Wikipedia talk:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2007-06-27 Spoiler

message: Tony says, "If there were any significant opposition to removal of unnecessary spoiler tags, the one or two people regularly doing removals would not be able to keep up with it. That there is no significant opposition suggests extremely strongly that there is consensus for this guideline. In time I expect the spoiler tag to become a thing of the past, as it already is for most fiction projects."  I've just spent an hour re-adding the same spoiler tags I added last night, and justifying their inclusion, and I fully expect my edits to be reverted within the hour.  I don't have all day to spend whipping the river.  It is not as easy as Tony claims to keep up with the spoiler patrol.  (It's also observably more than "one or two people", since three or four people have been reverting my edits.) --Jere7my 17:20, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Jere7my, dear, what you have been doing is edit warring with several other editors.  Consensus is not with you.  Please stop being a silly sausage. --Tony Sidaway 19:04, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Gosh — and here I was thinking it was your spoiler patrol that was edit warring. Collaborating to get around the three-revert rule, making wholesale changes without justification on talk pages to further your own agenda — these are acceptable tactics for you? --Jere7my 19:09, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: ok, I've had it. Since you're now accusing other editors of 'collaborating' in a master plot to destroy spoilers, I would ask that you just... stop... talking. You're actually saying that everyone's talking over IRC, mails et al so that they can get around the 3RR? That's ludicrous, frankly. Tony is right. The current guideline was achieved by consensus, and you're just trying to buck it. David Fuchs 20:42, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

text: I'll participate in the discussion here.  As I think it would prejudice the chance of resolution, I'll stop all spoiler-related edits.  --Tony Sidaway 00:11, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

message: We now have two pointless Wikidramas. Both are really annoying, neither can be avoided, and both wouldn't happen if people would stop using IAR as a sword. Seriously, it does not matter if there is consensus to remove 44976 spoiler warnings. There may well be. But there are rules that say AWB can not be used to do those 44976 removals. The rule is there because it is not possible to have a meaningful discussion when one opinion has an automated (no, clicking almost mindlessly does not make it less automated) tool to enforce it. Either you people are going to have to majorly reevaluate your opinion of "I'll ignore this rule because I feel like it and it won't change the result!", or something really bad is going to happen. By the way, could someone please AWB all the infoboxes away? I don't like them because they're redundant. -Amarkov moo! 04:26, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Okay, this would be the boiling point here. 

message: These are my comments on the concerns expressed:
# JimmyBlackwing expresses concern at the wording of the guideline: "compelling reason", which is completely subjective, and it causes needless disputes over what, exactly, "compelling" is.
#* This is a reasonable objection.  I've suggested "persuasive" as an alternative.  Whatever word we use, it means that most reasonable people will agree that something unexpected comes along and a warning is needed.
#Ken Arromdee has numerous concerns:
## The spoiler warnings can be removed with no discussion, but they require discussion to be added.
##* The mediator has suggested, and I've accepted, the idea that removals should be accompanied by a comment on the talk page.
## "If there is a dispute, the editor wishing to include should justify it" is sensible for a normal content dispute, but is not sensible when people object to a mass removal.
##* This needs more work.  What would be a suitable compromise here?
## When I actually tried to justify one of these on the talk page (Talk:Sakura_Wars), the arguments made against my justification were that controversial parts of the spoiler guideline were really established rules
##* Ken's memory is incorrect.  The reason I gave for removing the spoiler, which I gave in my edit summary and later echoed on the talk page, was "Clearly marked "Setting" section".  Ken repeatedly said I was relying on "established rules" but it doesn't appear to me that I did.  I adopted the commonsense notion that a "Setting" section in an article about a computer game will describe the setting of the computer game.
###*My memory is fine, and is perfectly consistent with what you just wrote.  You stated as an established rule that a "setting" section should not contain a spoiler warning.  This is a controversial issue--essentially the same issue as spoiler warnings on plot sections--and not an established rule.  In other words, you argued that a controversial part of the spoiler guideline could not be disputed and must be followed because it's an established rule.  That's what I said. Ken Arromdee 05:28, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Tony's comments on concerns expressed

