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

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

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Sarah Palin protected edits

1) Given the extremely contentious and hostile nature of the conflicts, no admin is authorized to make edits to Sarah Palin without an ((editprotected)) request on Talk:Sarah Palin while the article is Fully protected, to avoid disruption and ill will. Any admin edit not pre-authorized on the talk page by clear consensus may be freely reverted by any uninvolved admuin. Admins failing to observe this (a notification will be placed on the talk page) may be subject to sanction.

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Please, it's just getting absurd now. Daily or more we've got admins now making changes to the fully protected article in spite of this case being open.[2] There's not really any other way to get everyone to calm down besides telling everyone by force to stay hands off that I can see. rootology (C)(T) 16:41, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

To be fair, some of the edits in the history are in response to talk page requests. D.M.N. (talk) 16:48, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Yes, but at the same there are enough that are just coming out of the blue that it's clearly upsetting a lot of editors needlessly and provacatively. If an article is protected, there's no reason it can't sit idle until such time as there's consensus to unprotect it, if people are this riled up. rootology (C)(T) 16:51, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I agree. I do believe the article needs to be temporarily fully protected, and I do also think that both minor and significant changes can and should be discussed and, upon reaching a consensus for inclusion, be implemented. But making significant edits without discussion, let alone consensus needs to stop or be stopped.   user:j    (aka justen)   16:52, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Request rejection. Abuses of admin privileges should be handled by normal dispute resolution procedures in the first instance; ArbCom should be the last resort, and this sort of "injunction" should be the last resort of the last resort. If tempers are so heated that admins cannot contain themselves, then maybe a few temporary suspensions are in order, but this committee can apply those themselves without need for a resolution such as this. Physchim62 (talk) 17:01, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

This is a proposal for a temporary injunction regarding nonconsensus protected edits on the wp:blp article of the subject of this arbitration request. I'm not sure how much more direct a nexus one could find.   user:j    (aka justen)   17:15, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

This is absurd, the number of edits made to the article is a reason to loosen protection, not make it more difficult to improve it. Mr.Z-man 17:12, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@Physchim62: When there has been no shortage of requests for admin eyes on this article, when admins have wheelwarred, when an arbcom case has been opened, and when editing through protection continues regardless, normal dispute resolution = arbcom. 86.44.22.55 (talk) 02:20, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Comment - Unprotection requested by outside party. D.M.N. (talk) 17:15, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Support - sadly necessary. Kelly ^hi! 18:07, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• Either it is protected, or not. I'm am extremely unimpressed by all these edits by administrators over the protection. NonvocalScream (talk) 17:32, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]
• Article should be unprotected as there is no consensus to keep it protected. This aspect is outside of the remit of ArbCom and is being discussed at WP:AE ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 18:10, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

That aspect is in the remit of the Arbitration Committee and directly related to this case. Therefore, ArbCom can impose this injunction. As far as consensus goes, I doubt there is an admin willing to touch it without Arbitration resolution. Remember, that this is not a content decision on the top, but a conduct decision here. NonvocalScream (talk) 18:23, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

ArbCom can impose such injunction, but cannot get involved in a community discussion about restoring the article to its default state, which is anyone can edit it, if no consensus is achieved to keep the protection in place. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 19:59, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Yes, I would suggest that if such an injunction were imposed it should have a time line attached. I corrected some spelling above NonvocalScream (talk) 20:03, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

You know that articles can be indefinitely protected per precedent, right Jossi? Protection on this one expires in the year 2037. rootology (C)(T) 23:23, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Protection so far has forced the community to pay more attention to one another. It has forced the community to SLOOOOOW DOWN and not just throw th newest stupidest rumor on the page. It has forced the community to address each issue thoroughly. It's working. Can we please keep it protected longer? --98.243.129.181 (talk) 05:04, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

There was no discusion or request for arbitration to lock the article so I am confused why we are now even going down this road. The article should be unlocked now. The ammount of effort required to handle all of these conversations and discusions far exceeds the effort to keep an unlocked article up to date. This is pure censorship. It is a sad day in history when wikipedia decides to change the rules of a wiki and only allow a select few to make changes. Sitedown (talk) 19:24, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I think that this only makes sense if we exclude uncontroversial edits from this restriction. Someone pointed out grammar and WP:MOS mistakes on the talk page yesterday and I fixed them immediately without waiting for an editprotected request or consensus. This should obviously be allowable. Oren0 (talk) 19:30, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Admins don't have any special authorization anyways, any edit that requires admin tools must be made with a clear consensus. This is not a special rule for this article, it is the fact of having admin tools for any article. The consensus need not use a specific template, but lacking that consensus any admin should really hesitate to touch any protected article. This is something anyone running for RfA already knows, so I don't think I should need to be explain this to established admins. However looking at the history of Sarah Palin after it was protected seems to prove my confidence was misplaced. Chillum 20:34, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I agree with Oren0, MoS, spacing, etc. fixes shouldn't need special consensus. ffm 21:36, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

BLP protection rescinded

2) Wikipedia is both a wiki and an encyclopedia. As such it is important that articles remain at the lowest level of protection sensible, and wheel warring is unacceptable. Therefore:

• The special BLP protection of Sarah Palin is immediately cleared.
• Protection from Sarah Palin is immediately removed.
• Administrators and users are admonished to Calm down
• Administrators are reminded that wheel warring is unacceptable.
• Any administrator that is found wheel warring on Sarah Palin or related articles is subject to being immediately added as a participant to this case.
• Editors and administrators are to get back to business as usual on Sarah Palin and may block and protect as needed.

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Wikipedia being a wiki also means it's not finalised tomorrow. If things take a day, a week or a month to sort out, they'll still be there. Relaxing is the order of the day. WilyD 10:41, 8 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I think I've now commented on this at Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Sarah_Palin_protection_wheel_war/Evidence#Still_protected.3F and [3]. Not much more I can do at this point. MBisanz ^talk 15:12, 8 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

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Authored the above to try to get the show back on the road, because the case itself will take forever. Done as a private Wikipedian, if clarification on that point is needed. Recommended used in conjunction with Proposed Temporary injunction 3.--Tznkai (talk) 22:57, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• Support. I don't quite see why this article needs indefinite full protection. George W. Bush et al. seem to do quite well on semiprotection. But we probably need an Arbcom injunction to lift the protection, given the previous wheelwarring.  Sandstein  15:05, 8 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Administrator reversion restriction

3) Because of the high profile nature of Sarah Palin and the history of acrimonious editing on that article:

• Administrators are to follow the One revert rule on Sarah Palin. Failure to do so will result in a 4-hour cool down ban from editing on Sarah Palin and related articles.
• Editors are admonished to also follow the One Revert Rule

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Recommended to be used with proposed temporary injunction 2.--Tznkai (talk) 23:03, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I would support putting all editors on that article on 1RR. Kelly ^hi! 23:12, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I considered that as well, but newbies don't know WP:3RR let alone WP:1RR and we don't want to get bitey. Trying to determine who gets a newbie pass is a pain.--Tznkai (talk) 23:33, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

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I would appreciate it if parties or other knowledgeable users could provide evidence concerning (1) how much more serious the volume and nature of inappropriate edits on Sarah Palin on September 4 were compared to other articles of a similar nature, and (2) what was the nature of the inappropriate edits, e.g. childish vandalism, malicious attacks, political mischief, unsourced rumors described as true, unsourced rumors described as rumors, false statements, etc. This information can be placed on the /evidence page with a cross reference here.

It would also be appreciated if presentation of evidence could be completed by 1800 on Friday, September 12. Newyorkbrad (talk) 02:43, 8 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

How big of a time frame are you looking at, prior to the protection/unprotection spree? rootology (C)(T) 02:44, 8 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I hadn't focused on a specific time interval, to be candid, so I guess the answer is "whatever seems relevant and can be analyzed without undue difficulty." What I am getting at, of course, is whether user conduct on Sarah Palin on September 4 was so out of the ordinary as to warrant extraordinary measures ... or whether it was more typical of an ordinary day on a high-profile day on Wikipedia (in which case it would mean either that extraordinary measures were an overreaction, or perhaps it would mean that extraordinary measures should be used much more often, depending on how one looks at it). Newyorkbrad (talk) 02:52, 8 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Most of the 4th it was full protected, as the first full protection occurred on the 3rd, and then all the lowering/putting back to full was on the 4th. The page was only unprotected for 139 minutes on the 4th. I have 2 of the 3 periods parsed at User:GRBerry/ArbComm PreEvidence. My analysis done to date does not include evaluating POV, whether or not the edit was supported by any sources used, et. cetera - but it would be a start for further work by others if they want to snag a copy... . GRBerry 03:18, 8 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Thanks. The goal is not to get inundated with a blow-by-blow analysis of thousands of individual efforts. I'm trying to get at some form of objective but qualitative understanding of whether things on this article were not as bad as, as bad as, or worse than they have been portrayed, and what the nature of the specific problems was. Newyorkbrad (talk) 03:22, 8 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I've done the third (9 minute) period now. My experience analyzing the periods is that to 1) load each diff, 2) not look at any sources, 3) come up with a one phrase description of what was done, and 4) note that phrase, the editor, and copy the url for the diff took me roughly one-half the time of each unprotected session.

I had similar experience last night with the initial batch of edits subsequent to lowering to semi-protection. Article protection lowered at 20:02 my time, I started reviewing every diff at 20:50 my time, at 22:56 I had caught up to the current diff (98 edits later[4]) and edit conflicted with Dragons flight in attempting to undo a BLP (privacy) violation. During this period I didn't read the talk page, or look at any related article, or their talk pages, or any of the related AFDs, or any of the related noticeboard threads. I did draft feedback messages for three editors, all of which I saved when it became clear I had edit conflicted and there was nothing further to review.

Actually trying to review every edit and keep track of the talk page is just more than a human can actually achieve - especially if they were also checking whether or not various edits were supported by sources. No human could do it for the times that they are awake and online, much less could they review the history of what happened while they were asleep each night. And I think at least some of the article problems have stemmed from people who from sheer necessity gave up on trying to figure out what edit and editor put something into the article or took it out and just were doing their utmost to make the article "correct" as they saw "correct". I should probably draft a finding of fact about this, but since I know NYB's will be used anyway, it isn't urgent. GRBerry 03:05, 10 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I just noticed this section. At the evidence page, I placed a discussion of the traffic and activity levels at Sarah Palin. It doesn't address inappropriate edits directly, but does address the very high edit volume and page traffic it has recieved. For every day since her announcement as a VP candidate, Sarah Palin has been (and continues to be) Wikipedia's most visited article. Dragons flight (talk) 03:42, 8 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• I have a separate question. Several editors and admins have various opinions about whether open editing plus warnings and blocks would or did work or not. Has anyone compiled any evidence about whether warnings and/or blocks were being issued at all? I haven't seen anything better than the limited discussion at User talk:Kelly/Archives/2008/September#Admin? GRBerry 20:58, 8 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

  A partial answer, at least towards my tangential involvement, I know of one editor that was blocked, pre-protection, User:Winger84, for edit-warring over the inclusion of POV and neutrality tags. (I declined the unblock). I believe it was a 31 hour block, no more than 48 hours though. I also warned two other users for "tangential" issues with some of the sister articles/start ups: User:Elan26 and User:EricDiesel. Both (to my knowledge) were also attempting to add information to the Palin article itself. Keeper ǀ 76 16:28, 9 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• Just noting, as I got a note about this, I have no knowledge of any of this. I applied semi-protection when her VP nomination was announced extending to the election, as is standard in such cases, and have not altered the protection since then, nor made any efforts to monitor the situation. Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:58, 9 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• I've begun a response at Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Sarah_Palin_protection_wheel_war/Evidence#Evidence_per_NYB_and_Thebainer.27s_request and will try to expand it as time permits. MBisanz ^talk 14:59, 9 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• • Thanks MBisanz. The evidence you present there shows that the system was working, not that it failed: I see edits adding material sourced to reliable sources such as The Washington Post, other material that was not and that was promptly deleted, and other material that was maybe borderline, but nothing out of the extraordinary that could not have been dealt with warnings, 3RR blocks or similar measures. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 15:28, 9 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• • • As I and others have shown: 1. The insertions were being made by a large number of individuals, so blocking in and of itself would not have been effective. 2. Given the number of page views of per minute, any BLP violations were likely to have a very magnified impact. Also, that none of the material in any of those edits is currently in the article, indicates that their content was problematic enough that even with the semi-protection of the last 16 hours, no one has found that the material met our standards for insertion. MBisanz ^talk 15:38, 9 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

