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Case clerk: TBD Drafting arbitrator: TBD
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Behaviour on this page: Arbitration case pages exist to assist the Arbitration Committee in arriving at a fair, well-informed decision. You are required to act with appropriate decorum during this case. While grievances must often be aired during a case, you are expected to air them without being rude or hostile, and to respond calmly to allegations against you. Accusations of misbehaviour posted in this case must be proven with clear evidence (and otherwise not made at all). Editors who conduct themselves inappropriately during a case may be sanctioned by an arbitrator, clerk, or functionary, without further warning, by being banned from further participation in the case, or being blocked altogether. Personal attacks against other users, including arbitrators or the clerks, will be met with sanctions. Behavior during a case may also be considered by the committee in arriving at a final decision.
Regarding this finding of fact, I don't think "focused" is the right word, as it implies causation, while Cryptic's evidence suggests correlation. John Pack Lambert has been reviewing stubs that are part of the 1898-1914 birth categories, with a focus on Olympians. Within this focus Lugnuts has created approximately 50% of the articles, increasing to 64.4% when you consider only non-medallists who don't meet WP:NOLY and thus are more likely targets to be nominated for deletion, but of John Pack Lambert's nominations only 38% were for articles Lugnuts created.
I suspect, without evidence, that the lower figure is due to John Pack Lambert not limiting his nominations to Olympians but including some from areas that Lugnuts has created a lower proportion of articles in, but as the only other explanation is that John Pack Lambert was deliberately avoiding some articles created by Lugnuts I don't see that discrepancy as an issue. BilledMammal (talk) 02:14, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
Regarding the comment by the Worm That Turned, such throttling has already been applied; Lugnuts is topic banned from creating articles consisting of less than 500 words. Since that ban was applied, he has created just ten articles (Linked in my evidence, in the collapsed section "Article creation rates"). Unless you are referring to a more general throttle? BilledMammal (talk) 14:31, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
I believe the advice John Pack Lambert is referring to was from me, and can be found on my talk page. It wasn't my intention to recommend that they don't participate in the process, just that they participate in an unrushed manner and not reply to everything. However, I was insufficiently clear, particularly with the opening line of my response, and I can see how he misinterpreted it as a recommendation to avoid the process in general.
I apologize to the committee and to John Pack Lambert, and ask the committee considers this when considering his lack of earlier participation. BilledMammal (talk) 14:31, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
I find this finding of fact problematic, because it suggests several behaviours are closely associated with low quality participation, but this isn't true; while these behaviours can be problematic, whether they are depends on the context.
First, it is often reasonable for editors to !vote after reviewing the evidence currently presented in the discussion and available at the article; WP:BEFORE doesn't apply to the participants. However, the line where editors sometimes appeared to not fully research an article topic before leaving a comment
would suggest that participants are required to search for sources before !voting, as if they don't they haven't "fully researched" the topic.
Second, it is sometimes reasonable to reuse rationale. For example, I recently nominated eighteen Nielsen's for deletion. These were mass created articles on 20th century Danish footballers with the last name "Nielsen", sourced solely to statistical sources. Being so similar the same rationale often applied to each of them; once editors determine that the same rationale applies, as many of the editors in those AfD's did so, there is no need to think up a novel argument for each of them. However, editors would re-use reationale at multiple pages
suggests that they should do this. As a side note, rationale is misspelt here.
Third, a "short period of time" is undefined; editors making several responses a minute is too fast, but it doesn't take long for an editor to look at an article, realize that its one source is not WP:SIGCOV, realize that the five editors who have already commented have not been able to identify any suitable sources and are instead arguing about whether sources might exist, and !vote Redirect to Gymnastics at the 1908 Summer Olympics – Men's team; fails WP:SPORTSCRIT #5 and WP:GNG, the former of which requires that at least one source be identified for us to assume the others might exist and thus keep despite GNG not being met.
However, editors would leave comments on many deletion discussions in a short period of time
suggests that such a brief evaluation, despite being comprehensive and based in policy, is problematic.
In addition, GiantSnowman's evidence points out the other issue with this; editors might make several votes in a short period of time, but we don't know how much time they spent considering their vote. BilledMammal (talk) 15:23, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
I congratulate and thank the drafting arbitrators for publishing the draft proposed decision at the beginning of the day when it was planned. It is framed in a way that should facilitate the difficult process of working toward a decision. Thank you. Robert McClenon (talk) 06:35, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
I agree with the comment that was made that there are other issues about deletion that have not been addressed in this case. I think that the arbitrators may discover that this case has opened the door to further cases involving deletion, including the Article Rescue Squadron (not included in this case because not within scope because not in initial statements, but complained about by some editors), and probably other specific editors. We can hope that it only has a second incarnation and not three and four (like Israel and Palestine). I understand that the arbitrators haven't addressed all of the continuing community concerns, largely because the community has only documented some of its concerns for this case. Robert McClenon (talk) 06:35, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
I thank the arbitrators for including the principles on bludgeoning and on battleground conduct. Bludgeoning and battleground conduct are all too common in AFDs. They are usually ignored by closers, which is what the closer should do. However, occasionally an editor has a valid argument but cause it to be ignored because they are too combative about it. I don't know how relevant this is to the current case, but there is currently an article at DRV where an editor was ignored because they were shouting too loudly. Sometimes an editor gets ignored because they are yelling, but once in a while they are right even though they act like they are just stubborn. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:01, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
Thank you for including this principle. Sometimes the obvious needs to be restated anyway. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:01, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
I am willing to moderate the discussion leading to the RFC and to post the RFC. I don't have a lot of experience in closing contentious RFCs, and so I would ask for two more editors to form a closing panel if I were the opener. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:06, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
The first and third points of this remedy are unclear (at least to me).