message: :"That there is no significant opposition suggests extremely strongly that there is consensus for this guideline"
No, that isn't true.  Here's what I wrote at the RFA (which will probably go on hold for now because of this case):
As a way of establishing consensus, deleting 45000 warnings is inappropriate for several reasons:
* Deleting a spoiler warning is much easier and faster than adding one.  Adding one requires carefully reading the article and deciding on where to put the warning; deletion requires no such consideration.  Moreover, spoiler warnings to be deleted are easily found with the "what links here" feature, but spoiler warnings to be restored can't be found in the same way.  This makes the procedure imbalanced towards deletion (particularly with AWB assistance); restoring the warnings means facing a nearly impassable logistical barrier.
* Spoiler warnings have been deleted with comments such as "(rm per WP:SPOILER (redundant with section title))", which would imply to most users that the deletion was done according to a settled policy/guideline.  Users not intimately familiar with Wikipedia processes won't think of reading the spoiler guideline talk page to determine if the guideline has really been settled.
:And it is part of the guideline. I quote "Spoiler warnings are usually redundant when used in "Plot", "Synopsis"..." et al. And for the last time, the guideline was hammered out by consensus! You can quibble about the "compelling reason" crap, but point is Wikipedians decided on it. Just because some people are still protesting it doesn't mean the community hasn't spoken. David Fuchs 20:50, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: And now the community is speaking again, which is why there's a disputed tag on the guideline.  I think you, perhaps, achieved a local consensus, but now that word is getting out we're going to have to find an expanded consensus. --Jere7my 21:47, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It wasn't a local consensus. Did you ever see the RfC? It was hundreds of pages long, and it wasn't the same ten people arguing with each other. Consensus *was* reached. David Fuchs 21:52, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: We're arguing terminology here.  Of course it was a local consensus, since (obviously) not every Wikipedia editor weighed in.  Many (like myself) didn't even know it was going on.  Local consensus is always the best you can do, but then you run the risk of people from the wider world joining the discussion, at which point you no longer have consensus. Yes? --Jere7my 22:34, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Ken's point of view/response to [[Wikipedia:Mediation_Cabal/Cases/2007-06-27_Spoiler#What_would_you_like_to_change_about_that.3F|Tony's desired outcomes]]

message: In order to avoid having the case page go the way of the spoiler talk page, and the previous RfCs, I've been bold in moving discussion to the discussion page. I've tried hard to keep everything linked back to the case page. Personally I don't want to end up with MBs of discussion text and no conclusions, so I think we should keep the case page for the mediator, and for agree-upon summaries of the discussions, that fit within the section headings defined there. Please discuss this here if you can think of a better way of doing this. -Kieran 20:20, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Keeping discussions on the discussion page

message: Is anyone able to scrape together what actually happened here? At the moment we're taking this as fact, but it would be good if someone, probably an admin/someone with access to AWB, could find out:
#Who the main editors were/whether it was a spontaneous case of hundreds of editors working in tandem.
#If AWB were used, who used it, and for how many articles.
#The exact (at least day-by-day) timeline of what happened.
It really would help the discussion if we had all the facts. If someone can get hold of these, please put a summary on the case page. -Kieran 20:51, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I know User:David Gerard did a lot of the AWB removals. I'm not sure if I saw anyone else specifically using AWB, but I wasn't paying too much attention at the time since by that point I'd already removed most of them from the articles I worked on. --tjstrf talk 21:52, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I noticed that User:Kusma used AWB on Ghost Dog. --Jere7my 22:36, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yes, Kusma did a whole heap of them  as did David Gerard .  I don't know anybody else who did mass removals.  It was, overall, carried out very efficiently, and I'm extremely pleased with the results. --Tony Sidaway 08:12, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Facts on the 45k removals?