What BLP violations that were not dealt with promptly? What magnified impact, exactly ?And how do you know if blocking would not have been effective if it was not tried? ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 15:45, 9 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I've already shown how it contained those problematic statements for 1/3 of the time it was semiprotected, that is an unacceptable time ratio. And to do a proper block following each insertion, one would need to review the edit, compare it to the past edits the individual had made, read the talk page, review the editor's user talk, warn/block the editor. And to do that in a fair manner the two or three admins reviewing the page at the time, would've needed to review each and every edit made in the same manner. As other's evidence has indicated that edits were being made at the rate of 2-3 per minute, it would become impossible to keep the article compliant and handle the individuals editing it in an nonconstructive manner. Also, there is the newbie biting aspect that it appeared from the nature of the edits (such as the link insertion), that the user was new to Wikipedia. A harsh warning or a block to a new user might drive them away forever. Hitting a "page protected, go to Talk:" notice is far less likely to have that impact. MBisanz ^talk 15:53, 9 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I made my point based on the evidence you and rootology have presented, and we can agree to disagree. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 16:05, 9 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Okey. MBisanz ^talk 16:08, 9 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• For the arbs, here's my half hour by half hour break down of volume metrics: see here. Since it's just pure number crunching to show the flow of how the article & talk volume built up to the point of inconceivable, I tried to format it simply. I didn't even realize until I did this that we were looking at 2+ edits per minute by the end overall. rootology (C)(T) 15:09, 9 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• No one is disputing that there was a flurry of edits during that period. But where is the evidence of BLP violations and/or disruption? And where is the evidence that these violations were dealt with warnings and blocks before considering protection? Granted some editors were claiming BLP violations right and left, but I have yet to see any evidence that this was the case (hope someone can collect that)... sure, the editing was fast and furious but that is no basis for protection unless there were violations of such a magnitude that would warrant it. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 15:18, 9 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• Again: Here's my initial evidence on BLP and Here's Bisanz's initial evidence. We know you disagree there were BLP violations. Lets see what everyone else thinks. rootology (C)(T) 15:47, 9 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Everybody else? Check Wikipedia:BLP/N#Sarah_Palin ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 16:01, 9 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hi, thanks. That is a small consensus, but has no authority over other consensus... All the BLP stuff aside (which several people are still tabulating) we've got full evidence here of a full-blown edit war that warranted protection. rootology (C)(T) 16:07, 9 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Jossi, that discussion was 70-30 hours prior to the events that lead to Keeper76 protecting the article. It was also not attended by any of those who were involved in dealing with the editing of the article and talkpage, possibly because of the effort being expended there. While you were active on Wikipedia in the hour before protection (5 unrelated edits), there is no evidence that you were involved in regard to the Sarah Palin article. LessHeard vanU (talk) 19:58, 9 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• I've added a section on the full-blown edit war that warranted protection, disputed by Jossi BLP issues aside. Note the "note" I put at the top of that section. rootology (C)(T) 16:07, 9 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Would you be kind enough to add the name of the user(s) doing the reversions to that evidence and check if there were any 3RR violations there? ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 16:09, 9 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • On a cursory look over these 180 edits pre-protection, I can see User:Kelly, User:ThaddeusB and User:Pulsifer editwarring and blowing up way beyond 3RR during that time. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 16:16, 9 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• When myself or anyone else has time, yeah. I'm going to get back to it later, but keep in mind that nearly all of these were claimed BLP concerns, which carry the 3RR exemption. The arbs are going to have to probably decide what was a BLP violation in the end based on evidence from the time. Its still frankly disgusting that despite the absurdly high profile nature of this, the massive volume, and the frequent cries for help that we had zero admin support to protect a BLP. Three people alone edit warring for BLP or otherwise is more than enough to warrant protection, easily. rootology (C)(T) 16:20, 9 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• Please note that I do not dispute the initial protection, only its length (it was protected for 7 5 days by Keeper76), so I restored editing 12 hours after the protection, an enough cool-off period. Granted, with hindsight, I should not have undone the re-protection of Friztpoll as already explained in my evidence. What is missing from the evidence you and others have presented, is checks about the validity of claims of BLP violations (see MBisanz) and about who was edit warring upon what seem to be spurious claims of BLP violations. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 17:17, 9 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• Yes, like we said, we're getting to it. Rome wasn't built in ten minutes. You can always do a competing evidence section showing how their weren't BLP violations, which I think would be good to contrast with what you obviously know I'm going to show based on my first dump of links that I used as sources in my findings of facts already. rootology (C)(T) 17:19, 9 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]
• (re to Jossi). Just for the record, my initial full protection was for 5 days, not seven. I literally typed "5 days" for the duration. Had you felt strongly that the protection was too long, and had you stopped by my talkpage to ask me about my rationale (instead of stopping by to tell me that you'd undone my action), we likely wouldn't be here as I would've likely obliged shortening the duration. My rationale for "5 days" was to give the article (and more importantly, those editors trying to protect it manually, a "weekend off". Keeper ǀ 76 17:23, 9 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Yes, that would have save the day... ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 18:54, 9 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hindsight it is. FWIW, I would not support any sort of desysopping for any length of time (forgive me Arbcom powers-that-be if this is in the wrong section) against you. I've looked at your history of contribs on-wiki, they are impressive. Your admin actions are sound, justified, and well-intentioned. I strongly believe this was a one-off (or perhaps, a two-off:-), I believe that you acted in good faith, missed a step, or maybe two, and regret it. Been there. I really hope this all goes away with some trouts, some beer (or maybe some tea for those less inclined), and nothing more to show for it than a few battle-scars, red cheeks (on the face, not the other cheeks), dented prides, and intact tools. Keeper ǀ 76 19:02, 9 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• Please note that I had already given some basic details regarding the activity on the article and its talkpage for the hour preceding the protection by Keeper76. This is raw data only, since my intention was to provide an indication that Jossi had not participated in making those reviews, reverts, warnings and blockings (as appropriate) that he commented should have been made prior to and instead of protecting. I would also suggest, to compilers and NewYorkBrad, that activity on the article talkpage should be included since those active on the article page would likely also be so on the talkpage. LessHeard vanU (talk) 19:43, 9 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• If anyone wants to see total volume between article & talk broken down, see here. rootology (C)(T) 19:49, 9 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]
• Excellent, Rootology. What about adding usernames to these edits for easier identification? ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 22:06, 9 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• For the Nth time, when I have a chance...! That will be a "sit and work on it for at least an hour straight" kinda thing. rootology (C)(T) 22:42, 9 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• Got a message on my talk page about this([5])... I semi-prot'd the page because of a request at RFPP ([6]). History indicated many rvv's by anons, so I didn't think much of it. I admit I didn't look at the prot log until I found out I accidentally turned the move prot to semi (it was quickly changed back to sysop). Didn't know about any wheel war until I bumped into rfar. Lack of judgment can be attributed (in my case, at least) to not looking at prot log, and thinking "well, she's the new VP, the article is gonna get a lot of vandalism, and it is" and stopping thinking about there. Xavexgoem (talk) 23:53, 9 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

MBisanz wrote, ". A harsh warning or a block to a new user might drive them away forever. Hitting a "page protected, go to Talk:" notice is far less likely to have that impact."

The Palin article was the first I ever tried to participate on. The fact it went to full edit protection WAS the reason I did stay. The protection status gives order to the process in these circumstances. Knowing an edit had to be approved by others and finally an 'admin' allows me to participate more fully and engaged in the thread [on talk] rather than trying to rush and edit over another [I never did make an edit, believing the talk process worked better]. Now that the protection is off and I see "admins" doing edits on their own - I've disengaged from the article considering it pointless now and the POV's have won. The process while locked, I felt was fair and went smoothly - for example I believe this thread showed good behavior by all those that did work through the issue, even if it did take awhile to get agreement [topic kept moving to different threads, they are below].

Talk:Sarah_Palin/Archive_15#Book_Banning

Talk:Sarah_Palin/Archive_16#Proposed_change_to_Wasilla_section

I think a review of that thread compared to the others and with special notices of those that were involved that also had "admin" type rights is notable (and those absent to be frank). Thankfully, it wasn't a topic of interest it seems to catch the eyes of certain others with "admin" rights. The fact that "they" weren't involved pushing their own POV edits to negate all the hard work everyone on the thread put into this allowed it to finish. Theosis4u (talk) 03:26, 10 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• Per request of Newyorkbrad and Thebainer, I am adding my reasoning behind my semi-protection actions. I have added it here because I do not feel comfortable adding it to the /Evidence page since I am not party to the case and it appears that the case is more focused on the wheel war on September 4 than what happened on August 29. My first semi-protection was due to the excessive vandalism by anonymous IPs and my surprise that such a high profile article that was sure to attract vandalism was not protected. I protected the article indefinitely due to my haste in getting the protection done, clean up the mess by the IPs (I was getting edit conflicts), and then reset the protection time to a reasonable time after looking at the other Vice Presidential and Presidential candidates articles. I believe that the rapid resetting of the semi-protection expiration happened because AuburnPilot and Feydey came to the same conclusion that I did that too much vandalism was occurring (AuburnPilot used the same exact protection summary as I did), but we picked different expiration times. After a discussion with AuburnPilot that he was okay with resetting the protection to indefinite, I checked the other Vice Presidential and Presidential candidates articles for their protection levels and expiration times and reset the semi-protection to the same expiration time as the other VP candidate using a similar summary. If I remember correctly, my only other involvement in the article was to revert one IP vandalism and to place two notes on the Talk page that the vandalism was cleaned up and the article semi-protected. -- Gogo Dodo (talk) 04:52, 10 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Proposed final decision

Proposed principles

Wikipedia is a wiki

1) One of the key principles of this project is that “anyone can edit.” Restrictions on editing, such as protection, should be rare, require explicit justification in terms of preventing harm, and should be for the shortest possible duration.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

This is particularly true of articles linked from the main page (as was Sarah Palin at the time of this incident) which should be protected almost as much reluctance as "today's featured article". — CharlotteWebb 22:17, 5 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Agreed. The article was in an unusual circumstance where an edit every 90 seconds meant far more bad edits (vandalism, BLP violations, etc) than any editor could reasonably handle. "Everybody can edit" sometimes means "everybody will edit." Nearly every article has far more bad edits that get quickly reverted than good edits, particularly high inerest articles on politics and current events. It is not clear that page protection is a good mechanism for dealing with overwhelming edit volume, or that we have any reasonable alternative either. Locking articles down indefinitely to throttle back edit volume seems like a last resort. Wikidemon (talk) 22:20, 5 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

You place too much emphasis on the word "Wiki". I placed more emphasis on the partial word "Pedia" (as in encyclopedia) SirFozzie (talk) 00:27, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The project is indeed open so that "anyone can edit", but each article (and talkpage and all other Wikipedia pages) has the ability to be protected; it is therefore apparent that semi-protection and protection are recognised as tools available for the benefit of the project. LessHeard vanU (talk) 08:16, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Agreed - however if vandalism, POV pushing is noticed, then protection should be concerned for the benefit of all concerned. D.M.N. (talk) 16:42, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Endorse - The project should not abandon its aims and goals and allow political strife to affect its basic principles. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 17:36, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I always edit anon. I have no problem with this article being protected and forcing everyone to edit via admin. It's a slower process but everyone still has a voice in it. --98.243.129.181 (talk) 05:07, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Wikipedia has protected articles for years, unless we give up page protection all together this principal is for the most part meaningless as applied to this case. This protection was short term and in response to a real ongoing issue, discussion lead to an agreement to re-evaluate in a few days. We have both real external reasons to protect and a consensus to do so. This is well within our protection policy and not contrary to any of our fundamental ideals. This protection was rare, had explicit justification in terms of preventing harm, and was made the shortest possible duration(a mere couple days until re-evaluation through consensus). Chillum 20:28, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• @Chillum: are you saying the principle as proposed is false, or is irrelevant with regards to this dispute? Anthøny ✉ 20:35, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

It is of course true. It is however not relevant, a red herring to be specific. Yes, a wiki is a wiki, and Wikipedia seeks to be as open as possible. I don't think anyone is disputing that. But first and foremost we are and encyclopedia and as such accuracy is important, particularly in cases of living people. Nothing in the above argument contradicts actions taking towards protecting the article. The fact is that consensus, and our regular practice as defined by the protection policy was followed(at least before wheel warring started).

