Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Episodes and characters/Workshop

This is a page for working on Arbitration decisions. The Arbitrators, parties to the case, and other editors may draft proposals and post them to this page for review and comments. Proposals may include proposed general principles, findings of fact, remedies, and enforcement provisions&mdash;the same format as is used in Arbitration Committee decisions. The bottom of the page may be used for overall analysis of the /Evidence and for general discussion of the case.

Any user may edit this workshop page. Please sign all suggestions and comments. Arbitrators will place proposed items they believe should be part of the final decision on the /Proposed decision page, which only Arbitrators may edit, for voting.

Involved parties be expanded to include other users
1) There seems to be many other involved parties aside from the ones listed on Requests for arbitration/Episodes and characters. A number of them had been commenting on the case as an outside opinion and they do have edits similar to the involved parties - particularly the ones accused. I hope to see this dispute involving episode and character articles in general to end with a single arbitration case and not require a second case for those uninvolved others. I will not name these users and let the arbitration committee decide who they are. That is unless the arbitration committee asks me to compile a list. -- Cat chi? 10:33, 18 December 2007 (UTC)


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 * Comment by parties:
 * Comment. I think you will find that the arbitration ruling will be of a more general and broad nature that will address disruptive behavior by all editors.  I certainly hope that they will acknowledge that edit warring is bad and no editors should do it.  Can you be more specific about why you feel this arbitration would not address all editors behavior and only address named parties?  Ursasapien (talk) 11:13, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Certainly but I want the result of the RfAr to be binding for all involved parties. I was declared an involved party even though I had no dealing I can recall with the nominator. I am not bothered by it as clearly I am involved in the greater issue of episode and character articles but so are other people commenting here like random bystanders. If someone is involved, calling them as such isn't really wrong. "Outside parties" typically supposed to be parties that have no interest to secure in a dispute otherwise they would be "involved". -- Cat chi? 15:24, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I disagree with your interpretation of the definition of "outside parties." "Involved parties" are those that are involved directly in the conflict.  The original RfAr was about TTN.  I added myself as an involved party because I have been involved directly with TTN.  I assumed that all the other "involved parties" were in a similar group.  Yes, there are several other "deletion-minded" editors that interpret guidelines in a similar manner to TTN, but that does not make them an involved party.  Similarly, there are hundreds of "inclusion-minded" editors that are not directly involved in this case.  Regardless, the ArbCom's decision will be binding on all editors (they are not limited to "involved parties") and, if you peruse the proposed decision page, you will note that they are leaning toward general principles and broad themes as opposed to hammering one side or the other in this conflict.  Ursasapien (talk) 05:53, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment by others:
 * Oh no White Cat! don't tell me you have a little list. Eusebeus (talk) 13:41, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
 * nb: there is precedent for such lists. --Jack Merridew 07:14, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
 * There is much Wiki-precedent that supports users keeping evidence pages, if they are useful. Do not make something sinister out of it.  Sometimes it is best to ignore certain comments.  Ursasapien (talk) 07:24, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I do not have hate-lists, no. I would have to review the conduct of people commenting here. I merely thought it would not be inline with COI for me to make such a review, but hey there goes WP:AGF as I am already been accused of ill-will... I am however more than familiar with the conduct of Jack Merridew who blanked all Oh My Goddess! episode articles despite the discussion. -- Cat chi? 15:24, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