Johnpacklambert is banned from taking the following actions: 1) deletion discussions, broadly construedWhat they are banned from? Is it all participation in XfD discussions? Participating in discussions about the deletion process? Nominating pages for deletion? Something else?
3) turning an article into a redirect. Given that contesting a proposed deletion is explicitly allowed under point 2, the lack of mention of contesting someone else converting an article into a redirect means it's unclear to me whether they are allowed to do that (I don't recall any evidence regarding this being presented, but I haven't double checked). Thryduulf (talk) 08:40, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
IMO this misses a crucial aspect that while some editors are unwiiling to fully research a topic/look for sources before commenting - whether reaosnably or unreasonably they feel that the burden of doing this should be on those with the opposing viewpoint, others are/feel willing but unable to fully research an article topic/look for sources before commenting due to the volume of articles/nominations. The second part does not (to me) come across in the finding at all. Thryduulf (talk) 08:40, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
Overall this proposed decision seems good at first read, and I have hope for the structured and moderated RfC. Thryduulf (talk) 08:40, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
Re S Marshall's comments on this aspect, it's not quite true that participants only get to make one recommendation. They can make as many as they wish that are not duplicates or concurrently self contradictory - e.g. one can recommend "keep or merge", "keep" then later "I'm also happy with the merge suggestion", "delete" then later "changing my !vote to keep", etc. and one can also explicitly oppose as many other suggestions as you wish (whether or not you support anything). And of course when multiple pages are included in the same nomination you can do all this for each page or any combination of pages if you want (e.g. "keep foo, delete bar"). This is all getting very into the weeds though, and I don't think that more complicated than "one !vote, unlimited comments" is beneficial (particularly if note is made that this is a basic summary of something that is much more complicated in detail). Thryduulf (talk) 17:24, 24 July 2022 (UTC)
Without wishing to preempt an RfC, my idea set out for brainstorming at Wikipedia:Mass action review is for a venue that handles reviews of mass actions of any sort - creations, deletions, moves, etc, in the hope of getting away from a polarised view. I personally find views like "because mass creations (allegedly) disrupted the project we can only deal with them by disrupting AfD/the project", "one disruption automatically justifies another" and "they shouldn't have been created so you can't complain about us deleting them" to be ones that need to end as they don't help anybody. Instead we should be working towards an attitude of "even if the creation was disruptive/wrong, we can deal with them without disruption/another wrong". Thryduulf (talk) 13:40, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
Nothing about canvassing?—S Marshall T/C 09:01, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
Suggest: Each participant is allowed to make no more than one recommendation to the closer. These recommendations are often called "!votes", and often but not necessarily phrased as words in bold.
Sorry that that's a lot less pithy.—S Marshall T/C 13:06, 24 July 2022 (UTC)
In response to BilledMammal, I'm not sure how you can read through the June ANI thread and not come away with the impression that JPL is focused on Lugnuts. He also more or less admitted on your talk page just days ago that he's going to resume focusing on Lugnuts' articles once this case is closed if given the chance. -- Vaulter 14:53, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
Regarding Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Conduct in deletion-related editing/Proposed decision § Johnpacklambert topic banned: the confusing aspect is that although the introduction to the list announces a list of actions, item 1 is not an action. It would be helpful if either item 1 could be broken out into a separate sentence, or modified so that it is an action. isaacl (talk) 14:58, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
Regarding Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Conduct in deletion-related editing/Proposed decision § Bludgeoning, I think it's somewhat contradictory to say that participants get one not-vote. As described in the linked text, not-votes are individual views in a consensus-building discussion. As discussions have many different aspects, and thus editors can weigh in with different points at different times, I feel it is too reductionist to say each editor can only have one view. I do agree with the underlying concern that overly long and repetitive comments reduce the effectiveness of the discussion process, through drowning out voices and causing people to lose attention. I understand why a lot of editors preferred threaded discussion to separate sections. To be effective, though, co-operation is necessary, as well as focus and patience, in order to allow everyone time to express their views and reasoning. isaacl (talk) 15:32, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
the reasoning behind the !vote that is important. isaacl (talk) 04:44, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
there is a 1-to-1 relationship between a person and how their opinion gets weighted, strength of argument is the key mitigating factor. Sometimes numerical support is used as a proxy to evaluate strength of argument. Sometimes arguments that are clearly contrary to policy or other long-standing, well-established consensus will be rejected, regardless of numbers. Because editors can make multiple arguments, some of the arguments from one editor can be disregarded while other arguments are weighted more strongly. I appreciate that all of the nuances don't need to be described in a principle. Personally, though, I feel that the principle should avoid language that makes discussions seem more like votes, even if there is an exclamation mark in front of the word. isaacl (talk) 15:52, 27 July 2022 (UTC)
Regarding Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Conduct in deletion-related editing/Proposed decision § Bludgeoning (alt), I suggest instead of saying making so many points that they dominate the discussion