The only reasonable relevance this principal could have is to point out that a rare, explicitly justified(in terms of preventing harm) protection should not be undone against consensus. Chillum 21:08, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Endorse. We are both encyclopedia and wiki, but are probably the definitive wiki, and we would not be the biggest encyclopedia were we not a wiki. Every so often someone propose that now we are mature, we need to stop being a wiki, and not let the rabble in. There are other projects for that. --GRuban (talk) 19:54, 8 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

This proposal appears to be at odds with Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not which characterizes the online community portion of the project as a means to an end instead of the end itself. --Allen3 ^talk 01:26, 14 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Lower-profile biographies

2) In general, lower-profile biographies of living people, which are often under-watched by sympathetic users, and which may be amongst the only information on the subject available on the internet, are more prone to bias and libel remaining unchecked, and have the greater potential to do damage to the subject. In these cases, our willingness to depart from normal free-editing wiki-processes in order to avoid harm should often be greater than with higher-profile biographies.

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Simply, no. The same standards (the very best possible) should be applied across the spectrum of BLP articles. It may be argued that the higher traffic articles provide the standard by which other articles are edited to. LessHeard vanU (talk) 08:21, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Same standard for all BLP articles. I agree with LHvU on the second point on the traffic of articles. D.M.N. (talk) 16:42, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Endorse - That is the spirit of WP:BLPBAN. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 17:37, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I would disagree. The standard is the same for all BLPs. Kelly ^hi! 04:10, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

A very well known person gets less protection than a well known person? How about we leave politics/popularity out an react to the facts. The ratio of editors/reader vs. responsible editors(who understand and respect our policy) was just too far out of whack. Saying "in general" then applying it to an article that is an exception to the rule will only lead to the wrong result, this is not a general case. The facts are that over a million people per day were reading the article and the few minutes a day that BLP way on the article added up to thousands of readers. We were not able to keep up with the damage and protection was correct. The blanket statement in this proposal does not take into account the vast variety of circumstances the can occur or even the circumstance in this case. Chillum 20:23, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Who brought politics in? kmccoy (talk) 23:31, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I did introduce the alternative term via the slash(/) for people who do not prefer the term "politics", the term "popularity" does just as well in this context. Chillum 01:09, 8 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Strongly agree. People opposing this also seem to be missing the major reasons this make sense: 1) There are more eyes on major BLPs then there are on minor ones. Problems will be corrected much more quickly. And if BLP is motivated to a large part by minimizing harm (which I think most of us agree is true) then we must conclude that there is much more potential for harm when someone is less well known then when someone is well known. Indeed, if there are serious problems on an article about a famous person Wikipedia looks really stupid but the person isn't hurt almost at all. If there are serious problems on an article about a barely notable individual it can do them serious real life harm. JoshuaZ (talk) 23:35, 9 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Utterly correct, and utterly irrelevant to this case. Physchim62 (talk) 23:58, 9 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

It is not the number of eyes, it is the ratio of eyes to reader/pov editors/new user/vandals etc... Yes, this article has more attention that other BLPs, but its "ratio" of attention to problems is very poor. While it is generally true that higher profile articles have a better ratio, that is not always the fact(including in this case). Chillum 14:15, 13 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Vandalism on high-profile articles

3) The usual response to articles being vandalised is to revert the vandalism and, after warning, block any repeat offenders. The community accepts that the annoyance of continually reverting vandalism is the cost of our open editing preference. Protection ought to be used only where necessary, and with particular thought as to the impact on good-faith contributions to the article.

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Although this is called a "Principle", it seems to be a factually incorrect finding of fact. Protection, both full and semi, is a highly usual response to vandalism, especially when it occurs in volume. WilyD 10:45, 8 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

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Being related to a current event only increases the negative impact created by full protection, due to the urgency of keeping such articles up-to-date. — CharlotteWebb 22:23, 5 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Normally, I'd agree Doc, but it just doesn't scale to this level, sorry. SirFozzie (talk) 00:24, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Decisions to limit the ability of others to edit are not taken lightly, necessitates consensus, and needs to be deemed to be of net benefit to the project. (This is true of all articles, high traffic or otherwise). LessHeard vanU (talk) 08:26, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Endorse - Standard practice. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 17:38, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Generally true, but not for this particular case. I was one of the few editors removing vandalism to the article - it was coming so fast and furious it was simply impossible, in a practical basis, to use the warn/block system. Kelly ^hi! 04:12, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I aree with Kelly that the "warn and block" system is (very) occasionally not feasible, but I do observe that the proposal notes that using that system is the "usual" response: I presume that is a reference to it occasionally (for example, in this dispute) being necessary to use alternative measures to prevent disruption. (On a practical note, the wording here may need to be refined to clarify this.) Anthøny ✉ 20:39, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I've offered evidence that full-protection of high-profile articles is not an isolated occurrence, but that neither is it common: either this finding of "principle" is meaningless, or it is an attempt to change policy through the arbitration of an exceptional event. In either case, it should be roundly rejected. Physchim62 (talk) 10:54, 8 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Endorse. This is the standard practice for our Today's Featured Articles, which are intended to be the most highly visited article on the entire site. We rarely semi-protect them, but we certainly never fully protect them. A reversion is always easier than an edit, and there seem to have been plenty of experienced editors watching this article. --GRuban (talk) 19:57, 8 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Protection to prevent BLP violations

4) The general response to BLP violations on articles is simply to remove the violation and warn/block the offenders. Protection should be used when there is a significant danger that the violation will be repeated, and not otherwise be immediately removed. The higher the profile of the article, the more likely that further violations will promptly be removed, and conversely the greater collateral damage in frustrating any good contributors.

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Again Doc, does not scale in this case. We had editors begging for help precisely BECAUSE they couldn't keep up with the BLP-Violations/edit-warring/vandalism. SirFozzie (talk) 00:25, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Then we should spend more effort keeping up. Reverting the article to a good state takes a few seconds. --Apoc2400 (talk) 17:47, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

"Upon detecting an enemy aircraft, the rest of the flight should be made aware of the presence of same by use of the codeword Ochre, with an indication of the number and direction"... "BANDITS!!! Bandits, Bandits!! BANDITS!!!

Endorse - It is basically incorrect to claim that there are not enough eyeballs on high=profile articles. Raucous editing? sure, but that does not mean that it can be taken care of by standard practices. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 17:39, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Again, generally true, but was not workable for this article in the particular time frame discussed. Kelly ^hi! 04:14, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Excellent idealism, but the reality was that there were not enough people watching out, if there was then there would not have been an issue. Since we are working with what we have and not what we would like to have, I would say this proposal is a great idea in general but in this particular case it is just wishful thinking. Chillum 20:17, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I agree with others here; this principle simply does not scale to the extent and rapidity of edits which this article saw. Whether the edit rate is unprecedented I would not like to say, but I can't recall any article having attracted bad edits at this rate from so many accounts in such rapid succession. Guy (Help!) 18:41, 8 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Reversion always scales. One revert removes one bad edit or twenty bad edits, just as easily. Semi-protection will protect from bot edits, and surely there were enough admins to block logged-in blatant vandals. --GRuban (talk) 20:00, 8 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I don't particularly agree that it scales. Sure, a revert can remove one bad edit, but when that bad edit is in between five good ones, where do you revert? Revert all the good ones to get rid of a single bad edit? And by the time you've made the decision, ten more edits have occurred, and who knows if one of those is bad or not. Protection helps cut down the workload for the people who volunteer to help articles. The "more sets of eyes" arguement doesn't particularly pan out if those sets of eyes get sick of dealing with being overworked, and just take a break. In fact, that leads to less sets of eyes. Protection doesn't just protect the article, it gives the hard working editors a much needed break from what is obviously a high workload. Kinsloft (talk) 21:54, 15 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Protection and blocking

5) In general it is preferable to block an offender, than to protect an article against general editing. This is particularly true where it is anticipated that many other editors will wish to improve the article.

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This is true, but there are times when it is unworkable. I doubt that anyone could have kept up with this article at its peak, unless the threshold for blocking were lowered (see my proposed remedy below) Homunq (talk) 23:51, 5 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

In an ideal world yes. In this case, no. SirFozzie (talk) 00:26, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

An offender? Yes. Some offenders? Yes, providing the absence from the article does not allow further disruption to pass unreverted. Very many offenders...? May as well protect the article while the various blocks (after ensuring due warnings were provided, etc.) are executed. LessHeard vanU (talk) 08:38, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Endorse - In this specific case, there were hardly any blocks issued to offenders (if there were any, that is). ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 17:40, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

As I mentioned above, there was too much activity and too few responsible editors (in this case) for this to be workable. Kelly ^hi! 20:06, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Proposed findings of fact

Protection of pages on political candidates is normal

1) The semi-protection of certain high-profile articles, often including major political candidates, has historically been normal and accepted.

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Of course. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 17:29, 13 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

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This seems relevant, and is why I initially protected the article - it does not take a particularly deep knowledge of trends on Wikipedia to know that Sarah Palin was going to be a vandalism target. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:38, 13 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Support. This goes without saying. rootology (C)(T) 16:51, 13 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

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The following are very incomplete. I generally agree with the proposals above, but had a few to add.

Proposed principles

We will be overwhelmed sometimes

Stress leads to bad decisions

These bad decisions do not indicate bad faith

Bad decisions will be reduced by reducing stress

Stress can be reduced by making tasks easier or by increasing the perception of cooperation

There will always be another event that leads to record edits on some page, putting a strain on existing mechanisms. When this happens, people will make controversial decisions in response. When we have time to work it out, these people should not be punished, but we should do our best to create options to reduce future strain. These options should include technical, social process, and enforcement improvements. Technical solutions which simplify the process of detecting and removing violations will reduce the strain and thus the necessity for and occurrence of stronger measures such as protection and/or blocks. Technical and/or social solutions which provide middle ground between one level of reaction and another will increase the feeling of compromise, and thus buy-in, by different parties.

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Proposed remedies

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

"BLP State of emergency" articles

A new template should be created saying something like "This biography of a living person is experiencing an unusual volume of unsourced edits. For the next 48 hours, until (({endtime))}, any edit which is a clear violation of wikipedia's policy on such articles (all information should be verifiable through a source, should be notable, and should not be given undue weight, especially if there is a counter-consensus on the talk page) is punishable by an immediate 4 hour block." This template should be applicable only by an admin and only after documenting an unusually high volume of libelous (not just vandalism) edits, from multiple users, over a period of at least 3 hours.

Admins carrying out such blocks should make a good faith attempt to be conservative in who they block, only blocking for clear violations. They should be especially careful with usernames they recognize. However, they should not be punished if some small fraction of their blocks are somewhat questionable.