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TTN will cease redirecting articles until the ArbCom has made a decision
1) continues to redirect articles at a rapid rate despite his assertion that he would be using AfD instead.  He should cease redirecting articles until this dispute is resolved.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:
 * We ought to be done with this quickly enough that this won't make a practical difference. Kirill 17:55, 10 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment by parties:
 * Proposed. This seems to continue to inflame the dispute.  Perhaps TTN could better contribute to this discussion if he was not so involved with redirecting episode articles.  Ursasapien (talk) 12:41, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I think this is inadequate. TTN and all other parties should cease mass-removing content in any way (afd or not) during the duration of this RfAR. Given there is no legal crisis and hence there is no urgent reason there is absolutely no need to continue such edits in the meanwhile. Instead of disregarding this RfAr perhaps TTN should be participating in it. -- Cat chi? 14:50, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I do not see how Jack Merridew is an outside party btw given he is clearly involved per the evidence he presented. -- Cat chi? 16:12, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
 * This can only work if we also stop people from adding masses of unencyclopedic material at a rapid rate. Besides, as TTN recently stated, if he doesn't want articles to be deleted, he would rather start a merge discussion than an AfD. (Reply to White Cat) There is neither an urgency to create nor to "destroy" "information", so arguing only one way is clearly biased. AfD is a proper channel to keep wikipedia running despite or especially because of all the junk that is appearing here each day. Fiction-related articles, like everything else on wikipedia, can be junk or the Holy Grail and should to go through AfD or merge discussions if their wiki-suitability is not clear. – sgeureka t•c 15:43, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
 * AFD only works if votestacking isn't an issue. Any fiction related afd seems to be voted on collectively by the same people. That is part of the complaint here. The rate of addition of information is not even a fraction of the speed they are being removed. Addition of sourced information traditionally has not been a problem. Same can't be said about the removal of sourced information. -- Cat chi? 16:15, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I am unaware of any intentionally conspiracy-like votestacking, and everyone is invited to participate in AfD, also inclusionists. (And yes, there have been cases where unencyclopedic articles were saved by the sheer masses of fans, and there were also encyclopedic articles with a lack of sources that were unfortunately deleted.) Getting rid of TTN's and every merge/redirect/deletion supporter's editing for two weeks while the arbcom is still going on just nullifies their actions as soon as the addition rate is more than 1/14==7% (and it surely is). And let's not forget about the still huge backlog of fiction-related articles of the past 5 years that has yet to be reviewed. – sgeureka t•c 16:47, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
 * You seem to be missing the very point of this RfAr. -- Cat chi? 17:35, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
 * It's hard to miss the point of this RfAr if the perceived "real point" hasn't been proven except for isolated incidents (which can and does happen to all of us), or is so vague that they apply to almost every editor here, independent of "side". But this is getting off-track, as an arbitrator has already commented.– sgeureka t•c 18:20, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
 * All this is intended is to minimize disruption. TTN's edits (justified or not) are causing revert wars and other disruption. Any action to minimize disruption should be taken. I have the editorial right to revert ALL of TTN's WP:BOLD mass blankings (as suggested by a number of people), I am not doing so to avoid disruption. -- Cat chi? 12:59, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose - this RfAr is about the conduct of both sides, not just one. Will (talk) 20:15, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment by others:
 * When one man with a bucket is battling a flood, I'm uninclined to ask him to stop.Kww (talk) 15:02, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose — The work needs doing. There are many, many, many articles to go before we sleep. --Jack Merridew 15:15, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Any reason why these edits need to be done before supper? Why can't they be done after the arbcom case closes? Whats the rush? -- Cat chi? 16:14, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Why put-off until tomorrow that which can be done today? The articles are unencyclopaedic and more appear everyday, so there is no reason to let the dross accumulate. --Jack Merridew 16:23, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Very simple, my belief is TTN's edits are disruptive, the very point of this RfAr. Such edits should not be made until a resolution is reached. They should not have been made until a resolution was reached in the first place. See WP:CON. Also please cease embedding everyones comments into each other. Leave a * so they are more distinguishable. I can't follow them, you do not HAVE TO contradict every edit I make. -- Cat chi? 17:35, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
 * And I believe that your actions are disruptive. If you would like me to not contradict you, you might try seeing things from another perspective. --Jack Merridew 07:57, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * You know. What if (just what if) it isn't me that is being disruptive (for writing articles (encyclopedic or not)). You make edits similar to TTN do you not? What if (just what if) it is TTN and you who is being disruptive for mass removing content while making an effort to avoid and/or ignore all discussion. If I am an involved party over the Oh My Goddess! episode/character articles, why should you not be an involved party for blanking or seeking to blank such articles? I mean can you really say you aren't an involved party? You blanked the Oh My Goddess! episode articles! -- Cat chi? 12:54, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm being disruptive? I'm avoiding discussion? You continue to use words like 'blank' for redirection after considerable discussion and your considerable disruption. Kindly cease trying to distort terminology. Perchance you've noticed that I am probably the most active editor in this very discussion. --Jack Merridew 13:57, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Indeed! It needs stating more often that this spirited defense of articles that openly contravene our policies and guidelines is highly disruptive. Eusebeus (talk) 15:36, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Better wording: This disruptive defense of articles that openly contravene our policies and guidelines is highly spirited. --Jack Merridew 09:17, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Imagine people working together collaboratively to write an encyclopedia! My god! Thats something we most certainly do not want on an encyclopedia! We instead want people to panic blank pages even if there are serious objections. Such objections should be ignored. -- Cat chi? 12:54, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Support - per White Cat. --User: (talk) 15:49, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose obviously. This privileges the view that redirects of content that do not aspire to our policies & guidelines is disruptive, which is in my view nonsense and more generally a topic to be sorted out by this arb case. Eusebeus (talk) 20:20, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Support. This is obvious. There are 4 possibilities here. TTN is doing harm, and this suggestion stops him from editing for a time; the outcome is beneficial. TTN is doing harm, and this suggestion does not stop him; the outcome is neutral, since the status quo of him going around removing material is preserved. TTN is doing marginal good (what actual harm is done by the material TTN is removing?), and the suggestion stops him for a time; outcome is neutral (Arbcom rules in his favor, and the efficiency gain more than makes up for time lost). TTN is doing marginal good, etc. The first column's strategy of having TTN cool his heels for a time is dominant to the second column of leaving him be. --Gwern (contribs) 00:09 11 December 2007 (GMT)
 * You left out one possibility: TTN's behaviour is of significant benefit, but Arbcom tells him to stop anyway.Kww (talk) 00:46, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Well sure, but since I presumably want the Arbcom to pay attention to my comments, I'm hardly going to go and insult them like that. :) --Gwern (contribs) 02:13 11 December 2007 (GMT)
 * When someones edits are potentially disruptive (that there is a discussion against such edits) it is general practice to voluntarily cease such edits and get involved in such a discussion so as not to provoke revert wars and other forms of disruption etc. Since TTN isn't doing that, such a temporary injunction would help parties take a step back and look at the bigger picture. We are not at war here, or are we? So I believe Gwern has a very good point. I also want to add that if TTN cant find 5 minutes a day to comment here on this RfAr while continuing his edit storm, I wonder how much he pays attention on the discussions he initiates and/or enforces. We have bots for such automated tasks and last time I checked TTN did not have a bot flag. He is expected and required to pay attention to others even if he disagrees with them. -- Cat chi? 12:54, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Actually, no more than I am required to listen to the arguments of people that write "Disney Star A is SOOO GAAY" all over the High School Musical article. I'm one editor that reverts them, but there are dozens that insert them. Am I acting against consensus because I delete them? No. Should I engage them in discussion? No. I simply revert them and leave a note. I looked over the "Oh! My Goddess" episode articles, and most of them weren't much better. Redirecting them and leaving a note was quite appropriate.Kww (talk) 13:04, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Please note that there was extensive discussion first. --Jack Merridew 14:08, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose - I agree with one of the admins when he/she says that this must not be just focused on TTN, as the behavior of others (as in those who obstruct the process of deleting unencyclopedic articles unjustifiably) should be taken into account and not just his. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 22:14, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * No user in this debate has the stunning edit rate TTN has. He is working like a bot at times treating them all as a mere back log. There is no consensus for such non-discussion mass blankings. I can get my bot to preform edits like TTN (convert all pages in a category to a redirect) at a faster edit rate than TTN. Had I done that, the bot would be rightly blocked for disruption. If TTN's edits is based on a consensus, I want to see it. Else, he should stop or be stopped at least until this case concludes and such a consensus is reached. -- Cat chi? 12:54, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Support. We are here to make an encylopedia that everyone can edit, not destroy as much content as possible.  Excessive redirects and excessive nominations of articles for deletion turns readers and editors away from our project and obstruct our progress in our goal of cataloging the sum of human knowledge.  Sincerely, --  Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles  Tally-ho! 18:38, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Support. I am seeing that a small number of editors, and especially TTN, are creating massive disruption with out consensus.   I'd really like all the massive tagging for notability and calls for deletions/mergers to wait on consensus. Hobit (talk) 07:37, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Support Wikipedia has no deadlines, and thus there is no rush. It needs to be resolved whether or not TTN's actions are appropriate before he and others are allowed to continue. GlassCobra 18:38, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment You really should read WP:DEADLINE - it says that there is not rush to create such articles and as such it is an excellent reason for many articles to be redirected or deleted. --Jack Merridew 15:39, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Consensus was reached quite a long time ago on WP:EPISODE and of course WP:V and WP:NOT. Obviously then, there is no need for TTN to wait until consensus has been reached... I do agree that there is no rush, but there is no rush to create plot summary articles, nor to undo their rightful redirection without any improvements. TTN should be civil, and take care that he only redirects those articles which are truly mainly plot summaries, but he should in no way be restricted in the number of edits he does, since this is a huge problem. Fram (talk) 14:53, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Support. I agree with Citrouilles, TTN's actions turn readers and editors away from our project. Moreover, TTN says TV.COM is the place for articles about episodes. This is actually backwards logic: that the episodes are covered by tv.com only bolsters the argument against TTN's censorship: Wikipedia's goal is stated as follows: "The main goal of this project is to ensure that Wikipedia has a corresponding article for every article in every other general purpose encyclopedia available...".  Wikipedia policy on notability says that "notable" is defined as "worthy of notice" or "attracting notice"; it is not synonymous with "fame" or "importance". Yes, tv.com is the best place to look for it NOW, now that TTN has dismantled all the interesting information about the show that WAS on Wikipedia. Geĸrίtz (talk) 20:40, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I hate to break it to you, but the case is already over. -- Ned Scott 03:46, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

