Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Raul654 (talk | contribs) at 20:09, 5 July 2007 (→Jimbo Wales). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Template:Arbcom-talk See also Misplaced Pages talk:Bans and blocks#Arbitration committee, Misplaced Pages talk:Mediation Committee, Misplaced Pages:Mediation and Arbitration (proposal), Misplaced Pages talk:Arbitration policy comments, and the mailing lists.

There are currently three archives:

• December 2003 to May 2005
• May 2005 to April 2006
• April 2006 to present

Topic bans

I am in need on clarification of topic bans. Usually, editors are banned from a topic and its related articles. What exactly is a related article? What is the rule of thumb to determine whether it is related or not? How broadly or narrowly is such an injunction interpreted? Does this need to be raised under the clarifications section by user and case on WP:RFARB? Sorry to be a pain. I am just trying to be clear on the issue. Thanks so much! Vassyana 19:26, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

I am sorry that no one noted your query here before the present. In general, these issues are addressed on a case-by-case basis with the ultimate goal being to avoid a recurrence of the problems that led to the need for the arbitration case and the remedy. It is hard to say more as a purely general proposition. If you have a more specific question, please let me know. Newyorkbrad 19:17, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Formatting

On my computer (using a standard 1280x800 resolution) the text in the third paragraph between "all serious disputes" and "with the authority" is blocked by the infobox. I don't know anything about formatting, but that seems to be a fairly important piece of text so... can someone fix it? Bduddy 04:14, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Other languages

Some Wikipedias in other languages, like the Chinese Misplaced Pages, does not have an ArbCom. Would the foundation mandate all of them to have one. Regards. Wooyi 01:11, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

No, not at all. While the English Misplaced Pages's ArbCom was established by Jimbo, those of other language editions sprouted up independently, and are not required by the foundation at all. See also m:Arbitration Committee. Picaroon (Talk) 01:25, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

interwikis

From the source of the page (WP:AC):

ru:?????????:??????????? ???????

there is an error: the cyrillic letters replaced with the question marks. Why? the correct iwiki is: ]

Please correct this. --89.1.33.123 05:29, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

complaint

I wish to make a complaint against an arbitrator whom placed a request that I be subjected to an exceedingly heavy punishment without providing evidence, reason or even loose explanation of why he felt such a punishment was necessary. His request was made in an arbitration in which he recommended that users who had committed multiple violations of POV, civility, 3RR etc (for which he provided evidence of their wrongdoing) should be subjected only to probationary punishments. In fact it was among the heaviest of the punishments that was requested anywhere in the arbitration, despite the fact that I was not actually cited as being disruptive to either entries or other users.

He request came within 1 hour of my reverting an edit that he made to my user page, which I believe was the catalyst for his request. As such, I believe it was an abuse of his position as an arbitrator and request that the case be looked into with the objective of having his request struck from the record.

perfectblue 20:19, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

It is unlikely that anything will be "struck from the record," but you should probably re-post this to the proposed decision talk page of the particular arbitration in question, where the other arbitrators may be likely to see it before they vote on the different proposals. Newyorkbrad 22:18, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Jimbo Wales

Per this, I would like to know: how deeply involved is Jimbo Wales in day to day matters? A.Z. 03:28, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Very, very little. Raul654 03:31, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Raul654 may be a little out of touch. --Tony Sidaway 14:12, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

I'd say about 95% of the arbcom discussion occurs on the arbcom mailing list. It is true that I have not been reading the arbcom mailing list with any great regularity lately. However, to be blunt - I have access to it, and you do not. I can say with great deal of certainty exactly how much involvement Jimbo has - it's, to be frank, it's not all that much. Maybe an email or two a week, on a list with a very high volume. Raul654 14:49, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