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I refuse to comment on the appropriateness of this practice, only the feasibility (which is actually high). See Krimpet's new Editnotice feature at work. This would at least be better than making banner-style notices visible to readers who do not plan to edit. — CharlotteWebb 14:26, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Wow, this proposal is quite BITE-y. I thought blocks were for preventing further harm, not deterrence. Even if such a template is feasible it would not readily apply to articles like this one. It might be okay for current news events involving people who are not otherwise public figures, e.g. the arrest of the parents of a missing child. But having such a tool available for administrators to use under claim of BLP when there is a legitimate question on how best to calm a high-interest article on the presidential election, would probably increase rather than decrease the level of dispute among administrators on how best to act.Wikidemon (talk) 16:22, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

This has good intention behind it, but doubt it would work. I believe I understand what's being said in that proposed template, but am not sure. And very few people ever accused me of not being able to parse an instruction set. Aside from being overloaded with set-in-stone instructions ("unless there is a counter-consensus...,") and being a case of instruction creep in action, I was also under the impression that blocks are not punishments. In fact, I think that can be read in the first sentence of WP:BLOCK. (I also think I can understand the good intent behind such a proposal, but think it would be disastrous in application.) LaughingVulcan 01:01, 8 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Transcluded subpages

When an article rockets to prominence as this one did, it may be helpful to split it up into transcluded subpages to untangle the issues in the history and talk pages. The main page should be protected, and the subpages should be at least semiprotected and possibly protected.

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Wouldn't that just lead to more work and required history merges later, muddling things even more, while not really stopping the importing of BLP violations since you'd just be watching and debating over that many more pages? Too bad we can't semi protect or full protect just article sections. rootology (C)(T) 08:36, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

It wouldn't stop anything. But as someone who was editing at the height of things, I noticed that everything took 2 times as long as it should because you had to unravel the history and fight past edit conflicts. A factor of 2 in editor effectiveness is significant. (The vandals, I'm assuming, have no problems with the history). Homunq (talk) 11:09, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Transclusion has some problems, but it's a great idea to consider technical solutions to deal with editing volume. There is probably a good one out there, although implementation and adoption would come through village pump or just boldly trying it somewhere, not from Arbcom. Wikidemon (talk) 16:25, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Good idea, needs further refinement. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 17:58, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

This is possibly a good idea but it is not a valid arbcom remedy. A change on how high-editing-volume pages are handled should not be implemented via Arbcom fiat. Mike R (talk) 16:37, 9 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Proposed principles

Wikipedia is an Encyclopedia

1) Users must remember that Wikipedia is "The Encyclopedia anyone can edit. While anyone can edit Wikipedia, due care must be taken to fufill the core policies of the encyclopedia. That is, to present, neutral, factual information.

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Agreed. I'll point out that Wikipedia won't be finalised tommorow, and something that doesn't get done today, tommorow or the next day is no big deal, unless it's doing harm in the meantime. WilyD 12:57, 8 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

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Proposed. The encyclopedia part is more important then the wiki part. SirFozzie (talk) 00:20, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

For the sake of consistency, allow me to point out that the main page says "Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit." kmccoy (talk) 05:56, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Yes, the encyclopedia as a whole may be edited by anyone. LessHeard vanU (talk) 08:47, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Blocks/Warnings do not scale properly for large-scale edit wars

2) Techniques used to prevent disruption of Wikipedia articles, such as selectively warning or blocking edit-warriors do not always scale properly.

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Historically if there are more than a couple people involved in an edit war, the result is protection. If nothing else than it's just too hard to figure out who did what and what happened. WilyD 13:34, 15 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

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Proposed. Someone said to me "Why didn't they just block/warn the edit-warriors involved?" With that many editors involved in the scrum, it was rather hard to determine who was editing within Wikipedia's policies, and who were harming the article. Full protection was necessitated. SirFozzie (talk) 00:20, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Regardless of their number of editors involved in this my own sampling indicates that the cumulative revert-warring comprises a small fraction of the total edit-traffic of Gov. Palin's article but I'm willing to be proven wrong. Please add names and diffs for said edit-warriors to the /Evidence page if you disagree. — CharlotteWebb 14:36, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Yup. Time spent warning/blocking would have detracted from the ability to revert further violations in this matter. LessHeard vanU (talk) 08:49, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Couldn't agree more. In the span of less than a few hours, a large number of wp:blp reversions were necessary on the article (and even the talk page). Warning and blocking would have taken critical scrutiny away from the page itself, which was unprotected at the time.   user:j    (aka justen)   16:59, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Really? Show me any attempts to warn and block that did not scale. I would venture that there was no attempt made to implement current practices. None. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 17:59, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I can do that; (taken to talkpage).

This is absolutely correct. Kelly ^hi! 04:16, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• Is it worth appending to the end "and should not be used"? This principle seems to all but say that; we may as well go the full mile and say what the rest of the proposal hints at. Anthøny ✉ 20:26, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• No. We make people admins when we trust their judgement. It's a "use your judgement as to which is best". Talks, locks, blocks or a combination. Admins' judgement is supposed to be at least nominally trusted. WilyD 12:51, 17 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

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Proposed principles

Wikipedia makes decisions by consensus

1) Wikipedia makes decisions by consensus, as long as the matters being decided don't conflict with WMF mandates or rules. No one user has the authority to unilaterally overturn a broad consensus repeatedly. Admins are as bound to consensus decisions as non-admins.

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This strikes me as entirely true. "Ignore all rules" does not mean "be a madman", it means "rules are not perfectly formulated, and sometimes conflict with that encyclopaedia building dealie. The latter is more important." WilyD 11:44, 8 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

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Kinda obvious. rootology (C)(T) 09:05, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Clarity is useful. LessHeard vanU (talk) 12:21, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Obviously. Kelly ^hi! 04:17, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Yes, this is a nice wording which doesn't conflict with an occasional use of WP:IAR when there is no (or not yet a) consensus on the specific issue in question. Physchim62 (talk) 11:43, 9 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Admin tools or status in a dispute or involved articles

2) Admins may not use their extranormal tools, abilities, or status as administrators in any content or policy dispute in which they are involved, to gain any kind of advantage or leverage. An admin who is a regular and routine "normal" editor in behavior on a given article or policy dispute is forbidden from overtly or deliberately using their administrator status, tools, or the threat of the same as leverage, clout, or as a tool to gain an advantage over other users, on the article or policy dispute in which they are already a participant.

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This is, again, true. Not sure about PhilKnight's definition of uninvolved; involvedness decays with time (I'm not sure I could tell you what articles I was significantly involved in back in '06, for instance). Involvedness is like a pornography analogy, I'd remember the analogy if I saw it. WilyD 11:47, 8 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

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Proposed. Does this make sense or should I reword it? rootology (C)(T) 09:25, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Concur. (I had to read it twice... which is fairly standard for me.) LessHeard vanU (talk) 12:23, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Well said, however, I would prefer to split this into:

"Administrators are forbidden from using, or threatening to use, their administrator tools, abilities, or status, to gain an advantage in content or policy disputes."

and

"An administrator is considered "uninvolved" if it is clear that they are able to exercise their tools from a position of neutrality. If they have been involved in a content dispute, were a significant editor of an article in question, were involved in revert wars, they do not qualify as uninvolved."

PhilKnight (talk) 12:56, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Warlike behavior using administrative tools

3) Administrators are strictly and most seriously forbidden from engaging in warlike behavior using administrative tools, whether for desirable reasons or not. With very few exceptions, when an action performed using tools has been rejected to the point that a second administrator has reversed it (or similar related actions were reversed), then there is almost never a valid reason for any administrator to reinstate the same or similar action (or end result) again, without clear discussion leading to a consensus decison, and administrators who do so may risk desysopping for abuse of their access. As a corollary, reversal of an administrative action should also not be undertaken without good cause. The policy Wikipedia:Wheel war describes this kind of behavior.

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Long and clunky, but more or less correct. Whether you have to redo anyone's admin action, or your own, to really wheelwar, is a matter of historical debate, though. WilyD 11:54, 8 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

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Proposed. I stole this from the IRC RFAR final decision. It seems appropriate here. rootology (C)(T) 09:25, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Yeah, I think this would apply. Kelly ^hi! 04:17, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Wikipedia is not about winning

4) We are here to build a neutral encyclopedia, not to push outside agendas, political or otherwise. We are not here to "win one for our side", or for our beliefs. See WP:WINNER.

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Is this different from the common "Wikipedia is not a battlefield"? --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 16:27, 18 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Agree with the essence of Jpgordon's point but WP:BATTLE and WP:WINNER are two different concepts. The former refers to off-wiki battles brought and fought inside Wikipedia. Unless Rootology --the author of the essay-- meant otherwise, the latter refers to on-wiki disputes dealing with internal conflicts such as wiki-politics (I dislike this term) fought inside Wikipedia. fayssal / Wiki me up® 05:08, 19 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

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I agree with this. WilyD 11:55, 8 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@Rootology, 35 edits most of them minor is not a "deep involvement". My interested picked after the incident. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 15:49, 19 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

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Proposed. Seems applicable here, given the subject matter. rootology (C)(T) 09:30, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Yup. LessHeard vanU (talk) 12:25, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Agreed. D.M.N. (talk) 17:25, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Amen. Kelly ^hi! 04:18, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Not sure that this would be relevant to any decision, even if I heartily agree with spirit of it. Physchim62 (talk) 11:50, 9 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

To jpgordon: Yep, totally different. WP:NOTBATTLEGROUND is basically a summary of why Wikipedia isn't a place to fight, go "after" others, and in general advises not to engage in assholery. WP:WINNER/Wikipedia:Is not about winning and this proposal of mine explicitly is that we're not here to win, or to be right, and that anyone who engages in that mindset is not working with Wikipedia's best interests at heart--and that this kind of "I will win and thats that" and "I will win because I am right" mindset is inherently wrong for what we're here to do. I'd go further and say it's an actively destructive or dangerous mindset for anyone on Wikipedia or any similar style of website or project, but the essay hasn't been mine since I published it, and I have no desire to write a manifesto. I added it here because Jossi's tone (and apparently, MZMbride's in IRC) boils down to "I will win because I am right" which is totally incompatible with Wikipedia, let alone adminship. We don't need Alpha personalities harming BLPs with their egos because they think mistakenly they're right for whatever reasons. We need people that are willing to put themselves and their interests always second to the big picture, from the guy with one edit to the Arbitrator that's been here since 200whatever. rootology (C)(T) 17:21, 18 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

To FayssalF, I can assure you as the author of the essay that it wasn't just for wikipolitics, but for the mentioned "ideological" or general political points, plus general personality disputes. Jossi's... fervent (?) editing of all things Sarah Palin was a bit unnerving, at least to me, and I'm no fan of the lady. It had a crusader feel. That's why I put this in here--the unprotection seemed to be extension of that zeal to allow more and more into the article. Jossi apparently is a crusader for some BLP causes but let that all fall away here for some reason with Palin. The fact he basically set out to "win" via IAR combined with his deep involvement and crusades like actions here is what made me write this. rootology (C)(T) 05:14, 19 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

IRC or off-wiki consensus cannot trump on-wiki consensus

5) Users can attempt to decide consensus for content decisions or administrative actions such as blocks, protections, unprotections, deletions, and undeletions in any venue. However, they have no value, bearing, or validity unless evidence of the consensus can be demonstrated on-wiki. If a conflict or discrepancy exists between on-wiki and off-site consensus, the off-site automatically is secondary to the on-wiki.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Consensuses (Consensii?) can only develop where everyone is able to discuss. Discussion elsewhere may illuminate your thoughts, but actions taken from those discussions are your own, whether the discussion is on IRC, at Wikipedia Review, enwiki-l or with your mom over tea. WilyD 11:57, 8 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Comment by others:

Proposed. rootology (C)(T) 17:17, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Agreed. Same goes for comments made at Wikipedia Review I guess. D.M.N. (talk) 17:26, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