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Questions to the parties
=Proposed final decision=

Decorum
1) Wikipedia users are expected to behave reasonably and calmly in their interactions with other users, to keep their cool when editing, and to avoid acting in a manner that brings the project into disrepute. Unseemly conduct—including, but not limited to, personal attacks, incivility, assumptions of bad faith, trolling, harassment, and gaming the system—is prohibited.  Users should not respond to such behavior in kind; concerns regarding the actions of other users should be brought up in the appropriate forums.


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 * Proposed. This principle was just found in a recent arb-com case I was involved in and seems highly relevant here. Hiding T 10:17, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Support — Suggest adding WP:DISRUPT --Jack Merridew 12:26, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Editorial process
2) Wikipedia works by building consensus through the use of polite discussion. The dispute resolution process is designed to assist consensus-building when normal talk page communication has not worked. Sustained editorial conflict is not an appropriate method of resolving disputes.


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 * Proposed. This principle was just found in a recent arb-com case I was involved in and seems highly relevant here. Hiding T 10:17, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
 * What about when consensus already exists? Eusebeus (talk) 17:23, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
 * "An issue decided in the past can always be discussed again, especially if there is new information or a question of policy being breached." Ursasapien (talk) 10:31, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Qualified Support — Per Eusebeus, there is often a pre-existing prior consensus that further discussion will not budge. See this gem, for example. --Jack Merridew 12:16, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Editorial process: fait accompli
3) Editors who have been apprised that a particular change is controversial or disputed are expected to engage in discussion to resolve the dispute. It is inappropriate to repeat the change over a wide range of pages in order to present opponents with a fait accompli or to exhaust their ability to contest the change.


 * This is from the Proposed decision page — proposed by Kirill.


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 * Agree I'm finding that deletions and tagging of articles as "unsourced" or "not notable" in mass, is occurring even though it's clear that there is serious disagreement about these tags. Some discussion before hitting 50 different pages would seem appropriate. Hobit (talk) 06:37, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Agree Thousands of kilobytes of data are being deleted; there needs to be some discussion before it's allowed to continue. GlassCobra 18:41, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Agree --User: (talk) 20:20, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Editorial process: fait accompli
3.1) Editors who are collectively or individually making large numbers of similar edits and are apprised that those edits are controversial or disputed, are expected to attempt to resolve the dispute through discussion. It is inappropriate to use repetition or volume in order to present opponents with a fait accompli or to exhaust their ability to contest the change.  This applies to many editors making a few edits, as well as a few editors making many edits.


 * This is from the Proposed decision page — proposed by Paul August.


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Role of the Arbitration Committee
4) It is not the role of the Arbitration Committee to settle good-faith content disputes among editors.


 * This is from the Proposed decision page — proposed by Kirill.


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Editorial guidelines
5) Editors working to implement guidelines with consensus support, such as WP:EPISODE, need not rehash the discussion of the general guideline each time they apply it.


 * This is from the Proposed decision page — proposed by The Uninvited Co.


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Editorial process: guidelines
5.1) Editors working to implement guidelines that have wide consensus support within the community need not rehash the discussion of a general guideline each time they apply it.


 * This is from the Proposed decision page — proposed by Kirill.


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Editorial process: consensus can change
6) Consensus is not immutable. It is reasonable, and sometimes necessary, for both individual editors and particularly the community as a whole to change its mind.


 * This is from the Proposed decision page — proposed by Kirill.


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 * Strong support. There is an indication on this talk page that some editors are not aware of the strong policy on Wikipedia that consensus can indeed change.  Editors need to be prepared to listen and engage at all times, in case they have judged consensus wrong, or it has in fact changed. Anyone who disputes this needs to re-read the policy at WP:CONSENSUS. Hiding T 17:00, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Trivial subjects
7) Articles regarding trivial subjects which Wikipedia users have a practice of creating do little harm and are not properly the subject of serious campaigns which would conform them to guidelines appropriate for serious subjects, see List of South Park episodes and note there is an extensive article regarding each episode.


 * This is from the Proposed decision page — proposed by Fred Bauder.