, say "making so many comments that they dominate the discussion". isaacl (talk) 15:52, 27 July 2022 (UTC)
Regarding how recommended discussions don't take place, I think there are a few considerations. There's the old "when something is everyone's responsibility, it's no one's responsibility" adage. When there an underlying issue being driven by differing views on best practice, usually by the time an associated arbitration case is held, there's a weariness over discussion on the subject and so a loss of momentum to continue with more discussions. It's also really hard to shepherd discussions towards productive conclusions, and given the high likelihood of stalemate, often through unmanageable sprawl, it can be tricky to find someone willing to attempt to start a discussion. Although it would mean slightly more arbitration committee involvement, perhaps it could try to address the first and last challenges I mentioned by identifying a pool of suitable moderators, with the community making the final decision on which one they wanted to guide discussion. isaacl (talk) 16:13, 27 July 2022 (UTC)
I'm concerned about the precedent that would be set by the FoF "Johnpacklambert's 2022 AfD nominations have particularly focused on articles created by Lugnuts (Cryptic evidence)"
, as seems to take JPL's deletion statistics as prima facie evidence of misconduct. This runs counter to WP:HOUND which allows and even encourages the use of an editor's contribution history to correct recurring problems: "Many users track other users' edits, although usually for collegial or administrative purposes. This should always be done with care, and with good cause, to avoid raising the suspicion that an editor's contributions are being followed to cause them distress, or out of revenge for a perceived slight. Correct use of an editor's history includes (but is not limited to) fixing unambiguous errors or violations of Wikipedia policy, or correcting related problems on multiple articles. In fact, such practices are recommended both for Recent changes patrol and WikiProject Spam."
Does this mean that, say, an editor working through a copyright violator's work may be engaging in misconduct? I would encourage arbs to be cautious about what is being said here, absent specific evidence that this is indeed hounding/harassment and not one of the allowable reasons to "focus" on a particular editor's contributions. –dlthewave ☎ 16:31, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
In FoF5, the sentence
Participants get one !vote, and a reasonable number of replies to make the most salient points but editors need not try to rebut all or even some of the comments they disagree with
doesn't work -- perhaps the comma should before "but" instead? JBL (talk) 19:05, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
The table in Implementation notes currently wrongly asserts that there are 3 abstentions on FoF7. --JBL (talk) 22:11, 24 July 2022 (UTC)
I assume the drafters meant to say that the discussion will be advertised at WP:ACN, not ACN HouseBlastertalk 00:44, 24 July 2022 (UTC)
I am concerned with the JPL FoF that states he targeted Lugnuts' articles. He has clearly been focused on non-medaling Olympian stubs in a particular birth date range, which just happen to have been largely created by Lugnuts. When a particular category of articles no longer meets SNG criteria, and furthermore has been found to be a very poor predictor of GNG -- as was determined in the NOLY RfC -- it is perfectly reasonable for editors to scrutinize that category and bring articles in it to AfD. @Dlthewave's comment is highly relevant here. If one user is responsible for the vast plurality of problematic articles in that group, it is acceptable to look over their contributions specifically to address the issues. That's not what JPL has been doing, but even more importantly, sanctioning someone for such "targeting" is completely at odds with HOUND.
I am also confused by the FoF that the deletion policy requires consideration of ATD, when that language is not present whatsoever at DEL and anyway such consideration would be difficult to "prove" unless nominators outlined why each ATD was rejected.
Finally, I didn't see any evidence that high AfD flows are responsible for copy-paste drive-by !votes, just a post hoc suggestion of correlation. It's not like, e.g., GiantSnowman was providing much beyond "fails WP:GNG and WP:NFOOTBALL" back in 2017, either. I don't disagree that it's tiring and emotionally taxing to review increasing numbers of AfD subjects, or that it likely decreases participation in any one discussion, but I definitely don't think it's the reason for epsilon-effort !votes. I'm pretty sure the real reason is because they work in a system where counting !votes is the primary deciding factor for most closers. JoelleJay (talk) 01:19, 24 July 2022 (UTC)
I believe Lugnuts has some moral obligation to help address the articles created that are out of line with community policies and guidelines.I'm not going to argue for a Lugnuts ban, but I wanted to point out that I don't see how your reason for not banning him is compliant with our policies. AFAIK no one can force an editor to perform specific editing tasks, so even if "addressing the articles created" was a proposed remedy (which it is not, and was never suggested to be) it wouldn't be an enforceable action. We even have evidence of this unenforceability specific to Lugnuts, in that he escaped a sanction by promising to re-source a few thousand articles he made, and that effort stalled quite a while ago with a lot to still get through. JoelleJay (talk) 01:31, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
Participants get a reasonable number of replies to make the most salient points, but editors need not try to rebut all or even some of the comments they disagree with. Because that's the key about bludgeoning at AfD. When people start replying to every single comment they disagree with, they are bludgeoning that discussion. What they're doing is making a barrier to entry, and crowding out other's viewpoints. Even if each comment is in some way reasonable, when taken together they are a problem. Its not even about trying to change other's minds, its about editors who feel they have to rebut every even mildly incorrect statement. But that's not necessary. Closers are bright people, they know how to spot a fishy argument.