message: I've been asked to weigh in on this mediation. It is not my intention to involve myself at length here, but I think it important to note the degree to which this discussion has become, to my mind, irredeemably poisoned. The best example I can see is one given on the mediation page as an example of what has been (quite rudely) referred to as the "anti-spoiler brigade" being unreasonable and difficult to deal with. This comes on the talk page of Halo: Combat Evolved. There's only one problem with this - the account given, that the people opposing the spoiler tag were bullying, unreasonable, or relying on numeric advantage is simply untrue. Look at the discussion: . It was in progress, vibrant, and attentive. Arguments for anda gainst were being weighed. It was a good discussion, right up until people showed up and began proclaiming "Don't waste time trying to appease the whims of the anti-spoiler brigade. Compelling reason means whatever they want it to" and "I see that once again the same old anti-spoiler hooligans have shown up again to blast the spoiler tags, and then berate the editors who have tracked and contributed to the article. "
That was the end of that discussion.
And that is, over the last few days, how discussions on articles have gone. This is a notable change from discussions that these parties have not weighed in on - discussions that have come to a consensus, both in favor of spoilers (Talk:List of Matoran, Talk:Sōsuke Aizen, Talk:Utopia (Doctor Who)) and against. 
I am told this mediation is going differently, but I don't see it - looking at the mediation page, I see the same ad-hominem attacks, demands for sanctions, etc.
What is so maddening here is that a good, functional model was in place. Spoiler tags were being added to articles where they did noticeable good, and had consensus. An out of control process had been curbed back and was in a position where it could grow naturally and with actual care. And then this consensus was, in the last few days, actively and deliberately broken by a campaign of incivility.
Convention seems to dictate that I ought express what I want out of this mediation. 
I want the mediation to stop. I want everyone involved to go back to writing an encyclopedia. I want local consensuses on article talk pages for the use of spoiler tags, and I want those consensuses to reflect actual thought about the article as opposed to robotically checking a guideline or deciding "I'm allowed to have a spoiler tag so I will." I want people to act like editors of an encyclopedia and to make thoughtful judgments. I want to move on, having now spent most of my time on Wikipedia for the last month on this issue.
The last, it turns out, can be achieved without mediation, and so I will be doing it. I'll check back at this issue in a week or two, trusting that those involved can come to a useful conclusion. If they don't, I'll wade back into it then. But at this point, I think everything I have to say on the subject of spoilers has been said several times, and that a trawl through the talk pages, the MfD, the mailing list, the talk pages of individual articles, and the histories of the articles that had their spoiler tags removed gives a very, very good sense of how widely that view is shared on Wikipedia. Phil Sandifer 03:50, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You say, "I want those consensuses to reflect actual thought about the article as opposed to robotically checking a guideline." Does that apply equally to those who deleted thousands of spoiler tags using AWB?  (I'm not trying to be snarky here — that's a legitimate question.  I would like to think that everyone agrees that that was an unfortunate overreach. It is certainly what I would consider the first major uncivil action in this business.) --Jere7my 04:23, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

