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Welcome, correspondents If you're here because I deleted an article you think should be undeleted, please read this first and remember--Most of the time, I didn't write the text that appears in the deletion summary.
N.B. I don't respond well to either fawning or abuse. Talk to me like a peer, assume good faith, and you'll find I reciprocate in my helpfulness.

Functionary Assistance My ability to help as a checkuser, oversighter, or arbitrator in individual matters is currently limited by my positional and non-Misplaced Pages obligations. For non-trivial assistance, especially that which requires extensive consideration of private correspondence, you will likely get a faster response by asking another functionary.

Position Essays may help you understand my point of view with regard to...

• Notability of Fictional Topics
• Articles for Deletion
• Blocks
• My RfA Standards

Administrator Goals Doing my best to improve the tiny little wedge in the top center:

No consensus = keep or delete?

Hi Jclemens, there is currently a dispute at National Organization for Marriage as to whether the Photo manipulation section should stay or go. There is no consensus after an RfC. Does WP:BURDEN apply when there is no consensus? Does the content stay or go? Misplaced Pages:Consensus#When there is no consensus does not address this. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! NYyankees51 (talk) 20:50, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

I'd say it stays. Looking only briefly at the references and assuming that they actually bear out the text, the incident appears to have been dealt with by multiple RS, which means it has enough notability for an independent article. Having said that, inclusion within the greater article on the same topic will help make sure it gets covered in context, and is probably the better choice. This is one of many such issues where small items are picked up by the media, meet our notability criteria, and are covered probably out of proportion to their actual importance to the life cycle of the article subject... but we're not going to solve that general problem here. Jclemens (talk) 21:08, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Hi Jclemens, I'm confused - are you expressing your opinion about the content, or speaking to the question of what happens when there is no consensus? There is no consensus either way at this point so we're at a stalemate. Clarification appreciated, thanks! NYyankees51 (talk) 15:09, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Both. The content in question is sourced, so BURDEN is met, so it stays absent a clear consensus to remove it. Simple enough? Jclemens-public (talk) 16:42, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Apology

Jclemens, With reference to the complaint I left some time ago I would like to offer apology for the tone and manner of it, and for showing impatience with the proceeding. I now see that ARBCOM cases can be somewhat complicated. Apart from submitting evidence I have stayed away from the proceedings mostly, and saw yesterday it is nearing conclusion. I won't try to defend my own behaviour on the article in question at those times when it was remiss. Once again I apologise for my lack of patience and the manner in which I raised the issue with you. Regards,DMSBel (talk) 23:10, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your apology. Rest assured that I don't take anything personally. Jclemens-public (talk) 23:33, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Responses delayed

My laptop is in the shop, so it may be a day or two before I can address issues. I can still read email and review Misplaced Pages, but editing Misplaced Pages from a mobile device is quite tedious. I will amend this notice once I get it back. Jclemens-public (talk) 23:35, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

... and that didn't take near as long as I feared. Jclemens (talk) 03:17, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

ANI discussion

There's an ANI thread which may concern you here (you're involved in the histories of both the pages linked directly, including declining the PROD of at least one blatant copyvio). Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 12:33, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Not sure what you're trying to accomplish there. It's always good that more copyvio material has been removed from Misplaced Pages, but are you implying that PROD decliners are expected to give a reason (they're not), PROD decliners are expected to review copyright status (they're not), or AfD !voters are expected to review an article's copyvio status (they're not)? If you'd like to start a discussion on any of those three potentially proposed changes, there are better venues than ANI for the problem. My take on the matter is it is really up to the person who wants material deleted to put forth the most accurate rationale for deletion--PRODs are declined easily, while CSD G12s are not, in my experience. In fact, I'm struggling to think of a G12 I've ever declined where I didn't investigate the claim thoroughly enough to see that the material had been present on Misplaced Pages first, before it made its way to the site the nominator believed we were infringing. With a brief root cause analysis of the copyvio retention on my part, the one thing that would have eliminated this outcome was the nominators using CSD G12 instead of PROD and AfD. Cheers, Jclemens (talk) 14:45, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