The characterization of my targeting any particular editor in my AfD proposals is truly unfair. This is especially true because my methods of finding such articles are entirely creating editor neutral. I an doing my general review of articles in a given birth year. I come upon an article that lacks adequate souring to justify keeping. I then do an indepth search for sources in Google, Google books, Google New archives, sometimes Google News but that rarely brings up much on those born in the 1890s. For some I have also tried to search in another news archive. I also generally try to consult ant other language version of the article. By this method I really do not learn who the creator is until after I do the nomination and then look through the history to find a creator to notify of the proposed deletion. So I do not pre-select deletions based on creator because I do not even know the creator before I do them. At least this is the method I used until June. Since June I skip over any and all Olympic articles because I am trying to avoid an issue. Even the Olympic articles that were not created by a certain editor have generally been edited by that editor, and since creators do not have ownership of articles, If I am going to try to avoid an interaction with a particular editor it needs to be in the form of not knowingly nominating any article they have edited, not just articles they have edited. I should have phrased my question as "articles related to Olympians." One think I do not think has been considered enough. The other editor in question contributed large numbers of articles in fields unrelated to the Olympics as well, but as far asI know I have nominated no other such articles for deletion this year. If I was really trying to target such an editors work, instead of trying to enforce Ina small way the decision that non-medaling Olympians lack default notability, I would have most likely gone after some of those non-medaling articles as well.John Pack Lambert (talk) 02:19, 24 July 2022 (UTC)
I think I misnamed this and I should have put my name on it. I am nit sure how to fix this mistake from my phone. This is my first time dealing with the Arbcom process. I find the claim that my "judgement" in dealing with Lugnuts created articles is low totally unfair. There are no standard ways to propose a redirect, and be guaranteed actual discussion on it in a reasonable time frame. In fact the ANI reveals some editors arguing one should boldly redirect and go from there, and others arguing that boldly redirecting is a bad policy and one should start by taking the page to AfD. It is clear that this confusion about what to do about articles that are clearly not notable but might be suitable candidates for redirect is unclear. Beyond this I feel thos whole statement ignores the real confusing thing. On a let a few occasions I did redirect an article, it was reverted by Lugnuts, and he then proceeded to argue for redirect in the deletion discussion. Which begs the question, if he supports a redirect, why is he reverting it. Another occurrence was on multiple occasions when nominating an article for deletion I explained why it would not in fact be a good candidate for redirect, because there were multiple other people with the exact same name who were at least as close to notable as the intended target. Some editors then came along and supported redirects without even bothering to acknowledge the other people and explain why they were being ignored. So I do not think confusion around redirects is unique to me, and I find the characterization here to clearly ignore the reality of the ANI where it was clear editors in general do not have clear agreements on the best ways to change articles into redirects.John Pack Lambert (talk) 02:36, 24 July 2022 (UTC)
Editors are expected to respond to statements about themselves; failure to do so may result in decisions being made without their participation.Some editors have dug themselves a deeper hole because of poor participation in cases, while others have saved themselves from trouble. Given the ways your participation has moderated some of the concerns at past ANI discussions I think you might have been well served to participate. I make this comment not to pick on you - you'll notice no arb has criticized you for it - and more for the next person who might get that advice. As for the 1922 births there was extensive ANI discussion about it. Am I correct in understanding that you're suggesting that whole discussion was based on a misunderstanding? I want to make sure I know what to be looking at when I go and re-review the evidence. Barkeep49 (talk) 15:13, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
I think it is much better to offer clearer guidelines on some matters related to deletion discussions and allow time to see if people will abide by or follow them). I think you have an earnestness and commitment to Wikipedia that has meant you have escaped sanctions others might have been subjected to. But what your comment above fails to address is why the next effort to avoid problems at deletion will be successful where the last ones haven't been. So while your earnestness and commitment to Wikipedia might be enough to lead me not to support a site ban, those alone are not sufficient to convince me not to vote for the proposed topic ban. Barkeep49 (talk) 21:29, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
The current issue seems to mainly be around issues with redirect, Olympians and one editor. Would it work if I promised to only nominate one article for deletion at most every 24 hours, to not respond against any suggestion to redirect that article, to not nominate any article for proposed deletion, to not redirect any article, and to not make more than one comment on any given redirect article. Also if I promised to not nominate more than 1 article in any week by any given editor.John Pack Lambert (talk) 21:38, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
On further thought, since the 1 every 24 hours is the current limit, I would accept no more than 1 nomination every 48 hours and no more than 3 nominations in any given 7 day period.John Pack Lambert (talk) 21:42, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