text: Also, you seem to be misrepresenting what went on in the Halo edits, though it's probably an oversight. JimmyBlackwing, on June 27, said "I've given specific reasons. It isn't my fault I'm getting ganged up on by the anti-spoiler patrol who insist that none of them are valid."  This was one day before Nydas and David Spalding "showed up" and added anything to the comments.  JimmyBlackwing was a major local editor of the Halo article, and was part of the discussion from the beginning; clearly, he felt ganged up on by what he called the "anti-spoiler patrol". That hardly seems like an issue with drive-by troublemakers poisoning a discussion, which seems to be your take on it. --Jere7my 04:30, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It actually goes a step further than that--I requested their opinions on their talk pages, as anyone who looks there can see. I didn't ask for support, but instead the opinion of a third-party involved in the overall spoiler debate. When editors--who had never made edits on the article in question before that--appear at random to argue that a spoiler tag should be removed, I tend to get suspicious... particularly when my reasoning is completely ignored in a seeming attempt to force consensus. Clearly, other editors shared my suspicions, as their comments showed.. JimmyBlackwing 06:23, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Jimmy, one thing puzzles me about the above. Are you saying that you don't value the opinion of someone who hasn't edited the article before?  --Tony Sidaway 07:05, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Clearly not, or I wouldn't have requested the opinion of outside editors. My concern lies in "drive-by editing" and possibly "drive-by consensus-reaching", where several editors--normally uninterested in editing the article--force their way over a single one. I've noticed this tactic being used by anti-spoiler editors (possibly pro-spoiler editors as well, but I haven't seen it) over the last few weeks, and I heavily resent it. Just in case, I asked a few unrelated editors to weigh in on the issue at Talk:Halo: Combat Evolved, but I hadn't anticipated that they would respond like that--I was half expecting that they would agree on no spoiler tag being necessary, in fact. JimmyBlackwing 07:21, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  "Drive-by editing" refers to ill-informed, poorly thought out editing without follow-up on the talk page if the edit is queried.  "Drive-by consensus reaching" is a meaningless term.  I echo Phil's appalled reaction to the personal attacks that were made on the talk page concerned, and one of my aims in this mediation is to lead the editors who made those attacks to recognise that this kind of behavior is not acceptable on Wikipedia. --Tony Sidaway 07:40, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  "Drive-by consensus reaching" describes the practice of drive-by editors dropping by a talk page in overwhelming numbers, agreeing with each other, and claiming that's consensus. I can't say whether that's happened here, but I can see your confusion, as the practice has nothing at all to do with consensus. --Jere7my 12:11, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Weighing in

message: Given that requests like adding back all 45,000 deleted spoiler tags are being made seriously. That shows a disconnection it's hard to reason with.
This "mediation" looks like frantic venue-shopping (RFC, WT:SPOIL, wikien-l, AWB checklist, RFAr), searching for someone who's actually interested in taking up the cause of spoiler tags. If anyone cared, I'd have been taken out and shot by now. They observably don't - it's a few spoiler advocates looking for someone who cares.
On the assertion the spoiler removal was a violation of AWB policy: well, it appears no-one involved in AWB actually thinks so, and those in favour of spoilers couldn't raise interest there either . So please stop asserting this as if it's a fact.
I ask again: What is so hard about even attempting to discuss the spoilers on a case by case basis? Ken's been asked this many times by many people and has yet to state what makes him unable to hit "edit" and add a justification to a talk page - David Gerard 10:41, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Good God, man, you make tens of thousands of auto-edits and then ask that?  Do you have a special sack for carrying your balls around in? --Jere7my 10:54, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  David makes a good point, and one that I've made more than once in the past.  There simply has been no significant fuss across the wiki about the removals.  They were quite in order and, indeed, absolutely necessary. --Tony Sidaway 11:14, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Uhhh ... I think there has been significant fuss over the removals and the issue. This page is but one indication of that. David Spalding (☎ ✉ ✍) 12:46, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Check out what I wrote below. It needs to be put into perpective just how much the 'fuss' reletive to how many people would actually chime into the issue in the first place is. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 13:07, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

text: You have sidestepped my point. David asks (again), "What is so hard about even attempting to discuss the spoilers on a case by case basis?" He obviously did not discuss 10-20,000 spoilers "on a case by case basis". That looks like a double standard to me. --Jere7my 11:18, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm asking per the guideline as it stood when I did the edits and stands now: they were removed as redundant per guideline, and case-by-case justification is as per guideline. You don't like the guideline, so don't like it being implemented by anyone in any way, but that doesn't mean the people implementing it are doing something that's actually wrong - David Gerard 11:30, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm sorry; I'm not familiar with Wikipedia lingo, so I didn't know a cut-and-pasted five-word edit summary counted as "discussion".  Thanks for the correction! --Jere7my 11:51, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

