Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Non-Notability/Proposed decision

message: Fred has suggested the following: 
4) The removal of the straw-poll from the talk page of Wikipedia:Non-notability by Radiant and Doc Glasgow increased the intensity of the dispute rather than cool it down, something that could have been anticipated by these experienced administrators.
I've conceded that edit warring over this was a bit lame, so I'm not objecting to FoF #10 (although, it seems too trivial to merit a finding). However, I'm a little concerned by the above. Leaving aside the minor point that I wasn't in the dispute prior to the poll, it is factually correct. Indeed it is almost tautologous to say that if you revert someone, it tends to increase the dispute. But, what is the implication? That if one user, perhaps totally unilaterally and perhaps in the teeth of objections, initiates a poll it should never be removed? Now, in this case, it will be argued that that's not what happened. But that aside, I'd ask arbcom to clarify the implication. It tends to imply that polls are like talk page comments, which, if made in good faith, should not be removed.--Docg 16:33, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: PS, I'm not losing any sleep over this, either way.--Docg 14:13, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removal of poll by administrators exacerbated the dispute 

message: I would recommend splitting principle 4 ("Revival of rejected proposals") because revival of proposals is unrelated to polling on proposals. It would be clearer to have one principle on revival, and one on polling. (Radiant) 13:37, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I agree, those two things would be better dealt with seperately. --Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 20:18, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Note

message: It is my understanding that the purpose of this arbitration was "to address the questions of how policy is made and what consensus means". I believe that the proposed decision could address these questions better by incorporating some more principles from the workshop page, e.g. Vexatious litigation, Consensus is not unanimity and Consensus is not a number. (Radiant) 13:37, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Purpose

message: I'm concerned that the current proposed decision lends too much weight to polls, which, while they have theoretical use, suffer such disdain in the community that it is difficult at best for them to actually be representative of anything, little yet of consensus. Phil Sandifer 19:03, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The solution, however, it no to condone unilateral removal of polls and revert warring over that by administrators. If a poll is unwanted, everyone is free to state that on any talk page. Repeatedly removing a poll can never do any good and will in all cases only make the dispute worse. --Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 20:16, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Certainly - I'm not defending the edit war on the poll. But I don't think a set of principles that tacitly endorses the general use of polling is necessary to note that edit warring is bad. Phil Sandifer 20:44, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Another angle on polling

message: m:Voting is evil is a redirect, the meta page is m:Polling is evil.  This difference, though minor, is in my view significant enough to warrant a correction in the text. Guy (Help!) 22:51, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  m:Voting is evil