As someone who reads that list daily, Raul's characterization seems reasonably accurate. Paul August ☎ 22:32, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh, did someone mention the arbcom mailing list? I don't have access to that. I was referring to Jimbo's involvement in day-to-day matters on English Misplaced Pages, which in my experience is quite considerable. I don't think those matters are the business of arbcom. I would expect arbitrators, however, to be a little better informed. --Tony Sidaway 23:37, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps the context of the question -- i.e., the talk page of WP:ARBCOM -- led Raul to think that just maybe the question related to ArbCom day to day matters; why would someone ask a question about general Misplaced Pages matters on this page? --jpgordon 00:10, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I think Jimbo's comment was ambiguous. Perhaps he expected arbcom members to back him up on his fairly strong (but not overwhelming) commitment to Misplaced Pages matters. Well obviously he was wrong there. On the other hand from other mailing lists that I'm on he's obviously involved, and his recent editing history suggests that he's really in the thick of it, particularly on policy formation. Two pretty radical changes to deletion-related policy in the past month, too. A nice bit of nick-and-tuck on a BLP mid-month. And he was on his hols, too! --Tony Sidaway 00:24, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I can also attest that Jimbo is deeply involved in many aspects of our encyclopedia. However given the page we are on, I assumed — and I would suppose that so did Raul — that the question was about Jimbo's involvement in ArbCom matters. The answer to that question is that he rarely gets involved in individual cases — which is as exactly as it should be. Tony's insinuation that the remarks here imply some sort of lack of support by the ArbCom for Jimbo is simply preposterous. Paul August ☎ 03:11, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I hope I didn't appear to make any such insinuation, but if I did I apologise. I thought I was expressing surprise at an apparent case of ignorance, which has now been fully explained. --Tony Sidaway 05:17, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, as Paul surmised, I assumed from the location he asked it that A.Z. was asking about Jimbo's level of involvement in the arbcom (which, as I said, is not all that much) Jimbo is definitely heavily involved at the Foundation level, but I wouldn't have called the Foundation-level stuff he does "day to day" operations. ("Day to day" wikipedia stuff, to my mind, means editing articles, clearing, AFD backlogs, fulfilling rename requests, promoting users after succesful RFAs, and a million other little-jobs that nobody notices unless they go unfulfilled). Raul654 20:09, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Can someone explain this? Concerning the Paranormal arbitration.

Can someone explain to me why the arbitrators working on the Paranormal arbitration have yet to even introduce the key issues to be voted on by the arbitrators? Minderbinder started the case due to the disruptive actions of specifically Martinphi which arose from sockpuppeting, disruptive editing and a RFC which resulted in a huge consensus agreeing that his edits are disruptive. So far none of the arbitrators have introduced any remedies concerning Martinphi. There were also many issues with other editors including but not limited to Davkal and Tom Butler. There has been a substantial amount of evidence presented implicating all of these users in disruptive edits and there have been numerous proposals put forward in the workshop by various editors however so far none of the arbitrators have even introduced these remedies concerning these users. It seems they are missing the entire point of the arbitration and focusing on 1 or 2 editors who's edits have been a minor problem at most but ignoring the most disruptive editors who use sockpuppets, engage in edit wars, etc. I have left messages on the talk pages of most of the arbitrators and this has led nowhere as far as I can tell. All I am asking is that the arbitrators working on the case present some drafts from the workshop concerning these aforementioned editors and introduce remedies concerning them. Wikidudeman 14:11, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

The major remedies are article probation and the revert parole. Further proceedings are anticipated with particularly troublesome editors. Fred Bauder 14:53, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Can you introduce remedies concerning those specific users? Martinphi in particular, there is overwhelming evidence of his disruptive edits which should warrant a ban from paranormal articles or wikipedia all together. Martinphi has made meatpuppets, edit warred, been blocked for 3rr etc. Here's his meatpuppet case Misplaced Pages:Requests for checkuser/Case/Martinphi which confirmed he had made a deceptive meat puppet. He initially claimed that it wasn't him but his "roommate/girlfriend" who was making the exact same edits and then he admitted that it was indeed him. See Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Martinphi for further evidence of his disruptive edits. Martinphi is probably the most troublesome editor followed closely by User:Davkal who has also created meat puppets and engaged in edit warring and 3rr etc. Wikidudeman 15:43, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Anyone else want to comment? Wikidudeman 19:42, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Generally, this page isn't used for discussion of specific cases, but for the functioning of the committee as a whole. Newyorkbrad 19:54, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

My posts on the specific pages concerning this Arbitration seem to be overlooked or ignored. I've also tried talking to all of the arbitrators directly and still no response. The case itself seems to have gone stagnate the past couple of weeks without out any arbitrators making any edits to it or voting or introducing new proposals. Wikidudeman 19:59, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Another checkuser?