On further exam, I'm not even sure what you mean by "without a rationale": "consider redirect or merge", the edit summary I used in this and many other PROD declines, is a shorthand which I'd always presumed that editors familiar with our deletion process would understand as a reference to WP:ATD. Cheers, Jclemens (talk) 14:50, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

I find it disingenuous to argue that one is doing nothing wrong by removing the PROD from a page which is an obvious speedy candidate, especially where the speedy category is wholesale unambiguous copyvio (regardless of whether the PROD mentions it or not). Nor does that explain your argument to transwiki at the AfD linked from the discussion, unless you're suggesting that it isn't the responsibility of AfD commenters to make at least some brief attempt to examine whether an article is copyvio prior to commenting on it. However, the primary reason I pinged you is that at least on paper you're one of the most clueful editors who admits to frequenting this part of the project, so it's worth keeping you in the loop regarding potential problems admin-wise there. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 14:56, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Please show me where that expectation is set forth anywhere on-wiki. If I haven't seen it, it's a good bet that a lot of others are not fulfilling their responsibilities if it does, in fact, exist as a community expectation. PROD is and always has been a very lightweight easy-nom-easy-decline-easy-delete-easy-restore process. Since there has been extensive debate over the years over whether AfD-closing should even look at the article before rendering judgment on in (I think they should, FWIW), I find it odd that an expectation on !voters to check for copyvio would exist in that climate. Jclemens (talk) 15:00, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

If nothing else, the expectation is by your fellow editors that they can trust that when you've touched an article you haven't left it in a worse state than it was in before. Your removal of these PRODs meant that we continued to host large pages of directly copied and unattributed text (hell, text copied from pages on blacklisted sites in some cases) for over six months when it would otherwise have been deleted (satisfying policy indirectly at least). If you don't routinely check for such red flags when declining PRODs (or commenting on AfDs) then perhaps you should. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 15:17, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

So you're saying (if I can translate a bit) that it isn't a documented expectation, but you think it should be. That's fair. However, I tend to think that the responsibility lies with the editor who wants to delete material to put forth the most applicable reason for deletion, and G12 is probably the least disputable (or at least in the top three) reason for deletion: if it applies, there's either a wholesale revision or an outright deletion. On the other hand, I'm not sure that I would endorse an expectation that ANY editor other than the editor adding the material should be held responsible for the copyvio material: if we increase the responsibilities assigned to people in deletion processes, that will have an effect of reducing participation and hence throughput time and quality of decisions. TINSTAAFL, unfortunately, and each additional editing expectation comes with a non-trivial cost. Jclemens-public (talk) 16:35, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Putting that in the context of your prod removal, you're basically arguing that removing a prod, or indeed arguing to retain article content in some capacity at an AfD, carries absolutely no implied approval for the content in question even if it is blatantly copyvio (amongst a horde of other problems in this case). In fact, you're basically suggesting that copyright is simply not our problem, and that if editors add copyvio here that's simply bad luck and it is nobody's responsibility to remove it. I'd say that's a quite remarkable position. If it isn't explicitly noted anywhere that ensuring that our content is free is a shared responsibility then it absolutely should be. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 10:47, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Copyright is a general obligation: I will absolutely tag it (or, as an admin, directly delete it) under CSD G12, when I know that something is a copyvio... but I do not go looking for it in the course of my regular editing; I AGF that other editors have done their part correctly. Copyright is not any editor's specific obligation unless they are adding (potentially copyvio) material. If you'd like, though, I would be willing to support a specific obligation on any deletion initiator (PROD tagger, CSD tagger, or AfD nominator) which gives them a specific obligation to use the most applicable deletion method and rationale, and clarify that CSD G12 is the first and only choice for copyvio material which cannot be fixed by normal editing. Indeed, when I remove a PROD, all I am necessarily saying is "this needs an AfD, not an uncontested deletion"; my track record for participating in AfD's of PRODs I've declined is probably around 50%. Cheers, Jclemens (talk) 14:51, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