If a conflict comes up, yep. Three WP users all saying, "Hey good idea," on Wikipedia Review/IRC/e-mail/over beers can go make their change. If no superior consensus here undoes it, it sticks. If two people on-wiki say, "Whoa, hold up," then the outside consensus falls by the wayside until they all come here to demonstrate consensus. Someone can probably word my analogy better. rootology (C)(T) 17:39, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I'm trying to find the relevance to this case. What on-wiki action was described by its doer as justified by a consensus off-wiki? kmccoy (talk) 18:39, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

See here.[7]. It's here for completeness. rootology (C)(T) 22:43, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Longstanding sore point that the ArbCom has yet to effectively address. Kelly ^hi! 04:19, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Concur. Agreement between WP editors reached off-Wiki may be implemented, if time critical, and then consensus sought. If not time critical, an off-Wiki agreement between WP editors should be brought up at a suitable venue so that consensus be sought. I suggest "Consensus", as far as it relates to WP, is that which is formed on-Wiki only. LessHeard vanU (talk) 09:31, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Again, I'm not sure that this is relevant, but I cannot argue against it for any other reason than "we [the "community"] have already said it many other times" Physchim62 (talk) 11:52, 9 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Proposed findings of fact

Consensus supported protections on Sarah Palin

1) At the time when the wheel warring for unprotection on Sarah Palin was initiated by the administrator User:Jossi, consensus clearly supported overwhelmingly to protect the article, in the opinions of many long term and established Wikipedia users. At the time, the discussion which Jossi was aware of, being a participant, was centralized on WP:AN.[8]

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Not really disputable as I see it. rootology (C)(T) 09:10, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• Suggest omitting "(by a factor of ... Jossi)". Although some sort of measuring stick is always necessary as a rough guide to whether general agreement exists for or against a particular point, I think it prudent that we stay clear of the idea that consensus can be gauged against metric standards—more so in arbitration rulings than anywhere else. Anthøny ✉ 10:51, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Concur - with Anthonys caveat. LessHeard vanU (talk) 12:27, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Good idea, I changed it. rootology (C)(T) 15:55, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

As Rootology said, indisputable. Kelly ^hi! 04:19, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Now that the wording has been tweaked, as per Kelly: agree. This makes sense. Anthøny ✉ 15:40, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Articles are protected for edit warring

2) Articles that are subject to even light edit warring between good faith users are typically often protected to prevent further disruption to the encyclopedia.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Essentially dishonest to suggest otherwise. Protection and blocks are complimentary tools that are used to prevent disruption; either or both are used where it is believed it will be effective by administrators trying to solve a problem. WilyD 12:49, 8 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Comment by others:

Proposed. Do I need evidence? This is kind of flagrantly obvious. rootology (C)(T) 09:16, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Suggested amendments:

• "to even light edit warring" → "to [[Wikipedia:Edit warring|edit warring]]";
• "typically Full protected" → "often protected";
• "to stop the disruption of the edit war" → "to prevent further disruption to the encyclopedia".

I would propose an alternative to this, but you seem to have largely hit the nail with the hammer, so I'll offer my suggestions to you first, Rootology. Anthøny ✉ 10:56, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Your wording is better, I changed it. Thanks. rootology (C)(T) 16:03, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

If this reflects actual practice I could stage an edit war concerning Tropical Storm Hurricane Hanna's date link format eye color, cause the article to be locked until long after anyone cares about it, and not be blocked. That's a very scary thought and I hope it does not resemble general practice. Blocking disruptive users is always preferable, and quite especially when the majority of total edits are unrelated to the dispute. — CharlotteWebb 14:46, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Well, look now... "between good faith users" is added. Common sense always rules for the protection, right, but articles do get protected for really stupid edit wars all the time. I mean, they just do. :) rootology (C)(T) 16:03, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I am a "good faith user" and I resent any innuendo to the contrary. Pages should almost never be protected pre-emptively, but only after blocking the vandals/edit-warriors/BLP-violators/whatever is demonstrated to be ineffective i.e. coordinated disruption continues due to said users having too many wiki-friends or sock-puppets or IP-ranges. Even then the article should not be protected 'til the cows come home, but only as much time as it takes to treat the source of the problem (rather than the symptom). I fundamentally disagree with long-term full protection of any article, even those related to the LaDouche movement. — CharlotteWebb 17:32, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Trust me, no innuendo to the contrary, I know you're a very good faith user, it was a suggested wording change that was left for me. My simple point was that we do protect articles for really trivial edit warring, let alone stuff on the scale of what we saw on Sarah Palin. rootology (C)(T) 17:36, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Charlotte, you are a good faith user, and that's why you don't "stage edit wars". Your hypothetical above involves you acting in bad faith. WilyD 12:49, 8 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Charlotte: see #Dealing with disruptive conduct, which may cover some of the points you make. I've been having similar thinking, hence my proposal. Anthøny ✉ 18:02, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I've just posted some evidence for full protection of politician articles (including a full protection of Barack Obama by Jossi!). It should be "typically" or "often", but not both ;) Physchim62 (talk) 10:10, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I've struck out typically on grammar grounds, as my analysis of the consensus view here and now: feel free to revert my BOLD action if it would help discussion. Physchim62 (talk) 11:56, 9 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

No, grammar good. rootology (C)(T) 14:25, 9 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

High risk or contested BLPs may be protected abnormally

3) High risk or contested WP:BLP articles historically have precedent to be protected for unusual amounts of time. For example, Lyndon LaRouche as of 09/06/08 has been Full protected for approximately 10 months, and it's protection does not expire until the year 2037.[9] A possible short duration block of Sarah Palin or other BLPs would not be unreasonable if a problem existed, based on history and practice.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

This is also true of non BLPs, though probably less so. WilyD 13:35, 15 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Comment by others:

Proposed... rootology (C)(T) 09:16, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I don't see the relevance of it being a BLP. That there are BLP violations is somewhat relevant, but BLP violations could occur on any article, and not every policy violation in a BLP article is a BLP violation. Wikidemon (talk) 16:30, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Apples & Oranges. That article is not a recent article, it is not the subject of 1,000s of reports on the mainstream media, and is quite stable. This article, on the contrary can only benefit from intense editing and restricting editing by protection is not serving the article, the subject or the pedia. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 19:53, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hmmm, any thoughts why "That article is ... quite stable."? Might it be because it is protected? LessHeard vanU (talk) 09:36, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Sarah Palin, BLP violations, and fast edits

4) The Sarah Palin article was the subject of many BLP violations that occurred very quickly before User:Keeper76 first fully protected the article to protect the BLP subject from further harm. The editors who were active on the article were unable to protect it without admin tools from, for example, 31 edits in 26 minutes preceding the protection, a rate of 1.19 a minute, and 6 of those edits (19.3% of the total) were removals of what can be considered BLP violations at the time.[10]

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Proposed. rootology (C)(T) 09:20, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Per my evidence, editors reviewing and acting upon edits to the article page were also engaged in responding to edits on the article talkpage - further draining the necessary resources to deal with any BLP violation, or otherwise biased edit, that may occur. LessHeard vanU (talk) 12:31, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Agree. It became a challenge simply to remove wp:blp violations due to constant edit conflicts. By the time I could get the page to save, there were already five more diffs to review.   user:j    (aka justen)   17:34, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

BS. No evidence of BLP violations, unless now sourcing materials from the Wall Street Journal, NPR, and other mainstream sources are no longer reliable for this project. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 19:55, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Personal opinion. I provided lots of links to removals of BLP vios here. At the time you wheel warred, there was for most of these edits paltry and insufficient sourcing which put them squarely into BLP violation territory. Some of these may or may not be acceptable content today with new sourcing, but when you abused the tools, they were BLP violations. None of these removals were the Wall Street Journal or NPR, so I have no idea where you're getting that from. They were YouTube links, synthesis/OR BLP violations, and forced insertion of the affair rumors which still haven't panned out yet as of today.rootology (C)(T) 20:00, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

An opinion that has no support in the evidence you provided. These were not BLP violations that require aticle protection or god forbid claim WP:BLPBAN. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 20:12, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Sorry, I was referring to your own personal opinion, which was in opposition to the clear (24:1) overwhelming consensus which did not really later change, per evidence. Having tools doesn't give you authority to overrule consensus of other admins and "senior" users who've been around a while, and have a clue. You can always do it anyway, but thats how you get where we are unfortunately. rootology (C)(T) 20:18, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Washington Post, ABC News, AKIP website, CBS News, CNN. These were the sources used in these edits. Needed a bit of tweaking, but not a BLP violation. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 20:17, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Your extreme minority viewpoint from the time is that they were not BLP violations and that the article did not require protection, despite the fact that at the time of the edits there was clear consensus these were synth BLP vios of unstable rumors at best, despite the overwhelming fast edits which made it impossible to gauge and edit what was happening without dozens of edit conflicts. Do you believe your judgment and intellect is superior to 24 other users? and that allowed for you to wheel war against a clear consensus on that day and hour? rootology (C)(T) 20:20, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

No BLP violations, period. Thanks for your opinion about what constituted consensus "at that time". Consensus of editors cannot trump the core principles of this project, and I have acted in that spirit and take full responsibility for my actions. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 20:40, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Agree. There were many severe and repeated BLP violations going on at both the article and the associated talk page. Kelly ^hi! 04:22, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Where is the evidence? No such evidence has been presented despite many requests. Any obvious BLP violation was promptly removed. Many other edits were basically disruption based on spurious claims of BLP violations. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 15:52, 19 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Jossi is an involved editor on Sarah Palin

4) Before Keeper76 protected Sarah Palin, User:Jossi was a regular participant and involved editor on the article and talk pages, working to enable his desired changes to the article with others. He edited the article itself 35 times prior to protection.[11] See WP:UNINVOLVED.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Proposed. Not disputable. rootology (C)(T) 09:32, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Jossi and page protection of high profile BLPs

5) Across various venues, Jossi has strenuously and in good faith argued against the validity of editing protection on articles such as those of the participants in the 2008 United States presidential election, such as Sarah Palin, arguing that the perceived BLP violations, perceived consensus for protection, and even the outright edit warring (BLP aside) on Sarah Palin was insufficient for protection. However, this is not consistent with Jossi's previous protection in April 2008 of Barack Obama which he protected for five hours over far lighter[12] edit warring than was observed on Sarah Palin. He announced the protection here, saying "Protected for a couple of hours to afford editors to discuss these changes," which is what he specifically objected to on Sarah Palin. Additionally, Jossi had in fact previously protected Barack Obama as observed in the protection log here, even extending protection at one point in August 2007.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Proposed. rootology (C)(T) 15:39, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Unnecessary, I hope. Physchim62 (talk) 11:59, 9 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Jossi Wheel Warred on Sarah Palin

6) Jossi, an involved and regular editor on Sarah Palin, twice used his admin tools against policy and practice to unprotect and remove full protection[13] in violation of demonstrated consensus[14] on one of the most visible and scrutinized BLP articles at the time, which was under wide media attention and subject to heavy BLP violations and attacks[15]. Jossi claimed he did this under WP:IAR[16] and vowed to continue Wheel Warring. In presented evidence on this RFAR, Jossi shows no regrets over Wheel Warring.[17] Jossi's actions here are counter to his actions on related articles, such as Barack Obama.[18]

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Proposed. All sourced, indisputable facts. rootology (C)(T) 09:36, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Several hours after Jossi Wheel Warred consensus had not changed

7) Examining consensus several hours later, when admin User:MZMcBride unprotected Sarah Palin, escalating the Wheel War, consensus had not yet demonstrably changed over the validity of the protection.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Proposed. rootology (C)(T) 17:14, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

