Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Copperchair/Workshop

This is a page for working on Arbitration decisions. It provides for suggestions by Arbitrators and other users and for comment by arbitrators, the parties and others. After the analysis of /Evidence here and development of proposed principles, findings of fact, and remedies. Anyone who edits should sign all suggestions and comments. Arbitrators will place proposed items they have confidence in on /Proposed decision.

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Probation
1) All users who are participants in this controversy are placed on probation on edits involving Star Wars and all related articles pending resolution of this arbcom case. Any administrator who feels that any party user is content warring or revert warring my initiate a block of up to 24 hours for the first offense and up to 1 week for subsequent violations, however mitigating circumstances may result in an extension in any block. This injunction applies to but is not mutually exclusive to User:A Link to the Past, User:clawson, User:Philwelch, User:The Wookieepedian, User:Marudubshinki, and User:Copperchair.


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 * I would prefer a more objective criteria. Perhaps 1RR? — Phil Welch 21:40, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Perhaps, but in this situation and with so many users and on a large range of articles I think that a certain amount of judgement should be allowed in this since I doubt it will all be cut and dry. Jtkiefer  T - 21:39, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Judgment, yes. Arbitrary blocking power, no. I don't want to spend the next months editing in fear of a one-week ban because of someone's (your?) "feelings". If there are objective rules to follow, I will gladly follow them. If there are no objective rules I am essentially under the arbitrary authority of aforementioned "any administrator". And I'm saying this as someone who hasn't edit warred for maybe a month now. If I revert an unexplained blanking or make a negotiative edit with someone who refuses to use talk pages, am I edit warring? No. Could someone "feel" that I am edit warring and ban me for a week? Easily. 1RR is an objective criteria that won't really hinder good-faith contributions while protecting me from being banned if some admin misinterprets a good-faith contribution. Even more, it would quiet down the edit warring. — Phil Welch 23:21, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Personally, I think this probation is appropriate, but limited to Copperchair and The Wookieepedian. They're the only ones destructively warring right now, with both of them removing each others' productive edits vindictively. Everyone else is just undoing Copperchair's reverts to a preferred version, usually trying to preserve his productive edits. - A Man In  Black  (conspire | past ops) 18:31, 7 November 2005 (UTC)


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Ban on Star Wars related edits
2) User:Copperchair and User:The Wookieepedian are forbidden from editing Star Wars for the duration of this RFAr.


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 * In response to criticisms of proposal 1 since as Man In Black points out Coppperchair and Wookiepedian both ferociously edit war at times. Jtkiefer  T - 05:08, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Er. They both make productive edits in addition to (or at the same time as) edit warring; this seems like a last resort at best. - A Man In  Black  (conspire | past ops) 06:07, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
 * well if you have any better suggestions please by all means put them up. Jtkiefer  T - 03:14, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

=Proposed final decision=

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Edit summaries
1) If a content dispute develops, proper use of edit summaries is critical. Edit summaries should accurately and succinctly summarize the nature of the edit, especially if it may be controversial; if the edit involves reverting previous changes, it should be marked as a revert in the edit summary. In controversial situations, avoid using edit summaries to carry on debates or negotiation over the content or to express opinions of the other users involved. Doing this will actually exacerbate the situation, because it naturally encourages the other party to respond in the same manner - in other words, by making an edit and using the edit summary - and what might have been productive dialogue instead becomes an edit war. In these situations, it is better to discuss changes to article content on the talk page. In non-controversial cases, it is occasionally workable to negotiate changes using edit summaries, but it is still important to describe the edit in the summary.


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 * policy on this can be found at Edit summary Jtkiefer  T - 03:33, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Copperchair takes the position that his edit summaries are in fact accurate, as they (for the most part) accurately describe the differences between the last version he considers to be legitimate and the version he ends up posting. It needs to be made clear to him that this is a no go. He is not the sole arbiter of which versions of these articles are correct, but that's the less important of two reasons - the major one is that the expectation is that the edit summary will accurately describe the differences between the new version and the immediately previous one, not some other earlier one. I assume this is obvious to everyone (including CC, really), but the above doesn't actually spell it out and unless it does, CC is just going to claim he didn't realize this, notwithstanding its obviousness. PurplePlatypus 02:56, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
 * I agree, in proposed principles it should be placed that article ownership belongs to everyone not just to one editor. Jtkiefer T  06:58, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Edit Warring
2) Edit warring is harmful to the project and hinders development of articles as well as being harmful to the community as a whole.


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Vandalism
3) Vandalism is any addition, deletion, or change to content made in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of the encyclopedia. Any good-faith effort to improve the encyclopedia, even if misguided or ill-considered, is not vandalism.


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Article Ownership
4) Wikipedia articles belong to everyone and every editor has the right to edit articles unless they have been blocked or banned.


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Personal attacks
5) Making personal attacks towards other editors is inexcusable and reflects poorly on Wikipedia and it's editors.


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Proposed remedies
Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.

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Probation
1) User:Copperchair and User:The_Wookieepedian are to be placed under probation for a period of 6 months and placed under 1RR for the duration of the probationary period.


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 * I'm not saying that everything Wookipedian has done has been okay, but treating him the same as Copperchair does not seem reasonable. Copperchair has been blocked for 48 hours for edit warring, come back and done 12 reverts in the space of a few minutes, been blocked for a week for edit warring, and just now he's come back, done another 12 reverts in a handful of minutes, and been blocked for a week again. He displays complete disregard if not active contempt for consensus, other users, admins, and this arbcom case, he is completely unrepentant and showing no sign of improving his behaviour, and he will continue having to be put on virtually back to back 7-day blocks until the end of time at this rate. What's the point of continuing to play whack-a-mole with him? Just nuke him and be done with it. PurplePlatypus 08:52, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
 * For one thinking nuking users isn't nice, only trolls and persistant and unreprentant vandals should be nuked, another reason why a harsh punishment for either of them would be bad is that they both have quite a few good contributions which is what we want to encourge. Jtkiefer T  00:24, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

2) User:Copperchair is to be placed under probation for a period of 6 months and placed under 1RR for the duration of the probationary period.