• The general disclaimer makes it fairly clear that: "None of the contributors, sponsors, administrators, or anyone else connected with Misplaced Pages in any way whatsoever can be responsible..." The relevant policy about the making of intimidatory assertions of copyright violation seems to be WP:NLT. Warden (talk) 11:30, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
  • I think you're confusing "responsibility" with "liability". The general disclaimer covers liability; general policy covers responsibility, specifically WP:COPYVIO's assertion that " should be treated seriously, as copyright violations not only harm Misplaced Pages's redistributability, but also create legal issues". For a member of the closest thing Misplaced Pages has to an officiating body to believe that no editor on the project needs concern themselves at all with copyright is amazing to me. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 11:50, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Clarification

From what I understand from an email the health issues with Orangemarlin had been discussed privately amongst arbitrators already by early October. Mathsci (talk) 15:54, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Are you asking for a confirmation of this statement? Jclemens-public (talk) 16:38, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

No thanks, there's no need in my case, because I have the email from an arbitrator. You might, however, want to make these matters a little clearer to the community. You wrote on the PD page that there were no objections to your postings about Orangemarlin, when you presumably know that not to be the case. There were objections in private off-wiki. On wikipedia is it not normal practice, when somebody is seriously ill, for communications and discussions about them to take place off-wiki? Mathsci (talk) 07:32, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

No one has objected, on wiki or off, to the substance of the finding of fact. No one has said that it's cherry picked, taken out of context, forged, or in any way fails to accurately reflect what OM said and did. I never denied that discussions took place about the appropriateness or timing of that finding, or alternate ways to handle it. In discussing off-Wiki matters, I will not confirm nor deny the status of any privileged information the committee may or may not have received about an editor's health. If you mistook respecting privacy for misrepresentation, then you have my sincere apologies, but on the other hand... if you're alleging that another arbitrator communicated the existence of a private discussion about another editor's health status to you, I would call that arbitrator misconduct. Without confirming that such a discussion DID take place, of course: if it did, then disclosing it would be violating Orangemarlin's privacy. If it did not, then implying or stating that it did would be misrepresentation. Even the egregiously incivil deserve to be treated with all due respect. Jclemens (talk) 07:51, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

So I asked the rest of the committee about this, and it appears that you have whatever info you have because you complained in email to a different committee member about the drafters' (meaning mostly my) review of Orangemarlin's conduct, and received a response from that arbitrator. I'm still not seeing the problem that prompted your initiation of this thread, but I understand where you got the info from, and am a bit puzzled why you didn't just state that up front. Jclemens (talk) 16:38, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

User:TheRoD1988

Hi there,

This user is currently blocked for edit warring, but IP addresses 202.156.11.12, 202.156.11.11, and 218.186.18.232 have been engaging in the same edit warring behavior on Magneto (comics). As a checkuser, can you see if these are related? Thanks. 129.33.19.254 (talk) 16:52, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm not in a position to log into my privileged account for at least 10 hours. You will get a faster response to your inquiry at WP:SPI. Jclemens-public (talk) 16:57, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Davina Reichman

Hi. You restored the article. Shoudn't you restore the talk page too? Cheers, — Racconish 06:38, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Sure. Often, there's nothing of import on talk pages, but you're right, this isn't a typical PROD restoration. Jclemens (talk) 07:15, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks — Racconish 07:49, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Citation Barnstar
	Thanks for fixing the citations on the root cellar article after I restored the article. A user with the IP address 205.213.111.50 made numerous inappropriate changes to that article. Is their a process to have them banned from future edits? Gavinski16 (talk) 18:15, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the recognition, but I just found that vandalism reported to the OTRS system, and fixed it. In general, it's not productive to block IP addresses for "silly" vandalism, because many are one-off, and blocking a dynamic IP address may inconvenience the next person who actually wants to make a positive change to Misplaced Pages. Cheers, Jclemens (talk) 18:22, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

The abortion case

I haven’t participated in it very much, but I’ve been closely following the discussion about whether it’s appropriate to have a finding of fact about OrangeMarlin despite his absence, and I definitely support the position you’re taking about this. However, I’m also concerned about this hurting your chances at re-election, and I’m especially worried about the ramifications of that if it does. In order for ArbCom to be effective, arbitrators have to be able to stand up for what they think is right for the community even when it involves opposing a popular editor or editors. If arbitrators can’t do that without it coming at the expense of their opportunity to be re-elected, then ArbCom is going to become subject to the same problem that Sandstein mentioned in his candidacy last year, where popular and experienced editors can get away with a lot more than new editors can, because of everyone being reluctant to sanction them. I also agree with what you said about how this problem contributes to the creation of a toxic editing environment and the decline in participation.

According to Misplaced Pages:Wikipedians, Misplaced Pages has around 300,000 people who edit at least once a month, while only 854 people voted in the ArbCom election last year. That means the arbitrators are chosen by around 0.3% of the community, and in general it’s the 0.3% of editors who are most active and experienced. I worry a lot about arbitrators being held accountable only to the tiny portion of the community who elects them, who generally aren’t the editors in greatest need of protection. Is this a concern that you share at all? --Captain Occam (talk) 09:16, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

I think more participation in the elections process is always a good thing, yet at the same time, since ArbCom is not a policy-setting or governance body, it's hard to interest people in the election--we have no sound bites.  :-) I think I have a record as a straight shooter, and one willing to make the tough calls. I'm going to continue to do my job per my vision for what's the best for the project: treating everyone fairly while holding them accountable for our conduct expectations, regardless of their connections or lack thereof.

There are a lot of people who don't like my stances on things, which is my "fault" because I'm not a politician and haven't ever tried to mince words or conceal my thoughts on what's best for the project. But then, there were plenty of those last year, as well. At the same time, my record clearly shows that I have held the office for nearly a year with no "score settling", no pushing of any personal agendas, and what not. Ultimately, the editors who vote will have their say, and they will get the ArbCom they elect.

I actually think it somewhat funny that you're supporting me, because I don't think I gave you a single thing you sought me out for... except for some decent (in my opinion, but I'm biased) advice on how to handle conflict. Cheers, Jclemens (talk) 09:36, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

I’m not sure if I’ve clearly communicated my concern about this. I know you’re devoted to doing what’s best for the project, and I think that’s very valuable. And in this case, having done that might cause you to get voted out of office. What I’m saying is that in situations like this, if an arbitrator tries to do what’s best for the 99.7% of editors who are less active and experienced but not necessarily for the 0.3% who vote, that’s something which could cause them to not get re-elected. And conversely, an arbitrator who cares about getting re-elected only needs to do what’s best for the most active 0.3% of the community. What I’m concerned about is that there might start to be a trend towards arbitrators caring mostly just about the tiny portion of the community that matters in an election, and arbitrators (such as you) who place more emphasis on the other 99.7% can’t keep their positions.

I don’t think it should be such a surprise that I’m supporting you. For one thing, I think editors being held to unequal standards of conduct is probably the biggest problem facing the project right now, so anybody who cares a lot about fixing that problem will tend to have my support in general. Another reason is that even though you haven’t given me any of the specific things I requested, you’ve still been considerably more helpful to me than any other arbitrator. Whenever I asked another member of ArbCom the type of questions I was asking you, the most common result was that my query would sit on their talk page without a response for several days until it got archived. As I’ve mentioned to you before, getting an answer is always preferable to me over not getting an answer, even if the answer is no. --Captain Occam (talk) 11:04, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Dispute Resolution

You may be interested in this. Peter jackson (talk) 11:22, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

New Questions

I've added some new questions to your candidate page, and I think it's in your best interest to address them before voting starts. Cheers, Skinwalker (talk) 15:01, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Replied there this morning, from Jclemens-public because the secure server wasn't working. Jclemens (talk) 05:47, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Why?

You're the drafting arbitrator. The evidence page says:

Keep your evidence to a maximum of 500 words and 50 diffs. Evidence longer than this will be refactored or removed entirely...Please limit your evidence to a maximum of 500 words and 50 diffs....Please reduce your evidence submission to fit within the appropriate limits.

Why did you use evidence in violation of this rule to characterize me as a POV-pusher who manipulates sources? Why did you decline to give me permission to exceed this evidence limit in my own defense?Anythingyouwant (talk) 07:49, 26 November 2011 (UTC)