There seems to be a small consensus forming here that we could use at least one more checkuser. (I'd be willing to do it, but I'd need a bit of coaching. Probably one of the checkuser clerks, or someone like that would be ideal.) Thoughts? Volunteers? Grandmasterka 17:59, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

• Three users agreeing is not what I'd call a "consensus". But we'll take it under advisement. --jpgordon 18:18, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Yeah, that wasn't a good word to use. But thanks. Grandmasterka 18:25, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
    • We just need to get more checkusers involved in the page. Often 1 or 2 people run it entirely, get tired and do less, and the page falls behind, until someone else comes. Probably we should get a balance of checkusers maintaining the page, which we can do, rather than 1-2 people, that way no one burns out. Voice-of-All 22:15, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

User:Tom harrison comes to mind as one who is judicious, widely trusted and uninvolved in wiki-intrigue; however, I'm not at all certain he'd want to do it.Proabivouac 23:11, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Agree--Sefringle 03:33, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Ban enforcement?

There's a request on WP:BOTREQ to create a robot which will watch for edits from people who ArbCom has banned from editing certain pages, or who ArbCom has banned from reverting, or so on. I've made some code, but I'd like ArbCom's and clerks' opinions before I request approval - is this necessary? Would it help? How many levels of blacklisting would we need - i.e., banned from all articles, banned from certain articles, banned from reverts on certain articles - anything else? Does ArbCom ban from certain namespaces? --ST47Talk 14:48, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

This strikes me as a bad idea. It would be extraordinarily difficult to keep the bot accurate and up to date. There are three general classes of restrictions; revert parole, article or topical bans, and probation. Revert parole limits editors to one content revert (obvious vandalism excepted) per article per time period. The time frame varies; in different cases editors are limited to one revert per day, or one revert per week, and sometimes even more complex formulations. Some reverts must be justified by discussion on the talk page; how will the bot determine whether there actually was discussion, and will it be possible to make null edits to the talk page to fool the bot? The bot would have to distinguish between content edits and reverts, and would have to be able to detect "sneaky reversions" as defined by the 3RR policy. Some revert paroles are indefinite, others have expiry dates. Article and topical bans are sometimes imposed by the Committee; usually editors are banned from editing "] and related articles;" where related can be open to interpretation and admin judgement, and would have to be coded into the bot some how. Probation would be the most difficult to enforce by bot. Editors on probation may be banned from articles or topics they disrupt for an appropriate period of time by any admin. To police this by bot would require the banning admin to edit the bot code somewhere in addition to logging the ban on the case page, the user's talk page and the article talk pages, as currently required, and then removing the code when the ban was lifted or expired. For example, I recently enacted a one-month ban on a user from editing certain templates or editing how those templates were used on articles; enforcing that ban by bot would require someone listing all possible templates he was banned from, and all the articles those templates were transcluded on. And then I lifted the ban early, so even automatic expiry in the bot code would not be helpful here. Finally, I'm not sure what problem this is meant to solve. There are relatively few complaints posted at WP:AE, at least compared to the volume at WP:ANI, and at best the bot would be advisory only (I hope no one is suggesting to give the bot blocking ability!). Thatcher131 15:24, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree with all of Thatcher's points. Your desire to help out with enforcement is appreciated, and the idea for the bot is a very creative one, but it would extremely difficult to keep the bot up-to-date and accurate for all the reasons already mentioned. Also, a large part of ArbCom decision evasion is done through sockpuppets, which the bot wouldn't pick up anyway. What we really need are a few more admins watchlisting the arbitration enforcement messageboard. Newyorkbrad 16:14, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

OK, I understand. --ST47Talk 17:31, 5 July 2007 (UTC)