I would also consider a maximum number of daily AfD contributions. Or maybe a minimum time between any contributions. I have no idea what types of numbers might be reasonable. John Pack Lambert (talk) 21:47, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
I have been trying to internalize and grow from what I have seen before. I do understand that I need to be more deliberative in my actions. I have been trying to do this. This is why I have been pre-posting about various articles on my talk page to feel o7t what to do before taking any action that would start a clock tooling. In the case of the complaint about my edits to birth years that did not agree with the categories I have gone to avoiding unilateral imposing a specific category unless I can find one and preferably multiple sources I can find that will support the new specific category, in all other cases I have gone to moving to more nebulous categories that cover all disputed content I have seen on the page. I have tried to avoid conflicts, to go to posting on talk pages instead of unilaterally making comments. With the recent rise in the number of biographical AfDs I have tried to make sure to not rush into quickly responding to articles and have tried to be more nuanced in my statements. I have been trying to do due diligence in my research. There have been multiple articles I came across that I was thinking of nominating for deletion but instead I did a search, found an at least marginal source, added it to the article and decided to leave it for later editors to review. I really am trying to avoid conflict and be more collegial. I am really trying to learn a better way to interact with people. How do we move forward? I think a key is avoiding defensive reactions. I think I managed to pull this off with the birth year categories. Before If I found an article that stated in the info box, opening and text that John Smith was born in 1893 but the category was 1894 I would move to the 1893 category without a second thought. Now I review as many sources as I can easily find to see if I can find something that says Smith was born in 1893. If the sources are all off line, behind pay walls, or in foreign languages I can not parse the birth year from, I just move the category to 1890s births, a less specific category that easily signals to other editors that there may be an issue, and instead of using hot cat I edit the page and leave a clear edit summary. There was another recent article for deletion case that I withdrew after I was shown a large number of sources that I had missed. I am trying to find ways to build collegiate and cooperation. It is hard to anticipate future issues, but I do understand I need to avoid escalating the issue. Another example there was a recent case where I was a little frustrated at people arguing keep with no evidence. I initially wrote a post where I let my frustration shoe threw and made accusations against the keep argues. Before I posted it I realized that the accusations were not really justified, so I revised my post to state simply that the article in question lacked any sources providing the needed significant coverage and avoided any further comments. Another editor responded to my straightforward comment saying it was very helpful.John Pack Lambert (talk) 00:27, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
I do not remember exactly which article it was, but the deletion discussion on John Nielsen (footballer born 1911) is one of a few where after I made my vote with comment another editor came along and opened with "Johnpacklambert is exactly right". I am really trying to find ways moving forward to express views, even in discussions that used to really frustrate me, that focus on the facts at hand and avoid stating anything more. I hope I am moving towards expressing views that show a willingness to cooperate.John Pack Lambert (talk) 00:50, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
Proposed principle #5 is simply contrary to policy, and actually would encourage some of the behaviours that I presume this case is attempting to address.
First, putting an ! in front of the word "vote" has become common place to suggest "not" a vote, but context has it slowly being defined as one. And yes, we can claim that a single expression of opinion is not a vote, but seriously, a single expression of opinion is indeed a "vote" in this context, especially if we are implicitly preventing follow-up discussion. We should be going out of our way to support the consensus process, not to embrace how the process is like voting, and could be more like voting.
And so, whether you are intending to or not, you are turning an essay into policy.
Second, if one of the goals here is to curtail drive-by voting, this finding undermines it. There is an attitude conveyed rather commonly in discussions of "I've posted my opinion, how dare someone question it, or ask me to clarify". Clearly, drive-by, by definition. Consensus is about having a discussion. No one is "required" to respond, but collegiate discussion should be expected, as should requests for clarification.
Instead of counting responses, we should be looking at content of the responses, the quality of the responses. The number of bytes of text should be immaterial, as long as the discussion is collegiate and civil. - jc37 06:16, 24 July 2022 (UTC)
Per Isaacl comments above - exactly. Again, we're talking about issues with the content of the responses, not how many comments they make. The difference between continuing to engage in discussion, and being disruptive. Saying it's "bludgeoning" hides what the true issue is - whether it is disrupting the consensual process, or contributing to the discussion. - jc37 07:44, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
- Consensual discussion process
- Adapted from WP:CON
Decisions on Wikipedia are primarily made by consensus. Consensus on Wikipedia does not mean unanimity (which is ideal but not always achievable), nor is it the result of a vote. Decision making and reaching consensus involve an effort to incorporate all editors' legitimate concerns, while respecting Wikipedia's policies and guidelines.
A consensus decision takes into account all of the proper concerns raised. Ideally, it arrives with an absence of objections, but often we must settle for as wide an agreement as can be reached. Contributors to a discussion should use reasons based in policy, sources, and common sense; they can also suggest alternative solutions or compromises that may satisfy all concerns. Responses indicating individual explanations of positions using Wikipedia policies and guidelines are given the highest weight. The result might be an agreement that does not satisfy anyone completely, but that all recognize as a reasonable solution.
The encyclopedia is best improved through collaboration and consensus, not through creating conflict and attempting to coerce capitulation through behaviors that interfere with (disrupt) the consensus process. While all contributors to a discussion should be open to explaining or clarifying their expressed thoughts, engaging in tendentious behavior in a discussion is disruptive.
- Tendentious Editing
- Copied from WP:CON
Tendentious editing. The continuous, aggressive pursuit of an editorial goal is considered disruptive, and should be avoided. Editors should listen, respond, and cooperate to build a better article. Editors who refuse to allow any consensus except the one they insist on, and who filibuster indefinitely to attain that goal, risk damaging the consensus process.
- Copied from WP:TE#Accusing others of malice
This is prima facie evidence of your failure to assume good faith. Never attribute to malice that which may be adequately explained by a simple difference of opinion.
You find yourself repeating the same argument over and over again, without persuading people.
If your arguments are rejected, bring better arguments, don’t simply repeat the same ones. And most importantly, examine your argument carefully, in light of what others have said. It is true that people will only be convinced if they want to be, regardless of how good your argument may be, but that is not grounds for believing that your argument must be true. You must be willing to concede you may have been wrong. Take a long, hard look at your argument from as detached and objective a point of view as you can possibly muster, and see if there is a problem with it. If there isn't, it's best to leave the situation alone: they're not going to want to see it and you cannot force them to. If there is a problem, however, then you should revise the argument, your case, or both.
You ignore or refuse to answer good faith questions from other editors.
No editor should ever be expected to do "homework" for another editor, but simple, clarifying questions from others should not be ignored. (e. g. "You say the quote you want to incorporate can be found in this 300-page pdf, but I've looked and I can't find it. Exactly what page is it on?") Failure to cooperate with such simple requests may be interpreted as evidence of a bad faith effort to exasperate or waste the time of other editors.
- Copied from WP:TE#Seeing editing as being about taking sides
If you regard editing as being something where you and some other editors are the "good guys", whose mission is to combat other editors who are the "bad guys", where everything is us-against-them, you may not be as much of a good guy as you think you are.
It's true that some editors are simply disruptive whereas others are valuable contributors, and it's perfectly reasonable to consider some editors to be your wiki-friends, but when there is a dispute about content, no one should see themselves as being on a team [or others as an "adversary"]. Doing so tends to make every edit, and every talk page comment, appear to be something personal. Comment on the content, not on the contributor. To see one's role as being to show up at every discussion to say that your friend is right and another editor is being a problem, before even knowing what the issues in the discussion are, just gets in the way of productive editing.
Often, the best way to make progress in a content dispute is to try to see it from both sides of the dispute, and to look for a resolution that makes use of both sides' ideas.
I'm still making up my mind about the RfC remedy but clearly the appointed moderator will be instrumental to the success or failure of the RfC. The power to select the questions at an ArbCom-appointed RfC is not lightly assigned. It would ease my mind a bit on this remedy if an editor highly experienced in moderating and closing RfCs would volunteer as a candidate. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 06:49, 24 July 2022 (UTC)
Some thoughts in no particular order from an AfD participant who's been watching this case from the sidelines—hopefully they're at least somewhat helpful.
deletion discussions, broadly construed. I think there's evidence that the disruption has carried over to PROD as well: see LaundryPizza03's evidence (prodding 637 articles in three weeks, including 146 in a single day). I think a broader t-ban (along the lines of the one that's being proposed for JPL) would be a more effective response to the problem.
This sanction supersedes the previous community topic ban– probably best to clarify which of the two topic bans you're referring to. By the way, would there be any harm in leaving the previous t-ban in place? If the ArbCom t-ban were ever lifted, the community would probably prefer for the narrower one-a-day restriction to remain.
North8000 prelinary statementand
Article Rescue Squandron– typos
making personal attacksand
engaging in battleground behavior in deletion discussionsare both included in a proposed remedy).
the bureaucratic weight would be stifling in an area that is already short of contributors), but we need some better way to deal with disruption if we're to keep these issues from recurring.
Hopefully something in here is useful. Thanks again to all the arbitrators for all their work on these thorny issues. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 07:23, 24 July 2022 (UTC)
FWIW, taken directly from BilledMammal's talkpage: "I was very unhappy to see proposed bans for you (JPL) and Lugnuts - I don't believe either would be in the interest of the encyclopedia." Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 08:03, 24 July 2022 (UTC)
This is now in the hands of the arbitrators. Let's allow them to make their own collective decision. GoodDay (talk) 15:29, 24 July 2022 (UTC)
At first I was very happy to see this. I reminds me of WP:COAL which I wish was a norm, but right now AfD feels a bit exhausting and I've recently reduced my participation due how much work it can take to defend a !vote. So I welcomed this at first, but then I realised that it's a bad way to reach consensus.
