting the same way here. i have heard it said that editors are a dime a dozen, and replaceable. is this case a refutation? is anyone else fixing isbn's? is a high edit count rather a block me sign, since the error patrol has more to rake over the coals? when you ask if he is "marking time", is that a refutation of fresh start? when you ask why not just edit by typing, is that a refutation of all the tools and bots, most of which have unintended consequences? i note that bots that delete references are allowed to run, but heaven help the bot that adds a typo.
stop blaming the editor, and start fixing the system. if you don't like the editor's output, then give him the tools to reduce errors. this kind of zero defect thinking in this case, is profoundly incompetent. it leads to zero activity, and zero improvement.
and make no mistake, if you were to ever ask, why is there editor decline; this is a clarion call why. Duckduckstop (talk) 19:30, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
Isn't this just a "todo" list of sorts in his own userspace? What reasonable person would think curating a personal todo page could be a violation of the spirit of these restrictions? I'm pretty disappointed that some of you are voting for ~months-long blocks for this. Fram, I appreciate your diligence here, but I'm similarly disappointed that you wasted your time looking over his edits to his userspace; I'd echo the other calls here for you to take a step back. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 03:15, 17 April 2014 (UTC)
@AGK:. If I were Newyorkbrad I would feel rather insulted by your comment that "the answer [to why the automation restriction should apply to Rich's userspace] seems obvious." If the answer were obvious then nobody would feel the need to ask the question, particularly not someone as experienced in dispute resolution matters as NYB.
For every sanction imposed on a user, the following questions must have known answers before it is imposed:
At the moment it is not clear what the answer to any of these questions is in relation to Rich not being allowed to use automation in his userspace. There may very well be good answers to all of them, but you need to actually answer them. Thryduulf (talk) 16:17, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
The intent is to give Rich a-fifth-or-sixth-absolutely-last-chance as an alternative to an indefinite site-ban. The spirit is to ensure that Rich's work comprises: click on [edit], type, then [save page]. The purpose is to permanently wean Rich off high speed edits with collateral damage to a slower considered style where every edit moves the article forward and requires no external intervention to fix.
In this context, the edits here clearly breach the restriction and, coming so soon after a twelve-month block, are deeply disappointing.
Now, Rich, I have a question for you:
In order to resolve the enforcement request referred to us, the committee resolves that:
In order to resolve the enforcement request referred to us, the committee resolves that:
In order to resolve the enforcement request referred to us, the committee resolves that: