Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Badlydrawnjeff/Workshop

message: I know tempers are high on this matter, but I would just like to point a few things out, so far we have;
*31 proposed principals
*7 proposed findings of fact
*18 proposed remedies
Guys, we've only been here for a couple of hours, it's turning into almost as big a farce as the RfC, why doesn't everyone take a chill out from the workshop page and go and find some evidence, the workshop page is going to turn into a joke soon. Ryan Postlethwaite 21:40, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yup. I wonder if that's someone's intention.--Docg 21:41, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm rather sure it was. Besides, I don't really see what the hurry is anyway. Sean William @ 21:42, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Wow.  Excellent show of good faith, folks. --badlydrawnjeff talk 22:21, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

text: I agree that a major deep breath would be in order for everyone right now. However, given that many of the remedies are along the lines of urging the parties toward greater civility, let's not start accusing one another of seeking to turn the pages into a joke, okay? Newyorkbrad 21:45, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Remedies are supported by principles and findings of fact.  For example, if you wanted a remedy Thatcher is desysopped for wheel-warring, you would need a principle that said Wheel warring is bad and a finding that said Thatcher has wheel-warred (preferably with diffs or a link to the appropriate section of the evidence page).  I have half a mind to completely remove the entire remedy section for a few days, until the principles and findings are better developed. Thatcher131 22:05, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

text: I've proposed  that the workshop page should be replaced with a blank template and protected for a few days, until the parties have had a chance to enter their evidence.  This may appear drastic, but in my opinion it would certainly improve the chance of this workshop being useful to the arbitrators. --Tony Sidaway 22:18, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Just because I actually took some preparation time long beforehand doesn't mean anyone should be penalized for it.  --badlydrawnjeff talk 22:21, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: But jeff, you didn't actually prepare a foundation for your proposed remedies.  Before proposing a remedy such as "Tony S is placed on civility parole" you need a finding of fact "Tony S is incivil" that has sufficient evidenciary support to justify such a remedy based on prior cases.  Ditto with all the remedies proposed by you and others.  ("BDjeff is banned from deletion discussions" would require multiple findings of disruption and/or incivility, for example.)  I would not blank the entire workshop but I would give serious consideration to temporarily removing the proposed remedies. Thatcher131 22:54, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: So we add the finding of fact.  Problem solved.  The foundation is in the evidence, but if I need to restate it, I'll gladly do so.  I will be very angry if my proposed remedies are removed - I deserve a right to a fair hearing on this matter. --badlydrawnjeff talk 22:57, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If I was not recused as clerk and I had gotten to the page early enough, I probably would have done it (temporarily removed, then restored; not delete entirely).  At this point it would be counterproductive. Thatcher131 23:52, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Moving too quickly

message: I removed two "remedies" that were really ill-advised and seemed to me likely to attract a lot of undesirable attention.  Let's let the arbitrators propose any kudos, ok?  And if we can't sanction people for fucking up on IRC we sure as hell shouldn't praise them either.  These were just bad ideas, best to quickly move on and not let them hang around causing unnecessary distraction, ok? Thatcher131 01:22, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed 100%. The arbs know about these things and can propose their own if they want. If they are left on the page, we'll all just piss about with them.--Docg 01:25, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Based on what I've seen in other cases I have to concur. Whenever I've seen such proposals they've at worst offended people and at best been teased about. Newyorkbrad 01:29, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Self-congratulations 

message: Please avoid threaded discussion.  The arbitrators hate it on workshops. --Tony Sidaway 05:01, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Threaded discussion

message: What do we hope to achieve with this arbitration?  It would appear to be less specific to Badlydrawnjeff and more about BLP/DRV/Speedies in general.  Two arbitrators accepted on the basis they would only look at his actions and while there were more than four others accepting it I fear that the scope of this case is not particularly clear.  If it is not just about Badlydrawnjeff I think it should be renamed to reflect that; if it is then there is a lot of material here that is drawing attention away from the case in hand.  violet/riga (t) 11:25, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: We will consider any substantial relevant question, but try not to expand the scope outside the bounds of the original dispute. Definitely no just about Badlydrawnjeff though. Fred Bauder 19:00, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Names are mostly a filing tool.  Unlikely that we would change the name even if the scope was radically altered.  Scope is usually determined by the arbitrators after reviewing the evidence and workshop, and is reflected in the proposals offered by the Arbitrators for voting on the proposed decision page.  In this case there have been multiple calls for the Arbitrators to state ahead of time what the aim of this case is, but so far they have not issued a clarification.  Based on the votes to accept, some Arbitrators appear to have different views on this, so it is possible that no unified statement of scope will be forthcoming and the parties will just have to wait and see what the Arbtrators place into voting. Thatcher131 11:43, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Aim? 

message: BLP is a very necessary policy.  However, some admins are using it to delete articles in situations where BLP does not give them that right.  Sourced, NPOV, non-defamatory articles that have existed for over two years and whose subjects are detailed across pages and pages of Google should not be deleted under the guise of BLP.  violet/riga (t) 13:30, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Good points, but the standards of Google are essentially non-existent. Fred Bauder 19:05, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I was not referring to their standards, just highlighting that the information exists on hundreds of other (non-mirror) sites yet some feel the need to remove it from here.  violet/riga (t) 19:20, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with Violetriga. Wikipedia should not be censored, and BLP is not a device to arbitrarily delete sourced, verifiable, non-libellous articles. WaltonAssistance! 10:20, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  My thoughts "in a nutshell" 

message: Two things: 1) The name doesn't need to be censored.  2) It's probably bad form to be making such edits to other people's posts (namely, in this case, mine).  Is edit warring over this really the best idea, especially HERE? --badlydrawnjeff talk 17:43, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I can't believe people are edit warring over it on arbitration pages. Ryan Postlethwaite 17:44, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Obscuring the name is the conservative approach and does no harm, even if it can be argued that it is not necessary.  Any form of edit warring on an arbitration case page ranks pretty high on the dumb scale. Thatcher131 17:47, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Is it possible to add a code that would render these pages non-searchable. There are going to be a lot of non-notable people's names being bandied around before we are through. Newyorkbrad 17:50, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the answer is no. If there was such a thing, we should probably apply it to every page outside of the article space.--Docg 18:00, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think we should apply that feature to articles containing tags like  or  (regardless of whether they are living people, dead people, or not people at all). — CharlotteWebb 19:35, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ow, that's excessive. 75.62.6.237 05:18, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

text: It's done with the noindex html tag or http meta tag; see Robot Exclusion Standard#Alternatives for details.  We currently can't insert these tags with the normal wiki editing interface, but modifying MediaWiki to enable noindexing in some form should be fairly straightforward if deemed worthwhile.  I'd suggest it be implemented as another form of page protection that admins could turn on and off on any page.  That could take some pressure off of pages like this, and it could also be used on articles under active AFD discussion when warranted.  On the other hand, noindexing a page could turn into a rationale for flinging poo around on it for much longer than necessary.  Noindexing can also be done more trivially on whole namespaces, with a site-wide robots.txt file.  Anyway the idea has been floated before; I can help write an MediaWiki RFE if there's support for it. 75.62.6.237 05:10, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

text: This name has been continuously mentioned in reliable mainstream sources about the "Little Fatty" meme. I think that referring to the article as "QZ" presents a point of view that not only can we ever have an article on this subject, but even the instances of this name appearing have to be killed on sight. That's not a very neutral approach. Also, many users taking a look at this case do not know what "QZ" is. I undid Doc glasgow's changes, because context was lost and he was making changes to a comment that was not his. JzG's use of admin rollback was uncalled for, especially since he is directly involved in this. Prolog 18:05, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Censoring names 

message: We don't have enough murder articles. What the fuck is a murder article?  If the amount of news coverage a particular kidnapping, molestation, or murder gets determines whether we have an article on it (and face it, there are thousands of such crimes every year that go ignored by everyone except the victims) then we are allowing our content to be determined by the need for Nancy Grace and Greta Van Sustern to attract viewers.  I don't know what ArbCom can do exactly, other than tacitly allow one faction to steamroll the other faction until it gives up (or grows up). Thatcher131 16:23, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I wouldn't limit this to just murders and victims of crime.  That CNN, Foxnews, and the rest need new news to fill their content time almost everyday leads to many many things getting coverage.  There was a woman on Jay Leno a few weeks ago who appeared because she was an 102 year old woman who hit a hole in one.  And she has an article.  I can source it in about five seconds, but does she really merit an article even though dozens of news outlets covered her?  So I see no reason to make this about murder or crime.  That subject may make you uncomfortable, but that should not be the reason for your deletion.  Sensitivity is far too close to censorship.  FrozenPurpleCube 17:25, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