MZMcBride Wheel Warred on Sarah Palin

7) MZMcBride, an admin, Wheel Warred on Sarah Palin, twice using his admin tools against policy and consensus to unprotect and remove full protection[19] in violation of demonstrated[20] and ongoing consensus[21] on one of the most visible and scrutinized BLP articles at the time, which was under wide media attention and subject to heavy BLP violations and attacks[22]. MzMcBride's second removal of protection was a removal of the special ArbCom enforcement BLP system that MBisanz had placed. Apparently, MZMcBride either decided a new consensus in contrast to the on-wiki consensus, or was coached or influenced somehow on the #admins IRC to undo MBisanz's actions.[23][24] According to MBisanz, MZMcBride announced his intention to premeditatively Wheel War on #admins IRC.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

It's unclear to me whether MZMcBride participated in a single struggle in which he performed two administrative reverts, or two struggles in which he performed a single administrative revert. Maybe this doesn't matter, but maybe it does, depending on what you believe constitutes a wheel war. WilyD 12:54, 8 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Comment by others:

Proposed. All sourced, all indisputable facts except the language used on #IRC. MZMcBride, would you be willing to release the language you used on IRC? It would help clear up any misapprehensions. I asked him here. rootology (C)(T) 17:32, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The IRC events are irrelevant. What is relevant is what happened on-wiki. The language MZMcBride used on IRC was in a private channel, and at no point on wiki did he claim that his actions on-wiki were justified by a consensus on IRC. Therefore, the continued attempts to draw IRC into this should stop. Actions on-wiki are accountable on-wiki. kmccoy (talk) 18:45, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I was just putting it all in for completeness. rootology (C)(T) 18:46, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Given one was semi->unprotected, and then 5 days later the other was full->semi, I don't think this classes as reapplication of an administrative action, and thus not wheel-warring. Ian¹³/t 10:12, 9 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I find it very unfortunate that MZMcBride undid my initial long-term semi-protection of the article - such a protection was utterly in line with standard practice on such articles, and had it stood little of this would have happened. That he offered no comment on my talk page or attempt at discussion with me before undoing the access is poor. Phil Sandifer (talk) 00:37, 15 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Proposed principles (AGK)

BLP special enforcement

1) The special enforcement authorised at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Footnoted quotes is intended to ensure that all Wikipedia articles comply in full with Wikipedia's biographies of living persons policy. The provisions of this special enforcement authorise administrators to perform what actions may be reasonably necessary to ensure Wikipedia articles do comply with this policy.

Should an editor disagree with an administrator's action as made under that special enforcement, the appropriate and correct course of action is not to use one's administrator tools to undo that special enforcement, but rather to pursue the avenues of appeals specified here (under "Appeals"). Only when a consensus to overturn or adjust that original action emerges from those appeal forums, should an uninvolved administrator overturn the action.

Wheel warring is harmful to the project, and indeed is more disruptive than one misguided action could be. Administrators are only authorised to effect actions under the special enforcement provisions, and indeed, only permitted to retain their status as an administrator, in so long as they act with solid judgement and sufficient thought for the consequences of their actions on the encyclopedia.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

It should be obvious enough ArbCom endorses the former and you have to at least not interfer with such things. WilyD 10:44, 9 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Comment by others:

Proposed. Anthøny ✉ 10:27, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Concur. LessHeard vanU (talk) 12:34, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Disagree with extending BLP special enforcement to apply to full protection of high-importance BLP articles. Special enforcement is a blunt tool that circumvents our carefully designed processes for how administrators are supposed to make their decisions. It is risky, and possibly harmful to the project, to empower administrators to use the trump card of BLP too widely in order to make their decisions hard to review. Wikidemon (talk) 16:36, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Replies for Wikidemon:

• Administrators using special enforcement as a "trump card" – a very understandable concern. My proposal to have the committee author additional advice for the community on using the special enforcements is designed to counteract that. Additionally, the appeals process built in to the special enforcement arrangements has the exact purpose of ensuring that all administrator actions are for the benefit of encyclopedia; to prevent and minimise (further) disruption; etc., etc.
• It may well be that the BLP special enforcement arrangements are a step in the wrong direction. However, the fact is that the arrangements still stand, and as such clarification on their purpose is needed. (I'm inclined to disagree, incidentally, that the BLP special enforcement remedy is a poor move: although the remedy's set up has some design flaws, the principle is one which, I believe, we largely need in the Wikipedia of today.)

Anthøny ✉ 15:36, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

"BLP Special Enforcement" never had consensus to begin with, still does not, and is essentially a rejected attempt at policymaking by ArbCom. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 05:42, 3 October 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Expectations of administrators

2) As editors entrusted with additional technical abilities, Wikipedia administrators are expected to contribute positively to the encyclopedia and to lead by example, by:

• Acting with good judgement and appropriate thought;
• Conducting themselves professionally;
• To consider the consequences of one's actions on any pages affected and on the encyclopedia as a whole.

Actions that are contrary to these principles are not appropriate or helpful in a collaborative encyclopedia environment. Acting within these principles is especially important for administrators when exercising such technical abilities as page protection; page deletion; and user blocking.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Agreed. Admins generally know what they're doing and have already proved that they can be responsible, we need to be held to a higher standard of behaviour, not a lower one. WilyD 12:56, 8 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Comment by others:

Proposed. Input and comments welcome. Anthøny ✉ 11:21, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Concur. LessHeard vanU (talk) 12:35, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Dealing with disruptive conduct

4) Editors who edit in a disruptive fashion—including edit warring, failing to pursue discussion of disputed matters of content—may be blocked by any uninvolved administrator in order to prevent further disruption to the affected articles.

Articles that are subject to intensive edit warring, vandalism, or other disruptive actions may be protected by any uninvolved administrator in the same vein as the intention of blocking disruptive editors: to prevent further disruption to the affected articles.

Although a protection is expected to end further disruption to a page that has been recently disrupted, that is not to say that the conduct of the editors who disrupted the page originally is excused: although blocking them at that point may be considered punitive rather than preventative, the fact that they choose to disrupt Wikipedia articles may be a sign of wider conduct issues. The community should, as a response to editors who repeatedly disrupt Wikipedia articles, review that editor's conduct and consider whether their presence on the project is a detriment to the project.

In any case where it is concluded that an editor is disruptive, the community should take appropriate action—including issuing editing restrictions (for example, if the editor often disruptively edits only a particular topic area, but otherwise contributes constructively); assignment of a mentor to educate the editor as to the communal norms of Wikipedia and the community's expectations of editorial conduct; and community-endorsed blocking or banning.

In short: although protection may be used to end a period of article disruption, it may be necessary to deal with individual editors who have trouble editing constructively.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

All of this seems true, it's not obvious to me what it has to do with the price of tea in China, though. WilyD 13:01, 8 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

[Non-party comment.] Is this a comment directed at the relevance of this proposal to the case at large? If so, I believe it to be highly relevant in a case that has administrator misuse of tools at its heart. Anthøny ✉ 15:57, 8 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I mean, if it's meant to relate to the case at hand, which is solely about the use of administrative tools, it certainly doesn't go out of it's way to show how it's related. WilyD 16:14, 8 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Comment by others:

Covers all the bases, I think. Disruptive editorial conduct should not go excused and unnoticed. Let the committee educate the community a little on how to deal with disruptive conduct. Anthøny ✉ 15:56, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

To make a long story short, disrupted articles are a symptom of an underlying problem which is disruptive users; treatment should primarily target the latter. Perhaps the above could be refactored on account of its length (which is likely to double in the hands of arbcom'ers). — CharlotteWebb 20:01, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I prefer to be lengthy with complex issues where I can. "Cover all the bases," and all that. The principle of the proposal stands, though, yes. Anthøny ✉ 20:19, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Wheel warring (AGK)

Incomplete.

5) Where an incident arises—often taking place against a high-interest backdrop—in which two or more administrators are using their rights (blocking or unblocking an account; protecting or unprotecting a page; deleting or undeleting a page) to retain a particular action's presence on a page, to the point where no discussion between the administrators over their differences of opinion, a wheel war can be said to.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

(Incomplete; saving thus far. Anthøny ✉ 21:07, 19 September 2008 (UTC))Reply[reply]

Proposed findings of fact (AGK)

Format for administrator conduct

General suggestion for a presumably forthcoming range of statements on the conduct of individual administrators.

I think it appropriate that we review the conduct of each individual administrator who is party to this case (and, perhaps, those that made [even minor?] actions on Sarah Palin (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)) against the evidence submitted. Furthermore, feedback and suggestions for improvement may also be submitted.

As an example,

MBisanz Filing party. General statement of involvement. Event A. Poor conduct. How to handle "next time." Event B. Good conduct. Event B. Poor conduct. How to handle "next time."

MBisanz is used absolutely as an example there, and I am not making any comment, through events A-C, as to his conduct out with the purposes of example or hypothesis.

Parties whose conduct may be reviewed on an individual format as above:

• MBisanz (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
• MZMcBride (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
• Jossi (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
• WilyD (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Thoughts welcome.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Seems reasonable. WilyD 13:03, 8 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Comment by others:

This seems like a good format to follow. Anthøny ✉ 16:15, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Proposed remedies (AGK)

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

BLP special enforcement: further guidance

1) The Committee recognises that further guidance is necessary with regards to the special enforcement on BLP articles. The intention of this guide is to:

• Provide non-official advice on dispensing special enforcements on BLP articles;
• Provide guidance on where (on which articles) and when (at which stage of an incident) special enforcement actions should be made;
• Suggest possible sources of advice and assistance in the event of special circumstances.

The Arbitration Committee shall author this guide within two months.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Proposed. Points over which I particularly desire feedback:

• Third bullet point: too specific a point to include in a "general aims" list?
• Wording: any possible refinement or improvement?
• Time limit: is two months too short? too long? possible alternatives?

Anthøny ✉ 10:47, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Another bullet: *provide guidance on editing articles while they are under special enforcement (see Moreschi's comments and my replies below). Homunq (talk) 11:36, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Also, I think that "author" is not quite the right word. The guide should be open to general edits and be written by consensus. Obviously, I think that ArbCom members would be given due respect in such a format, and their presence would be an important part of the legitimacy, but that doesn't mean the task falls on them. Homunq (talk) 11:44, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The intention is that the committee is to expand on its original schematics for these arrangements. I really think that they ought to be the ones that pen the final draft, although your suggestions that the community have time to offer input is a very good one: I would hope that the committee would invite opinion and comment regardless. But yes, I think author is the appropriate terminology here; of course, if you have any suggestions as to alternatives to "author," I'm all ears! Anthøny ✉ 16:04, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

tbd=to be decided

Proposed principles

Incomplete. Ncmvocalist (talk) 12:15, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

BLP Special Enforcement (Ncmv)

tbd) The BLP special enforcement remedy at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Footnoted quotes is intended to ensure that all Wikipedia articles comply in full with Wikipedia's biographies of living persons policy. Administrators are only authorised to effect actions under the special enforcement provisions, and indeed, only permitted to retain their status as an administrator, in so long as they act with solid judgement and sufficient thought for the effect of their actions on the encyclopedia.

Should an user disagree with an administrator's action as made under BLP special enforcement, they should pursue the avenues of appeals specified here (under "Appeals"). In the absence of a clear consensus at the avenues of appeals to reverse or modify the action, all administrators are expressly prohibited from using their tools to undo that action. Wheel warring is harmful to the project, and indeed is more disruptive than one misguided action could be.

