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This is the place for the normal discussion that accompanies a proposed decision. This section, to be used once the proposed decision has been posted, is for free-form, threaded discussion, starting new topics in a new section below. No word limit, but clerks and arbitrators will moderate excessive, contentious or off-topic discussions. Clicking "new section" above should produce a subsection within this section.

Proposed principles

Archived discussions at: /Discussion of decision#Proposed principles

If anyone wants to, just start a new discussion about a specific section of "Proposed principle" with the numbering used on the Proposed Decision page, and add the new section here in the same order, rather than at the bottom. Please include the principle numbering when you create a subsection title here. Carcharoth (talk) 13:27, 29 August 2010 (UTC) Originally proposed by JohnWBarber, modified by me later.[reply]

Proposed findings of fact

Archived discussions at: /Discussion of FoFs1 and /Discussion of FoFs2

If anyone wants to, just start a new discussion about a specific section of "Finding of fact" with the numbering used on the Proposed Decision page, and add the new section here in the same order, rather than at the bottom. Please include the finding of fact numbering when you create a subsection title here, and please do not discuss remedies here. Carcharoth (talk) 13:27, 29 August 2010 (UTC) Originally proposed by JohnWBarber, modified by me later.[reply]

Proposed remedies

Archived discussions at: /Discussion of decision#Proposed remedies

If anyone wants to, just start a new discussion about a specific section of "Proposed remedy" with the numbering used on the Proposed Decision page, and add the new section here in the same order, rather than at the bottom. Please include the remedy numbering when you create a subsection title here, and please discuss the associated findings in their own sections above. Carcharoth (talk) 14:03, 29 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

3.3.19 - KimDabelsteinPetersen (remedies)

I do not believe that this proposed topic ban is apposite. For a period of several months, I read the overwhelming majority of edits KimDabelsteinPetersen (talk · contribs) made in the topic area of climate change, as with each of the other major participants. It is my observation that in any dispute, KDP is likely to be the first to make a full presentation of his reasoning on the talk page, the first to urge calm while outside input is gathered, and the first to introduce new sources in an attempt at compromise. To the best of my knowledge, KDP has never been blocked, banned, or formally sanctioned in any way. Obviously this would apply to everyone at least once, but in this case we have good evidence to hand that KDP responds rationally when the community expresses concerns.

In early February, KimDabelsteinPetersen was formally warned at the community requests for enforcement board that further participation in any edit war in the probation area would lead to a 1 revert restriction or similar sanction. My part in this discussion may be seen at Wikipedia:General sanctions/Climate change probation/Requests for enforcement/Archive2#Result concerning TheGoodLocust, MarkNutley, WMC. Talk:Global warming controversy/Archive 8#Joe d'Aleo and temperatures is the relevant discussion initiated by KDP with reference to established policy and guidelines; KDP discussed with the editor who initially contributed the material in question and others before invoking WP:BURDEN. He engaged with this discussion even while the recently contributed material with which he disagreed was displayed in the article. This judicious discuss first approach is contributory to a harmonious editing environment, and should be actively encouraged.

Still, the above incident did see KDP revert twice. As people who have seen my work at AN3 will likely agree, I tend to take a hard line approach with regards to edit warring. One of the bigger problems with this topic area has been the tendency of additional editors to involve themselves in ongoing edit wars, leading to article disruption even in cases where no individual editor has broken 3RR. KDP responded to the abovelinked enforcement thread by not being involved in any edit wars for at least the next two weeks (the period over which I followed his edits as due diligence after warning him). Nor was he a major participant in any edit war nor subject to any request for enforcement for the next two months (the period until I rotated myself out of actively adminning this topic area). I believe that he has also stated that he consciously enacted a personal 1RR rule, though I do not care to track down the diff at the moment. Continuing to contribute productively while moderating potentially questionable behavior is the best possible response when the community raises concerns. This again is behavior that I would like to see acknowledged and encouraged.

KDP agreed to the voluntary topic ban proposed by Jehochman earlier in this case, and has continued to follow it unilaterally, with the exception of the case pages. This is very much the behavior of a patient and reasonable editor rather than a disruptive one.

KDP explains his approach to editing BLPs at User:KimDabelsteinPetersen/Editing Principles. Though I personally take a slightly more parsimonious approach to BLPs (I favor excluding any aspect that has not received in depth coverage from good sources, giving us poorer but safer articles), the views outlined at that page are well within the mainstream of interpretations of Wikipedia policy. I would not invoke the BLP hammer on anyone making such an argument. Please, let us not argue again whether this interpretation is the best; the point being made is that KDP's approach is self-consistent, rational, and within community norms.

While I sympathize with Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Climate change/Proposed decision#Enough is enough and the success of the Scientology ArbCom case, I believe that we also have a duty to recognize KimDabelsteinPetersen's positive responses to and engagement with the larger community. His editing habits have not been a major contributing factor to the situation leading to this case, and it is my considered opinion that his renewed participation in this topic area would both enhance article quality and contribute to a positive editing environment. - 2/0 (cont.) 17:44, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much for taking the time to write. An opposing view, which I am not saying that I necessarily endorse, of this editor's contributions can be found here. Roger Davies ^talk 19:03, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

2/0, you state: Please, let us not argue again whether this interpretation is the best; the point being made is that KDP's approach [to BLP issues] is self-consistent, rational, and within community norms. No, that does not adequately describe his approach. As I said on Roger Davies' talk page, it's Kim's application -- where the rubber hits the road -- that's the problem. Are there cases where Kim has invoked BLP to protect climate-change skeptics? Are there cases where Kim has invoked BLP to show where information critical to someone with Kim's general views should be included? I'd like to see diffs of that. What I've seen, over and over, is interpretation of BLP in ways that further Kim's preferences on the issue of Climate Change, with resulting rough treatment for one side and adamant protection for the other. He has worn away all assumptions of good faith in this regard. Combine this behavior with any edit warring, any BLP violations or any other violation of a policy, especially when ArbCom has declared this a Draconian Enforcement Zone [1] in an area where WP:BATTLEGROUND behavior has been a problem.

It is an unacceptable BLP violation to cite a blog [2] to call Fred Singer's lead-authored report "dishonest" and it doesn't matter how many times Kim cites "the exceptions to SPS" or has thought out his approach to BLP issues in the abstract. In fact, it's more disturbing to find BLP violations coming from someone who has thought so much about the policy. This edit [3] is unacceptable when you contrast the description of the source at the bottom of this page [4] (Professor Barry Brook is the Sir Hubert Wilkins Chair of Climate Change at the University of Adelaide and director of the Research Institute for Climate Change and Sustainability) with Kim's description of that source as some kind of "qualified expert" (in the edit summary from the last diff) -- the statement being sourced had nothing to do with climate change or climate science, but with Lindzen's views on passive cigarette smoking: "Lindzen has claimed that the risks of smoking, including passive smoking, may be overstated".

As far back as June 2009, editors were flabbergasted that Kim would defend that edit after reading Kim earlier rail against use of Op-Eds as BLP sources. [5] [6] [7] It is simply not possible to conclude that this editor is giving adequate effort either to presenting readers information without bias or keeping BLP articles from becoming attacks on the subjects. These and other edits make it look like Kim is using Wikipedia as a tool to gain political advantage in a political fight. Kim needs to be separated from this subject area and show he can edit against his side, particularly regarding controversial BLPs, and he should not be let back in until he's shown ArbCom he can do it. As the flabbergasted reaction I linked to shows, this kind of behavior on Kim's part naturally gets under the skin of editors trying to work with him to make improvements to articles. It obviously contributes to a battleground atmosphere. To turn 2/0's statement on its head: This is very much the behavior of a disruptive editor rather than a reasonable one. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 02:14, 29 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Moved here from a more general discussion section below. So the opening comments are slightly out of context. Roger Davies ^talk 20:05, 28 September 2010 (UTC) [reply]

Yep, that one is interesting.. especially since i was asking specifically about the issues that ArbCom is now considering to be ~~"ideosyncratic"~~"idiosyncratically"[8], and which they seem to think merit topic-ban, but haven't addressed :( --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 17:42, 28 September 2010 (UTC) [strike: sprong welling --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 19:35, 28 September 2010 (UTC)][reply]

"Ideosyncratic"? Have I mispelled it somewhere? Roger Davies ^talk 18:35, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No. --JN466 18:43, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think Kim (whose spelling is much better than most English speakers, although I think his native language is Danish) is pointing out that he asked months ago for guidance regarding the line between sourcing that criticizes a BLP's work (which might conceivably include criticism from bloggers in some circumstances -- say, if it is considered simply an alternative POV) and sourcing criticism that goes beyond criticizing what a person has done. It's a bit complex to explain the details, and frankly it would be a lot of effort to explain to Kim, who is very well versed in the intricacies. I explained to Kim on your talk page, Roger, [9] how I think ArbCom would be justified in calling Kim's edits "idiosyncratic" in that regard and worthy of a sanction (because to me this doesn't look like a well-meaning misunderstanding). But I obviously don't speak for ArbCom and Kim wants guidance from ArbCom. Years ago, when I first got blocked, I had a similar misunderstanding about policy. It actually only took a few words from CoolHandLuke to get me to think through what was wrong about what I was doing. I concluded that while I was certainly confused about policy, I wouldn't have erred if I'd tried harder to follow the spirit of the policy and that I'd fallen into wikilawyering over policy in order to try to get what I wanted (I think the policy was WP:CONSENSUS, but possibly WP:DISRUPT, too). I think it would take some effort to explain to Kim what he did wrong in that regard, but it would help him to figure it out. I think if ArbCom approves the six-month-minimum topic ban, he'll figure it out eventually anyway, but an explanation would be smoother. Personally, I think if Kim stopped the partisan kinds of behaviors mentioned in the Fof, he'd be one of Wikipedia's very best editors, so I think the effort of understanding this and explaining it to him is worth it. I hope the finding and remedy for Kim is approved, but I worry that ArbCom members might think his "idiosyncracy" is just a misunderstanding, when it's really more serious than that. It really is worthwhile for ArbCom members to understand these details, and it would help the project to explain it to Kim. Sorry to go on at length, but I don't know a briefer way of saying this. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 19:57, 28 September 2010 (UTC)Link added. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 20:56, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

note: Because i think that my involvement in this discussion may sidetrack it into minutia, and a response/counter/response/... type of discussions, i'll attempt not to comment on this section, except in answer to direct questions. I am following it though, and will be reflecting on the comments. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 20:46, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I feel disquiet about Kim. He is not the kind of person who is more trouble than he's worth. 2over0 says it better than I could. Kim is the way forward. We can't improve things by explicitly excluding people who are working very hard to make things better. Tasty monster (=TS ) 21:19, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Kim's behavior, including BLP violations and tag-team reverting, but perhaps not the deletion of article talk page comments (theoretically more eyes should be watching and prevent this but it looks like all the watchdogs are getting topic bans so who knows), has gone on far too long for a mere "talking to" to get through to him. I will say that several editors have certainly changed their behavior during the ArbCom case, but I imagine this sort of thing is so commonplace that it is transparent to experienced eyes. TheGoodLocust (talk) 22:29, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Tell me about "tag-team reverting." In my experience that term is used by singleton edit warriors to attack several other editors who are reverting their attempts to impose their view against consensus. Have you often found that Kim and several other editors are reverting your attempts to make an edit that you know is right? Is there another definition that I'm missing? What would it be if you and some other editor were reverting an edit by a singleton editor who happened to be in disagreement with you? Would you then also be "tag-teaming"? How can I distinguish "tag-teaming" from "expression of consensus against a determined singleton edit warrior?"--TS 22:45, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not going to rehash evidence that's already been presented Tony. The short answer to your first question is "Absolutely." If you want more detail then simply read the evidence page. TheGoodLocust (talk) 23:49, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed enforcement

Archived discussions at: /Discussion of decision#Proposed enforcement

If anyone wants to, just start a new discussion about a specific section of "Proposed enforcement" with the numbering used on the Proposed Decision page, and add the new section here in the same order, rather than at the bottom. Please include the enforcement numbering when you create a subsection title here. Carcharoth (talk) 13:17, 29 August 2010 (UTC) Originally proposed by JohnWBarber, modified by me later.[reply]

New proposals

Archived proposals can be found at /New proposals and /New proposals2

Please remember to sign all new proposals made. Alternatives to existing proposals are best posted above in a section discussing that proposal. Please keep all disucssion on-topic to the proposal and don't drift off-topic into discussing other proposals. Carcharoth (talk) 14:48, 29 August 2010 (UTC) This replaces the previous discussion.[reply]

Obligatory cool-downs

Any administrator can, on determination of the existence of an acrimonious editing environment, personally instruct any of the involved parties to cease editing an article and its associated talkpage for a specified period of time. Editors who do not follow these instructions can be subject to blocks.

Discussion

I've been trying to think of ways to empower administrators without making them into what I like to term, "involved monsters". This is one way to do it, I think. Mandatory breaks for users who are involved in heated disputes might clear the air enough for less upset editors to try to collaborate. These breaks would be required to expire allowing the problem editors to return to, perhaps, a page that is in better shape. Arguments over whether an administrator is involved, biased, or favoring a particular faction or POV are made moot since the breaks are required to expire. If an "involved administrator" sends one "faction" away to give "ownership" to the other faction, this will only last until expiration of the break.

Oftentimes editors (myself included) cannot help themselves when a dispute erupts. Administrators rarely instruct people to not edit on a page due to acrimony.

ScienceApologist (talk) 22:36, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I like it, with the understanding that a standard cool-down period should be on the order of about a week, so that it is clearly preventative and not punitive. This is like a non-bureocratic version of a mini-topic-ban, and harmless enough that admins can actually apply it without lengthy discussions. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:45, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

(od) Admins can already do this sort of thing using discretionary sanctions. Roger Davies ^talk 22:48, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

But they are not. Instead, they have week-long discussions about short blocks or warnings. Listing this option explicitly as a light-weight alternative would be useful, I think. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:56, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Stephan, that's complete bollocks. Discretionary sanctions means if you have the bit you just say "fuck it, everybody be nice" and they just do it. That's what they're about. If they don't do that then ignore them and go for another admin who knows how to do it. The ridiculous idea that admins need to discuss endlessly before acting on their own cognizance is exactly why we're going through the pain of this case. The probation allowed for discretion but it was not enforced, and so it ended up as a talking shop and things actually got worse. I would expect the arbitrators to say, loudly and clearly, "when we say discretionary, we mean at the admin's individual, sole, only and solitary discretion." And if you look at the wording that's pretty much what they do say. --TS 22:58, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

So far, most admins who hear "sanction" think "block", and the threshold for a block is, for good reasons, fairly high. What admins can do is irrelevant - the people in the near east simply can decide to be all nice to each other. Explicitly encouraging lower-impact approaches can help getting innovative solutions into circulation - and innovation is something sorely missing from the PD so far. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:16, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm working on something covering just that as guidance in the discretionary sanctions section. Roger Davies ^talk 23:25, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict)I've been involved in discretionary sanctions in the past (c.f. fringe science). The way they work in practice is that people complain to enforcement boards and admins try to decide whether to block or enact "page bans" on bad users. The whole process was needlessly inflammatory and ended up with the nastiness of WP:PUNITIVE authority being applied unevenly against users who didn't spend enough time or do a good enough job defending themselves. Opposing sides would clamor for blocks, topic-bans, page-bans, and other slings and arrows to be hurled at their opponents by posting on administrators' talk pages, enforcement boards, etc. There was this weird process of warning users with a pseudo-template, logging actions on the arbitration page, and generally causing everyone to feel that any action taken against a particular user was done because that user was a bad user on his or her way toward harsh punishment. Arguments would erupt over whether page-banned users should be subject to other enforcement measures effectively moving the Overton Window to police state. If instead administrators had just quietly and politely told a wide range of users (without judgment) to simply steer clear of a particular page for a day, a week, or a month less chaos would have ensued without the petty logging, black-eye-applications, and holier-than-thou attitudes, there might not have been such a famous ruckus. Stephen Shulz is right. Administrators acting under discretionary sanctions don't often enough engage in the quiet suggestions that can lead to true transformation of arguments. ScienceApologist (talk) 23:27, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah. that's absolute bollocks. Discretionary sanctions means discretionary sanctions, not some bloody silly commtttee. We went through that pain for six months, and it was bad exactly because of the endless discussion where admins went through the pantomime of listening to involved parties. --TS 23:31, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If you are replying to me (and referring to my suggestion, not the state as it was), I don't think you understand what I tried to say. Please read it again or summarise what you think I said, so I can clarify. I'm not saying it needs a committee to apply one of the discretionary sanctions. I observe that that is what has happened. And I suggest that lower-impact sanctions are both less punitive and more likely to be applied without a long discussion. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:43, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

(ec with edits too numerous to count)If they don't do that then ignore them and go for another admin who knows how to do it. THAT is how the ArbCom decision will be gamed. We just have to wait for editors to find the right POV-crazed and/or uninihibited administrator. Or does someone have the nerve to tell us all that this won't happen? Then we'll need a consensus at A/E or somewhere to overturn the biased move as admins smugly indicate to the rest of us that no admin would ever make an admin move because of bias in the topic area. This is the future of the climate change articles. This will be my "I told you so" diff for the future. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 23:35, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The discretionary sanctions are about to pass. This is ideally how they work: an admin on his or her own discretion, makes a decision. We know that admins have been intimidated in the past, and that admins in the field who want to get involved are rare. Admins up to the task will be found. They will act fairly and use their discretion. If they fail to do so then they know what will happen.

Now you unfairly point to some hypothetical "POV-crazed and/or uninihibited administrator." Well if the only admin willing to work in the area is that bad, you may have a point, but the hope is that all admins will feel free to act, without fear or favor, to enforce Wikipedia's policies. But if the admin is that bad, won't he end up in front of arbcom? The intention is to quieten down the field, not to infuse "crazed" admins, who to be honest are notable by their absence.. --TS 23:49, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Stephan: And I suggest that lower-impact sanctions are both less punitive and more likely to be applied without a long discussion.

Yes, I think that's likely. I may have misread your reasoning. I think the example I gave was something like "fuck it, everybody be nice", and I don't think there are many less punitive sanctions. It's intentionally framed as a mild parental reproof. --TS 23:53, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Discretion

I don't know how to do this but I suspect the arbitrators do. Could you just underline the following bit:

Administrators are cautioned not to reverse such sanctions without familiarizing themselves with the full facts of the matter and engaging in extensive discussion and consensus-building at the administrators’ noticeboard or another suitable on-wiki venue. The Committee will consider appropriate remedies including suspension or revocation of adminship in the event of violations.

Just make sure that admins know it's not something you agonize over before applying sanctions (and then only if the user having been warned and advised fails to imrprove) and that the interminable discussion comes after the sanction is imposed. This is a pretty straightforward "no more fucking around" sanction, but in this case I think it might help to make it plain that it's a discretionary affair. --TS 23:14, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This is actually the opposite of giving discretion to admins - you force them to "engage in extensive discussion and consensus-building at the administrators’ noticeboard or another suitable on-wiki venue", not giving them discretion to act as they think best. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:18, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No, absolutely not. Read the remedy. There is nothing there about extensive engagement prior to warning or sanctions. It's those who want to reverse the sanction who have to jump the hoops. And quite right too. Of course you don't get to sanction and walk away, you do have to respond to constructive engagement, but if you've got a bit you signed up for it. --TS 23:21, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In reality, the number of discretionary sanctions appealed is low. If there are topic-bans about, the clamour at the boards is reduced considerably. Roger Davies ^talk 23:28, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I do not really understand how Roger's comment fits this thread...

In reply to Tony: You miss the point (or I did not formulate it well enough). Either you trust the admins, or you don't. Why would you trust them to enact sanctions responsibly, but not to revert them responsibly? In my experience, the more consequential an act is, the less likely it is to be done. The key is not to make sure sanctions stick, the key is to make them lightweight enough that admins actually enact them. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:37, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Wrap it up

Could we be finished now, please? Jehochman ^Talk 01:54, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree...and propose that the best thing to do is eliminate the individualized sanctions and simply pass a discretionary sanctions case. ANY violations by any parties mentioned here and then of any parties not mentioned after receiving one explicit warning should lead to a topic ban for 90 days...next violation 1 year and a third, an indefinite topic ban. Any violation noticed would need to be posted so all administrators can see it at either AN/I or the Arbcom Enforcement Noticeboard. Set something like that in concrete and trim the fat out of these proposed decisions and we'd all be better off.--MONGO 02:39, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have been drafting a section entitled "Endgame" but Jehochman beat me to it. The sanctions against individuals don't mean much in the long run because there never has been and likely never will be any shortage of aggressive editors on this topic. It's a mirror of the real world (with a side dish of editor recruitment by certain blogs). I do appreciate the effort that the committee is taking to look at individual editors. But this is a lot of work on something that will be of little long-term benefit, when the committee has many other demands on their time. Unless the committee has something up its sleeve in the way of a novel policy or sanction that will be broadly applicable, it's time to put this thing to bed. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 02:53, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think there is some utility in ArbCom pointing out which editors have been unhelpful. This sets expectations and calibrates norms. However, there is no need for exhaustive treatment. After pointing out the most egregious cases, any remaining or future cases can be left to arbitration enforcement. Jehochman ^Talk 14:25, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that a finding of fact on individual conduct is very powerful. An individual who is named in such a finding is encouraged to take responsibility for improving matters going forwards, even if he is not then named in any remedy or enforcement measure. --TS 14:36, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I completely agree. I very much view a Finding of Fact in individual cases as being a sort of strong version of an RfC/U, and it is hoped that the FoF in itself will promote the sort of improvement in conduct that is desired by the community. Actual remedies should be really be directed toward the more egregious conduct, such as edit warring and multiple BLP violations. Like politics and religion, the topic of climate change is bound to have an editing atmosphere that is somewhat volatile. Remedies directed toward individuals will have no appreciable long term effect on this atmosphere, but tightly-controlled probationary measures enforced by a rotating group of uninvolved administrators definitely would. -- Scjessey (talk) 15:37, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I hope we can set as our goal that climate change will not have "an editing atmosphere that is somewhat volatile." There's really no reason why the editing of articles about a relatively well established science should be held hostage by those who import external political disputes. --TS 15:49, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

By "volatile", I mean "subject to flare-ups" rather than continuously problematic. You've talked about imported political disputes before, and I'm not sure what you mean by it. The only imported disputes I am aware of are personal or ideological, not political. -- Scjessey (talk) 16:01, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm referring to what the Committee in its draft finding 2 calls the "Many disputes relating to the climate change topic area [which] have been polarizing and embittered because of the great importance that many people, on and off Wikipedia, give to this topic area." It's rather similar to evolution in the respect that the science is well established (overwhelmingly so in the case of evolution, but the basics of global warming are also very well supported) but there are all kinds of weak challenges to the science that can only be explained by the political implications various people apply to the science. The same kind of conspiracy theories recur as in critiques of evolution, the same allegations of fakery, and the same kind of agendas are alleged, despite the exceptional scientific support for both. --TS 16:18, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oh I see what you mean. Yes. Agreed. Hard to know how to avoid that. Ill-informed politicians wield considerable power and generate considerable media coverage, and Wikipedia relies on media coverage for sourcing. Scientists have to work hard to get coverage. -- Scjessey (talk) 16:35, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia doesn't rely on mass media coverage for sourcing on scientific matters. If we did, there would be a lot more creationist nonsense and we'd be parroting lies from the media about autism and vaccines. People come here for the facts and we get the facts from the most reliable sources we can find. --TS 16:41, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That is true for the most part; however, my editing in this topic has been limited largely to the CRU hacking article where politics and media coverage have had more influence than science (rightly or wrongly). -- Scjessey (talk) 17:00, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I take your point. The main problem with that article was that for a long time the standard of reporting in the newspapers was abysmal. It's improved a little now and the official inquiries have helped to clarify matters a lot. --TS 17:07, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. And the problem was magnified a lack of true reporting coupled with an abundance of opinion in the months immediately following the data theft. -- Scjessey (talk) 17:15, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict)Important point I think, wikipedia is not a "Reader's Digest" of mainstream newspaper articles when it comes to scientific topics. There are some that still do not yet fully appreciate the importance of this statement. If the reader falls into this category then I suggest that you read this principle which will be approved in this case, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Climate_change/Proposed_decision#Encyclopedic_coverage_of_science Bill Huffman (talk) 17:18, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'd also suggest pointing such editors to WP:WEIGHT, and in some case WP:FRINGE. -- Scjessey (talk) 17:30, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It's certainly understandable that everyone would love to see this finally draw to an end. But wrapping it up should not be a euphemism for punting. I think that some (not all) of the editors who responded after Jehochman's opening post have been engaging in an echo chamber of "let's not sanction anyone now". Just give everyone a pat on the head, and say next time we're going to get serious. I'm not trying to convince the editors who commented, but I hope that I can convince the Committee that it would be a failure of nerve to do so, a failure to really prevent further disruption, and a big let-down to the larger editing community. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:26, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I completely agree with that sentiment. Let my comments above not be understood to be supportive of the notion that there should not be strong sanctions directed at individuals in this case. --TS 17:45, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Eh...this arbcam case has been a tit-for-tat...don't think for a minute I can't see that there haven't been infractions, some somewhat egregious even, but if we had a discretionary sanction case and really enforced it, I bet named parties would alter their game plan. I know this worked at the 9/11 arbcom case...the POV pushers were all sanctioned or simply stopped editing for a year, allowing several related articles the peace needed to get them to FA status...including one that had been a complete battlefield. That case made the wacky cease and desist so I think the sane that work on CC articles would probably conform if they knew they be topic banned for anywhere from 90 days to indefintitely...set that in stone, enforce it immediately and watch things calm down.--MONGO 21:47, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sure. As long as the sanctions are enforced in a fair manner. If they are used as another means to defend the house POV against all comers, they will not solve the problem. ++Lar: t/c 11:28, 22 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Can you elaborate on that? What is the "house POV" in the global warming articles? I see a lot of articles, some on secondary subjects, and a lot of noisy editing. Please explain your comment. ScottyBerg (talk) 12:50, 22 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

(after ec) - Certainly egregious violations that harm the project should attract sanction, but many of the proposed statements (such as the one noted by Bill Huffman) should go a long way toward informing editors of how the topic is best tackled. -- Scjessey (talk) 17:50, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

(od) There are about half a dozen more FOFs to follow. Shell has limited connectivity at the moment but as soon as she's back in the saddle we'll get them posted. Then, the remedies need looking at but that shouldn't take too long. So overall, things are probably winding down. Roger Davies ^talk 21:16, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

As of this post..."This page is 385 kilobytes long. It may be helpful to move older discussions into an archive subpage. See Help:Archiving a talk page for guidance."...--MONGO 03:59, 21 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with what is being stated above. I also find the comment by MONGO an interesting idea too. I remember the constant AN/i discussions about the 911 articles and how things disappeared for the most part after the case closed from that board. So maybe his/her suggestion should be taken as an idea on handling things. As I said above in an earlier statement today, I also am seeing a lot of the problems being generated by the facts that on one side of the issue is a pretty constant set of editors that are under the limelight right now being up against the other side that the editors change and expand quite frequently. I'm not sure why this one side has more and different editors on it's side unless it has to do with what the editors here on this talk page and also the arbs have made mention on the PD about outside blogs influencing this. If that is the case then maybe the editors who are known to be brought from the outside, the spas of this case, need to be dealt with. We can't allow editors to come in from the outside knowingly to raise havoc like this to our article work. --CrohnieGal^Talk 10:30, 22 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that Mongo's idea is interesting. However, I'm not familiar with that case so I'm not sure if the dynamics there are the same as here. I also agree with your general assessment of the situation. There's been a lot of talk of "COI" on the part of one editor, but your suggestion that some of the editors may be SPAs motivated by outside blogs is interesting, and would explain some of the behavior we've seen. ScottyBerg (talk) 13:25, 22 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

MONGO's suggestion has merit, though the 9/11 situation was a bit different in that it was reality v. nutters not scientific inquirey v. head in the sand. --Rocksanddirt (talk) 17:49, 23 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Amazingly, waiting for voting on the proposed decision is turning into even more of a joke than waiting for the proposed decision itself. Before we hit the six month mark for this case, might it be quicker to just hold new arb elections and find some who are available? Weakopedia (talk) 03:38, 23 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Many apologies for the horrible timing of my computer problems (touched off by nothing more than a 30 minute thunderstorm no less). Things are still up in the air, but I do have solid access to email and a few IMs due to owning a smartphone. If you think there's something I've overlooked because of my limited access for the past week or so, please drop me a brief pointer in the right direction. Shell ^babelfish 09:07, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry to hear about your computer troubles been there and it's no fun at all. Are you able to keep up with this talk page? Also are you able to follow difs that are here? Where are you with things using your phone, to give an idea of what you maybe missing if you can would be appeciated? Down near the bottom of this page are some important things to consider also the conversation above with John Barber above. Thanks in advance, feel free to email me if you feel the need, --CrohnieGal^Talk 22:27, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence sub-pages in userspace

Just a reminder that per longstanding consensus at Miscellany for Deletion editors may work up drafts in their userspace for the sole purpose of submitting the material as evidence in arbitration cases. However, after the evidence has been submitted and/or the case closes, the sub-pages should be deleted as they are often perceived as attack pages and serve only to memorialise and perpetuate the dispute. Thank you for your understanding, Roger Davies ^talk 07:24, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm glad you have posted this...this should be part of the normative arbitration process...anyway to set this in stone?--MONGO 14:25, 25 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

See my comment on the proposed principle. --Rocksanddirt (talk) 20:12, 27 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Disinterested in BLP's?

Just a comment that, in the language used as denoting the appropriate tone when writing (BLP) articles, the term "disinterested" is used. I feel that dispassionate is preferable, unless of course ArbCom are advocating a style exampled as "Eric Fudgecake is a Professor of Linguistics at Halabamabashbang University, Utopia. Probably. Whatever." I think less passion is better than less interest in a subject, when it comes to editing? LessHeard vanU (talk) 07:27, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Good point, well made :) Roger Davies ^talk 07:29, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Further examples at Proposed Finding of Fact 8.5 William M. Connolley's edits to biographies of living persons, and Proposed Remedies/General Remedies 4.4 Biographies of Living Persons. LessHeard vanU (talk) 09:42, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, but that's not really correct. As per the OED, 'disinterested' means '1. not influenced by considerations of personal advantage', 'dispassionate' means 'not influenced by strong emotion'. Dispassionate editing would lead to the example you give above, disinterested editing is what we want.--67.161.94.10 (talk) 10:36, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Odd. Which version of the OED are you looking at? Mine (v4.0) gives "Without interest or concern; not interested, unconcerned" as the first meaning of disinterested and doesn't give the text you mention at all. The SOED definition is just "Not interested, unconcerned". I suppose, in the context of the high passions here, dispassionate fits the bill better and is less ambiguous. Roger Davies ^talk 10:50, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"Disinterested" means not influenced by a personal view, or personal interest in the sense of advantage; neutral; uninvolved. It's not the same as "uninterested." SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 11:07, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

For info Roger Davies ^talk 11:33, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Weird. That's directly at odds with what I was actually taught in school. Maybe it's an American usage? Guettarda (talk) 12:00, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That M-W page is interesting. Prescriptive grammarians (at least in the U.S.) have wanted to keep the distinction in meaning between dis- and uninterested, and I always assumed it was a settled difference, but obviously it has been used the other way. I say "disinterested" should stay so that Wikipedia does it's part to maintain the useful distinction, thus promoting civilization. The "Synonyms" section on this Dictionary.com page indicates "disinterested" (implies a fairness arising particularly from lack of desire to obtain a selfish advantage) would be a more precise word here than, say, "impartial". [10] The Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary recognizes only the "fair" definition. [11] Then ArbCom should ban from its official statements the uncivilized "incivil", which M-W doesn't even recognize (and Wictionary tells us is "rare" [12]), in favor of "uncivil" which M-W tells us has been around since at least 1553. You can never be too careful in upholding civilization. But if ArbCom members think the preceding statement is too WP:BATTLEGROUNDish, WP:SOAPBOXy or WP:UNCIVIL, I take it back. I take it back! -- JohnWBarber (talk) 17:40, 24 September 2010 (UTC) -- JohnWBarber (talk) 17:40, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I would note that I was only guided by my understanding of disinterested, which is a more judged version of uninterested - that someone by choice has no interest rather than by lack of exposure. Whatever (hah!), I think dispassionate is more apt under these circumstances. LessHeard vanU (talk) 12:47, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In the portion of the decision I drafted, I used "disinterested" in the sense SlimVirgin describes. If there is any ambiguity about what the word means, then I agree that a synonym should be substituted, as Roger has done. Newyorkbrad (talk) 14:17, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think "disinterested" is fine. The point is that one must edit these biographies in a manner, ideally, lacking in personal feelings for the subject, one way or the other. "Dispassionate" is also fine. Since violations of this finding will tend to be neither "dispassionate" nor "disinterested," I'm not sure it makes much difference. ScottyBerg (talk) 16:04, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Broad, indefinite topic bans for individuals

A slew of indefinite climate change-related topic bans are now being considered for a number of individuals, some of which seem misdirected and/or unnecessarily harsh. The remedy has been proposed for me, which I think is peculiar because I have very few edits in this topic (in fact, I have only contributed significantly to the editing of a single article concerning a matter of data theft, not climate change). I am concerned that individuals are being judged as a group, with a lack of regard for specifics and a whiff of guilt-by-association. -- Scjessey (talk) 12:26, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Moreover,it doesn't solve anything over the long term. There's no shortage of aggressive editors in this area and there's no reason to think such a shortage will develop in the future. If anything the opposite, given certain chatter in the blogosphere. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 12:40, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I am not sure it won't solve anything. I see no way back into this topic area for many editors who have become totally engrained in their positions. Indef bans and placing the topic area under arbcom sanctions worked in Scientology, a topic that is quite comparable in the amount of emotion and blog coverage associated with it. --JN466 15:05, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure the situations are entirely comparable, except to people who spend a lot of time in-universe with Scientology disputes. Wikipedia is a bubble. By this site's standards, date delinking disputes are of comparable magnitude to the dispute over climate change. Is Scientology the subject of a consensus statement of concern from the National Academies of Science of the U.S., Brazil, India, South Africa, Canada, Italy, the U.K., China, Japan, France, Mexico, Germany, and Russia? Is it routinely a major political issue in elections and national and international legislative sessions?

The current list of topic ban candidates seems to suffer from a desire to sanction a roughly equal number of people from each "side", an approach which I think is based on faulty assumptions. The idea that, say, Verbal, Minor4th, and Mark Nutley have been equally "disruptive" on climate change articles seems questionable at best. The cynical side of me thinks that if we wait a week or two, the pendulum will swing back and we'll see another, different set of proposed remedies, but whatever. MastCell ^Talk 15:28, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

We're not trying to fix the climate, we're trying to fix a Wikipedia topic area. ;) --JN466 21:16, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's a great idea. There should be more names added though. Anyone who has edit warred or been uncivil more than once in this topic area should be topic banned. Minor4th 16:02, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I do agree with Mastcell that the editors listed are not equal in terms of the amount of disruption, but that just indicates that the threshold is rather low -- not a bad guiding principle, but there's a lot of work yet to be done if the threshold is so low. Off the top of my head, without regard to which "side" these folks fall on, the list should include ScienceApologist, FellGleaming, Viriditas, Rd232, Guettarda, Jehochman, Tony Sidaway. I'm sure there are others I'm not thinking of -- tried to think of more on the skeptic side, but they are mostly either listed or banned already. Minor4th 16:18, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If there's behaviour of mine that you consider disruptive, I would very much appreciate if you raised it with me. After all, you can't address potentially problematic behaviour that you're unaware anyone sees as problematic. Guettarda (talk) 16:38, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I would agree that a 'one size fits all' remedy doesn't make much sense. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 17:13, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Overall, I like the flexible "Appeal of topic bans" remedies (either 3.2 or 3.2.1). But the AQFK and ATren findings look even more outrageous if accompanied by a six-month-minimum topic ban. I haven't seen where Roger, Coren or Shell have defended their weak case against ATren at all or where Coren and Roger have adequately answered the questions about the AQFK finding. We now, finally, have an adequate Arbcom remedy for William M. Connolley's behavior, and the idea of reapplying for permission to edit the topic is actually brilliant because it gets to the heart of the problem: editor intentions and attitudes. We've seen right on this page, right up to the present, that some editors haven't adjusted their attitudes. I guess Remedy 1 (or 1.1) is supposed to address future problems. Maybe with the strong language elsewhere on the PD page it will be adequate (it authorizes admins to act first and then the action can be appealed to A/E or ArbCom, and that alone should help; but we'll still have a problem with biased admin actions). -- JohnWBarber (talk) 18:08, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

When you're smugly gloating over one of your perceived opponents (WMC) getting what he (in your opinion) deserved, while in the same breath professing "outrage" over "biased admin actions" directed towards those that share your own point-of-view...well, that attitude pretty much speaks for itself. Tarc (talk) 18:14, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It isn't smug, and it isn't gloating. ArbCom's Fof 8.2 ("William M. Connolley has been uncivil and antagonistic") had no corresponding remedy that looked like it might pass until now. Other remedies regarding Connolley's behavior in that area weren't getting support (see Remedies 5.1-5.5; the majority-approved BLP ban would not have addressed this). It isn't "gloating" to say WMC has had a problem with attitude -- it's what Newyorkbrad said in his comment at Fof 8.2. I pointed out the strength of the idea that an editor with problematic behavior would be allowed back in after giving assurances or demonstrating (or both) that the attitude has changed. That's a lot better than just waiting six months or a year. The new proposal offers editors a constructive way to get back to editing the topic, addressing both the editor-interaction and content problems ArbCom identified. Your comment doesn't actually help ArbCom or anyone else better understand the topic of this discussion. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 19:14, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This should be brought to the arbitrators attentions

Collapsing for page readibility. This one seems to have run its course and now going way off topic. Roger Davies ^talk 01:50, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Though Mark Nutley has voluntarily walked away from the Climate change articles I think that the latest of what has been happening should be shared. MN has been blocked twice this week which can be seen here at his talk page and here. Both were lifted but the last one is the one that is concerning. There is a discussion going on here. I don't know this administrator at all but this last unblock was done without even talking to administrator Vsmith which I find strange, esp. with the comments made with the unblock about Vsmith who is another administrator I don't know. Rodhullandemu is the administrator who unblocked MN for both of these blocks. NPA & civil are important policies but I don't know if this was a problem with different ways of saying things sounding like it is breaching policy or not. Toddst1 did the block so he could probably give more insight than I can about this. But the second block and unblock is very troubling since it has to do with copyright issues. MN has had major problems in the past and now he is block then unblocked for a copyright violation which if memory serves has happened before in the past. For the unblock to be done so quickly, without first talking to the blocking administrator, MN should not have been unblocked without the unblocking administrator first getting all the information, which means talking to the blocking administrator. Rodhullandemue assumed that Vsmith was involved which Vsmith explained that s/he was still uninvolved. Vsmith has been apparently watching things and knew MN from previous behavior problem. Anyways, because of the seriousness of this I thought the arbitrators should be aware of it. Thanks for reading, --CrohnieGal^Talk 20:55, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Vsmith has defended WMC and attacked his ideological opponents for about 6 years now. He has the magical power to detect the slightest wrongdoing from global warming skeptics, which isn't surprising since he edits the global warming articles extensively. He's clearly an involved admin in every definition of the word and should be prohibited from acting as an admin in the area or involving people who edit the area. TheGoodLocust (talk) 21:17, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know what's going on here, but I don't know that that admin is involved in this topic. If this chap is overstepping his remit as an admin then presumably it can be handled. The source cited by Thegoodlocust purports to knowthe religion of all Wikipedians, and says atheists outnumber Christians on English Wikipedia by nearly 2 to 1 [13] which if true,means that most Wikipedians other than me are exceptionally open about their religious beliefs and hardly any Americans ever edit Wikipedia. That's obvious nonsense. --TS 21:43, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Wikichecker is a commonly used tool Tony and I've never heard anyone dispute its edit analyzing abilities, especially with the odd argument that one of the other tools looks at the religion of wikipedian editors. On a side note, for that tool I'd imagine that they are checking userpages for userboxes. There are several reasons why atheists would show up more than you'd expect from the general population: younger people tend to be more atheistic, more educated/intelligent people tend to be atheists and tend to be online more which probably attracts them to wikipedia, and atheists tend to be more militant about their beliefs and therefore more likely to advertise with userboxes. You can't do a straight up comparison between the general population and wikipedia's. TheGoodLocust (talk) 22:04, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have never heard of Wikichecker before and I have no idea how it works. But how can it know my religion or yours or William Connolley's? It clearly purports to dispense information that it cannot conceivably support. If it is used by anybody, ever, on this wiki, to support any statement by anybody, then those people doing that must stop doing it now. --TS 22:24, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Are you fucking with me? I already explained how the religion segment of that site probably works. You aren't making sense here Tony. TheGoodLocust (talk) 22:46, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not fucking with you. If the site works as you describe it, and I've no reason to doubt that it does, then it knowingly dispenses the most spectacularly unreliable information. You have to understand that this is a third party site that I've never heard of. It tells me that atheists outnumber Christians on Wikipedia by 2 to 1, so I don't know how I can trust anything else it might say. Couldn't we use Wikipedia's own database to source the information you want to give? I think that might be more trustworthy. --TS 23:40, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Spectacular unreliable? It simply compiles the information that is available - if someone declares their religion then they are added to the list. As I said, there are many factors for why wikipedia (and the internet in general) is more atheistic like 95% of internet users being under 30 - and younger people are far more likely to be atheists. It is good that you don't take numbers at face value, you have to separate the wheat from the chaff, but all of these figures have their advantages and disadvantages - there isn't really a more practical way to take of religious pulse of wikipedians. TheGoodLocust (talk) 00:45, 25 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

(outdent) Both blocks were overturned. One ~~or perhaps both~~ admins may have been motivated by the climate change battlefield, at least this appears to be the view of some people commenting on the talk page. The first block was clearly not a personal attack, at worst it was slightly incivil, certainly not warranting a block and concensus on AN/I did not support the block. Mark said an editor had a "bee up his arse". ~~The second block for a copyvio was done by an admin who edited the article and was potentially involved~~. The copyvio ~~has been disputed~~ appeared to have some merit but it did not look deliberate, the text had been altered but not sufficiently so to differentiate the text from the original source per WP:PARAPHRASE. Perhaps the admins are just having a bad day or else or perhaps they block people too quickly in general. Mark is very likely to be topic banned from climate change articles, so I see no benefit in this discussion continuing and probably spiraling out of control. ~~Although he has demonstrated some problems and is not a perfect editor, I see no justification for hounding him off the encyclopedia~~.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 21:54, 24 September 2010 (UTC) I have struck some text in the above comment and updated the text per discussion on my talk page.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 22:24, 24 September 2010 (UTC) (ec)[reply]

I`m a tad disappointed in Crohnie here truth be told, i have asked her on her talk page to actually tell the entire story, not the condensed version which makes me look crap mark nutley (talk) 21:56, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Mark, I told you on my talk page that if I was misinformed with this posting that you could come here and tell your side of it which you didn't do, at least not that I've seen (I do have to catch up on the recent comments here though). I would suggest that editors should read our discussion on my talk page for context of the discussion. Thanks, --CrohnieGal^Talk 19:11, 25 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The copyvio issue is relevant here because this is not a first offence - MN was blocked for a week in May for a slew of copyvio problems. The current edit may be more plagiarism than a copyright violation, but even if it's a bit of a grey area, given his past problems MN should shouldn't be dancing anywhere near that line. Guettarda (talk) 22:01, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

And blocked by...wait for it...Vsmith! If someone were to look at that wikipedia search I provided, especially the requests for adminship, it is certainly interesting who consistently shows up at the top of the "support" column - isn't that right Guettarda? TheGoodLocust (talk) 22:08, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

RHaE's unblock of MN is definitely very dodgy, as is his description of Vsmiths conduct as "appalling" [14]. Since the article in question isn't a Cl Ch one, the entire business only belongs here due to the participants. Contrary to TGLs assertions, Vsmith isn't "involved" at that article. It isn't clear whether RHaE has been careless or worse; but the lack of talk is suspicious.

RHaE declared, to Vsmith, that "you had become involved in content, as I see it". This is odd, because all Vsmith did on the article was correct a spelling error [15] and another [16]. RHaE knows that, because Vsmith had already pointed it out to him. On that basis, RHaE overturned a block for copyvio, for which MN had previously been blocked. But RHaE made no attempt to discuss this, and still won't answer questions on his talk page. Perhaps he will here instead William M. Connolley (talk) 21:56, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That is incorrect [17] he has edited the article well before now. Why not explain instead you constant removal of content from this article? Why do you do it? It is outside your normal range of article edits after all, what possible reason do you have for focusing on this article will? mark nutley (talk) 22:01, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

So how is that different from reverting an invalid move and then protecting the effected article? Your evidence says that makes an admin involved, yet another admin makes a couple of procedual actions (disregarding Mn's diff above) and then blocks another contributor and you say that they are not involved? Where is the consistency? I also thought you were for outside admins reviewing others sysop actions, but, as ever, only when it accords with your preferred viewpoint. LessHeard vanU (talk) 22:12, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

@LHVU: The difference is obvious: that the move wasn't invalid. It was in fact perfectly valid; the fact that *you* made the judgement that it was invalid is involvement. You made a very heavy-handed intervention i a content dispute to protect your "side"; please don't try to muddy the waters here William M. Connolley (talk) 22:21, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I am in fact making it clear that your consideration on whether an admin is involved is entirely in respect on whether it is in accordance to "Your sides" (capitalisation intended) preferred viewpoint. Your view on my action in the one instance noted has not even been repeated by the usual chorus (except one). The cloudiness you perceive is formed by your vision, and not by the comments of others. LessHeard vanU (talk) 22:29, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That was even more obscure than usual. No matter: we disagree on this matter, and that is unsurprising. But I notice that you have carefully avoided the issue in this case, which is: was Vsmith involved. Naturally, I value my opinion, but oddly you seem to value mine more than yours. Please remedy this and do give us *your* opinion. Also, perhaps you could address the issue that RHaE is so blatantly evading, because he has no possible answer: the absence of any attempt to discuss with Vsmithnprior to unblock. Come on, don't be shy, we're all listening William M. Connolley (talk) 22:39, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I was commenting only upon your differing interpretations upon "uninvolved" where the circumstances were similar but the viewpoints effected are not - I have not concerned myself with the specifics of RH&E's actions or interactions with Vsmith. As for me being listened to, in the unlikely event that there is more than a very few I am certain that there is one who is not doing so - since it does not reflect their own valued opinion. LessHeard vanU (talk) 23:36, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

@MN: I removed your copyvio, as explained on the talk page Talk:Echoes_of_Life:_What_Fossil_Molecules_Reveal_about_Earth_History#Synopsis William M. Connolley (talk) 22:23, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oh - and your diff is your edit, not Vsmiths. Here [18] is Vsmiths edit - and I encourage everyone to look at it William M. Connolley (talk) 22:26, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It is late here; I am tired, cold and impoverished. I am currently going through my remaining photos and uploading them to Commons while I am still able to do so. I have no opinion in the climate change disputes, and wasn't even aware of the topic of the article for which Marknutley was blocked for copyvios; all I saw was the edit history of that article, and I came to the opinion that the blocking admin was obviously involved, and I see from above that there is an argument that this is the case. However, I do not intend to get involved further here, because I have no desire to swim through unnecessary treacle with one arm tied behind my back. Rodhull andemu 22:09, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That isn't an answer, it is an evasion. You have, now, reviewed the edits that Vsmith made - yes? And had time to consider, now, whether your previous hasty judgement was correct - yes? And your considered opinion is? And also - your excuse for not attempting to contact the blocking admin? You haven't even pretended to address that little issue William M. Connolley (talk) 22:19, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have not the slightest intention of being dragged unwillingly into an Arbitration case which has as much to do with my unblock of Marknutley as the flowers that bloom in the spring, tra-la, and it seems unnecessarily combative of you to push the point; I'd advise you to examine your own motives here before taking this further. I unblocked Marknutley based solely on the article history I saw and nothing else. If you really think otherwise, please provide evidence from your MI5 mindprobe|, or stop making unjustified assumptions. Meanwhile, as I have already said, I have better things to do than share the drama stage with those who will not let it lie. Rodhull andemu 23:35, 25 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think that part of the problem was the fact that discussion began without an explanation as to how the edit was a copyright violation but did include a knock at Mark.[19] To make matters worse, the dispute lasted only one hour and 17 minutes long before WMC went running to an admin.[20][21] Also, I might be mistaken but I think that WP:CP is the proper venue for escalation, but there didn't seem to any attempt to discuss the issue there. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 22:43, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

- And I, for one, will not be badgered or bullied into anything; I'm from Yorkshire. If ArbCom think I should answer, they will let me know. Until then, I'm finished here. Rodhull andemu 22:57, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

(outdent) Looking at the article history and article talk page, the article Echoes of Life: What Fossil Molecules Reveal about Earth History started by Mark Nutley appears to have nothing to do with climate change, how did 3 or 4 climate change editors end up on that article in a content dispute? Is this a sign that even after topic bans are placed on editors that if they go to other article topics personalised battle fields will just migrate?--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 22:50, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know if this is the case here, but WMC has followed my contributions in order to revert me or take the opposite position. [22] It is part of his pattern of bullying behavior. TheGoodLocust (talk) 23:21, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

While the article on the book is not about climate change, it appears the author has written in the past a book about climate change, which may explain things.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 01:03, 25 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Wow... Anyway, back in early May I noticed an article about a book that appeared interestin - I started a bit of cleanup with 3 edits [23] then noticed a potential copyvio problem and removed it [24] and after further checkin [25] then after discovering other CVs on other pages I blocked Marknutly (at 01:42, 5 May 2010 - see his block log) for a week for copyright violations. I had added the page to my watchlist (now at 15,044 pages). Then when an edit removing a possible copyvio - per the edit summary[26], showed up on my watchlist, I took a look. I found that while not a direct copy/paste vio, it was a very close paraphrase and quite questionable. After looking closer (and correcting 2 spelling errors along the way - guess I'm obsessive) I made the decision to block considering past copyvio problems by the user and the fact that he had immediately reverted the questioned content back in. When content is removed for possible copyvio the issue should be discussed - not reverted back in. I had commented on the talk page while reviewing the issue [27] and blocked Marknuyley for a month for copyright violation second block for copyright violation.(see his block log) The block was undone 37 minutes later with no attempt made to discuss the issue with me either before or after. The lack of discussion or even notification is a violation of common courtesy. This issue is totally unrelated to the topic of climate change and the current arbitration, both of which I have been studiously avoiding per my own sanity. I thank Dave Sousa for letting me know this was under discussion here. Thank you, Vsmith (talk) 23:16, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

15k watched pages eh? That must be hell to keep up with and lucky you caught Mark's transgressions in that mess both times. TheGoodLocust (talk) 23:21, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Usually from 30 min to an hour to scan for vandalism twice daily. Quite a bit longer if substantial edits have occurred. Most are short stubs and/or obscure articles rarely edited. Vsmith (talk) 23:45, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Luxury! My illness means that I generally wake up about 3pm local time, and although to some, most of the day has already gone, my watchlist is about 3k, and that is mostly BLPs; which takes at least 30, and up to 60 min, to review properly. After that, I can sit back with coffee until about 6pm at a much slower and more manageable pace. I then head towards my one meal of the day, for which I can budget £1.00, and manage it about 8:30 pm.; occasionally, this might involve a dessert, even if it's only a cheap yogurt. But sugar is a useful energy product, even in limited quantities. But from 9:40 pm to whenever, I do my most useful work, fuelled by a £2.79 bottle of white cider and 20 menthol cigarettes. When those run out, as they now have, I stop, so goodnight. Luxury, I say again. Count your blessings, and please give a thought for those less fortunate than you. Looking forward to Christmas? I'm not; it's just another day to me. Cheers. Rodhull andemu 00:29, 25 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Per the rant by TGL way up there^: Yes I have made many edits to global warming and related articles - mostly back during the 2005 kerfluffle. I have edited with WMC and argued intensely with him in the past, we both have science backgrounds and an interest in science topics. And likely some of the edits I made way back then I'd likely do differently now ... Wikipedia evolves, the environment is quite different than 4 - 6 years ago. But, more to the point the article in question has no relation to climate change topics. Vsmith (talk) 23:45, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Vsmith you are the 8th most prolific editor of the global warming article (not the talk page). If memory serves and the pattern continues then I suspect most of those edits were reverts, often in sync with the rest of the top 10 most prolific editors of that article. Let's cut the bull, you've shown up at nearly every major arbcom case or RfC involving WMC for 6 years - including the recent ones. You guys have all either nominated or voted adminship for each other [28][29][30][31][32][33] and you expect us to buy that you are "uninvolved?" When you say that most of your edits to global warming were back in 2005; I simply don't believe you - show some proof for such an assertion. TheGoodLocust (talk) 01:04, 25 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

And where did I say that I was not involved in the global warming article or in the climate change category? That's not what this thread is discussing. What relevance are adminship votes from 05, 06 & 07 to this discussion? And since 2007 I've made maybe 20 or so edits to the global warming article out of the total of 200 or so your tool shows since 2004. Don't know why I bother responding to this irrelevant off topic chatter. Vsmith (talk) 03:35, 25 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I just want to make it plain that I'm not from Yorkshire, although in my opinion parts of Yorkshire would feature in any discerning deity's plans for elysium. --TS 23:56, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

(ec's) I would like to apologize for not informing the editors that I named when I first posted this. I planned on doing so but got called away from my computer and someone else had done it for me. Please accept my deepest apology for not making it known that I mentioned you. This apology goes to Vsmith and Rodhullandemu, I am really sorry to have taken you by surprise with my posting of this. I thought it was important to add here because I knew of the prior problems with MN and sources. I will try not to do this again in this way. Again, I'm sorry, --CrohnieGal^Talk 19:06, 25 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A couple of editors contacted me on my talk page as they felt that I had misinterpretated the situation and they were right, I had misinterpreted the situation. Interested editors can read about it on my talk page. While I still think a mountain was made out of a molehill which I guess is symptomatic of the battleground atmosphere and hostilities I don't like to pass opinion on situations wrongly and leave things hanging. I think all the main parties involved in this latest dispute were at fault, Mark for failing to admit his summary was too close to the original text of the source thus escalating the drama, WMC for being too quick to seek a block and the admin too quick to block. This drama took 3 to tango and was unnecessary in my view. The other block for a personal attack by another admin was unwarranted as it was not a personal attack. These are my views. Sorry for dragging last nights drama back up, just wanted to clarify things.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 13:28, 25 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Literaturegeek, I think that it should be made clear that Marknutley didn't insert 'his summary', he inserted directly copied text in which a few words were replaced. I posted a side-by-side comparison (reproduced below) of Marknutley's edits and the publisher's website on Mark's talk page; at the time I was unaware of the parallel discussion here.

Online source	Marknutley's text (first addition, reverted in again)
In 1936 a German chemist identified certain organic molecules that he had extracted from ancient rocks and oils as the fossil remains of chlorophyll--presumably from plants that had lived and died millions of years in the past.	Seventy years ago Alfred Triebs identified organic molecules, which he had extracted from rock and oil, as the fossilised remains of chlorophyl presumed to be from plants that had died millions of years in the past.

As I said on Mark's talk page, making trivial changes – replacing In 1936 with Seventy years ago, fossil with fossilised, presumably with presumed to be – but keeping the exact same sentence without explicitly indicating (with quotation marks) that one is copying another writer's words is emphatically still plagiarism. (This sort of very minor modification probably also means that Mark's text is a derivative work from the original copyrighted text; Mark isn't free to license his derivative contribution under the GFDL, and should clearly indicate the non-free text for that reason as well.)

If Mark has a history of improper copying, then that is something that admins (and now Arbitrators) who find these sorts of things should be aware of when considering whether or not a block or other restriction might be warranted. Starting from a direct cut-and-paste of a book's introduction or publisher's blurb is never the right way to write a book summary for an encyclopedia article. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 20:12, 25 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It was not a cut and paste, i was reading from the book while typing. Hence my saying it was a WIP. No copyvio was intended and none has occurred, look at the last edits on the article. I honestly can`t believe this is dragging on so much, talk about a witchhunt mark nutley (talk) 20:18, 25 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The seventy years ago bit I think is ok but all of the rest was too close to the original and was a copyvio. The fact that some attempt was made to differentiate the text makes me think it was sloppy but done in goodfaith. This looks like a one off that has got way more drama than warranted. He did copy and paste some text back in May but he was a newbie editor, only with us for about 4 months. I doubt this is going to happen again. He is already almost certainly going to get topic banned based on Arb voting records. What more do you feel is necessary? The real concern is why is everything anyone does wrong on these articles always such immense drama to almost everyone? This is the real issue and Mark is not completely immune from this criticism.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 20:27, 25 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I would be more confident assuming that this wouldn't happen again if it hadn't happened before, and if Mark appeared to take his current act of plagiarism more seriously. He still doesn't seem to understand that what he did really was inappropriate copying of someone else's work; it's irrelevant that he did it by retyping with incidental changes rather than by Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V. That the topic seems to be peripherally related to this Arbitration case is moot — I would be just as concerned if this were another editor with a similar track record. (And, indeed, I have been involved in cleaning up after – and banning, where necessary – serial plagiarists in other subject areas as well.) By May 2010, Marknutley had been with us for more than four thousand edits; even if Wikipedia's standards were appreciably different from those of academia, business, or even high school – which they are not – Mark wasn't a rank newbie and shouldn't have been caught by surprise by our policies on plagiarism and copyright. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 21:21, 25 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Right there was allegations of one editor following Mark to that article and deleting several of his contributions which were not Copyvio, then an admin blocking too rashly. I tried once understanding all of the facts to criticise everyone fairly without saying he did worse, she did worse etc. What I see is a battleground where one side tries to get the other side sanctioned. To be honest, yes these incidents will concern ArbCom like copyvio but their primary interest is stopping the battleground atmosphere. They want everyone to stop arguing and fighting. Your selective view of the drama on this situation could be interpreted as battleground, so you are attacking yourself as much as Mark. What is needed on these pages is more "yes I did wrong and you did wrong", lets forget about it and get back to building an encyclopedia based on wikipedia policies, like WP:NPOV, WP:WEIGHT, WP:RS.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 21:28, 25 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Mark Nutley has openly admitted that he was "reading from the book while typing." That's an open and shut case of copyright infringement. He should certainly advised never again to copy non-free content into Wikipedia. --TS 23:20, 25 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

He is already almost certainly going to get topic banned based on Arb voting records. What more do you feel is necessary? - for people to realise that it is impossible to work with MN. Even now, he won't admit that was a copyvio. Even now, you're basically saying that anyone who argues with him is as guilty as he is. This "a plague on both your houses" stuff is unthinking, and wrong William M. Connolley (talk) 09:07, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I posted this because misusing sources, copyright violations and so on are serious breaches in policy and academia. I don't care about all the other noise being said here. The fact is that this was a copyright problem and MN not admitting it shows that this may still be a problem because he still doesn't seem to understand that what he did was wrong. In school if you did this kind of thing what do you think your teachers would do about it? Do you think they would pat you on the head and say don't do it again or do you think you would get a failing grade or worse? People, forget all the outside stuff being discussed, there have been discussions about this kind of misuse of sources on the very PD talk page and it's not acceptable by anyone, no matter what side you seem to be on. Stop the this side vs. that side arguments about it and just think about what is shown by TS showing that the two are almost identical. Add in that MN admits that he was typing it directly from the book and this become a slam dunk, a copyright violation. Maybe some kind of proposal from the arbitrators is needed about this that goes as far as to say this is not acceptable anywhere in the project. Common sense should tell us that but from the discussion above maybe it needs to be said. --CrohnieGal^Talk 11:39, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The text WMC removed a few days ago was short. It was not an unmarked verbatim, but a close paraphrase, and the source was cited. The relevant guideline here is WP:PLAGIARISM, which includes the paragraph, "It can also be useful to perform a direct comparison between cited sources and text within the article, to see if text has been plagiarized, including too-close paraphrasing of the original. Here it should be borne in mind that an occasional sentence in an article that bears a recognizable similarity to a sentence in a cited source is not generally a cause for concern. Some facts and opinions can only be expressed in so many ways, and still be the same fact, or opinion. A plagiarism concern arises when there is evidence of systematic copying of the diction of one or more sources across multiple sentences or paragraphs. In addition, if the source is not free, check and make sure that any duplicated creative expressions are marked as quotations."
I agree that the paraphrase was too close for comfort, and that Mark urgently needs to read WP:Close paraphrasing, but it isn't the egregious deal editors here are making of it -- he made a good-faith, but insufficient effort to reformulate. He is not the only editor to have made such mistakes.
The earlier edits removed by Vsmith in May were clear copyvios, and absolutely unacceptable.
Mark needs to appreciate that he is still not doing enough to steer clear of copyvio and plagiarism charges. It is better to use an occasional verbatim, and mark it as a quotation using quotation marks, with the source cited, than it is to do a poor job of reformulating. Mark should probably look through his contributions history to tidy up any similar faux pas that may still be slumbering in our articles. --JN466 13:10, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- The problem here wasn't really the actual edit - it was the response, especially given that MN has had similar problems in the past. We just can't afford this kind of thing - case in point, the Darius Dhlomo issue. Guettarda (talk) 13:24, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If you look at my talk page where discussion with MN takes place, he says it's still a work in progress which I think he is putting the info into the article then making the changes afterwards which I advice him is not a good idea and that he should work sections first then put them into the article. I got no more responses from him after my comment so I'm not sure if I was correct about my comment. You can see it at my talk page here. --CrohnieGal^Talk 13:25, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

@ Guettarda, I didn't understand your comment about the Darius Dhlomo issue until comments were made at my talk page about it and the clean up involved. I think you should have made it clearer about what you were talking about so I have wiki linked the name so others can see what it involves or you can go to my talk page and see the explanation there which I have to admit shocked me. I just thought others here should be aware of this issue to understand how so important it is to stop copyright vios and plagerism as soon as it's seen and not to wait. If you look into this I think you will see the same excuses that are being used here about how the problems started which is not good in my opinion. Clean up for this is need if anyone has the spare time. --CrohnieGal^Talk 11:17, 27 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

harsh but unfair

As one of the main issues is that whatever we do it won't work then lets be harsh but unfair. Perma ban all usrs from the articles in question who have reverted more then twice in one day. Impose a subject wide 1RR restriction (perimenatly) and permeantly block any user who breaches 1RR after that point. No this is not a joke, but it is an example of about the only thing that wouold work (assuming the fears expresed by many of the users is true, which I think it is).Slatersteven (talk) 18:56, 25 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No, all that would do is slow down the conflict, not diffuse it. And we would have the same endless debates about reverting socks and BLPs we have now. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:02, 25 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps slowing it down (or accepting there is nothing we can do about it) is the best we can do. Its clear that there is indead off wiki campigns to alter pages to suit agendas (a bit childish if you ask me, its not as if any one takes wiki that seriously). Under those circumstances even if we block all users mentioned here and do nothing else (as others have pointed out) someone else will repalce them. Effectivly its a war of attrition with an inexustable supply of canon fodder (how Haig must envy us). So at the end of the day the only answer is eaither let them fight it oout, have these silly debates every so often, or put them all in a field and bomb the basterds.Slatersteven (talk) 19:09, 25 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This is a very strange argument. Why is being unfair likely to settle any disputes? Its clear that there is indead off wiki campigns to alter pages to suit agendas - not at all sure what you mean here. Could you provide links? William M. Connolley (talk) 10:09, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

My understanding since I started being an editor is that the project wanted and needed experts in different fields, like this one. Is there anyone else concerned about the possibility that most of the experts in the science field of Climate change may now be banned? What happens to the articles? It's been shown undeniably that there has been off wikipedia blogs recruiting to get editors sanctioned as this "How-to-guide" dif shows and this one that I just heard about. I was aware from comments and the PD page that there are off project blogs interference but this dif provide by Noren above was my first look at it actually being shown. I don't know if there are other blogs doing this but I guess checking Wikipedia Review wouldn't hurt to see if there are discussions going on there about this case and if so, who is involved. Are there any editors here who are members there who can check on this and provide difs if there is something important to this case? I am aware that off project stuff isn't supposed to be brought on project but with this case I find it extremely important because the PD is looking like it's going to reward the off project behavior by doing what they wanted to happen to begin with. If arbitrators haven't looked at this reference, I would suggest they do so to see what is going on over there at pediawatch.wordpress.com. I just think that the PD should be fair and that not all that are named are equally wrong in all of this. I am also concerned that too much thought is being given to the edit warring with too little thought given to more serious breaches of policies. Thank you again for considering my opinions, --CrohnieGal^Talk 14:06, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, in many cases that come to ArbCom there are off wiki issues between rival factions related to a topic. ArbCom knows this to be true because they often see material that is submitted privately that needs to be deleted or suppressed. Unfortunately, there is not much that ArbCom can do about it except to advise users to follow up off wiki with the appropriate authorities as needed, and to keep it off wiki. Any other approach would take too much investigation to give any thing approaching a fair remedy. (Meaning that there is often a long tangled history between people that come to Wikipedia and dispute with each other.) So usually, ArbCom does not explore off wiki activity in the level of detail that you want to when drafting the case (with occasional exceptions if it specifically addresses sanctionable on site editor conduct.) See my comment below for the reason that I support indefinite bans for this group of editors. (my opinions based on my prior experience as a member of arbcom. Of course other arbitrators may see it differently). FloNight ♥♥♥♥ 14:39, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I used the term unfair to aknowedge before the first reply that those affected by it would consider it unfair. After all (it seems to me) its the other side causing the trouble, so why should those who only want to make wikipedia better be punished as well, goes many of the arguments. It will solve anything, but it might discourage those who want to edit war to push agendas. I don't think its a perfect answer but is I think the only one that will have some impact on this. However I am not aware of what solution was tired (and seemed to work) on scientology relatesd pages, but I am not sure its quite the saem situtation.Slatersteven (talk) 15:22, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've addressed some of the points raised in this section, in a new section below[34]. ScottyBerg (talk) 17:08, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you FloNight for your polite detailed response as a former arbitrator. I really appreciate what you say. That being said, looking at what is said on these off site blogs shows who is being targeted and why. It also shows that editors that are active on this page is also active on those blogs. WMC seems to be the biggest target by them too so as an outsider I find it quite disturbing that the ones who are blogging off project to get editors on the project banned are going to feel rewarded by the way the PD is looking. I guess I am frustrated that there is no way to stop this kind of behavior. Thanks again, --CrohnieGal^Talk 23:13, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There is, don't acecept the bait and report the activities. The problom is edds reacting to baiting in kind, not according to policy. Now there may be a case for greater and more proactive sanctions against disruptive edds (rather then the 'he's been blocked three times already lets block him again so he learns his leason' mentaility). But that is the fault of admins not enforcing rules with enough severity and users who will defend disruptive editing based upon content rather then actvivity. Perhaps a three strikes and your out rule may be usefull.Slatersteven (talk) 14:58, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Topic ban scope

What about, say, Template:Global warming? That's neither an article, nor a talk page, nor a Wikipedia process. Does that mean that it is not covered by the topic ban? T. Canens (talk) 19:30, 25 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Good luck in getting an answer. There is a pile of unanswered questions at the end of the "Remedy 3.1: Scope" section William M. Connolley (talk) 19:43, 25 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Logic would say it is covered by a CC topic ban in my view. Editing it would look like looking for loopholes in the remedy.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 20:04, 25 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

While I think clarification may be helpful and there may be some cases where I can understand there would be confusion, in this case I would have to agree anyone who edits it then tries to argue it isn't covered should rightfully be smacked down for wikilaywering. Nil Einne (talk) 09:26, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It is best to preempt those wikilawyering in the first place. T. Canens (talk) 09:48, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. If there is an easy answer to this question, then one of the many watching arbs should just give it. If they don't answer, then the assumption muct be that there is no easy answer, in which case asking isn't wikilawyering William M. Connolley (talk) 10:06, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There is an easy answer: it's any directly or tangentially related article or topic attracting editors arguing the same stuff from either new or old angles, or engaging in the same interpersonal/ideological battles. That's what broadly construed means. Roger Davies ^talk 10:21, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well, what about Hadley cell, Greenhouse effect, Atmosphere, Carbon dioxide, Methane, Antarctica, Suess effect, Photosynthesis, Rice, Windpower, Royal Society, NASA, Ocean, Walker circulation, El Niño-Southern Oscillation, North Atlantic Current, Hurricane,...? I think it will be quite hard to delineate the topic, and it is essentially impossible to delineate the topic on a per-article basis without massively overshooting the target. In addition, most of the more technical articles have been fairly quite, if only because non-experts simply are not aware of them or do not understand the implication of the concepts. Do we need to extend topic bans to articles that never have been a problem? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 11:21, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Global warming is one form or another is already mentioned in 14 out of the 17 articles: the other three have potential for coatracking. Probably best to leave well alone with all of them, Roger Davies ^talk 15:01, 27 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Customarily, topic bans are a ban on contributing content related to the topic. So, any edits to any article, template, image, or related talk page that introduce material related to the topic would be a violation. For example, introducing material about the topic into an article about a politician would be a violation of the ban despite the person not being in any category related to Climate. That is the reason that we can not merely give a complete list of WP entries that fall under the ban. But obviously, entries related to Climate would fall under the topic ban. And yes, preventing the problem from being introduced into more articles is one of the goals of the remedy, so we define the topic ban as "broadly construed" for purposes of enforcement. FloNight ♥♥♥♥ 11:47, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"But obviously, entries related to Climate would fall under the topic ban." - that's not obvious to me at all, and seems to be a horrible idea. Why not articles related to biology and ecology which are just as affected by climate change? Or to politics or building codes? For all of these we can construct reasonable connections to climate change. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:06, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

FN has failed to distinguish Climate from Climate Change. Not an easy mistake to make, but a possible one William M. Connolley (talk) 12:48, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Given the frequent number of mentions of "change" in the Climate article, including a section named Climate change , (the concept of change is include throughout the article for example see Record), and also for example in the Climate model article, I don't see how an editor can edit about Climate and avoid bumping into content that could be in conflict. Also, articles about climatologists are in conflict at times and need to be included in the topic ban for it to be effective in stopping the constant disputes. FloNight ♥♥♥♥ 13:17, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well, given that we all live in the climate, the topic touches everything. Go for a site ban then. "Could be in conflict" is not an operational definition. Stradivari violins may sound so good because the climate in which their wood was grown was colder, so an edit to a classical music article "could be" in conflict. On the other hand, updating Köppen climate classification is unlikely to be connected with climate change or the surrounding controversy. "Stopping the constant disputes" is an admirable goal. As stated by several other editors, even complete removal of all current editors is unlikely to achieve this goal. And what's more, the overarching goal is not to stop disputes, but to build a better encyclopaedia. If you want no disputes, restrict the topic to Barney the dinosaur, the allowed content to "Barney is cute", and lock down the Wiki (in fact, you could do away with the Wiki in favour of a static web page, much cheaper to operate). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:00, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

To illustrate the problem, Stephan's attempted example of the Koeppen classification as an article that is "unlikely to be connected with climate change or the surrounding controversy" is in fact considerably wide of the mark. See e.g., [35][36][37][38] Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 14:27, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

As usual, I defer to Boris' superior knowledge in this domain. But that does not affect the main point: "could be in conflict" is not a useful criterion, and there are edits to climate topics that are not significantly connected to climate change or the climate change controversy, just as there are non-climate edits that are. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:47, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

FN;s stuff is all besides the point, and should be ignored as ignorant. RD has provided an answer, which is clearly all we're going to get attracting editors arguing the same stuff from either new or old angles, or engaging in the same interpersonal/ideological battles. Thus Hadley cell isn't covered, by RD's defn, at least not at the moment William M. Connolley (talk) 18:23, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree: Hadley cell clearly is covered and I wouldn't disagreee with FN's block prediction either. Roger Davies ^talk 14:53, 27 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

WMC, if you make an edit such as you did on the Hadley cell article then you would be blocked because it is adding content directly related to Climate change. FloNight ♥♥♥♥ 19:34, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sure there are no objective criteria that could be laid out without being susceptible to wikilawyering. Instead, I'd suggest a few subjective rules of thumb:

By making the edit, are you attempting to say something about climate change or about a person with a notable connection to climate change? If so, avoid making the edit.
If you were to ask a disinterested but knowledgeable and reasonable person which topics were closely related to the article you wanted to edit, would there be a strong possibility that they would mention climate change (or global warming, etc.)? If so, avoid making the edit.
If a topic-banned opponent in this dispute were to edit the same text you want to edit, would you feel like you'd have a solid basis for accusing them of violating the topic ban? If so, avoid making the edit.
When in doubt, ask someone who will not just tell you what you want to hear -- preferably one of your more reasonable climate change opponents; barring that, a disinterested third party.

Run these rules of thumb past the scenarios offered above and see if there are any that are truly still unclear. alanyst ^/talk/ 18:33, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the rules of thumb. At first, I thought you were changing the emphasis from the article to the edit, but now I see that you have covered the union. If someone wants to edit building codes, and discuss grounding rules, that's fine, but if you want to discuss changes in codes due to potential climate changes issue, then it is covered. However, if the article is primarily about climate change, then any edit is covered. I wanted to make sure, for example, that someone editing the CRU incident article would not be able to claim they were editing about legal issues, because their edit related to FOI, and that's not climate change. That should be covered, and is, based upon your rule of thumb. This is not to say there won’t be questions that arise, but the rules of thumb sound like a great start.--SPhilbrick T 13:19, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Flexible topic bans

This would work as follows. ArbCom puts some editor X under a flexible topic ban for, say, BLP articles. ArbCom appoints Admin Y to be the mentor who implements the flexible topic ban for editor X. Admin Y familiarizes him/her self with the FoF on editor X in this ArbCom case. If editor X wishes to make an edit to some BLP article, the mentor can approve, disapprove, or ask clarification what exactly the editor wants to edit and make a decision based on that. Admin Y could also require editor X stick to a 1RR or 0RR restriction while editing. In case of violations of an agreement, Admin Y is authorized to block editor X.

I think this is a better solution for some editors who are capable of making good contributions to certain topic areas who nevertheless have not behaved well in disputes with editors who have different views regarding climate change. Count Iblis (talk) 23:18, 25 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Mentorship arrangements are very difficult to put together at the best of times (limited pool of admins prepared to undertake such a role). Specifically, it is probably undesirable in this instance because of the likely pressure the mentor would come under to revise calls (ie "you should/shouldn't have let editor X make edits k.l.m" ) and the intense partisan scrutiny that such arrangements would likely attract. Roger Davies ^talk 10:16, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Roger. And more debate and conflicts about the value of the edits of the people being topic banned is not the best way to improve the quality of the encyclopedia. FloNight ♥♥♥♥ 10:25, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I see the problems, but I think there are solutions here. You can think of ArbCom putting constraints on this system, like the mentor only being authorized to let the editor edit under 0RR. This would solve three problems. First: There obviously wouldn't be much of an issue with other editors objecting to the edits and contacting the mentor about the permission to edit; in case of objections they can revert and that then also ends the editor's involvement in editing there because of the 0RR. Second: Because of this effective veto, the mentor won't give permision to edit in the first place, unless being reverted is unlikely. Third: the factionalist mentality can be better addressed via the discretionary sanctions, I'll explain this at the end of the last paragraph below.

There is a limited availablity of mentors, but I think the arrangement I'm proposing here is of a different nature than other mentorship agreements. Also, we're probably only dealing with a few editors for whom this is appropriate. The mentor won't have much work to do. Away from the polemics in the climate change area, there won't be much of a hurry to make an edit, therefore the mentor doesn't need to promptly consider editing requests.

If e.g. William were topic banned this way, think of William filing a request to edit some very technical article on some aspect of climate science. Clearly, approval can wait a week. Now, suppose that some editors can't put their WMC-obsession aside, follow William and revert him on that technical article. Obviously, applying the discretionary sanctions would then be in order. It is, of course, not likely that this will happen, so it may be a way for people get rid of their factionalist mentality. Count Iblis (talk) 15:27, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Has any such revert of a highly technical nature occurred in the past by any "obsessed" editor? Is this a matter of clapping hands to keep elephants away? Collect (talk) 15:34, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You are probably right. But if this issue is moot, that's another argument why a mentoring agreement of this sort would not cause trouble. Count Iblis (talk) 15:44, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Question

I see that there are new proposals on the PD that names editors with per Remedy 3, which starts here, that are being voted for. This may be a stupid question but what does this mean for the editors? Again, sorry if this is a dumb question but I don't understand if it means a month or indefinite or anything in between. Thanks for any clarifications to this,--CrohnieGal^Talk 13:32, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The proposed "Remedy 3" ban in this case is an indefinite ban on having anything at all to do with the topic on-wiki, with the possibility of an appeal as defined in either Remedy 3.2 or 3.2.1, whichever passes. --TS 13:40, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

(after ec) - I have assumed it means an indefinite topic ban, which seems extraordinary given the wildly different issues and standards of conduct between the individuals named. I raised concerns about it in an earlier section. -- Scjessey (talk) 13:41, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

IMO, past attempts to make editor remedies very specific to the person was a failure on several levels. Deciding between 3 months, or 6 months, or 9 months, or 1 year bans on numerous editors needlessly adds complexity to cases, and are difficult to quantify adequately without doing a full review of each editor (a consistent problem is poor quality of evidence submitted by the community which does not necessarily fully address the underlying problems). Indefinite bans that can later be lifted is a better since it lets users comeback if they are viewed as able to edit collaboratively in the topic area rather that picking an arbitrary period of time for the ban. This idea fits better with the preventative nature of the ban. FloNight ♥♥♥♥ 14:11, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

But such a system is extraordinarily unfair. In this case, we have identical remedies proposed for individuals whose behavior ranges from minor WP:BATTLE/WP:NPA violations to in-your-face WP:EW/WP:DISRUPT/WP:BATTLE/WP:NPA/WP:BAIT orgies. The guy who stole an apple from a market vendor is getting the same ~~punishment~~ remedy as the guy who stole millions in an armed bank robbery that left a trail of corpses. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:42, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It does seem unfair, but the more I think about it, the less I'm concerned about it. I doubt anybody is going to tell a topic-banned editor that he or she got the same treatment as some more egregious violator and therefore was just as egregious: If so many editors got the same remedy, it's hard to believe that. It's a blunt instrument on the P.D. page, but it will be much less blunt as editors apply to get back in -- then it will be tailored to fit the circumstances of each editor. The guy who stole the apple still gets a six-month ban (in some cases, I think that's still unfair) and should get back in pretty easily; while Caligula may have the seven labors of Hercules to complete before convincing ArbCom. For those who really like editing Wikipedia rather than just like promoting a POV, the time should pass pretty easily. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 19:15, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I enjoy editing Wikipedia productively and would do so exclusively, were it not for the activities of certain individuals who first game and then bait to remove a perceived opponent. This is the second time such underhanded stagecraft has been used to (seemingly successfully) attack me in an ArbCom case, but there will not be a third. -- Scjessey (talk) 21:13, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Also, the issues here go beyond a simple inability to work cooperatively with other editors. In several instances we've seen editors with a deep philosophical belief system that conflicts with Wikipedia standards on sourcing, and/or with a cockeyed view of Wikipedia standards. These editors can almost instantly demonstrate that they can work with others, if it's on articles on noncontroversial subjects, and then they can return to these articles and wreak havoc again. ScottyBerg (talk) 15:04, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

then they can return to these articles and wreak havoc again. That could be addressed by asking those editors to help bring an article that's controversial in some other field to FA status. A skeptic working on a BLP of an anti-Intelligent Design scientist or journalist or book and improving the article in NPOV ways (especially in giving fair treatment to views that are the opposite of your own) would make it pretty difficult for ArbCom to refuse entry back into CC articles in six months. Once an editor has done that once or twice it should become easier to get into the habit of doing it with CC articles. And once an editor has gotten into the habit of editing for the other side I think they'll find it a pretty satisfying thing to do and even take some pride in it. The six month waiting period also makes it easier to work with people you've had conflicts with in the past. Some of them, anyway. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 19:10, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with Flo and John. And -- this topic area has become overheated; a cool-down period to re-gain some perspective may be useful. The editors concerned may appreciate that themselves after a few weeks, once they are out of this toxic environment. --JN466 19:50, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

(OD) Thank you for all your inputs to my question I now understand. What will happen if these editors just leave the project all together? Another thought is, what if there is a boycott not to edit in this area by some? I can see both of these happening. I guess I worry about the stabiliy of the articles. I think this is something that needs to be thought about. Remember the goal here is to write the best articles possible to give our readers the best knowledge they can find. I worry that this is not going to happen and that the articles are going to suffer and if the articles suffer so do our readers. Just a thought I want to share. Thanks again for answering my question, --CrohnieGal^Talk 23:47, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

CrohnieGal, Arbcom does not get involved with content. The effect on the quality of the articles is a content issue and thus is not something that Arbcom can consider here. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 23:56, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If an editor is asked not to edit on a tiny fraction of the articles in WP, and decides to fully leave the project because of that rather minor restriction, it suggests that the editor may be an SPA. If that is the case, the project is better off without them. However, I think this is merely an intellectual exercise; I don't see a single name on that list who is likely to leave forever simply because they cannot edit a few articles for a few months.SPhilbrick T 13:47, 27 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

:::After looking at these again I have to say I don't see the need for them since most of the editors votings are becoming clear what the arbitrators feel should pass or fail. Why the need for these extras at the bottom when there is the above remedies being voted on? It seems almost redundant imho. --CrohnieGal^Talk 12:03, 28 September 2010 (UTC) I struck this, this has been explained to me off this page. Feel free to delete my comments. --CrohnieGal^Talk 13:19, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

@SPhilbrick and anyone else. I have no history of poor editing of CC articles. No edit warring. I have defended myself on the arbcom case talkpage and obviously taken the bait once or twice when offered. For this I am being accused of promoting a battleground and am in the list for a topic ban. I have not primarily been an editor of Climate Change articles and that is certainly not my reason for being on wikipedia. However, I would regard a topic ban as a very silly slap in the face from arbcom and should this pass I will retire from wikipedia with immediate effect. Polargeo (talk) 13:38, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Will the decision be structurally biased?

Collapsing for readibility. This one seems to have run its useful course. Roger Davies ^talk 01:54, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think that we need to step back and examine the overall impact of the decision as it is currently shaping up. Roughly equal numbers of penalties are being meted out to the science-knowledgeable editors and those that favor greater emphasis on skeptical and fringe subjects and points of view. My concern about this approach, which I understand is common in arbcom decisions, is that the effect would be inherently and structurally one-sided. There are a very limited number of technically competent people willing to edit Wikipedia, but a virtually unlimited number of technically incompetent, ideologically driven people more than happy to weigh in on these articles.

The intent is to achieve a perception of fairness, but the actual outcome is to remove the majority of climate science-knowledgeable editors. Because of the unending supply of nonexpert skeptically-oriented editors, some motivated by outside websites, that would inevitably mean that the CC articles will shift in the direction of pseudoscience. More articles will appear on minor blogs/books/documentaries pushing the "climate change ain't happening" minority/fringe viewpoint. There will be more POV pushing, civil and otherwise, with far fewer technically competent editors around to challenge them. There will be more eroding of sourcing standards. There is the potential for great harm to the encyclopedia.

What we're seeing here is a fundamental weakness of Wikipedia being exposed, which is its vulnerability to fringe POVs and its structural hostility to experts. No, experts are not, inherently, polite people. They are not prone to collaborate with nonexperts. That's a fact of life. We are seeing that played out in the CC articles.

While some may feel that it is OK to "level the playing field" so that editors with minority points of view get treated with greater respect and more politely, in the long run I feel that achieving that aim by excluding scientists from these articles will damage Wikipedia and add to its reputation for inaccuracy and unreliability.

I hope that the arbitrators take all of this into account, in their effort to make this case go away. ScottyBerg (talk) 17:00, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Based on my experience, ArbCom never deliberately adds proposals to cases in order to balance the results of case, or to give a level playing field. Rather, in order for a dispute to need the assistance of arbcom, two groups of editors are in a dispute with each other that can not be resolved because the Community is also divided on the best way to manage the situation. If this was a problem as simple as you describe it, then it would have been resolved already (or at least not need the attention of ArbCom). FloNight ♥♥♥♥ 17:21, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oh no, this is a very complex situation. I'm not trying to imply otherwise. I just looked at the decision and it occurred to me that if topic bans are imposed as proposed, it is going to have an unequal impact. ScottyBerg (talk) 17:26, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Until we know for sure that the proposed findings and remedies are complete, and even then only when we know which are likely to prevail, I don't think it's wise to characterize the proposal.

That said, it looks to me as if only the most troublesome editors have been targetted for exclusion. If I looked at those who are likely to be excluded, I think I'd probably find that a majority of them have shown little or no knowledge of the science. Expert editors, with the exception of Dr. Connolley and Polargeo, aren't really mentioned as yet. The most problematic behavior identified seems to be inadequate treatment of the biographies of living persons policy, incivility and personal attacks. It's become a bit of a battleground.

What may be less obvious is that quite a few expert editors have been working away quietly on some of the climate change articles without attracting adverse attention, and we can only hope that in due course such experts will feel encouraged to bring their expertise to bear on the formerly controversial articles. --TS 17:30, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

While we might of course hope that, the example of a prominent expert being pestered by adverse attention will no doubt be public knowledge in the scientific community concerned, and the outcome of this case will be likely to influence the feelings of such experts about what could happen to them if they edit articles. I don't condone BLP violations from any editor, and value civility in discussion. I also value article content in this area where mainstream views are commonly misrepresented or attacked, and am sure that the arbiters will think of the implications of their decision for article quality. . . dave souza, talk 18:38, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Why does this all seem like interlectual blackmail to me?Slatersteven (talk) 18:50, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

As I understand the skeptical position, it isn't so much that scientists need to study global warming in more detail. It's that there is a broad academic consensus for behaving like many editors we've seen here on Wikipedia, and therefore we need Diogenes more than we need more PhDs. Art LaPella (talk) 18:52, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Whatever the excuse, it's never permissible to drive knowledgeable editors from Wikipedia, and I hope such practises will continue to be stamped on very hard. --TS 18:54, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Its not permisable to drive any editors from Wikipedia, and I can't recall seeing a rule thats says that holdinig a Phd makes your edits more valuable then someone who does not. Or that this allows your more leeway to behave like a tit on holiday. We ban users becasue of howe they act, not becasue they do not have a Phd. If we start to do that may as well stop calling it a wiki, its not its just another enclyopeida edited by the same kind of people.Slatersteven (talk) 18:58, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't mentioned or discussed PhDs, I'm referring to experts (and that usually means more than a doctor's degree in some vaguely scientific discipline). The context of my comment comes from Art LaPella's attempt to summarise what he perceives to be "the skeptical position". Obviously there's no question that we'd hope for all of our articles to be edited by the most knowledgeable editors in their relevant fields. Attracting editors of that caliber in many scientific fields has been quite easy, and I'm sure it will be easy in this topic once the nonsense has been dealt with. --TS 19:06, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

OK then I shall rephrase it to avoid confusion. Its not permisable to drive any editors from Wikipedia, and I can't recall seeing a rule that says that being an 'expert' makes your edits more valuable then someone who is n ot an 'expert' or saying they do not have to obey the same rules as lesser intelects (by the way would we extend this rule to areas they are not 'expert' in or treat them by the same rules as lesser intelects there?).Slatersteven (talk) 19:13, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Which is why we should be careful about going along with external campaigns to drive editors from Wikipedia. As a complete non-expert, I've worked with a few expert editors and value the work that they can bring to improving articles. Some things require expertise, and equal-opportunities misinformation doesn't improve articles. As editors we require everyone to comply with rules and practices developed to facilitate improving articles, which remains the primary aim. . . dave souza, talk 19:46, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think we're arguing to cross purposes. My hope is that experts, who are also able to edit harmoniously, will always be welcome to contribute to any article on science. That has not been the case on some articles within this topic for quite some time now. And yes, being an expert does make a considerable difference to the quality of one's edits; this is or should be an uncontroversial fact. An expert writing about a subject in general produces a more accurate and more complete article, although it may need some polishing. TS --20:14, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

@TS: Think we're on the same page here. Mainstream expertise is made unwelcome in this topic area as a matter of political expediency, reflected in the mass media. The "poisonous atmosphere" in editing reflects those politics, and discourages expert editing. . . . dave souza, talk 21:04, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I strongly suspect that few experts will accept being told that they misrepresent their own work, or that sword-wielding skeletons were involved, especially not over and over and over again over years. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:11, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have no sympathy for editors with "mainstream expertise" who behave like school boys drawing false moustaches and horn-rimmed glasses on someone's portrait when they edit skeptics' BLPs, then go on and bully neutral editors like SlimVirgin who are trying to rescue a biography from the unpalatable mess they have reduced it to, and finally end up huffily claiming the moral high ground. Let's just acknowledge there were failings on both sides here. --JN466 21:17, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think you'll find anyone who thinks that it's okay to mess up a biographical article. Your precise characterization, however, is inflammatory. And of course it has absolutely nothing to do with expertise. Has evidence been presented in this case to the effect that SlimVirgin has been "bullied"?

And finally I'm sick and tired of being told that there are "sides" here. --TS 21:21, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'll readily agree that many editors have behaved imperfectly, including SlimVirgin. The "skeptics'" BLPs present a particular difficulty in that they commonly have little or no standing in the field, but have their credentials inflated to give more weight to fringe views. Getting the balance right isn't easy, as is also the case in BLPs of mainstream scientists subjected to vilification in parts of the mass media. Better behaviour needed all round. . dave souza, talk 21:35, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Struck. Perhaps we can agree then that there were failings all round here, and that no one who is the subject of a finding of fact and/or a proposed remedy should think that they were merely a victim of outside circumstances. It does not seem a very constructive way of going forward. --JN466 21:46, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. This section is about structural bias, and I'd hope we'd discuss that issue. I've expressed a hope that experts will be able to edit the articles more freely than before once the battleground issues have been cleared up. Obviously I don't want to see unbalanced BLPs. --TS 21:51, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'd hope that we can agree that various editors had various failings in differing degrees, and that any such failings should not obscure the significance of outside circumstances affecting editing of articles in this topic area. . . dave souza, talk 21:54, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have to say I agree with what Scotty, Tony and Dave are saying. If the scientist who have FoF's against them and they pass, I guess we'll see what happens to the articles. I hope my bad feelings about how they are going to look is wrong but I have to admit I have a bad feeling about all of this. Above I gave two difs about outside influences and a third one that I am told also has conversations going on about this case. I think that it's a mistake to treat all the FoF's the same esp. since some of them are about misrepresenting sources or copyright problems which to me is far more worse than being uncivil or edit warring. As for others coming in to these articles, I know I would be hesitant to edit these articles. I guess we should see what the arbitrators decide on and then it's a wait and see for the rest. The readers are the most important in all of this so please keep this in mind. Thanks for listening, I'm tired, so good night everyone, --CrohnieGal^Talk 00:12, 27 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Discretionary sanctions will be in place, and have worked in similarly contested topic areas (they should be advertised on every talk page). I am confident that anyone coming from one of these outside places to edit with an agenda will have a very short Wikipedia career. Also bear in mind that the atmosphere that developed over the past months and years will actually have kept away editors who might otherwise have joined the effort. The last thing Wikipedia needs is for the same strife to continue, with the same editors continuing to go hammer and tongs at each other. --JN466 01:51, 27 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A couple of comments, the first directed to Tony Sidaway, but not to him exclusively. There are quite clearly at least two sides to this dispute. Whether you choose to characterize them as "pro-science vs. anti-science", or "skeptic vs. anti-skeptic", or whatever, it is clear that the regular editors of the climate change articles are factionalized, and protestations to the contrary are pointless.

The second is directed more towards Guettarda and dave souza. Guettarda dismisses Linus Pauling's views towards Vitamin C megadoses as a fringe position. Perhaps that is so, but there is a section in the Vitamin C article, (Vitamin C#Vitamin C megadosage) which not only discusses Pauling's views, but also has a link to another page (Vitamin C megadosage), which details Pauling's views at some length. Yet when it comes to skeptical positions of climate change, there has been a concerted effort to eliminate any discussion of non-mainstream views in the main articles, under the justification that they are "fringe views" which don't merit any mention at all. However, when I proposed that some of the BLPs of skeptics were deletion candidates, WMC came to their defense, with the argument "you are arguing that John Christie and Roy Spencer are NN? That is ridiculous." ([39]) If they are notable enough to merit articles on Wikipedia, then they should be notable enough to merit at least a mention in articles which relate to their field of expertise, yet the adherents to the "scientific view" argue that they should be excluded because their views are not mainstream. Dave souza argues that in this diff ([40]), so we have a dilemma; do we agree with WMC or with dave souza, who argue the mutually exclusive views that skeptics are either too notable to delete, or not notable enough to acknowledge? We can't have it both ways; either they are ultimately non-notable, in which case their articles should be deleted from Wikipedia entirely, or they are notable, in which case their views should be noted in the articles to which their views are relevant. I'd request a clarification on which course we should pursue before I either nominate the articles for deletion or push to include their views in relevant articles, noting that their views are minority views, but not excluding them entirely, as some here have advocated. Horologium (talk) 02:22, 27 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Clarification or correction – my position is that notable "skeptical" or contrarian people/arguments/publications should be shown in accordance with WP:WEIGHT, and with WP:FRINGE where appropriate, and non-notable articles or non-significant parts of articles shouldn't exist. It can be argued that articles about purely scientific subjects shouldn't show fringe views, due weight only requires coverage of views significant to the subject, with detailed minority views going in sub-articles. . . dave souza, talk 05:48, 27 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That is essentially restating what I said; you want to characterize the views of any and all skeptics as "fringe", in order to exclude their views from articles entirely. If someone is notable solely based on their work in the field of climate research (such as Christy and Spencer, or Soon and Baliunas), then they are notable enough to merit at least a brief mention in an article. There are other skeptics whose notability derives from other fields whose views could be excluded, but you can't simultaneously insist someone is both notable enough to have an article and not notable enough to be discussed in articles relating to their primary field of research. Further, if their work in the field of climatology is notable enough to be discussed in a critical fashion in their BLP, then it is probably notable enough to be discussed elsewhere. If it's not, then it is a coatrack, and should be excised. Horologium (talk) 12:18, 27 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Your mind-reading leads you to a misrepresentation of my views – as a climate change sceptic myself, I want sceptical views to be presented accurately and proportionately, in the context of mainstream views of minority views. As required by weight policies. For example, I added discussion of Soon and Baliunas to a relevant article, and their contribution is something I'd like to see examined in more detail. By the way, their notability in this topic area rests on a review article rather than on research. Your further point is interesting, and possibly one I could support if applied to all BLPs in the topic area. Criticism of the work of mainstream scientists could well be better covered in other articles than their biography, or removed if it's not sufficiently notable. I'll think that over. . . dave souza, talk 15:11, 27 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I very much favor the deletion of BLPs of skeptics (or non-skeptics) who have little or no notability aside from their commentary on the global warming dispute. As a test case I propose that the article on Tim Ball be deleted. His lack of general notability is reflected in his lifetime h-index of 3, which is not especially high for a (former) full professor in the sciences at a major university. If we can't agree on this one we can't agree on any of them. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 02:41, 27 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Weird... my h-index is higher than that. (Although I think the metric is biased in favor of the biological sciences). And I'm not exactly notable. The problem, of course, is WP:PROF, which explicitly states that anyone achieving the rank of full professor is notable on that basis alone. Which is silly - I know a lot of full professors, and some are unquestionably "notable" while others are sort of journeymen about whom it would be impossible to write a Wikipedia-policy-compliant biography. But with WP:PROF in its current state, I don't see how any of these biographies can be deleted. MastCell ^Talk 03:58, 27 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've called Boris's (and H's) bluff: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Timothy Ball William M. Connolley (talk) 14:29, 27 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Horologium writes: Guettarda dismisses Linus Pauling's views towards Vitamin C megadoses as a fringe position. Perhaps that is so, but there is a section in the Vitamin C article, (Vitamin C#Vitamin C megadosage) which not only discusses Pauling's views, but also has a link to another page (Vitamin C megadosage), which details Pauling's views at some length - I'm really not sure what point you're trying to make here. I was responding to a claim that Lindzen's position could not be fringe because of who he was. I merely used Pauling as an example to show the fallacy of that argument from authority. As for coverage in the Vitamin C article - you're talking about 186 words out in an article that's almost 7000 words long. Fringe positions are given far more space (proportionally) in the global warming article (155-522 words, depending on how you look at it, in an article that's a little over 4200 words long). So I really don't get your point. Guettarda (talk) 12:37, 27 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

More broadly this is an example of WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS, which is not the greatest basis upon which to build one's argument. Better to consider each case on its own merits. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 12:40, 27 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I too am baffled by H, who writes when I proposed that some of the BLPs of skeptics were deletion candidates, WMC came to their defense, with the argument "you are arguing that John Christie and Roy Spencer are NN? That is ridiculous." Yes, it was and is ridiculous. If you know nothing at all about them, then obviously you can believe they are NN. If you know anything at all about the satellite temperature record, you can't. I know this arbcomm case is trying to pretend that expertise is dispensable, but H is doing his best to prove by misexample the reverse. If you don't believe me, put them up for AFD. However, be aware that such debates tend to polarise - even very weak candidates like Joanne Nova get voted as "keep" by their partisans, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Joanne Nova William M. Connolley (talk) 14:23, 27 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, it was SBHB who suggested that they were of marginal notability ([41]). I have neither the knowledge nor the interest to delve into the scientific articles, but I do have a concern about the abuse of BLPs on this topic. SBHB is possibly the only editor on this topic who has both a PhD in the relevant field and a bunch of peer-reviewed papers directly relating to the topic, so if he says that they are not notable, I am inclined to believe him. The fact that he is one of the very few regular editors of this topic who has zero findings of fact about him makes his view even more sustainable, because he's not an edit warrior, a POV pusher, or a chronic civility sink. I will expand upon this when I return home later this evening. Horologium (talk) 15:45, 27 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Boris mentioned Christy, which I find very odd. Boris? You're really arguing that he is NN? I think H has misunderstood you. But H, you cannot evade responsibility for what you said, which is 'What is interesting is that three of the four bios cited by FloNight were created by WMC; the only one that he didn't create is the one which is unquestionably notable (Seitz)'. This goes together with snark from you elsewhere. And you're wrong re doctorates: I too have one, and a number of publications - or are you forgetting that "Inconvenient" fact? William M. Connolley (talk) 16:25, 27 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'll begin by stating that the absurd WP:PROF plays no part in my evaluation. Regarding the specific example of Christy, I consider him borderline. He has done some good scientific work but do we need to write a biography on him? Or 3/4 of the people listed here? Few of them have enough well-sourced secondary coverage to justify a decent biography. That's not to denigrate e.g., Mark Cane's work on ENSO or Tom Karl's stewardship of data. There are atmo/climate types who make great biographical subjects -- Joanne Simpson's scientific accomplishments and life story, for example, are compelling and well-sourced, and certainly we should have an article on Ed Lorenz among others.

All this is just a small corner of Wikipedia's loose standards on BLPs. Notability criteria are gradually weakening, which is the opposite of the direction that both encyclopedic standards and plain human decency should be moving us. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 00:31, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Kamikaze editing

Collapsing. Noted: this one seems to have run its useful course. Roger Davies ^talk 01:52, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

CrohnieGal (and peripherally, Jayen466) have brought up an issue that needs more attention, specifically what might be called "kamikaze editing." These are editors who don't much care if they are blocked as long as they can score against an opponent. Some of the blogosphere chatter has been along these lines, and I recall a few editors saying on-site that they didn't care whether they were blocked as long as editor X got blocked too (mild on-site example,[42]). For this reason I'm not as sanguine as Jayen466 that the discretionary sanctions will achieve the desired result: even if we let such individuals know they will end up with "a very short Wikipedia career," it won't be a deterrent and there are more waiting to take their place. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 02:09, 27 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It will go away. This ill-tempered dispute here in the project is what has heated up the blogosphere, keeping the fires there going. --JN466 02:19, 27 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No, that's an in-bubble viewpoint. Because of Wikipedia's prominence, it's stop #1 for anyone who wants to raise the visibility of their pet minoritarian belief. It doesn't matter if the topic area is prone to "ill-tempered disputes" or not, and it's not going to change no matter what the outcome of this case is. It doesn't take an internal Wikipedia projectspace dispute to keep people fired up about climate change. MastCell ^Talk 03:49, 27 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sure. But then you will be getting the bog-standard POV pushers, rather than people outraged by witnessing daily the shenanigans documented in the Findings of Fact. --JN466 04:35, 27 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

We cannot know whether the commenters on external sites are just blow hards or are going to be a serious problem. We'll know it's the latter if the ecology of the topic settles down to a steady drip of scientifically illiterate nonsense of the kind seen often on one of the blogs cited by CrohnieGal. We've had that on the evolution articles and the various conspiracy articles for a very long time so we know how to deal with it.

The underlying problem in such cases is the strategy of "teaching the controversy", magnifying fringe views and trying to shoe-horn them into a position of greater prominence in articles on the mainstream science. Here recent work published in PNAS will prove useful. It was found that the mind-share of the essential mainstream views in domain experts in this field is over 97%. While some significant minority views still exist, we can state confidently that our key articles within the topic area overstate the significance of minority views in comparison to the mainstream. Tasty monster (=TS ) 05:57, 27 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't agree at all with JN's notion that Wikipedia has fueled the wider dispute. The CRU hacking and its associated media frenzy showed everybody the extent to which the facts are bent in an attempt to discredit the science, and we've even seen one or two editors try those same tricks on this very page, selectively quoting stolen emails in order to blacken the reputations of scientists.

This encyclopedia and its little disputes played no part in that, and fortunately proved strong enough to narrowly resist attempts to use it to spread malicious falsehoods about the climate scientists in the wake of the hacking.

With a good discretionary sanctions regime in place, such attempts should become even more futile. Those who come here with the intention of harming Wikipedia at all costs will be easier to identify, and they will no longer be able to hide behind misrepresentations of the way in which Wikipedia is edited. Tasty monster (=TS ) 06:17, 27 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not so convinced. Look at recent incarnations of SciBaby. Their subtle vandalism is not easy to spot if you are not already familiar with them. They can certainly plead good faith and bitterly complain about WP:BITE and waste a few weeks and possibly the patience of one or several constructive editors. This is exacerbated if we define admin involvement only via content contributions and with a very broad brush ("all climate change" or even "all climate science"), as that basically guarantees that most eligible admins will not be familiar with or particularly knowledgable about the domain. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 08:42, 27 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Scibaby? Seriously, has any of his sabotage ever remained in an article for more than a few hours? Meanwhile the checkuser system insulates ordinary editors and admins from worries about mistaken identification. While I tend to agree with those who say that the proposed Scibaby finding in this case wildly exaggerates the risk of genuine editors being misidentified, the practical effects of this arbitration are likely to make a much less friendly environment for such trolls. Tasty monster (=TS ) 08:57, 27 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There are certainly several editors here who have reinstated SciBaby edits - per WP:AGF, because they did not recognize their POV-pushing. But I'm not concerned with SciBaby per se (although they are a permanent nuisance, and it's not helped if people support them out of factionalism), but rather use them as an example of the type of edits we need to be prepared to deal with. Assume e.g. someone pushes the old Spencer and Christy UAH temperature reconstruction, all with excellent sources. Or consider someone who pushes the NIPCC report as a reliable source. An admin who does not know the domain cannot be expected to recognize this as vandalism. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:06, 27 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't call either of those examples vandalism, but they would be clearly tendentious editing if persistently pushed in the face of better sources, just as somebody using outdated or marginal sources anywhere else. We're pretty lucky in the climate change topic area that there is at least one regular review of all the relevant literature, conducted by prominent specialists across the entire field. The result is extraordinary depth of coverage, so it's pretty difficult to slip in a ringer, a paper that purports to represent the field but doesn't fit with the rest and hasn't been able to overturn them. This is the same bar of soap all the contrarians who come to Wikipedia slip on, but in climate change it's an especially big and slippery bar. Tasty monster (=TS ) 09:26, 27 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This ill-tempered dispute here in the project is what has heated up the blogosphere - wrong, and fortunately even arbcomm has recognised that: FoF 1.1 is preferred over FoF 1 William M. Connolley (talk) 14:10, 27 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Back to what Boris says about editors willing to be blocked as long as they score points against their oppponents. I believe you can find more of this at the sanction board and possibly at Lar's talk page (probably archived by now) or possibly on this very talk page. I think that's where I've seen this. The point is this can't be allowed because as has been said above, if you read the links I provided, with Noren's help, it shows that they are now celebrating some of the PD to ban editors. I believe in being fair and I don't think it's fair to sanction editors who are under attack off site that has been shown that it's been brought on the project. I think this really needs more discussion and preferably with an arbitrator or two involved in the discussions here. For the record, there is at least two outside blogs involved in this and one other, which I am having troubles finding the discussion brought to my attention though I have asked for the link and I am waiting for a response. If anyone here is a member of WP Review would look for the discussion and post the link I would appreciate it. I really would rather not sign up for this site if possible. Lar, Cla68 I know that both of you are members there, would you mind looking for the thread and posting the link here so that other can see? Thanks in advance, --CrohnieGal^Talk 15:46, 27 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I also think this is important, and that there is a danger of this case leading to some medium-term degradation of the articles due to what may be an attempt to appear to be 'even handed' by giving equal sanctions (even for unequal levels of disruption) to 'a few from each side'. There are many more politically rile-able blog-readers out there than there are serious experts in the field. In the very long term, of course more experts will eventually drift along to replace those lost now. I too would appreciate those who know where to look coming up with relevant links and diffs. --Nigelj (talk) 16:09, 27 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I gather from the above comments that editors want ArbCom to tilt the playing field in favor of "experts" -- who it just so happens have a particular point of view not based on their expertise (this POV doesn't, of course, just get expressed in terms of how to present science but in how to present information on controversies, people, books, etc. that are related to or part of the CC debate but are not, at base, scientific questions -- what information from a blog we can put in the Fred Singer BLP, what information should go out or in "The Gore Effect", how to present the "CRU emails controversy" or whatever we're calling that article). Dressing this up as protecting Wikipedia's "quality" isn't an argument that ArbCom members should buy. Concerns about "kamikaze editors" are not substantial enough to give a break to editors who have behaved badly, most of whom haven't indicated that their attitudes have changed. The vacation is needed; tempers need to cool; editors need to be introspective; the habit of writing for the other side and focusing on quality (at FA or GA or however an editor will do it) needs time to gestate. ArbCom members have proposed that future bad behavior, including from future editors, be dealt with by encouraging admins to make independent decisions which can then be reviewed at A/E or elsewhere. It's a better plan than the creation of some kind of "balance of bad behavior", which is what coddling editors would lead to. Part of the problem with most of the badly behaving editors has been editing that degraded article quality. POV disputes do that. I'm worried about some aspects of what the ArbCom case looks like it will be, but it's better than if science-literate editors are coddled. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 17:09, 27 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That's not what is being said. What is being said is 1) that editors who violate civility and 3r should not be treated the same as editors who misuse sources and have copyright issues and/or plagierism problems. and 2) If you looked at the links to the blogs and saw how some editors have said they are willing to be blocked or banned as long as so and so is too. This is what is being said, at least by me. I am having to leave computer but I will try later or tomorrow to supply some more difs if no one else has. --CrohnieGal^Talk 17:31, 27 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It is what is being said. By you: I don't think it's fair to sanction editors who are under attack off site. I disagree with you: I think editors who degrade the atmosphere promote an environment where it's harder to create good articles need to be sanctioned whether or not they're under attack off-site. And your focus on only certain ways that articles are poorly edited is not justified. Editors who are riled up by the other side make poorer editorial decisions across the board, to one extent or another, all of which we want to avoid. Also, I think it's an intra-Wiki dynamic, essentially, and it involves irritation at personalities probably even more than irritation with POV, but I'm guessing. I don't think anyone with a bad attitude about promoting their POV begins their Wikipedia career looking to get other editors blocked. That happens after they get treated badly by other editors and then find they themselves get sanctioned when they fight back in improper ways. Wanting others to get sanctioned is what seasoned, battle-scarred editors do. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 17:48, 27 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I basically agree that we shouldn't give editors a free ticket if they're under attack by external agitators. From long experience of various arbitration committees over the past six years I think that's also been the overwhelming view at arbitration. On the other hand I think external agitation can give us a false view of the problem, especially if we don't take it into account going forward. We'd be fools, for instance, not to expect new editors to appear who have very odd ideas about climate science (there was a good example on talk:climate change today) and some of those newcomers may be drawn here by what they read on external websites that give a very eccentric and sometimes downright inaccurate account of what's going on. It's something we have to keep in mind as we go forward, and make sure that our precious supply of experts who can write the best material don't get left to deal on their own with these misguided ignoramuses. Because that can be very demotivating.

On disruptive, nuisance editors who engage in warfare because they get sanctioned, well that's what happens and will always happen because that is who they are. The discretionary sanctions should be able to take care of such problems, much as the probation did when it worked well. --TS 18:59, 27 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Being "misguided ignoramuses" isn't the problem, bad behavior is, sometimes. The better term is "newbie" and if they're treated with respect, no matter what their level of knowledge, some will be very valuable -- so dealing with newbies is one of the best problems Wikipedia can have. Our precious supply of experts will always have to deal with newbies and people with less knowledge and even difficult people because that's always been part of the nature of Wikipedia and it looks like it always will be. Level-headed admins (a really precious supply) would help, but it'll always be excruciatingly difficult to reach consensus on controversial articles. I'm sure it's good to know if there's some off-Wiki website creating trouble here, if it creates trouble. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 21:39, 27 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm reluctantly with you on the treatment of "misguided ignoramuses". With most of them, it's enough to gently disabuse them of the notion that they know something about the topic. Then they quite often go on to contribute much great material on topics they do know something about, or at least are capable of studying.

While it's true that it will always be difficult "to reach consensus on controversial articles", most of the articles in the topic area are not controversial. The ongoing problem really is the steady dribble of people who have been told that these are controversial subjects. That's why I've compared the topic to evolution. It should be possible to ramp down the drama to the point that there isn't a constant raging din of people trying to insert the latest blog-sourced conspiracy theory into Wikipedia's articles on climate change. Then we can continue to maintain and improve our already well received coverage of the topic. --TS 00:51, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, I worded that poorly John Barber. I also don't think anyone should be given a free pass. That being said, with the seriousness of this case we can't ignore the outside influences which the arbitrators apparently agree because that part is passing the last time I looked. What you didn't respond to was my comment right above yours about why it's not right in my humble opinion to sanction everyone the same. I didn't state that sentence clearly that you mention and for that I apologize to everyone. --CrohnieGal^Talk 19:18, 27 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I partly agree and discussed that a bit further up on the page. If ArbCom actually implements the topic bans, overall it will be an improvement, I think. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 21:39, 27 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Question of my own....

Why not place all the embattled articles under Full Protection?--*Kat* (talk) 17:17, 27 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Because not all editors are the problem, and just about everybody wants to fix the broken bone rather than saw off the limb and stick it in formaldehyde. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 17:52, 27 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Because it's a wiki. --TS 18:53, 27 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

too many of the articles already have some kind of protection. --Rocksanddirt (talk) 20:30, 27 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Who decides which of the wrong versions gets full protection, who decides when it gets changed and who decides when protection is no longer needed? 198.161.174.222 (talk) 21:50, 27 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That is the question, isn't it? My idea is that all the embattled articles be given full protection. Then, y'all would have to hash it out on the talk page and come to an honest to God consensus before having any revisions inserted. This would require you to make compromises about what goes in and what stays out. The end result, I think, would be an article that really is neutral. One where minority views are neither suppressed or given undue weight.--*Kat* (talk) 01:49, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That is very good reasoning. I would support this idea.Slatersteven (talk) 14:52, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent reasoning, I think you've cracked the whole problem of how to enforce the neutral point of view on Wikipedia. Let's fully protect evolution and not allow any edits unless "due weight" is given to creationism. What can possibly go wrong? --TS 14:58, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Nice display of sarcasm, Thanks for making it clear that the problom is ot a one sided attitude or some evil, off wiki conspriacy but is in an attmpet by both sides to ensure that only their version of the truth is the on ewe allow.Slatersteven (talk) 15:23, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

As a non-sarcasm response, the concern is that the version would be 'locked' in an unacceptably wrong version which could be filibustered to maintain, regardless of its merits. As long as the current versions supporters maintain an appearance of no consensus to change then the ones who want to change it are rendered powerless. The argument then would shift to bickering over wether the admin who invoked consensus and made the change was actually acting neutrally or partisanly leading to the same arguments that we have already concerning admins 'involvedness'. Essentially the argument would adapt to the new editing enviroment without being solved. 198.161.174.222 (talk) 17:22, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Surely there are some dedicated admins who don't give a darn about climate change [who could moderate the discussion] out there. What about TWOFR?. Furthermore the revisions don't have to take place on the day concenses is achieved. It could work on a schedule. Once a week or once every other day if the article is hot and there is new stuff coming on regularly. As to your first point: If a truly non-biased editor agrees that an article unacceptably POV, then the admin in charge could revert it back to a more acceptable version before putting the full protection on.--*Kat* (talk) 19:28, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Kat, that's an interesting idea. It would be gamed by having minorities of editors dig in their heels to prevent consensus, but that can happen now. It would stop the edit warring, but also make it much more difficult to make uncontroversial changes that would benefit the articles (they're not always well-written and uncontroversial changes are almost always most of the edits in article space, I think). I don't think there are enough uninvolved admins with enough interest and time to do the editing once consensus is achieved on the page. In the grand scheme of things, in terms of workload, it's easier to sanction some editors and encourage future sanctions for future violations. I think I was too dismissive of your original post on this -- sorry about that. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 18:49, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Apology accepted. However, I respectfully disagree. What happened to AGF? Furthermore just like one person can't make a concensus, so too can one person not block concensus. If you are simply unable to achieve concensus over a non-controversial edit, the question should be, "Is this really important enough to go into an encyclopedia article." As to your final point, that's a lazy excuse. It may be easier but that doesn't make it better. Besides, just because you don't have the time doesn't mean others don't.--*Kat* (talk) 19:16, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keeping in mind that full protection with changes only added after an admin agrees on consensus is actually the opposite of AGF. It also flies in the face of WP:OWN since you would be essentially setting in stone that specific admins OWN specific articles and no one can change it without their say-so. We'd also have to change the tagline for wikipedia to 'The encyclopedia anyone can edit after an admin says its ok', Though WP is already headed in that direction anyway with BLP's and flagged revisions. I'm also interested in your statement above of 'truly non-biased editor'. Did you have specific criteria for 'truly non-biased' that people will agree on? Will the admins that have the right to edit through protection be vetted for impartiality before or after they make their changes? And who will be doing that vetting? What if a bunch of people think an admin, like oh say, Lar is involved and a bunch of others think he isn't? Who decides then? How many edits through protection can an admin make to an article before he is concidered involved? Seeings as he's editing the article and all. 198.161.174.222 (talk) 21:52, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Re: "truly non-biased editor': I'm thinking maybe select someone at random from those editors who are 1) currently active, 2) have more than 1500 non-minor edits 3) in good standing (no blocks) and 4) have never even touched a climate change article. A database query could give you a list. You can select four or five or more and ask them what they think. Yes, I can think of all sorts of "but what if" problems with this, but chances are they won't happen. Tell someone that you will trust them and they will--more often than not--live up to that trust.--*Kat* (talk) 22:08, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Why don't we use the same algorithm for "truly non-biased editor" to decide on important issues in the editing of, say, hippocampus? A specialist spends part of his weekend typing up a sourced addendum to the section on schizophrenia, Randy in Boise thinks it conflicts with his beliefs and reverts saying the specialist is a plant from AMA. Captain Spaulding, your chosen non-biased editor, pops in and says "sure, looks like a conflict." So the article is fully protected for weeks because some random guy disagreed with a neurologist and a bloke who had no connection with the subject said there was obviously a disagreement. My point, in case you don't get it this time, is that there's absolutely no reason to stop editing an article just because some person disagrees with some other person about an issue. Most of the time the objection by Randy is brushed aside because it has no credibility. And that is a good thing. --TS 00:46, 29 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
TS, quit repeating things that clearly aren't true. It is inflammatory (to me anyway) to characterize someone as something they are not and misleading to everyone else. If this was really the case then you guys would've presented evidence of it. That has not been the case. The best thing you guys can say is that WMC said the paper he co-authored shouldn't have been used as a source to demonstrate global cooling alarmism - in other words, hot sauce added to weak tea to disguise the argument's lack of substance. To your general argument, "specialists" or "experts" can be activists just as easily as anyone else (more so in my opinion). A case in point, the guy in charge of the NASA surface temperature record (which shows higher temperatures than the satellite record) has just been arrested for a second time due to his environmental protesting activities. TheGoodLocust (talk) 01:03, 29 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think you understand what I'm doing. There are no real people in the Captain Spaulding scenario, only the algorithm proposed above is real. The stuff about WMC (Dr. Connolley?) is not germane to the subject as far as I can tell. I agree that specialists are activists within their field. What of it? --TS 01:09, 29 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
~~The grisly facts and a prediction~~

Nothing to see here. Lets stop slinging blame and concentrate on bringing this case to a close, shall we? Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 08:17, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have just finished yet more archiving. This page, in the last two months, has generated a staggering 350,000 words and counting. This volume wouldn't be so bad if it the effort had gone into four new novels or nearly seven hundred new DYKs, but much of it has been partisan, ill-tempered, and of dubious relevance. And that's without mentioning the systemic wiki-lawyering ...
The time has come to wind down the interminable discussions, with genuine effort now going into pertinance, brevity and collegiality. If not, it is probable that the clerks will be obliged to start intervening. Roger Davies ^talk 02:13, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The clerks intervening would not be a bad thing at all; in fact it would have been helpful had they had done so much earlier. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 02:41, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think I'm the first person to say this, but if the arbitrators themselves had posted a bit more (especially early in the case) about the kinds of evidence that would be convincing or unconvincing, or simply told editors, "No, that argument/evidence/reading of policy doesn't hold water with me because ...", this page would be a tenth of the size it is. (Some of this has happened, but rarely.) And of course this page seems to be used now as a Workshop and evidence page. And, of course, this whole case has taken -- how many months now? I appreciate the work you and some other arbitrators have obviously put into this, and you, Roger, and Rlevse, have done more communicating to the rest of us than anyone on Arbcom, but ArbCom has put people through a lot more discomfort and bother than was necessary. And as we who are on this Website to write get edgier during the interminable wait for a decision made almost entirely behind closed doors, we chat a bit. So save the sarcasm. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 03:06, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
What sarcasm? Roger Davies ^talk 03:10, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This volume wouldn't be so bad if it the effort had gone into four new novels or nearly seven hundred new DYKs -- JohnWBarber (talk) 03:14, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That's the equivalent word length of 350,000 words. Roger Davies ^talk 03:17, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Not my point. [43] -- JohnWBarber (talk) 03:26, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the link. Perhaps not the clearest example of sarcasm I've ever seen, but I apologise if my remark offended you. Roger Davies ^talk 04:06, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Its a bit late for you to start comlaining about this. Right at the start I noted that some evidence - I think it was from JWB - was clearly partisan and not at all neutral. the arbs reaction was we-don't-care. If you've finally realised that is bad, then hurrah, but you should not be trying to cast blame on the case participants for errors that you have substantially contributed to. Ditto on talk length: the arbs habit of gnomic silence is largely responsible for this. And *yes*, the talk pages should indeed be more strongly clerked. Oh, and having a rubbish PD scrawled on a fag-packet by Rlevse didn't exactly help, either William M. Connolley (talk) 07:46, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know why this was hatted so quickly since it was a thread started by an arbitrator. Shouldn't we see what Roger has to say out in the open and not under a hat like it's not important? --CrohnieGal^Talk 12:09, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The original post was only partially on-topic and the thread swiftly veered right off-topic. The important thing is that people keep post volume and post length to a minimum. Roger Davies ^talk 12:18, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, thanks, --CrohnieGal^Talk 13:16, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The important thing, Roger Davies, is that the Arbitrators have collectively failed to manage the Arbitration process. For months they have failed to participate meaningfully in the process, and they have failed to give effective guidance to their clerks. They have failed to inform parties of the scope of the case. They have failed to discuss their interpretation or evaluation of evidence. They have failed to provide feedback at nearly every stage of the process. If it's taken two months for an Arbitrator to notice that this page has a tremendous amount of irrelevant bickering, off-topic discussion, and interminable wikilawyering, then something is seriously broken. Perhaps your request would be met more warmly if it were accompanied by an acknowledgement of the errors the Committee has made so far, and an honest and open discussion of how they intend to remedy the mess that they have helped to construct.

The Arbitration Committee failed in a very similar way last year around this time when they ignored the WMC-Abd case for extended periods; made no effort to curtail excessive, repetitive, unconstructive comment by some of the parties; and presented an appallingly unbalanced and ill-thought-out initial proposed decision. It is disappointing to see how little has been learned and how little has changed. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:00, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think I've ever suggested that this case has been ArbCom's finest hour and I do agree with some of the points you make. However, in ArbCom's defence, mega-cases like this are exceedingly difficult to manage and they don't crop up often enough for us to get really good at them. The main problem is that they're basically a string of mini-cases with lots of over-lap. It is almost impossible to define a detailed scope in advance because you don't know how it will unfold. What is said in the statements rarely closely matches the final case.

We have already said that we'd hold a workshop/post-mortem after the case closes to see what can be learned from it and that remains an excellent idea.

Evidence is a systemic problem and not just in this case. In reality, we are reluctant to curtail evidence because this seriously disadvantages the inexperienced and/or the inarticulate. We cannot weigh evidence on its own; and have to wait to see what comes in by way of rebuttal and supplementary material before making anything approaching a determination.

That said, this case is exceptional for its verbosity (the whole thing is about half a million words incidentally, the vast bulk of which was contributed by fewer than twenty editors). Roger Davies ^talk 18:35, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

PS: I don't follow your comparison with the Abd-WMC case: that was over in two months, start to finish.
Most parents and teachers learn pretty quickly that it's a bad idea to make rules that you don't intend to enforce. Doing so only undermines your credibility and leads to your charges misbehaving even worse. Leaders of effective organizations learn similar lessons. Unfortunately the arbitrators do not seem to have taken this principle on board. The case had word limits that went unenforced even when brought to the attention of the committee; there were deadlines that slipped by weeks; and on and on. That's not to excuse the misbehavior of editors, but the committee itself has a considerable share of the responsibility for what this case has turned into. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 16:26, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I disgree with you about ArbCom having to shoulder a considerable share of the responsibility, though obviously some lies with us. Ultimately, the responsibility for misbehaviour lies with those engaging in it. In fact, one of the core problems here is that, with a couple of exceptions, editors are not accepting that anything is their responsibility and doing their utmost to lay the blame somewhere else or on someone else. I agree entirely with what you say about rules and deadlines, and the expectations that are created. Roger Davies ^talk 18:35, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't say Arbcom was responsible for people's misbehavior. I can see that "what this case has turned into" was vague enough that such a reading is possible, and apologize for the imprecise wording. It certainly wasn't what I meant. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 19:01, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough :) Roger Davies ^talk 19:44, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Roger, your original post was quite sweeping and didn't seem to refer just to misbehavior. I didn't think you were just addressing misconduct on the arb pages, but rather more general verbosity etc. ScottyBerg (talk) 19:13, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with TenofAllTrades and some of the hatted comments, esp. the ones by JWB and WMC. While I agree that brevity is important, it's not right to even implicitly blame the participants in the process for the length of the pages, the wikilawyering, etc. The participants of all points of view were staggering around in the blind. ScottyBerg (talk) 16:51, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I must be missing something here. Are you really suggesting that the bad behaviour in this case, the same sort of bad behaviour that has been going on in the topic for years, is ArbCom's fault? Roger Davies ^talk 18:35, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Gawd no. Maybe I misunderstood what you were referring to in your post. I was referring to the length of the posts and people sort of staggering around, not misbehavior. ScottyBerg (talk) 18:40, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That's clearer. I've no idea why the same (relatively few) people are posting so often and as such length. It's a new one to me too, Roger Davies ^talk 19:44, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Not to pile it on, but one example is Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Climate change/Workshop#Sub-issues to be addressed. This ran for two weeks, collected a long list of suggested issues, and, as far as I can tell, there has been no feedback at all - so of course evidence and proposals were written for all proposed issues. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:59, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That's simply wrong. A great many of the workshop proposals found their way into the /Proposed decision in one form or another, though obviously the content-related ones and the over-specific ones didn't make it. The 'side issues' was a good and ambitious idea but probably collapsed under its own weight, 140-plus side-issue proposals of extremely variable quality and relevance. Roger Davies ^talk 18:35, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It may well be that they went into the PD, but that was invisible from the outside for several weeks while the evidence was piled on and discussed. If you propose a multi-stage process with specific questions, it would be much more productive to provide feedback and focus during or directly after each phase. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:22, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, and I try to engage but with the torrent of discussion it ain't that easy. However, not everyone has the available time or the temperament to do so. I can also understand my colleagues' possible reluctance to fuel further drama by extending old and inviting new discussions. The key thing here is that this case turned out to be exceptional in so many different ways = the highly invested/entrenched nature of many participants; the seemingly infinite capacity for discussion of minutiae; and, it has to be said, the unpleasantness of many of the interactions - and I don't think that was fully anticipated. Roger Davies ^talk 19:44, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
~~Well, at least User:Ncmvocalist will have enough to write about. Count Iblis (talk) 18:24, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]~~
~~Apology~~
Earlier today I made a sarcastic response to what I regard as an unactionable if well meaning suggestion to have all articles within the topic area fully protected. I asked "what could possibly in wrong" in such a scenario, and it was only on reflection a short time later that I realised that many editors with little experience simply do not know what is wrong with the "discuss first" editing model and why we don't use it unless the alternative it an edit was. I tried to revert but by that time I was on the move and on longer had access to a computer powerful enough to handle the task, so I took the discussion to the user talk page of the person to respond. I apologise for needlessly stepping into a pointless discussion and inflaming it, only hours after reading a disengagement suggestion on the very same page and nodding sagely. Tasty monster (=TS ) 18:15, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Does this mean that you might support the idea? Its *not* unactionable. Somebody just needs to Be Bold, IAR (since this would benefit the wiki) and do it.--*Kat* (talk) 18:29, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The telephone has its idiosyncrasies. "in" means "go" and if you have a telephone keypad you can work out the rest. I've considerably expanded my thoughts, which I believe reflect Wikipedia's principles and current policy, at the user talk page of the first editor who responded to my sarcastic comment. Tasty monster (=TS ) 18:29, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
In response Kat, I would oppose the proposal even if I thought it was within written policy. As a strong supporter of "Ignore all rules", however, I would accept if I found that it was widely supported and effective. I've been there a few times myself and proudly wear the grimy t-shirt. Fuck process and policy is what works. But you have to get everybody to agree that it works. Tasty monster (=TS ) 18:38, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
So where do we go to get this voted on? Its a good idea and, in my opinion, far preferable to seeing multiple editors get banned. If we ban the editors we lose their knowledge, energy, and talents.--*Kat* (talk) 18:41, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Kat, without sarcasm I applaud your impulse to find an innovative solution. Ignore all rules is our first policy, and it's also a powerful kind of magic which, if followed assiduously, is far less effective than you might hope but far more effective than any other kind of engagement on Wikipedia. When it works, nobody will notice. When it fails, everybody will point the finger so make sure it isn't pointing at you. Go to the policy page, read all the essays, and then forget them. Edit for a couple more years. Then come back and say what you want to do. Tasty monster (=TS ) 19:30, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
TonySidaway, I have been an editor off and on for five years. More on than off. I have over 4,000 edits under my belt. I have re-written over a dozen articles and contributed in a positive manner to many wiki projects. Even when I wasn't actively editing I was actively reading. I have been reading the essays and archives since I first discovered them some four years ago. Is that not enough experience for you?--*Kat* (talk) 19:53, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

As to what you said about finger pointing, the fact that you haven't heard of me should be an indicator of my ego. I'm just here to help. I'm not here to gain rank or prestige. If this fails then point all the fingers at me you want. Point your toes at me if that is what you want. But give this a try. All of you. I think that if you give this a good faith effort you will get good faith results.--*Kat* (talk) 19:59, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

@@ Line 68: / Line 68: @@
 :Thank you very much for taking the time to write. An opposing view, which I am not saying that I necessarily endorse, of this editor's contributions can be found [[Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Climate change/Evidence#KimDabelsteinPetersen's double BLP standards for subjects, depending on their POV|'''here''']]. &nbsp;[[User:Roger Davies|<span style="color:maroon; font-variant:small-caps">'''Roger&nbsp;Davies'''</span>]] <sup>[[User talk:Roger Davies|'''talk''']]</sup> 19:03, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
+:2/0, you state: '' Please, let us not argue again whether this interpretation is the best; the point being made is that KDP's approach'' [to BLP issues] ''is self-consistent, rational, and within community norms.'' No, that does not adequately describe his approach. As I said on Roger Davies' talk page, it's Kim's application -- where the rubber hits the road -- that's the problem. Are there cases where Kim has invoked BLP to protect climate-change skeptics? Are there cases where Kim has invoked BLP to show where information critical to someone with Kim's general views should be included? I'd like to see diffs of that. What I've seen, over and over, is interpretation of BLP in ways that further Kim's preferences on the issue of Climate Change, with resulting rough treatment for one side and adamant protection for the other. He has worn away all assumptions of good faith in this regard. Combine this behavior with ''any'' edit warring, ''any'' BLP violations or ''any'' other violation of a policy, especially when ArbCom has declared this a Draconian Enforcement Zone [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Climate_change/Proposed_decision#Enough_is_enough] in an area where WP:BATTLEGROUND behavior has been a problem.
+:It is an unacceptable BLP violation to cite a blog [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fred_Singer&action=historysubmit&diff=329532523&oldid=329528125] to call Fred Singer's lead-authored report "dishonest" and it doesn't matter how many times Kim cites "the exceptions to SPS" or has thought out his approach to BLP issues in the abstract. In fact, it's more disturbing to find BLP violations coming from someone who has thought so much about the policy. This edit [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Richard_Lindzen&action=historysubmit&diff=297075496&oldid=296944756] is unacceptable when you contrast the description of the source at the bottom of this page [http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/07/12/1976998.htm] (''Professor Barry Brook is the Sir Hubert Wilkins Chair of Climate Change at the University of Adelaide and director of the Research Institute for Climate Change and Sustainability'') with Kim's description of that source as some kind of "qualified expert" (in the edit summary from the last diff) -- the statement being sourced had nothing to do with climate change or climate science, but with Lindzen's views on ''passive cigarette smoking'': "Lindzen has claimed that the risks of [[smoking]], including [[passive smoking]], may be overstated".
+:As far back as June 2009, editors were flabbergasted that Kim would defend that edit after reading Kim earlier rail against use of Op-Eds as BLP sources. [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3ARichard_Lindzen&action=historysubmit&diff=297190840&oldid=297172849] [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=James_Hansen&diff=prev&oldid=270171654] [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard&diff=prev&oldid=267758743] It is simply not possible to conclude that this editor is giving adequate effort either to presenting readers information without bias or keeping BLP articles from becoming attacks on the subjects. These and other edits make it look like Kim is using Wikipedia as a tool to gain political advantage in a political fight. Kim needs to be separated from this subject area and show he can edit against his side, particularly regarding controversial BLPs, and he should not be let back in until he's shown ArbCom he can do it. As the flabbergasted reaction I linked to shows, this kind of behavior on Kim's part naturally gets under the skin of editors trying to work with him to make improvements to articles. It obviously contributes to a battleground atmosphere. To turn 2/0's statement on its head: ''This is very much the behavior of a disruptive editor rather than a reasonable one.'' -- [[User:JohnWBarber|JohnWBarber]] ([[User talk:JohnWBarber|talk]]) 02:14, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
 <small> Moved here from a more general discussion section below. So the opening comments are slightly out of context. &nbsp;[[User:Roger Davies|<span style="color:maroon; font-variant:small-caps">'''Roger&nbsp;Davies'''</span>]] <sup>[[User talk:Roger Davies|'''talk''']]</sup> 20:05, 28 September 2010 (UTC) </small>