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 * Comment by parties:
 * Strong Agree - Sometimes we take ourselves too seriously. I challenge the opposition to this to demonstrate the grave harm that these poor articles do to the project.  We have tens of thousands of poor articles and only a small percentage are related to fiction.  The good news is we have decades to improve them.  Great strides have already been made in the area of policy and procedure.  That others make fun of us is an inevitable fact that will not be avoided by deleting 90% of our fiction-related articles.  This arbitration is about tactics and I would like it to be noted that we should proceed methodically and not with immediate and drastic action.  Ursasapien (talk) 07:14, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose This statement is true when such articles are added in small amounts, but Wikipedia has grown, and we no longer get just small amounts of such articles. Also, South Park is a bad example of "trivial" subjects, considering the long run of the show (a greater time to yield reviews, books, etc) and the controversial nature of the show (which often puts it in the news) all give South Park a nice edge when it comes to finding those real-world sources. Not saying that justifies every South Park article, but I would consider that group of articles to be one that we generally give slack to because of the potential we've seen in the past. -- Ned Scott 07:22, 13 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment by others:
 * Strong Oppose — This amounts to giving trivial subjects a pass on adherence to conformance. --Jack Merridew 12:14, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose Have to agree with Jack here. Notable material of interest gets merged for better presentation, and trivial things get a free pass, eh-eh. I also do not agree that they "do little harm". The problem is that WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is a main messure for interested newbie editors what deserves an article or not, and as soon as trivial content is allowed to stay, more...and...more...and...more trivial stuff of poor quality gets created, i.e. it is doing harm. – sgeureka t•c 12:27, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Absolutely oppose. How do you stop the garage band and vanity articles ... this lets in a lot more than episodes of "My Stepmother is an Alien".Kww (talk) 12:28, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I disagree with this on multiple levels. On the surface it sounds like a statement that only certain articles are required to follow policy which seems silly. Not only that but which policies are they not required to meet? If they aren't notable or verifiable then why should we enforce NFCC on them? Let's just add a whole gallery of episode screenshots. I also agree with Kww's view that this opens the door to a whole batch of unencyclopedic topics outside the scope of this case. It doesn't do any harm to have an article on my dog, it's not a serious subject so it doesn't need to conform to guidelines meant for serious subjects. There shouldn't be a serious campaign to make it conform so let's get rid of new page patrol. I know I'm being ridiculous but if you read this the right way that is what it is suggesting. I further note that this wording refers to the articles as "trivial subjects" which in my mind is an endorsement of the view that these topics are already considered non-notable which would imply that we might as well delete them rather than letting them sit. I don't believe every character/episode is trivial so I take issue both with them being referred to as such and not falling under policy because they are such. If this is to be the outcome of this case I would strongly recommend a different wording. Stardust8212 14:03, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Strongest Possible Oppose This is supposed to be a bloody encyclopedia, not a toybox for obsessed fans; the collection of unnotable trivia absolutely affects the project, brings it into disrepute and leads to mockery and derision. Eusebeus (talk) 19:49, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * see also --Jack Merridew 20:52, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I'd like to point out that Jack both has both a Strong oppose and a Strongest Possible Oppose in this discussion. I assume he forgot he did the first one. Hobit (talk) 06:09, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
 * You seem to have conflated Eusebeus's post and my comment after it. Please remember this is not a vote; folks may comment more than once. --Jack Merridew 09:17, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
 * You are correct, I misread things. But while we are on the comic topic there are other views too. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hobit (talk • contribs) (15:52, 16 December 2007) diff
 * Thanks. An interesting take on Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia. --Jack Merridew 12:22, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Support. Removing useful information on the basis of it being a toybox leads to mockery and derision.  It's not like people are going to stumble upon The Keep on the Borderlands and think it has something to do with the real world.Hobit (talk) 06:09, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Merges must retain some information from the merged articles
8) A merge is only a merge when a non-trivial amount of information is retained from all articles that are part of the merge. If no information is retained from an individual article then the article has not been merged, but blanked or "soft deleted".


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 * I'm not sure if this is reliant, but I generally agree with this definition of merge. Keep in mind that articles redirected to a parent article that already contains some of the same content could be seen as a merge, even if no edit is required to preserve that information. -- Ned Scott 22:29, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Conditional support: change "must" to "should", and remove the soft-deletion line or reword it to say "if no non-trivial information is retained... the article has not been merged, but redirected or "soft deleted". Will (talk) 00:30, 1 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment by others:
 * I agree with Ned Scott — the target of the "merge" may-well already include a reasonable summary. Also, the editor redirecting may not be familiar with the subject and thus may not be the best editor to summarize the material. I feel that the onus is on those seeking to include plot summary to edit and format it in accordance with policies and guidelines. I object to the term "soft delete" as inherently biased (and "blanked" is even worse); use the word "redirect". --Jack Merridew 06:46, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I think you may find ArbCom will find this to be a content issue and won't adopt it. Stifle (talk) 10:18, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
 * While I agree that ArbCom will likely not adopt this principle, I must stress that several "merge"s that TTN has made do not preserve any information from the article being merged, and I find this highly disagreeable. GlassCobra 19:43, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

The appropriate venue for deletion requests is Candidates for Speedy Deletion, Proposed Deletion, or Articles for Deletion
9) If an editor feels that no information present in an article (not present elsewhere) is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia, that editor should use any of the three established deletion processes to have that article removed.


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 * Comment by parties:
 * Oppose Arbcom is not here to set policy. Also, a great many editors do not wish to delete these articles, as they might be able to be improved in the future, or might be good candidates to transwiki. -- Ned Scott 22:27, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment It's my understanding that policy already says the above; I'm not seeking to set policy. -- Y&#124;yukichigai (ramble argue  check ) 22:30, 30 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment by others:
 * Oppose — per Ned, again. This is not about delete. Many editors fail to realize that there really is no such thing as delete when anything can be undeleted. In the case of a redirect, anyone can resurrect a redirected article. --Jack Merridew 06:51, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I'd be wary about that undeletion claim. We've lost deletions before, we can technically lose them again.  The last comment I recall from the devs is that we shouldn't assume undeletion is a certainty. However, I agree with oppositions.  Sometimes the only useful content an article may have is its very title as a search term.  That's a long standing principle on wikipedia.  Indeed, redirects are free. Hiding T 16:42, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Merge discussions are not an acceptable substitute for Candidates for Speedy Deletion, Proposed Deletion, or Articles for Deletion
10) Any editor who opens a merge discussion with no intent to retain any information from any number of articles involved in the merge, or who executes a merge by "soft deleting" any number of articles involved, is gaming the system.