text: More seriously: you can see the problem with this approach, yes? Mass editing that can't as easily be undone is ripe for abuse.  You can imagine someone achieving consensus (or claiming it) in a style guideline, then pressing a button to instantly change thousands of articles to match the new consensus — a lot of damage could be done, in principle, yes?  For those of us who think the spoiler guidelines are still in flux, you can see why we might think you've done damage that can't easily be undone? --Jere7my 12:02, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

text: I guess my question boils down to this: did you carefully examine each talk page to see if the editors had justified the spoiler tags there, or did you delete them rapidly without checking for justification?  (I don't actually know the answer to this, so I'm asking.)  WP:SPOILER never said "All spoiler tags are bad"; it has always allowed room for editors to justify some of them.  If you encountered some spoiler tags and left them in place, I might understand your argument here; if you deleted every tag you came across and left none standing, without even checking for justification, then it seems to me you were enforcing "I don't like spoiler tags" rather than WP:SPOILER. Make sense? --Jere7my 17:48, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Could I suggest that you focus more on what you want to achieve from the informal mediation process? Our role is limited to helping editors find a workable compromise, instead of sanctioning editors who were too bold or possibly lacking in etiquette. Addhoc 18:02, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: OK. --Jere7my 18:13, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: I am reluctant to bother with this

message: This seems like the best place to put this. Here's the thing. I think that part of the problem with the whole debate is simple. I honestly don't know (nor does anyone) what the true percentage of people who want the warnings is vs. people who don't and people who don't care (grouped together), but think about it. How many who don't and especially who don't care, would go out of their way to find the discussion and chime in? Far far less than those who are shocked to see them gone and want them back. So while a number of people maybe seem to want them back in, the truth is that the ratio, at least in my mind, is a lot more favored toward the otherside than comment would have you believe. That's MY theory anyway. I'm sure some of you will shoot it down on the basis that I'm in the 'don't want' camp. But I just thought I'd get this out there. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 12:02, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I tried to do a poll on RfC about if people actually use them, but it was soon closed by David Gerard (actually, the negligence about the users is the reason why I became interested in this). From the results, it seems that at least 40% of people do use spoiler warnings. It may take a while before people realize that they are gone, because the guideline is not very honest about it. There is also another poll on  forum. Samohyl Jan 12:16, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that was partly because dozens of people were opening straw polls as a basis to get votes for the "pro-spoiler" thing, but for the sole reason of trying to use it like votes and say that spoilers are good instead of actual consensus. While I didn't notice it, there was probably some of that from the "anti-spoiler" crowd too. David Fuchs 13:39, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I didn't want to get votes for anything, I was just genuinely curious at the time how many people use the spoiler warnings. I think the fact that a lot of people (as the polls suggest) use them was not considered when that 'consensus' to delete them all was made. Samohyl Jan 13:57, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not saying you personally were trying to do any more than get some feedback, but some were essentially trying to canvass. An additional consideration was there were so many flippin' polls: I think most people got tired by straw poll #5 or 6. David Fuchs 14:02, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  A slight problem with the whole issue 

message: I just want to make a response to this term, which David Gerard has been using extensively over the last few days:
The way this has been handled so far is in accordance with the dispute resolution guidelines. 
#Discussion was attempted on the talk page. 
#That failed to produce a conclusion that everyone agreed upon, so an RfC was opened. During that RfC, surveys were attempted, which largely showed that there was strong support for both sides of the dispute, and no conclusion was agreed upon. 
#Seeing these failures to reach consensus, I called for informal mediation in an attempt to reach consensus. My hope is that neutral third parties can help us all to reach agreement. 
There is definitely a dispute here. The fact that it has moved through several fora without reaching resolution doesn't make it any less of a dispute. We are here to try to reach agreement, not to be disruptive or spiteful. Please believe that. -Kieran 16:52, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: "Venue shopping"