text: This is why verifiability is a more significant issue than notability or importance. A minor incident with an extraordinary amount of verifiable information is of greater value to us than a massacre where all the information is speculative. Of course, both types of situations can be found on the "evening news", which for better or worse, is the source our users are most familiar with. For most of them, it's also the only source to which they will ever have more than a sporadic level of exposure. If that makes them malicious editors then AGF is horribly broken, and if editing while watching or listening to the news makes them part of a pre-meditated "faction", well, we have a serious perception problem. — CharlotteWebb 18:49, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: People edit while watching the news? Seriously? That's insane. Worse than WebTV. I sometimes edit (or more likely do background reading) after watching a documentary, but not after watching the news. We need to make clearer that the mainstream media is not always a reliable source. And if you think we have too many murder articles, what about List of school massacres and :Category:School massacres? I think neutral, encyclopedic articles on such topics are possible, but if you let your attention waver even slightly, then a tabloid tsunami envelops such topic areas (ie. the quality of edits degrades to tabloid journalism levels). Carcharoth 11:19, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: How is that insane, or are you being sarcastic? Unlike a documentary film crew, a news agency will have other, competing news agencies to keep it in check. Even within itself there are the people writing the news and the people editing the news and the people reporting the news as it happens, offering an additional layer of sanity checking. When comparing this to a documentary film director with a hand-picked topic and usually a pre-determined agenda, I fail to see how documentaries could be more reliable than the news. If anything I'd say "less". As for your last comment, I have never said that we have too many articles of any kind, or suggested that such a limit exists or could be reached. — CharlotteWebb 21:54, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe I should briefly mention the Duke lacrosse rape case, and ask if the media got it right?  Or Hurricane Katrina, where the news reported as fact that Coast Guard rescue helicopters were being shot at, leading to a suspension of rescue operations.  The "shootings" turned out to be unconfirmed rumors reported as fact; thus false reporting by the news media may have led to a real loss of life.   Or the gang rapes and the dead bodies stacked inside the Superdome that never existed. Thatcher131 11:20, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

text: The insane comment was the mental image I had of people sitting in front of the TV, watching the evening news, and using a computer to edit Wikipedia on the topics being covered on the news that evening. Just struck me as a bit silly. You are, of course, quite right about how sometimes news reporting can be less biased than a documentary-maker with an agenda, but documentaries come closer to being encyclopedic than news programs, in my opinion, and thus it makes more sense to edit Wikipedia after watching an interesting documentary, rather than after watching a news program that happened to cover 5 different murder stories. As for the too many murder articles comment, that was in reply to Thatcher131, which I should have made clearer. Sorry about that. Carcharoth 23:32, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

text: See also School shooting and 2006 School shooting outbreak for different approaches to writing about, essentially, the same topic. Carcharoth 11:31, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't see how those are the same topic. One is a distinct series of events and the other is a dictionary definition. I don't see any need to merge these articles, and in fact any attempt to do so would be awkward due to the article size. — CharlotteWebb 21:54, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah, now you are reading stuff into my words. :-) I am not suggesting a merge, I am just pointing out that the same topic can be covered in different ways and styles on Wikipedia. School shooting comes closest to being a proper article for me, while 2006 School shooting outbreak is a summary-style article, and List of school massacres is an annotated list in table form. Carcharoth 23:32, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I saw the merge tags and your comment about the articles being written for "essentially the same topic". I must have assumed you placed the tags. Apologies. — CharlotteWebb 23:05, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

text: It ties back to the Hornbeck/Ownby debate. But I agree, rehashing every single example is not going to help. Personally, I think WP:NOT#NEWS says everything that needs to be said about this case, and that the arbitrators should admonish the admins and editors involved for engaging in endless deletion discussions and warring instead of trying to edit the articles and agree on a good way to handle such cases. See Shawn Hornbeck for an example, or even better, the rewrite Seprpent's Choice did on Erica Pratt. Carcharoth 23:32, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The amount of news coverage determines the availability of independent sources. If a murder has received multiple non-trivial coverage in various third-party sources in the mainstream media, it is notable. However, because we are an encyclopedia and not a news site, it is more appropriate IMO to have an article on the murder victim, rather than a separate article called "Murder of X". The standards of the news media, or perceived lack thereof, are not a reason to dismiss these perfectly acceptable independent sources. Overall, I would say that the only criterion for inclusion of an article is whether multiple non-trivial sources are present; anything else is subjective, and therefore irrelevant. Whether we think X is "encyclopedic" is completely subjective. Waltonalternate account 12:07, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

text: What we include in our encyclopedia will always be subjective - that's because it is written for human beings, by human being and not by bots. Our topics concern all of human life and experience. Doing objective arithmetic with Ghits and sources is not a starter, and will produce silly results.--Docg 12:13, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. And in some cases we have to take note of what the news media, the police, or legal representatives are reporting about calls for privacy or not publishing leaks. Take a look at this story (the second one down), which includes the from the sheriff: [some of the speculation in the media] "is incorrect. We've asked the media to hold off on such stories until this case goes through the judicial process. When it's released in court, it'll be public information -- and it'll be accurate."" Carcharoth 14:17, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

text: True we are all humans, but as a human I have always considered subjectivity (particularly in our standards for including this or that in our encyclopedia) a weakness to counteract rather than embrace. — CharlotteWebb 23:11, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Murder articles 

