Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Election

message: Hi Arbitrators. My summer season is starting (I lifeguard and run a beach house) so I'll be offline more than usual. What is the usual time frame for this process? Can arbitrators contact us in the event of a time crunch? I don't want my lessened online-time interpreted as a lack of interest in the progressing case. I can check my laptop in the evenings and will certainly stay on top of events, but not nearly so frequently as when I'm behind a desk in the other three seasons. Anyway, thanks! -- User:RyanFreisling @ 23:15, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Time frame question

message: First, note that I have never edited any of the pages in dispute.  Most of this complaint seems to be a content dispute, not a behavior dispute.  Arbitration is not the place for the content issue per se to be resolved.  And it's certainly not the right place without first pursuing mediation or an RFC.  It would be a very dangerous precedent, and indeed a power grab, for the committee to get involved in dictating specific content rather than general principles, such as verifiability.  
Further, the complaint that a factually comprehensive article becomes POV because simply by virtue of its length is truly mind-boggling.  Phil's comparison of the length of this article to that of a separate and distinct article is such a well-worn bit of wiki-sophistry that it makes me cringe.  If an article becomes too long, the appropriate action is to spin off sub-articles, not to cut verifiable content.  
If Phil's contention is that the content is not verifiable, then he ought first to make that case through standard channels such as the talk page, mediation, or RFC.  Since his previous arbitration complaint on this article was rejected, he has pursued neither mediation nor RFC nor much dialogue before filing another complaint on the same issue. This is an abuse of process. Derex 21:51, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Content dispute 

message: I'm moving this over from the evidence talk page since, on reflection, it's not evidence.  I apologize if my obsessive tweaking has made anyone re-read it or lose interest.
After Ryan quoted me on the evidence page, I thought I would chime in with my opinion about this whole kerfuffle. (I'm not confident enough in my opinion to put it on the main page, but here it is.)
# I'll stand behind my statements about Ryan.  I've run into her on a bunch of pages, and I've never seen her act in anything other than the utmost good faith.  I rarely agree with her POV on the underlying issues, but she's always had a great committment to ensuring that the encylopedia has accurate and verifiable information.  She's always willing to engage discussions, and I think she's a great asset to Wikipedia. 
# I have no reason to believe that Phil is acting in anything other than good faith either.  I sympathize with his feelings about those pages (I'm not sure if I agree, but I sympathize).  So I'd hate to see this devolve into "Is Ryan or Phil a bad person," and I'm pretty sure it won't. 
Here's my take on what this debate is all about:
# By collecting a whole bunch of data points that (mostly) comply with WP:V, it's possible to collect what starts to look like a narrative of how the Republicans stole the 2004 election by hiding secret programs in the electronic voting machines or undersupplying machines to urban districts or something, or, less extremely, how "serious questions have been raised" about this or that aspect of the election.  
# I don't doubt that someday, the pages might become a great encylopedia entry.  Right now, the defense that they 'collect a lot of information' doesn't strike me as that great -- most of the information is tough to read and out of context, and some of the pages are downright awful.  (The only subpage I've read, 2004 United States presidential election controversy, voting machines, is a great example of everything that's wrong with the pages, and I challenge anyone to read it from front to back.)
# However, even if you conclude, as I do, that the pages aren't that great now, the question becomes what to do about it, and I think that's what this RFA is really about.  Some possibilities:
## It might be possible, if one or two right wing POV editors spent a lot of time debating with the current group of editors, to improve the page.  It would be difficult, though, because (1) over the eight pages, it would mean someone would have to spend several hours a week working on them for the indefinite future, and there isn't anyone that interested in the pages with the right temperment to try to balance them, and (2) because the issue hasn't been addressed in as much detail by the mainstream press and/or a neutral body as by the left wing press, there aren't a lot of authoritative sources to say "Yes, this thing went wrong or that thing went wrong, but things have been going wrong since the beginning of time, and the evidence that the things were intentional or material is extremely speculative."
## A good example of riding herd on this kind of stuff is the Global warming controversy page and subpages, where global warming sceptics would like to do something similar to what I think is happening on these pages -- stitch together every statement of opinion and every data point that meets WP:V and casts doubt on global warming.  They can't present the info in the way that they would like because (1) one or two editors spend hours a week squashing the conspiracy theories and (2) those editors have scientific consensus to fall back on.
## Another possibility would be for the ArbCom to do nothing.  IMHO, the pages need work now, but that's true about a lot of pages in Wikipedia.  Arguably, over the passage of time, the Wikiprocess will delete the NN info and improve the remaining stuff.  
## So the ultimate question for this RFA is whether is a Wikipedia policy solution to the dispute.  Phil and TBeatty seem to be arguing that Ryan, Kevin, and the others should be barred from editing these pages, which might solve the problem, but seems pretty extreme once you concede that they are willing to work with Phil, but Phil (quite reasonably) isn't willing to put in the (enormous amount of) work that would be required.  Ryan, Kevin, and the others argue that Phil should either spend the time to work on his concerns one by one, or should mediate, which I am sure would improve the page, but would take a lot of work.
Here, I don't know what the solution is.  IMHO, Ryan's right that if TBeatty and Phil spent enough time working on the pages, they could probably negotiate the pages into something they would accept.  IMHO, Phil is also right that the pages as they are now are NPOV and rely on a bunch of NN (but mostly V) info. If I were the ArbCom, I would (1) tell Phil and TBeatty to seek mediation; (2) suggest that they try an RFC; and (3) maybe explain some policies that are relevant to approaching the dispute, but ultimately send everyone home without sanctions.  TheronJ 22:01, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Comment by TheronJ