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 * Oppose Inappropriate, this arbcom case is not here to set a policy on how we deal with these articles. -- Ned Scott 22:23, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment - This in no way suggests that the process of dealing with articles needs to be changed. This only suggests that TTN has been going against the existing process. -- Y&#124;yukichigai (ramble  argue  check ) 22:30, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Then point me to the policy page that already exists that says we can't deal with articles outside of AfD? See my comment on your other section, as deletion is often not desired for transwiki or possible future real-world information. -- Ned Scott 22:31, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Okay let's cover a few things in detail:
 * 1) "Future real-world information". Wikipedia is not a Crystal Ball.  It's possible that any of the thousands of garage bands that write articles about themselves will, someday, become hugely famous.  That does not mean we blank and redirect every article on a non-notable band on the offchance that it might become notable someday; we delete them, speedily, with no qualms and no issues.  If that band does somehow become hugely successful somewhere down the road, then we can either recreate the article, go to deletion review, or ask any number of helpful administrators to retrieve the deleted text.
 * 2) "Transwiki". Quite simply put, if it can be transwiki'd at the time, we transwiki it; otherwise we don't.  Again, Wikipedia is not a Crystal Ball.  We shouldn't retain a bunch of non-notable articles in history on the offchance that an appropriate wiki might spring up in the future.  If that does happen, again, a helpful administrator can retrieve the text of the deleted article for us. -- Y&#124;yukichigai (ramble  argue  check ) 22:44, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
 * You do realize you are citing a page that is meant for article space? Also, no one is predicting the future with external wikis, as I can tell you that they exist today. Even if there is not a show/topic specific wiki, there are tons of blanket TV, anime, comic, and game wikis out there. Every day I spend a few hours working on transwiki work, and am one of only a few (apparently) that have the desire to do so, and understand how do to so. (most people don't realize that Special:Export is broken, or that there is an export URL that can generate the entire page history of an article (without he 100 revision limit.) It is simply impossible to get to them all at once. How's the search for that policy page, by the way? -- Ned Scott 22:52, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
 * 1) WP:CRYSTAL is used in deletion discussions frequently as a counter to "this band/show/subject will be notable soon". Just because the examples don't specifically outline the context I'm using it in doesn't mean it does not apply.
 * 2) If transwiking is such a problem, then the process is obviously broken. The solution is to fix the process, not break other processes so you don't have to use the first broken process.  You've obviously got a good grasp of how to do it despite these problems anyway; perhaps you should write a guide, which would solve the problem temporarily until the software is fixed.
 * 3) I'm not going to participate in your reductio ad absurdum quest. This proposal does not say "we can't deal with articles out side of AfD"; it simply says that we can't use merge discussions to get articles deleted (or soft-deleted) from Wikipedia. -- Y&#124;yukichigai (ramble  argue  check ) 23:37, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
 * The only problem with transwiking is that it is something that hasn't really been developed. It's not something you can really fix in software (although having Special:Export working properly would be nice, but that's only part of the issue.) It is not "broken" and keeping an article as a redirect does not break anything else. Category:Redirects from Digimon, a category with over 900 articles, exists specifically for such a reason, and no one seems to have a major objection with that. We have deletion discussions because not everyone has deletion (or undeletion) tools, and that's about it. If a discussion is well accessible to other editors, well known, and has a fair amount of discussion, then it is functioning as the community discussion. No one should be using "merge" discussions to get under the radar, but that's pretty much the only reason why you would want to avoid them. Like I've pointed out, nothing in policy mandates the use of AfD for redirecting. -- Ned Scott 03:30, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Mandates for every redirect, no. But for those redirects where no content is to be retained, I contend it does.  It is, in essence, an undoing of the article.  It may exist in the history, but the content is wiped and (in the cases of the articles involved in this RfArb) enforced to remain as such.  It is a deletion, albeit a soft deletion, and as such should use a deletion process.  Labeling a discussion where soft-deletion is the desired outcome as a "merge discussion" is disingenuous.
 * On another note, I wasn't being snippy when I suggested you write a guide on how to properly transwiki articles; please do. I can think of several swaths of episode articles I'd like to see show up on the appropriate wikis and I'd like to do it myself, properly. -- Y&#124;yukichigai (ramble  argue  <sup style="color:green;">check ) 08:08, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
 * My apologies. I guess we can say this is another example of how editors such as myself need to assume some more good faith and put past frustrations behind us. I'm still not sure I entirely agree with this, but I have a proposal floating around in my head that might be aiming for the same point. -- Ned Scott 05:59, 2 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment by others:
 * Oppose — As I said above, this is not about "Delete". However, I am not opposed to a Articles for Redirection process. I would like to note, carefully, that any assumption about an editors "intent" risks an assumption of bad faith. --Jack Merridew 07:00, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment - I'm not asking for people to read minds here or anything, I'm more thinking about situations where an editor opens a "merge discussion" and then asserts (perhaps repeatedly) that X number of articles are completely useless and should be blanked/redirected as part of the "merge" process. -- Y&#124;yukichigai (<sub style="color:blue;">ramble <small style="color:red;">argue  <sup style="color:green;">check ) 20:24, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
 * There are times when your hypothetical editor would be quite right. A sentence or two in a List of "Whatever" episodes is plenty for a non-notable, unsourced, unencyclopaedic episode of "Whatever" — in which case the "merge" is pre-existing. --Jack Merridew 04:01, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose: While this technique may not be the prettiest, when dealing with the fan coalition, it may be the only one available. There is no encyclopedic content in the vast majority of episode articles. If one merges the encyclopedic contents of most episode articles with a parent article, the result is that the parent article is unchanged. The predominant "system gaming" problem in this controversy is hordes of fans voting "keep" in AFDs and opposing merges based strictly on their personal fondness for the article.Kww 21:30, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
 * AfD was specifically designed to determine consensus, not majority; "!votes" do not count. If an AfD closes with a "keep" then the closing admin obviously found merit with arguments raised by the opposing editors. -- Y&#124;yukichigai (<sub style="color:blue;">ramble  <small style="color:red;">argue  <sup style="color:green;">check ) 21:59, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Not always. When Dammit, Janet! was at its second AFD (after the first AFD had deleted it, and a replacement article was hastily written to take its place), the closing admin admitted that the "keep" votes were unfounded, and the "delete" votes would win on strength of argument, but, since a DRV was inevitable, he'd just go ahead and keep it.Kww 22:33, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Too many AfDs end-up as no consensus to delete due to fans asserting nothing more than I Like It. Redirection with a requirement to clear the bar upon resurrection is the best option in many cases. --Jack Merridew 04:01, 4 December 2007 (UTC)


 * This is also a content decision which ArbCom is loathe to make. Stifle (talk) 10:19, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose, redirects have long been a permissible alternative, indeed a lot of people still make that point in deletion debates. Our guidance on redirects even allows for it, Redirect. Hiding T 11:40, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Episode notability discussions are not an acceptable substitute for Candidates for Speedy Deletion, Proposed Deletion, or Articles for Deletion
11) As the television article review process has not yet gathered community-wide consensus it should not be used as the only step in a contested article removal process. If the article removal is contested, regardless of the outcome of the television article review process, then one of the established deletion processes should be used.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:
 * Again, arbcom is not here to set policy. This is also a bit irrelevant, as the idea behind TV-REVIEW was that it was nothing more than a formalization of discussions that should be judged on their own merits. -- Ned Scott 22:26, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
 * That hasn't been the way TTN was using it, at least for the brief time he was using it. I seek only a clarification of that point. -- Y&#124;yukichigai (<sub style="color:blue;">ramble  <small style="color:red;">argue  <sup style="color:green;">check ) 22:46, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Since any merging or redirection is based on the consensus of the discussions themselves, the status of WP:TV-REVIEW is illrelevant. You are blatantly asking arbcom to give you a free pass to undo these redirects, and that is something to discuss on another talk page. -- Ned Scott 22:55, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Actually, I'm asking arbcom to suggest that WP:TV-REVIEW shouldn't be used in place of AfD (or PROD or SPEEDY); nothing more, nothing less. You're assuming bad faith here, and not only that but assuming I want to undo the redirects.  Apparently you didn't read anything I've posted in the General discussion area, particularly the part about how I agree with many of the redirects TTN has made. -- Y&#124;yukichigai (<sub style="color:blue;">ramble  <small style="color:red;">argue  <sup style="color:green;">check ) 23:24, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Again, my apologies. I shouldn't have assumed that. -- Ned Scott 06:00, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Qualified Support. Although I don't think this needs to be tied to the WP:TV-REVIEW process, I believe we must discourage notability discussions and redirections as substitutes for AfD, PROD, and SPEEDY.  If an article is not notable and has no hope of ever being notable, it needs to be deleted.  If an article appears to have the potential to meet guidelines, time should be given to bring it into compliance.  Editors should not be using redirection to avoid deletion discussions, when deletion is more appropriate.  Ursasapien (talk) 04:04, 10 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment by others:


 * This is irrelevant. The original process was rejected, and is no longer used. Currently, normal merger proposals are. They may occasionally use use same discussion format on the talk page, but that's hardly unique. All of those pages should either be MfDd or marked . I (talk) 01:58, 1 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Noted. The project page indicates nothing about this however, and seems to indicate that further notability discussions are pending. It seems as if some people are still using the process. -- Y&#124;yukichigai (<sub style="color:blue;">ramble <small style="color:red;">argue  <sup style="color:green;">check ) 08:11, 1 December 2007 (UTC)


 * The page makes it seem that way, or you seem to belive people are? I am not aware of anyone using that process. And as I said, the pages should be deleted or tagged, so that people know the status of the process. I (talk) 08:14, 1 December 2007 (UTC)


 * The page makes it seem that way. I personally haven't seen any new TV-REVIEW discussions for months, though the one over at Talk:List of Angel episodes is still raging last I checked. -- Y&#124;yukichigai (<sub style="color:blue;">ramble  <small style="color:red;">argue  <sup style="color:green;">check ) 08:17, 1 December 2007 (UTC)


 * My goodness. However, that is not a discussion derived from the process. It's really just a merge proposal. I (talk) 08:19, 1 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Oppose The formalized discussion per WP:TV-REVIEW are entirely legitimate — the problem with this process is that it takes weeks (or months!) and some editors assert that 'local consensus' rules. I don't see this process as being much different from a reasonably formed Articles for Redirection discussion — with the possibility that a new process may garner wider participation. --Jack Merridew 07:09, 2 December 2007 (UTC)