I wonder if there is a more nuanced way to get a similar outcome that discourages bludgeoning but allows debate and consensus building CT55555 (talk) 15:39, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
I posted the following at wikipediocracy on their thread about this case but thought I should just cut and paste it here.
This whole case is completely disgusting and might just be the straw that finally breaks my wikipedia addiction. What basically happened is that JPL was attacked by Lugnuts behaving at his most combative, patronising and disrespectful worst for the cheek of nominating one of his permastubs for deletion and I picked this up on my watchlist. I have twice blocked him for this kind of behaviour and should have just blocked him again but instead took it to ANI as I didn’t feel it should the same admin blocking him all the time. Instead of someone stepping up the discussion was taken over by an obvious claque of Lugnuts adjacent editors who turned the whole thing about JPL. Then here we are at RFAR and to be honest it feels like a kangaroo court. JPL can be annoying and his votes are often formulaic but are easy to discount, but he wasn’t The protagonist here but the victim. Once again we see a process support the abuser who looks like he will get away scot free, since warning and admonishments from arbcom will be just as easily ignored by him as the warnings from myself or previous discussions. The whole thing leaves me sick to the stomach as I have been watching this car crash unfold.
Why didn’t I say this in evidence you ask? Basically, the system is designed to reward the most obsessive editor prepared gather diffs and all that shit, which I don’t have the energy to engage in suffering as I am with an extended loss of focus and energy after a recent bout of covid. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Spartaz (talk • contribs) 22:22, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
I agree with Spartaz above in that this case is completely disgusting. I find it sickening to see arbitrators support banning two of our top editors. Saying that Lugnuts and Mr. Lambert are not a benefit to this project is BS. I am really upset by this. BeanieFan11 (talk) 22:54, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
I posted this initially and then reverted it because I thought it might come off as poking the bear or trying to influence others' opinions. But in all seriousness, I am willing to accept a topic-ban from XFD (and presumably also PROD and CSD). It's clear the process causes me and everyone else a great deal of stress, and I feel this would be the best solution for me. I don't know enough details about the other editors to weigh in on what might be best for them and I'm disgusted that it got to this for anyone at all, but I think a site ban would be way too much for anyone within the scope of this discussion. Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 00:01, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
Seems like a reasonable proposed decision. I'm surprised more people weren't added during the evidence phase, but that's in the past now. The only point I want to make, which others have made, too, is that there should be a counterpart "Request for comment" section (or something like it) relating to mass creation of articles. While some portion of the community clearly considers this completely settled business between WP:MEATBOT and WP:MASSCREATE, those pages leave a lot of ambiguity and the discussions about this have thus far failed to nail down consensus. As I said in this WT:N thread last year, the issue isn't that people don't follow MASSCREATE and MEATBOT; it's that those sections don't actually say what many people want them to say. If someone mass creates pages without the use of a tool, without making errors, and without doing anything clearly against consensus, those sections are satisfied. Or, at worst, discussion is shifted to what does/doesn't have consensus.
The poor condition of our rules about mass creation will throw a wrench into the discussion about mass deletion at best, and influence the outcome at worst (there are many people who resent that it takes more effort to delete a mass created stub than it does to create one, and if the first opportunity to intervene is in the proposed RfC, I suspect we will see changes that do more to facilitate deletion than if we addressed mass creation first). — Rhododendrites talk \\ 02:55, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
(formerly NotReallySoroka)
@Izno: Please also see Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Content assessment/A-Class criteria by TPH. Thanks. NotReallyMoniak (talk) 03:45, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
How about the following change to the bludgeoning principle? Participants get a reasonable number of replies to make the most salient points across... This eliminates the contentious "one !vote" part while maintaining the rest of the ideas of this proposal. Thanks. NotReallyMoniak (talk) 08:06, 27 July 2022 (UTC)
I have no objection to ArbCom saying that an RfC should take place with the following terms of reference. But I have a major objection to ArbCom creating a structure where appeals on either moderation or the close can only be made to arbcom. To me, that latter goes well beyond their scope. Indeed, assuming that the RfC has any content-relevance at all (as opposed to say, purely being on conduct at AfD) then I believe it would go beyond ArbCom's authority.
In practical terms I think it is significantly more unreasonable for ArbCom to try and impose these additional restrictions when they have not previously asked the Community to run a traditional RfC on the scope first. I would like to ask @Barkeep49: how it delegates ArbCom authority to an RfC when seemingly it abrogates Community authority on a topic that is not purely within ArbCom's scope, and whether that is reasonable without the minimum of a "clean-run" community RfC first?