message: Does the ArbCom intend that Phil Sandifer, a party to the Election case, have the same power to ban other editors from the articles involved that the ArbCom is granting to administrators in general in Remedy 2.1?  If not, could that please be made explicit?  I am concerned about the chilling effect on editors such as myself who wish to continue editing the articles but do not agree with Phil in certain respects which could invite the abuse of this new remedy.  I'm not opposed to the remedy for other admins in general; nor am I suggesting that Phil would likely ever take part in such a clear conflict of interest. It's just that I, and I think others, would be more likely to help improve the articles if this unlikely possibility were considerably more remote. 71.132.140.65 08:06, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Administrators involved in a conflict are never supposed to use their adminship to gain the upper hand in the conflict. If he were to, arbcom decision or no, it would be wrong. I don't see any reason to make a specific remedy to this effect, especially since there has been no evidence presented of him abusing adminship in this case. Dmcdevit·t 15:33, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Phil did threaten to block me for disagreeing with him, describing my conduct erroneously as 'vandalism', on a related article  (the 3rd, aborted VfD, if I recall) on which he was an editor. I believe that diff was presented. However, since he didn't actually follow thru on his threat, I guess that's been taken to mean that there's been no evidence presented. -- User:RyanFreisling @ 03:56, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Concur with Dmcdevit. It would be entirely inappropriate for Phil to use his adminship here; he should refrain from doing so under normal admin conduct guidelines, without it needing to be specifically stated. (And preferably, he should not even appear to suggest it.) Mindspillage (spill yours?) 21:32, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: From [[WP:RFAR]] "Clarification" section: Article probation remedy for Election

message: While merging the list at Wikipedia:Article probation into Wikipedia:General sanctions, I noticed that this 2006 case needs a review.  The article probation remedy stated:
Articles which are the locus of dispute, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Election/Proposed decision#Locus of dispute, are placed on probation. Any editor may be banned from any or all of the articles, or other reasonably related pages, by an administrator for disruptive edits, including, but not limited to, edit warring, incivilty, and original research. The Arbitration Committee reserves the right to appoint one or more mentors at any time, and will review the situation in one year.
The one year review was due in July 2007, but apparently has not been done yet.  After looking at the edit histories of these articles,  I recommend that article probation be lifted for some, but not all of the articles.  In particular, I noticed recent editing disputes at 2004 United States presidential election controversy, vote suppression, and several of the articles still have neutrality disputed tags. - Jehochman  Talk 23:21, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I expect that we will conduct a review of all the currently active general sanctions in January, once the new arbitrators are on board. Kirill 15:27, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Request for review of [[Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Election]]