 * The review process created specifically to deal with television episode merge discussions is not used. It was rejected. Standard merge procedures are used when there is a discussion. I (talk) 05:57, 3 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I know that some of the mechanisms used were rejected (the dated-template, for example), but I don't feel the whole process is rejected. I started a bunch of discussions referring to this process; last time was over a month ago, I think. I do feel that it is not working as fans have tied the discussions in knots. Peregrine Fisher made many comments to TTN requesting that this process be used. --Jack Merridew 04:10, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Consensus
12) Consensus on policies and guidelines is global. A local consensus of application of policies and guidelines should be sought only if the global consensus is too vague.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:
 * "Vague" isn't the best word, but it should be here. Will (talk) 00:27, 1 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Oppose. This is in line with WP:CONSENSUS, but the way it is phrased implies that no local discussions should take place, and that local consensus should never be factored in, regardless of how many editors are involved in that local consensus. -- Y&#124;yukichigai (<sub style="color:blue;">ramble  <small style="color:red;">argue  <sup style="color:green;">check ) 07:47, 1 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Oppose. Policies and guidelines do not necessarily reflect "global" consensus.  It is a particular consensus that has happened often.  However, as we grow consensus can and does change.  Also, a guideline can be changed by a rather small group of editors, amounting to essentially a "local consensus" guideline.  Ursasapien (talk) 05:56, 11 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment by others:
 * Unnecessary. We already have a policy on consensus that includes a crystal-clear definition. No need to repeat it. Eusebeus 12:18, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I certainly believe that "Consensus on policies and guidelines is global" but also feel that the rest is a wee bit too strong. I reserve the right to warm to the idea, though… --Jack Merridew 07:16, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose - per Eusebeus. --User: (talk) 20:26, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Consensus
12.1) Consensus on policies and guidelines is global. Local consensus cannot override global consensus except where the specific application of global consensus is unclear, or in certain other, extraordinary circumstances.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:
 * Proposed, based on my objections to original wording of Principle 5. -- Y&#124;yukichigai (<sub style="color:blue;">ramble <small style="color:red;">argue  <sup style="color:green;">check ) 07:47, 1 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment by others:
 * Oppose as unnecessary per above. We already have a policy on consensus that includes a crystal-clear definition. No need to repeat it. I understand what Yukichigai is trying to do, but this smacks of anticipated wikilawyering. Eusebeus 12:21, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
 * As opposed to the wikilawyering that already goes on on both sides? In particular, though, the worst wikilawyering I've seen along these lines is by those trying to misrepresent a policy/guideline as being broader than intended by the actual "global" consensus. Anomie⚔ 15:15, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
 * That view coincides quite neatly with your own bias in this discussion, but it fails to address how, exactly, the current policy on consensus is unclear or ambiguous. I would agree, however, that any merge discussion make careful and explicit reference to what consensus means since a surprisingly large number of editors apparently (and in good faith) persist in the view that it is an up-or-down !vote on a talk page. Eusebeus 15:28, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your assistance in illustrating my point regarding the type of massive ABF that goes on in these types of discussions. Anomie⚔ 15:30, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose — Again, I agree with the first sentence, but feel the rest leads to a backdoor around consensus and overall this is redundant. --Jack Merridew 03:22, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose per Jack and Eusebeus. --User: (talk) 20:31, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Consensus
12.2) Consensus on Wikipedia is always within the existing framework of established policy and practice. A majority of a limited group of editors almost never outweighs community consensus as documented by policy.  This includes the policies of Verifiability, No original research, and What Wikipedia is not.
 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:
 * Oppose, because it's contradictory. If consensus is always within the existing framework of established policy and practice, then a majority of a limited group of editors would never outweigh community consensus, not "almost never".  Policy can change. -- Y&#124;yukichigai (<sub style="color:blue;">ramble  <small style="color:red;">argue  <sup style="color:green;">check ) 21:44, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose, policy and guidelines are never fully "established." I strongly believe we need to stop using the terms "global consensus" and "local consensus" to frame this debate.  Policy does not necessarily illustrate global consensus.  Many have stated on this very page that few editors read or have input on policy pages.  One could argue that policy or the interpretation/implementation of policy is "local consensus" while what happens in practice is "global consensus."  Regardless, I think these buzz words get in the way of us establishing consensus.  Ursasapien (talk) 02:53, 10 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment by others:
 * Proposed, I believe this is more in line with Consensus since it doesn't mention "local" or "global", but instead refers to policy (which is the "global" consensus). I quoted almost directly from Consensus.  The policies mentioned are the ones that have the most bearing on this case (which is why it doesn't mention any of the other policies) --Phirazo 18:46, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Again, this is unnecessary; WP:Consensus exists. finis. --Jack Merridew 03:28, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Bold, revert, discuss
13) An editor redirecting and/or merging an article falls under the scope of being bold if the reasoning is correctly based upon existing rules. If said editor is reverted, the next stage is discussion, not edit warring.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:
 * Proposed. Will (talk) 00:36, 1 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Agreed. -- Ned Scott 03:10, 1 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Agreed, though the "correctly based upon existing rules" is a bit sketchy for my tastes. "Within the boundaries of existing policy and guidelines" would be more appropriate I think. -- Y&#124;yukichigai (<sub style="color:blue;">ramble  <small style="color:red;">argue  <sup style="color:green;">check ) 07:32, 1 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Agreed. But the presense of discussions neither saves an article from a merge per se, nor does it buy indefinitely more time. If no new sources or article improvements are presented after some time, discussions or protests are void. AfD would be the next step then. – sgeureka t•c 13:59, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Clarification: I meant AfD to get community-wide approval for redirection, not for deletion of the articles. If we can set up a Articles for Redirection board (I like that idea), this point would be moot. – sgeureka t•c 12:04, 2 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment by others:
 * Support — with a few minor reservations. I am not sure about Sgeureka's view that AfD is next — delete is not the issue, it just sticks better. Again, the need for an Article for Redirection process manifests. My other concern is that this does not apply if a reasonable discussion has already occurred. --Jack Merridew 07:21, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Bold, revert, discuss
13.1) An editor creating an article falls under the scope of being bold if the reasoning is correctly based upon existing rules. If said editor is reverted, the next stage is discussion, not edit warring.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:
 * Proposed. The cause of the current problems is not the merging or redirecting of the articles, but the creation of them. Creation = bold, redirection = soft revert of creation, next step should not be undoing the redirection, but discussion. Fram 10:28, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose - Uh, no. This is directly contradicted by WP:BOLD, where it defines being bold as making significant changes to an article.  You can't change something that didn't exist previously.  Now if the article existed as a redirect, then was expanded to a full article, that would fall into the hypothetical situation you laid out. -- Y&#124;yukichigai (<sub style="color:blue;">ramble  <small style="color:red;">argue  <sup style="color:green;">check ) 23:01, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
 * And how is creating an article not a significant change? Being born was a pretty significant change in my life... Anyway, it even discusses creating categories and templates as being bold, so it clearly falls under it. And my situation is not hypothetical, it's what happens every day and is the basic reason for all these problems. There is not a single reason why "article creation" should be excluded from the BRD cycle. Fram (talk) 16:12, 5 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment by others:
 * Support A good encapsulation of the issue and outline of remedial steps. Article creation, not article redirection, is the crux of the problem here. I think this suggests that the spirit if not the letter of WP:BOLD be used in the context of article creation. Insofar as we have already extensive policy and guidelines that discuss what should and should not be in an article, it is unnecessary. Insofar as those are routinely ignored, it is salutary however. Eusebeus (talk) 17:17, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Support — If people didn't create unencyclopaedic articles in the first place we would not be here. --Jack Merridew 07:47, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Fixing problems
14) If an editor removes content based upon policy/guideline based objections, editors who wish to retain the content are expected to fix the problem instead of edit warring.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:
 * Proposed. 00:41, 1 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Oppose. The phrasing implies that any editor who removes content based on policy or guideline based objections is automatically "favored" by Wikipedia, regardless of the merits of those objections. (e.g. I could say that all use of the word "woman" violates WP:NPOV because it implies that women are incomplete without men, but I doubt anybody would really "fix the problem") The phrasing also does not allow for the bold, revert, discuss cycle, and it implies that whenever an editor removes content there is a "problem", always. -- Y&#124;yukichigai (<sub style="color:blue;">ramble  <small style="color:red;">argue  <sup style="color:green;">check ) 07:37, 1 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Oppose. Even WP:FICT notes that articles that at least show potential should be ok, even if they are not fixed right away. -- Ned Scott 06:03, 2 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment by others:
 * Support but understand objections and would welcome a proposal that goes part-way here. Something in this direction is needed. --Jack Merridew 07:25, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Support with Jack above, but this sounds like more policy; the scope of this arbcom case is limited to a single user's editing habits. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Eusebeus (talk • contribs) (12:19, 2 December 2007 )
 * I think this may be too broad. Certainly in the case of WP:V it is for the person seeking content be included to justify it, but I am not entirely convinced that this applies to every other policy or guideline. Stifle (talk) 10:20, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose - this is exactly what is going on with the deletionists. It has been expressed that TTN is not being constructive because of the 25+ K edits he has, there may only be a handful of edits where he actually contributed to the article rather than deleting or redirecting. Many editors, if they don't like something, place tags on the article, or they remove the disputed portion, or improve the article. This is the first instance I've come across where someone comes in and wipes out the entire thing because they don't like it. Also, Yukichigai has some very valid points. --User: (talk) 20:34, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