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Like every other rule, we have to expect admins will misapply it from time to time. Taking special action (especially protection, the least harmful of actions) shouldn't call for special penalties for poorly judged, if not egrarious, specious or reckless use. In short, if we want admins to do what they can to keep us in line with the principles and letter of BLP, we shouldn't dangle a sword over their heads if they do. Second paragraph seems reasonable to me. WilyD 13:07, 8 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The word 'consequences' might not have been the right word so I've modified that too. I'll respond in more detail later. Ncmvocalist (talk) 14:09, 8 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

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Modified from AGK. The remedy was drafted so that consensus was needed for the appeal - not consensus for the original action. Why? When an admin makes an action under the remedy, it was to be treated in line with the rule of thumb - 'do no harm', and that was the entire purpose of the remedy. BLP policy does not change because an article has passed FA, nor can WP:IAR be invoked for a very clear procedure on this remedy. Some administrators have failed to even realize the alarming extent of their poor judgement or unacceptable administrative conduct, and sadly, perhaps the only way the point will be hit home is through appropriate individual remedies, including suspension and revocation of administrator privilleges. Ncmvocalist (talk) 12:15, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Concur (no preference between this and AGK) LessHeard vanU (talk) 12:39, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• This also seems fair to me, although I'm inclined to support including the in-built mini common sense check of "wheel warring undoes any progress made from installing BLP special sanctions on an article" that I have in my proposal. Anthøny ✉ 15:36, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• I've tweaked it to be more explicit now; I agree it should be covered. Ncmvocalist (talk) 09:13, 8 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Administrators are expected to lead by example

tbd) Administrators are expected to lead by example, and act as role models for users in the community. To a greater extent than other editors, administrators are expected to observe the principles of Wikiquette by behaving in a respectful, civil manner in their interactions with others. Sustained or serious disruption of Wikipedia is incompatible with the status of administrator. Even if no misuse of administrative tools took place, administrators whose actions are inappropriate and disruptive risk being desysopped by the Arbitration Committee.

tbd.2) Administrators are expected to lead by example, and act as role models for users in the community. Administrators are expected to observe the principles of Wikiquette by behaving in a respectful, civil manner in their interactions with others. Sustained or serious disruption of Wikipedia is incompatible with the status of administrator. Even if no misuse of administrative tools took place, administrators whose actions are inappropriate and disruptive risk being desysopped by the Arbitration Committee.

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Historically, no misuse of tools has meant no desysoping in all but the most over-the-top cases (I'm not sure I could cite one). It's definitely not that case that we hold admins to a higher standard of civility and etiquette; we should, but we don't. In any event, the same level is all that policy defines, and practice doesn't go that far - I don't think we can say more than "same". WilyD 10:56, 10 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

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Combined from 2 previous cases. Ncmvocalist (talk) 14:00, 8 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

These are the expectations, but this is not always born out in practice. LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:33, 9 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

In my experience admins and established users are held to a lower standard. If a new user followed the example of some admins they would get blocked. If you try to enforce an equal standard on admins(ie block them for edit warring with their tools or editing against consensus)/established users you get yelled at. I would however like admins to be held to a higher standard. Chillum 14:20, 13 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Per LHVU, but in any case, I've added a variant. I thought there was desysopping even in the absence of misuse of tools, but given I can't remember a particular case name to support that, and that it might have been too long ago, I'm not sure. Ncmvocalist (talk) 14:26, 13 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Wheel warring (Ncmv)

tbd) Wheel warring (undoing an administrative action by another administrator) without first attempting to resolve the issue is unacceptable; see Wikipedia:Wheel warring and Wikipedia:Resolving disputes#Avoidance. Wheel warring is harmful to the project, and indeed is more disruptive than one misguided action could be.

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I'm sure I could take misguided actions that're worse than wheel warring. This seems too strong. WilyD 13:39, 15 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

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Proposed; keeping it relevant. Ncmvocalist (talk) 14:00, 8 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Know yourself

tbd) It is important for all users, but especially administrators, to be aware of their own agendas, feelings and passions, and to deal with them appropriately, avoiding both biased editing and ill-considered administrative actions.

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Standard. Ncmvocalist (talk) 14:00, 8 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Compliance

tbd) All users are expected to comply with the rulings of the Arbitration Committee.

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I've heard "not oppose" - comply with is kind of vague, there is no obligation to enforse, implement or impose, merely to not oppose. WilyD 11:33, 9 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

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Standard. Ncmvocalist (talk) 14:00, 8 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Not concur (per WilyD, above). The ArbCom, famously, do not make policy but reflect practice; this would not be possible with blind obedience to either ArbCom or policy - which also is descriptive, not prescriptive. Rulings by ArbCom are generally directed toward a party and/or subject and/or a specific action or actions.LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:40, 9 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

By comply with, I mean: to act in accordance with those requirements/instructions. For example, if ArbCom ruled that a user is subject to a particular restriction and they can only be blocked up to a week in the event of repeated violations (must be 5 blocks before you can go any further), then you're expected to stay within those requirements - blocking them for 1 month after 2 blocks solely for that conduct would not be complying with the ruling. Similarly, you're expected to comply with the requirements under a discretionary sanctions remedy by being an uninvolved admin when enforcing sanctions under that remedy, etc. There's no difference in this case when it came to BLP Special Enforcement. You might not agree with the remedy, and you have no obligation to enforce or impose the remedy yourself. However, where another admin has enforced/imposed/implemented the remedy, by reversing the remedy without a clear consensus, you have violated the ruling (you did not comply with it, or its requirements, as you were expected to). Ncmvocalist (talk) 14:47, 13 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Ignoring all rules

tbd) Wikipedia has many policies and processes that affect protection, unprotection, deletion and undeletion of pages. Where there is strong community support (or minimally, a lack of objections), it is sometimes permissible to sidestep or otherwise take liberties with these process. Those who ignore all rules should proceed slowly and deliberately; act only when informed by any existing discussion, history, or logs; and should be prepared to explain the reasoning for their actions. If ensuing discussion shows an absence of community support, practitioners of Ignore All Rules should have the grace to revert their own actions.

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Proposed. Ncmvocalist (talk) 06:27, 15 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Agree. LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:34, 17 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

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Proposed findings of fact

Incomplete. Ncmvocalist (talk) 07:07, 15 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Jossi

tbd) The removal of full protection [25] [26] from Sarah Palin by Jossi (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) was inappropriate. Jossi was an involved content editor of Sarah Palin-related articles, broadly construed. Further, Jossi did not engage in a sufficient amount of on-wiki consensus-building or discussion, either before or after the fact, to justify Jossi's actions under our doctrine of ignore all rules. Despite several users repeatedly expressing concerns over Jossi's actions [27] [28] [29], Jossi did not revert the actions.

Although Jossi has promised not to take administrative actions on this article until the close of this case, Jossi has continued to edit on the topic [30].

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Proposed. Ncmvocalist (talk) 06:25, 15 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

MZMcBride

tbd) MZMcBride (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) inappropriately removed full protection from Sarah Palin. The article was full protected under special enforcement on biographies of living persons, and there was no clear consensus at the avenues of appeal for the full protection to be modified. MZMcBride's logs indicate that he has inappropriately been using his tools to remove full protection from a variety of articles and templates, without adequate discussion or edit-summaries to justify those actions.

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Proposed. Ncmvocalist (talk) 07:06, 15 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

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I'm not going to be able to finish this after all. Ncmvocalist (talk) 04:45, 17 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

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tbd) Jossi is indefinitely prohibited from taking any administrative action concerning Sarah Palin-related articles, broadly construed.

tbd.1) Jossi is prohibited from taking any administrative action concerning BLP articles for a period of 3 months.

tbd.2) McMZBride is indefinitely prohibited from taking any administrative action concerning BLP articles.

tbd.3) McMZBride's administrative privilleges are suspended for a period of 3 months.

tbd.4) WilyD is admonished for inappropriately blocking.... (didn't have time to complete the finding for WilyD either).

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I'm sure others will write principles/FoFs that relate to this, if the arbs want to use it. Just throwing this out there. Giggy (talk) 12:55, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Desyoppings

1) For showing very poor judgement in the misuse of admin tools, all users involved in the wheel war are desysopped, and encouraged to re-apply via the usual means.

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Giggy - please think about buying a horse before loading up your cart. As it stands, nobody has proposed any findings of fact that MBisanz or I abused our tools at all. Without such findings, I don't think this can be entertained. In any event, each of us should be judged by our own merits; if I've abused my tools, they should be taken away, otherwise not. MBisanz, Jossi and MZMcBride's behaviour were all different, and should all be considered seperately. WilyD 03:31, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I'd agree that at the least this should be split into four remedies for separate consideration. Not commenting on the remedy itself yet. MBisanz ^talk 13:16, 8 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

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Let's let the community decide who of those involved still have community trust. Before the usual "zomg no admin today would pass RfA" arguments come out, remember that people do support good admins. Just look at any reconfirmation RfA.

By my calculation, users desysopped by this would be MZMcBride, Jossi, MBisanz, and WilyD. Feel free to suggestion addition/removal of others. Here's the log, though non-logged actions may also be relevant. Throwing this out there for thoughts. Giggy (talk) 12:55, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

All four is too extreme, see my evidence input at Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Sarah_Palin_protection_wheel_war/Evidence#Wheel_Warring — Rlevse • Talk • 14:15, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Definitely support desysop of MZMcBride and Jossi, both of whom undid admin actions twice. The others, probably not. --uǝʌǝsʎʇɹoɟʇs(st47) 18:33, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

All is too extreme. It would be keeping with precedent, tradition, and past history for those that did it more than once to be desysopped. rootology (C)(T) 18:37, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I would support desysopping Jossi, as I thought the nature of his repeated wheel warring, especially as an involved editor on the associated article, was particular egregious. I don't know enough about MZMcBride to judge at this point, and the other two definitely don't deserve desysopping based on their actions in this situation. Kelly ^hi! 04:25, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I just got a disturbing Wikipedia e-mail from Jossi in response to the above comment, I've forwarded it to the ArbCom. Kelly ^hi! 08:15, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

.....wow. I'm really beginning to wonder if jossi's account is compromised, if true, this is like COMPLETELY opposite to what I thought of jossi before. SirFozzie (talk) 08:18, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Not compromised. I found it unbelievable that a private email is used by Kelly to further undermine me, by calling it"disturbing" in a public forum such as this. It only strengthens my assessment of Kelly's behavior in these articles as expressed privately to her in that email. Give her actions, I am contemplating publishing that email on her talk page, my only constraint being that I would not want to add to the drama (that was the reason I sent her a private message in the first place) ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 16:33, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Certainly not MBisanz - I don't see the need for this user to be subject to any remedy. However, I cannot rule remedies out for the other 3 just yet (but a desysop remedy seems unlikely for Wily imo, given the circumstances). Ncmvocalist (talk) 08:42, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

No. I would support language that speaks of suspension or removal of adminship, or warning regarding further violations, dependent on the degree of violation of WP:WHEEL found, and the acknowledgement of culpability, but nothing as stark as this. LessHeard vanU (talk) 09:44, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

This appears to be a clear-cut case of wheel-warring by at least a couple of admins. Whether desysopping is the best remedy for wheel warring, particularly in situations where admins promise to continue the same activity, is up to the ArbCom. However in previous cases that has often been the result. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 05:13, 8 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Proposed remedy

Administrators or users with a strong POV should avoid editing the article

1) I think one of the main problems here to do with the disputes, especially surrounding Palin, but to a certain degree which surround any political figure is that bias for or against that person will emerge. People will simply edit the article, to throw in there own view, or a view with a source that promotes strongly a particular viewpoint, which thus should be removed in any example per WP:UNDUE and WP:NPOV, as of course all articles, should strenuesly (sp?) promote NPOV. I think too many users Palin supporters/opposers are fighting over what they think is right on the talkpage, which on the whole could decrease the neutrality of the article (that at some points did happen leading to reverts and page protection warring).