message: Hoo boy, this one is really bringing out all the 'principles' which are masked attempts to backdoor in changes to policies and current processes.
People, if you think "No Consensus" results on AfD should result in deletion, if you want to alter the definition of Wheel Warring, if you want to give OTRS volunteers super powers, or if you want a pony, this isn't the place to get your wishes. Bring these up in consensus discussion in the relevent places.
Of course, it's hugely unlikely that you'll get any of these things.
Well, maybe the pony. You never know. --Barberio 23:16, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh I do think "no consensus" results at AfD will result in deletion for certain classes of article.  And I think we'll see that sooner rather than later.  But not as a result of this arbitration. --Tony Sidaway 23:37, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Maybe on TfD and MfD I could accept 'no consensus' resulting in deletion, but not on AfD. The day that happens will have been a huge step towards editing by autocracy and bureaucracy. --Barberio 17:41, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

text: I think I brought up that AFD/no-consensus thing so I'll mention that it was in a comment, not a proposal.  Obviously it would take considerable policy development for it to happen and that won't happen in an arb decision.  I don't see the autocracy/bureaucracy of it.  It just recognizes a limitation of our open-editing model.  Another such limitation was recognized long ago with our attribation and NOR policies, this is more of the same. 75.62.6.237 02:01, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  This is not the place to propose new policies. 

message: This page has become unusable. Would a clerk be so kind as to eliminate redundant and clearly doomed proposals and consolidate some others? Phil Sandifer 14:23, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. --Barberio 16:24, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Disagree.  The cull is performed by Arbcom in selecting what to put in Proposed Decisions.  Let Workshop stay the give and take.  The evolving discussion, even "doomed" single point viewpoints and suggestions, are part of the process.  Georgewilliamherbert 18:21, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

text: I don't know. After looking at the page, I say we take off and nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure. Seriously, the page is out of control, for the purposes of editing. Maybe split it up into subpages? Thanks, Luc "Somethingorother" French 19:06, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, if anything is taken off, let's make sure that it's an uninvolved admin doing so. Half of this dispute revolves around administrators squealching discussion - I would hate to see it escalate further in that vein. The Evil Spartan 19:10, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think there's anything wrong with splitting it into subpages.  But the edits are not coming all that fast and furious at this time, so I don't see any measure as that strictly necessary.  Georgewilliamherbert 19:17, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Nevermind.  They weren't for a long time, but now they are.  Subpages seem like a good idea.  Georgewilliamherbert 19:19, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, unless people are actually having problems with page loading times, I don't really see how subpages would help, and obviously they would make it more cumbersome to browse between sections.  Wrt Phil Sandifer's request, I'm not especially keen to get into making value judgements as to which proposals are worthwhile and which not; if there were rowdy or circular discussions on particular proposals, I might move those to the talk page, but that doesn't seem especially to be the case here. David Mestel(Talk) 14:35, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There are several proposals that have been shot down by multiple arbitrators, and several more that are,  to various degrees, copies of one another.  These could readily go in order to make the page actually usable. Phil Sandifer 15:18, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  In particular the remedies section is filling up with ridiculous long shots.  We'd probably be better off without that entire section. --Tony Sidaway 15:28, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I disagree. There is relevant discussion there. Move maybe, but don't remove without linking to the new location. Carcharoth 15:34, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

text: God forbid the Arbs actually have to read something they accepted without setting a scope. --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:33, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The arbs are human, and have lives beyond Wikipedia. You can demand they read every line of the evidence page and workshop and give it full consideration, but by doing so you're more likely to get a flawed decision than a good one. Phil Sandifer 19:28, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yup. --badlydrawnjeff talk 19:38, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

text: I don't think that's up for us to decide.  For the exception of my first grouping, which were designed specifically to provide options, I haven't put out anything I don't believe should be a remedy.  The ones that I believe should occur but will never fly, I've not added to this workshop.  Best case scenario is for Arbcom to simply get the ball rolling and get this finished - this dispute has been going for a month now, and too much is hanging in the balance on this to let it sit much longer, since every day is simply becoming more evidence.  --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:16, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed.--Docg 16:22, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

text: Although of course people can just edit individual sections. David Mestel(Talk) 14:59, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Saving a section can be very slow on a long page. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:07, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Request for a clerk cull

message: Is this a record for an Arbcom Workshop page (or any Arbcom page)? Not that this is really a good thing, of course. Carcharoth 12:25, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The Giano case (in which the Workshop was split into three pages) is the longest in the 10 months I've been involved. Newyorkbrad 19:08, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: How about a remedy that involved the parties to this case being 'sentenced' to tidy up the pages of this arbitration case and write essays incorporating all the arguments involved? With copious references of course. :-) Carcharoth 00:49, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I contributed my 3554 bytes. (H) 19:55, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  644 kb 

message: For those who aren't watchlisting, see Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Badlydrawnjeff/Proposed decision. --Tony Sidaway 05:56, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposed decision