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 * 1RR will still allow him to edit war. I say we draw up a list of Copperchair's pet disputes (i.e. the things that everyone but him agrees on but he keeps reverting anyway) and hold him to 0RR on those and 1RR on everything else, while providing a mechanism for admins to add to the list. This essentially formalizes what A Man in Black is doing—namely, giving him a one-week ban every time he goes on a reversion spree. (Inevitably he comes back and goes on a reversion spree again). However, it allows the block to take place after only one reversion, so we don't have to go back and clean up after a whole spree of them. I suggest, as other additions, that the enforcement blocks go up in duration each successive time, starting at one week. If Copperchair doesn't get the point after the first block, two weeks. Then a month. (The six month probation period should restart every time he is blocked.) Furthermore, let's include a clear instruction to Copperchair that he must stop aforementioned reversions. As he's shown a propensity to "agree" to something and then "misunderstand" it and continue doing as he's doing, we must be as unambiguous as possible. — Phil Welch 22:34, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Would be quite a long list of articles so it might have to be topic wide (Star Wars) but that might be a good solution. Jtkiefer T  20:46, 3 December 2005 (UTC)


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 * In response to thoughts that remedy might not be appropriate for both of them I have split it up for individual review. Jtkiefer T  00:28, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

3) User:The_Wookieepedian is to be placed under probation for a period of 6 months and placed under 1RR for the duration of the probationary period.


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 * If we amend Copperchair's probation as detailed above this seems equitable, if unnecessary—Wookieepedian has cleaned up his act and I, for one, am willing to vouch for him. — Phil Welch 22:35, 1 December 2005 (UTC)


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 * In response to thoughts that remedy might not be appropriate for both of them I have split it up for individual review. Jtkiefer T  00:28, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

4) User:Copperchair is to be placed under probation for a period of 6 months and placed under a general 1RR for the duration of the probationary period. Copperchair is further disallowed from reverting editing any Star Wars related articles for any reason. Both of these restrictions are meant to apply strictly—Copperchair is disallowed from reverting more than the prescribed number of times even in cases of blatant vandalism.


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 * As per my discussion with Jtkiefer above, I'm formalizing my proposed amendments into this proposal and the enforcement proposal below. The vandalism clause is there to stop Copperchair from using creative interpretations of the word "vandalism" to justify a reversion. — Phil Welch Katefan's ridiculous poll 21:55, 3 December 2005 (UTC)


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 * I support this proposal fully, in conjunction with the enforcement proposed below I think it would work well. Jtkiefer T  23:42, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

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Enforcement in regards to remedy #1
1) Should either Copperchair or Wookiepedian edit war or violate the terms of their probation they may be blocked for up to 48 hours for the first offense and up to one week for subsequent offenses.


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Enforcement in regards to remedy #4
1) Should Copperchair revert edit any article pertaining to Star Wars, or revert any other article two or more times in a 24 hour period, including reversions of simple vandalism, his account shall be blocked for a period of: 1 week for the first offense, 2 weeks for the second offense, 1 month for the third offense, and 3 months for the fourth and each successive offense. Additionally, each time he is blocked pursuant to this enforcement, Copperchair's six month probation period shall restart from the date said block expires.


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 * As per discussion with Jtkiefer above. May be a bit strict—please comment. — Phil Welch Katefan's ridiculous poll 22:02, 3 December 2005 (UTC)


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 * CC is keen to claim his edits aren't reverts, since in addition to the revert (and/or wholesale deletion of the Fan Works section in Star Wars, which this doesn't address) he usually "piggybacks" good copy edits into the same edit. I am pretty sure he is being disingenuous when he claims to misunderstand this point, but even so, should make it as specific and loophole-proof as humanly possible. (As for not excluding vandalism, as is normally done, for most other editors I would be inclined to still allow that, but in the case of a literal-minded editor like CC, this might be a sensible precaution - otherwise he would just claim adding the Fan Works section again, for example, was "vandalism".) PurplePlatypus 20:58, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I still hold the belief that the only loophole proof remedy is a total ban on Star Wars related articles and that this might be a good solution, he isn't the only one who can make good edits to articles and if he really has an urgent need to have something fixed up there's nothing stopping him from proposing it on the talk page (btw a talk page exception should be added to any ban on Star Wars related bans that are implemented so that he can suggest changes). Jtkiefer T  21:08, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Changed thusly. — Phil Welch Katefan's ridiculous poll 23:04, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
 * This is a tough solution, no doubt about that but I think it's a fair one and will work well with the probation. Jtkiefer T  23:43, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Analysis of evidence
Place here items of evidence (with diffs) and detailed analysis

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personal attacks
[ http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Copperchair&diff=prev&oldid=24372393 September 29, 2005] where Copperchair uses the edit summary "Fuck you." shows that there may be a bigger issue of civility and personal attacks between certain parties in this, the dispute. It is also seen here that these editors have become very upset and quite confrontational with each other.


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 * just bringing up a possibly bigger issue of incivility between certain parties in this dispute. Jtkiefer  T - 02:35, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
 * As seen here Jtkiefer T  20:04, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

General discussion

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