I on the whole, think full-protection was good for the article, as it meant particular viewpoints could not get into the article, and thus the article would stay stable. What I didn't like, was the protection-warring from full to semi to full to semi, as this (for those users) suggests they have a strong POV in the article. Everyone has a POV, and I wouldn't expect everyone to ignore the article, however if users feel they have a strong POV towards or against a particular candidate to the point where it would weaken the neutrality of the article I would strongly suggest those users would cease editing the article, even if it got to the point where administrators begin handing out topic bans, in order to remove the POV-warriors from the article. In short, I think users with a strong POV towards one or another should not edit the article, or if they feel they do have a POV, take it to the talk to discuss possible changes. D.M.N. (talk) 16:35, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

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Okay, I've seen this hinted at a lot, but I'm not clear on it. Is there a belief that political alignments are relevent to this case? That certain political alignments favoured semi or full protection? If that is the case, which to which? WilyD 18:18, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Just take a look at the contribs of active editors there. A pattern of obfuscation, filibustering, spuriuos claims of "POV pushing" and BLP violations, removal of talk page comments and mainspace material sourced to reliable sources, and other disruptive behaviors will emerge quite quickly. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 18:47, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

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How do you enforce this, though, for normal editing? My personal views re: the Republican party and US conservatives are hardly a secret (even having a laugh about it here with Kelly of all people!)[31], but I try hard to keep it out of my editing here, and I'm not going to hold views against anyone personally. If people can or can't keep their spare dirty laundry and luggage out, it'll be obvious, and slip-ups as long as they don't involve admin tools, vandalism, incivility or BLP violations are no big deal. It happens! The community usually does at least a decent job of shutting down the disruptive POV pushers, once a crowd gets a whiff of it. The tag teamers, though, is a separate debate that needs to be solved. rootology (C)(T) 18:42, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

No, as regards sysops. Admins should, as part of the job description, act neutrally in all instances. Where an admin suspects that their decisions may be tainted by POV they should withdraw (not discuss, because sysop decisions must be neutral). Those that bring a strong POV into sysop decisions should no longer have the status of administrator. However, the introduction of differing sourced POV's by anyone should be encouraged, and added subject to WP:WEIGHT. LessHeard vanU (talk) 16:01, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Proposed principles

Wikipedia:Ignore all rules is deprecated by Wikipedia:Consensus upon the first objection

1) The nutshell of WP:Consensus is:

This page in a nutshell: Consensus is Wikipedia's fundamental model for editorial decision-making. Policies and guidelines document communal consensus rather than creating it.

I would re-iterate fundamental. By necessity, WP:IAR is the rationale behind an action or decision by one person; WP:Consensus only applies to that application of WP:IAR if there are no subsequent objections to that action or decision. As soon as one objection is lodged WP:IAR no longer has consensus, and is therefore deprecated.

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Proposed. WP:IAR cannot be invoked to ignore consensus, and especially the consensus that WP:IAR was not in the interest of the encyclopedia. LessHeard vanU (talk) 10:03, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• Yes, concur. IAR is a means to implementing a consensus that requires the rules to be circumvented, and nothing else. Anthøny ✉ 15:58, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• I would also agree with this. IAR, by my interpretation, should only be invoked to streamline something that is clearly noncontroversial but at the same time is not quite within the exact letter of policy. If this view is correct, it would preclude invoking IAR after someone raises an objection. J.delanoy^gabs_adds 19:22, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I agree that consensus trumps IAR, strongly. I would disagree with quantifying this with "first objection" - that's just asking for people to start wikilawyering IAR. IAR should be stated always in terms of general principles, not bogged down with rules - that's the point. Homunq (talk) 01:33, 19 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Consensus is what it is when it is formed

2) Consensus is formed by the participation of those persons creating it. There is no reason to second guess what effect non-participants might have, or what may happen in the future, as consensus is open to change. Therefore consensus may not be disregarded, since once formed the only appropriate mechanism is to change it.

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Proposed. LessHeard vanU (talk) 10:15, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

This makes sense. rootology (C)(T) 21:41, 9 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

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Proposed remedy

Sighted revisions

We already have an extention, WP:FLAG, that can be implemented on a per-page basis. For very-high-profile articles such as this one I propose that we use the lightweight sighted revisions proposal. Administrators (and maybe another user group) would be able to approve new versions of articles, and approve changes as long as they were not vandalism nor NPOV. ffm 21:46, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

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@Rootology, the best person to ask about Sighted revisions settings probably is Voice of All (talk · contribs) who wrote the code for it. MBisanz ^talk 23:06, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Agree with the general sentiment here. I don't exactly hide my amorous desire for flagged revisions, but I'm not sure this is the way to do it. WilyD 13:27, 17 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

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A bad context for making a good decision, I'd say - it would be interpreted by the "ArbCom is evil" crowd as a power grab , legislating from the bench, but as a plan it has obvious merit and I would be inclined to float it at the village pump, perhaps with some input from deWP where I believe something very similar is in use. Guy (Help!) 21:51, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• Yes, it would not be wise for the committee to be the body that introduces flagged revisions. It remains a body that deals with conduct issues; although, for example, the BLP special restrictions were introduced to combat conduct issues across a wide area of Wikipedia, flagged rev's is in an entire other league: they do not deal with conduct problems, but rather content almost exclusively. It's really out with the committee's remit, and to add to that trouble, it really wouldn't go down well. Anthøny ✉ 22:09, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Question for the people that know Mediawiki well enough... would it be technically possible for a change with an extension that let you set Sighted or Flagged revisions on for say just every article in a given category? It would be awful nice for all the BLPs. rootology (C)(T) 23:04, 7 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Note that individual pages can be adjusted already. A mass category based method would probably be feasible with proper caching. Not sure if it would be a good idea though. Aaron Schulz 00:01, 8 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• Per the comments above, I proposed this at Wikipedia talk:Flagged revisions#Proposal: Sighted revisions for specific articles. Cenarium ^Talk 15:22, 17 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

While I'm a big fan of revision flagging and would like to see it implemented globally (fun fact - deWP has now passed 77% of pages flagged according to the stats page)... I don't think it would have helped in this case. The problem here was that updates were coming in so fast that people couldn't keep up with them. Having this page set up with revision flagging wouldn't have slowed down the pace of updates at all... and would have introduced an additional problem. If updates come in more quickly than they can be flagged then IP users are seeing a different page than they will get when they click the 'edit' button. Most of the time this isn't too much of a problem because there may have only been one or two updates since the last flag was set and they might be on a completely different section than the IP is looking to edit. However, on a page with an ultra high number of edits the IP user could end up editing a page which has dozens of changes from the last time it was flagged. The text they were looking to change might not even be there anymore. As such, I think that even when / if revision flagging is implemented we are still going to have semi and full protection... as a means of 'throttling back' on the pace of edits. I also agree that this isn't something which should come from ArbCom. --CBD 15:44, 17 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The editing was so fast, I think full protection was the only way to handle it (review an edit and several others have been made). I think that now it would be helpful for this article though, and to many others (in the same context: Obama, McCain, Bush, ...). I agree that Arbcom should not introduce FlagRevs, and that it should be the community's decision. Progressively, we'll get to it. Cenarium ^Talk 16:04, 17 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

For information, you may see my detailed proposal on sighting versions at User:Cenarium/sighted revisions. Cenarium ^Talk 16:17, 18 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Proposed principles

Wheel warring and blocks

1) A block is an appropriate measure to prevent further disruption in the event of a wheel war (defined as a disruptive back-and-forth conflict [along the lines of an edit war] involving administrative actions [including editing or moving through protection]). The fact that the person causing disruption can unblock him-or-her-self is no more a reason to call it "non-preventative" than the fact that a non-admin can create block-evading sockpuppets.

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Err, obviously I believe this. WilyD 21:13, 8 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

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Proposed --Random832 (contribs) 20:42, 8 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

If it is for short periods, I agree with this in principle. However, I'm not sure that present policy supports this (unless interpreted under the blanket of disruption). Ian¹³/t 10:16, 9 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Strong support, although I realize that I am in a minority on this. Admin blocks don't work because too often the admin gets one of their "friends" to unblock them, and then both go to attack the original block decision. There is no reason why admins should not be blocked for disruptive behavior (and repeated actions against specific consensus are certainly disruptive), and not to make this clear would only leave us in an even greater situation of polarization of the admin community than we have at the minute. When was the last time that ArbCom penalized an admin for undoing the block of another admin? Note that, as I have said elsewhere, I think it would be petty to penalize Moreschi (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) in the current case. Physchim62 (talk) 12:22, 9 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Moreschi's statement about the unblock to me specifically allowed me to reinstate it if I felt it was necessary. [32] I didn't feel the need to, so I declined.[33] WilyD 13:52, 9 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

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

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Proposed enforcement

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Proposed principles

Administrators

1) Wikipedia administrators are trusted members of the community and are expected to follow Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Occasional lapses may be overlooked, but consistently poor judgement may result in desysopping.

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True. WilyD 10:59, 10 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

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Proposed. Ryan Postlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 22:16, 8 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Biographies of living persons

2) Wikipedia articles that present material about living people can affect their subjects' lives. Wikipedia editors who deal with these articles have a responsibility to consider the legal and ethical implications of their actions when doing so. In cases where the appropriateness of material regarding a living person is questioned, the rule of thumb should be "do no harm." This means, among other things, that such material should be removed until a decision to include it is reached, rather than being included until a decision to remove it is reached.

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This seems to be true. WilyD 13:46, 9 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

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Proposed. Ryan Postlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 22:16, 8 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Very yes. LessHeard vanU (talk) 13:02, 9 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Makes sense. Keeper ǀ 76 21:35, 18 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Ignore all rules

3) Wikipedia:Ignore all rules is one of the projects oldest policies and states that "if a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it." This is often helpful when encountering uncontroversial situations where the project is helped by ignoring other policies. It is not a carte blanche for administrators to use their tools whenever they feel like it. When there is consensus supporting a particular view point, Wikipedia:Ignore all rules should not be used to circumnavigate that.

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Agreed. Ignore all rules is not ignore all discussion. WilyD 13:29, 9 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

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Proposed. Ryan Postlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 22:16, 8 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I think we need to make a distinction between consensus on a specific issue (here, the protection of a specific article at a specific time) and consensus on general issues (eg, only protect pages where it's really necessary). WP:IAR is intended to override the latter, but not the former. Physchim62 (talk) 06:19, 9 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Yes.I thought I had already said that!</mumble> LessHeard vanU (talk) 13:04, 9 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Wheel warring

4) Wheel warring (undoing an administrative action by another administrator) without first attempting to resolve the issue is unacceptable. Administrators that wheel war may be desysopped.

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Proposed. Ryan Postlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 22:16, 8 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Finding of facts

Sarah Palin

1) Sarah Palin (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) has seen some of the highest levels of page views and editing ever seen on Wikipedia. With such high levels of editing and external viewing, the article has been subject to run of the mill vandalism, violations of the biography of living persons policy and other disruptive editing. The article has also been the subject of a wheel war involving a number of Wikipedia administrators who dispute the level of protection that the article should be put under.

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Ryan Postlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 22:16, 8 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The last sentence appears to say that only those admins who wheelwarred disputed the level of protection; whereas other admins who did not wheelwar disputed some of the levels of protection. Also, some of the the admins wheelwarring may have been disputing that consensus already was in place for the level of protection. LessHeard vanU (talk) 13:09, 9 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Agree with Ryan's assessment here. I find the Palin article to be "unprecedented" (my quote, not ryan's). Keeper ǀ 76 21:37, 18 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Jossi

2) Jossi (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) reduced the protection level on Sarah Palin from full protection to semi protection twice within the space of two hours. The first reduction came despite consensus that full protection was correct, although it could be argued that Jossi did not see the discussion at the time he acted. Jossi was aware of the discussion before his second reduction in protection level, and vowed to "WP:IAR and unprotect again", despite there being consensus to keep the article fully protected.

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Proposed. Ryan Postlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 22:16, 8 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Indeed. Ian¹³/t 10:18, 9 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I've edited this to remove the wikilink to WP:IAR in the quote since it is interfering with the diff link. --Random832 (contribs) 20:10, 9 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Concur, per my evidence. LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:43, 9 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Agree, but at the same time, wholeheartedly wish that Jossi, a superb admin, had talked to me (the initial "full-protecting" admin), before undoing my action. The article was unprecedented in its volume of viewers, volume of editors, and volume of vandalism, according to my experience. Keeper ǀ 76 21:40, 18 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

MBisanz