With regards to the remainder of the PD, I particularly like the principles, and I think the other proposed remedies and their discussions look reasonable. Nosebagbear (talk) 10:06, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
I agree with BeanieFan11 above: neither Lambert nor Lugnuts are net negatives to the project, and just because the community hasn't found a way to deal with the latest issues between the two does not justify throwing away all that comes with their presence. JPL's case is especially unfortunate since (as noted above) he was named as a victim, not a subject, in the ANI discussion that triggered this ArbCom case; his actual wrongdoings here seem to be (1) supposedly low-quality participation in AfD, (2) being mentioned in ANI discussions, and (3) targeting Lugnuts' creations. [2] deserves no comment; [3] has little merit; and it's hardly fair to single him out for [1] when this is (as has been found here and here) not restricted to him and is indeed allowed for everybody else. Also note that Carrite's evidence that JPL's opinions, whatever their quality, aren't really at variance with wider consensus has so far been ignored by the arbitration. As for Lugnuts, the complaints against him are not groundless but he has subject-matter knowledge and the ability to contribute competently; the previous sanctions on him seem to have done their job, and if the new concern is civility and battleground behavior then I don't see why a as-of-yet untried interaction ban couldn't be imposed instead of going straight for a punitive blanket ban. Avilich (talk) 15:48, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
I agree with commentators above that this decision needs also to deal with WP:MASSCREATE/WP:MEATBOT not being enforced leading to the complete imbalance between the rapid mass creation of failing stub articles and the slowness with which they can be cleaned up. At the very least it needs to be made easier to WP:Bundle mass-created articles.
The original report made at ANI that led to this discussion was about Lugnuts. I honestly think Spartaz just should have given him a month ban after the behaviour complained about was repeated. This would have avoided the whole rigmarole that we have gone through, though no doubt at some point we would have ended up considering an indef ban. It was a surprise to me when no-one submitted clear evidence of Lugnut’s repetitive disruptive/uncivil behaviour, so that is why I submitted the evidence I did.
I proposed a warning for Lugnuts in the workshop as it really needs to be made clear to Lugnuts that their behaviour - especially the continual repetition of it over such a long time - is not acceptable. I think Lugnuts’s banning is ultimately inevitable as they seem incapable of accepting clean-up of their articles as being in good faith. It still seemed wise to give him that one last chance with the clear indication that he would be gone if he did not heed the warnings. We really should not have to discuss this again.
JPL has a long track record of problems, however I admit that I was surprised by just how much this discussion has ended up focused on them.
If they were held to the same standard that the average Wikipedia editor is held to, however, probably both Lugnuts and JPL would have been banned years ago. FOARP (talk) 06:55, 27 July 2022 (UTC)
ETA: I'm not sure what the Bludgeoning part of this is supposed to achieve. Bludgeoning is a problem because repeatedly making the same point is a problem, but it is very hard to define it in a way that does not simply allow the majority in a discussion to prevent the other side of it from even being able to respond to what they have said. Particularly the statement that editors should "avoid...making so many points that they dominate the discussion"
is clearly nonsensical - if there are a lot of points in favour of a position, then yes, any editor should make them, because Wikipedia is the encyclopaedia that anyone can edit. Wikipedia is not a vote and so even one editor, with sound grounds for their position, should be able to discuss a point with any number of other editors, so long as they do not devolve into repetition. Telling people that they should not make relevant points because they have already made lots of other relevant points is an obvious non-starter. FOARP (talk) 07:59, 27 July 2022 (UTC)
Bludgeoning -- in my experience, this is a term that is widely used but not necessarily widely aligned in definition. Examples inclue the following essays:
Don't write too much. Write as much as you need. Feel free to express yourself. Don't express yourself too much. Use shortcuts. Don't use shortcuts. Too long, didn't read. Too short, just a !vote.
Communication in and of itself can be hard. I apprecaite any and all guidance that comes from this process and hope that it can help everyone. I also apprecaite all the efforts everyone is putting toward this.--Paul McDonald (talk) 17:25, 27 July 2022 (UTC)
Request for Comment -- from what I read at Wikipedia:Requests for comment, pretty much anyone can make a request for comment. If the Arb Committee wants to make that request--great. If not--great. There is some discussion about if they can do it or should do it. I believe they can do it. Should they? Their choice.--Paul McDonald (talk) 17:51, 27 July 2022 (UTC)
I'm seeing a number of proposed remedies that include topic bans on deletion discussions, broadly construed. In order to make this more explicit to those who might be sanctioned, does this include talk page discussions regarding whether a page should be blanked-and-redirected and/or merged? Additionally, does this also cover discussions about the notability guidelines and WP:COMMONOUTCOMES? I understand that broad means broad, but it might be best to explicitly spell this out so that we can avoid ambiguity and not have to file requests for clarification/amendments in the case that one of these users gets involved in one of these sorts of discussions. I think that this would result in clearer and fairer enforcement guidelines for users who get slapped with a T-ban, and would be likely to prevent future wastes of community time debating whether or not these sorts of discussions are within the scope of deletion discussions, broadly construed
. — Ⓜ️hawk10 (talk) 21:29, 27 July 2022 (UTC)