After a merge/redirect, a list or link to what was merged/redirected must be presented on the talkpage
15) If an editor merges or redirects a former article, he must list what he did, or leave a link to the page history when the links were still intact.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:
 * Proposal. Purpose: Make the actions transparant, and keep it in the archive for possibly later transwikiing. – sgeureka t•c 13:59, 1 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Probably not something arbcom can really mandate, but a good suggestion to for the community to adopt anyways. -- Ned Scott 06:04, 2 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment by others:
 * This is a reasonable thing and I have left a few links of this form on talk pages (see example). Such links could be added to past discussions. I have a small concern that this might facilitate edit warring, but don't believe that should preclude leaving such links. --Jack Merridew 07:29, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Where must he list this? It just says that "he must list what he did". Also, what purpose does this serve? It's not like one can hide a redirection &mdash; it's out in the open. Also, as Ned said, I don't this is something ArbCom can require. Wikilawyering would abound. I (talk) 06:03, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
 * See the example I just added above of what I believe is being requested. This would be to aid less experienced editors who may not know how to review history. --Jack Merridew 06:12, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't see a need to have to provide a link like you just showed. But again, I don't think this is something ArbCom can mandate. I (talk) 06:28, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree that this is probably not part of this case, directly. However, issues and proposals made here may end-up implemented "out there" in the wider-wiki (as Ned says, above). --Jack Merridew 06:36, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Also not going to make it as a principle being content-related. Proper venue for this is WP:VPP. Stifle (talk) 10:21, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Stupid question... but isn't this required by the GFDL? — PyTom (talk) 09:01, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Providing a link to the source article is a requirement because it is the only practical way in which the full history and authors of the text in the target article can be reasonably retrieved. Preserving the complete list of authors and copyright dates along with the content is required in order to conform to the GFDL, which is why I placed the boldfaced text, which points to the specific section of the GFDL that is relevant, on Help:Merging and moving pages.  By convention, it goes in the edit summary of the edit to the article itself, not on the talk page.  Uncle G (talk) 07:10, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Community discussions
16) When mass merging, redirecting, or making other large scale changes to articles, it is generally expected that other editors will be consulted in an open community discussion, with reasonable time to discuss. Some discussions, particularly ones about controversial actions, are (might be?) better taken to a formal community discussion such as AfD.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:
 * Proposed. Needs rewording, but hopefully people will get the general gist of what I'm going for here, in that we expect some form of discussion, and while AfDs and such are not required, they are preferred when things are controversial/ highly disputed/ etc. -- Ned Scott 06:11, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Support - I think this gets the gist of one of the big problems here, though per I's suggestion it might need to mention WP:BOLD in there somewhere. -- Y&#124;yukichigai (<sub style="color:blue;">ramble <small style="color:red;">argue  <sup style="color:green;">check ) 20:19, 2 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment by others:
 * Support — with some reservations about AfD. --Jack Merridew 07:32, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
 * What defines mass merging/redirection/large changes? Doing something to one series of articles? Or many series? Also, what is an open community discussion? Are we talking AN(I) or the Village Pump? Or just a discussion? As I read it now, I believe that this contradicts WP:BOLD. If someone is reverted after doing something, then a discussion should take place. It is not required beforehand. I (talk) 09:10, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Eh, it's one of those things that felt like I should leave it a bit vague, since this is a proposed principal. We're basically trying to define the spirit of what to do, rather than the fine details. Although, defining some of these concepts would likely help us, and would still allow a statement to be spirit-ish. If anything comes to mind I'll add another proposal for the wording. -- Ned Scott 02:27, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Support Discussion is and always has been crucial to the running of this project. GlassCobra 19:57, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Partial Support - I partially support this as it's heading in the right direction, but there are some concerns pointed out by user I brings that prevents me from giving full support. --User: (talk) 20:39, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Improvement of the article is preferred
17) Improvement of the article to meet Wikipedia policies is preferred. Editors proposing a merger, redirection, or deletion are under no obligation to attempt the improvement, but they must not discourage others from doing so and they must remain available during the attempted improvement process to clarify the problems they see.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:
 * Oppose this wording because it is in stark contrast with WP:FICT and WP:EPISODE, and it implies that the merging isn't improvement (it however often is). WP:FICT and WP:EPISODE make sure that the mother article is in a well-enough shape before going into unsourced crufty detail. While improvement and civility is always encouraged, the majority of articles under discussion shouldn't have been split off / started to begin with, and the problem is not (encouraging) improvement, but getting local consensus to realize that this early mistake should be (reasonably) undone, and then work from there. As far as I've seen, it's simply impossible to improve all article during the discussion. The proposed wording leaves the door too open to eternal article improvement options before a merge is allowed. – sgeureka t•c 15:38, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Support Will (talk) 16:26, 3 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment by others:
 * Proposed One of the most troubling things I've seen in the discussions at issue are comments along the lines of "You're not going to be able to find sources to prove notability, so you may as well not even try." IMO, "remaining available" means either watching the improvement discussion or clearly stating that someone should let them know on their talk page when their further input is required. Anomie⚔ 14:38, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Strong Oppose — Fundamentally biased in favor inclusionism. I second Sgeureka's comment. Might as well toss AfD and CSD if this flies. --Jack Merridew 03:18, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Reply to sgeureka: If WP:FICT and WP:EPISODE state that a topic that passes Notability is not allowed to have an article, I think a guideline version of contradict-other is needed (Note that's not saying the topic must have an article). If it's impossible to improve the article, so be it. If the improvement discussion results in a consensus to merge, so be it. If the parent article needs to be improved, directly improving it is going to work much better than going around trying to delete subarticles. But for nay-sayers to shoot down the attempt before it even gets started is not trying to build consensus and is not civil. A time limit on the attempt for improvement is not a behavioral issue and thus is outside the scope of this RfAr. Anomie⚔ 03:36, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Think of it this way: Bill Clinton is clearly notable, and he deserves an article. His wife Hillary Clinton and other immediate family members are also notable enough for a separate article, but not Bill Clinton's dog or his grandfather William Jefferson Blythe, Sr.. Notable events in his life are not split into Bill Clinton in 1997, Bill Clinton in 1998, Bill Clinton in 1999 etc. but are all covered in the main article (and are mostly sourced). But for fiction, you have an article for the work of fiction (obviously), articles for each main characters (okay, but often only filled with an unsourced in-depth fictional biography violating WP:NOT), articles for each secondary character (violating WP:NOT), and an article for every episode (which can be hundreds, almost all violating WP:NOT and many more policies and guidelines). As Spoo (controversial as it is) has shown, all fiction articles might have the potential to be improved (but you won't know until someone tried). So, want to keep hundreds(!) of poor fiction articles for each fictional work in the hope of improvement, although it is guaranteed that only 5% (extremely optimistic guess) of them will be brought in line with policies and guidelines? Especially considering that local consensus often sees nothing wrong with them? Have a look at WP:GA and WP:FA. Neglecting The Simpsons for a minute, compare the number of good/featured List of X in television/video games and the number of good/featured individual episodes or TV/videogame characters. One is the result of merging (or simply not spinning off individual fictional elements), the other is the result of fanish laisez-faire. – sgeureka t•c 10:34, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
 * If things are not notable, then the article won't be able to be improved to meet WP:N and the merge should go through. A huge list of particular things that are not notable is just clouding the issue and doesn't affect the point that people aiming for deletion (whether outright or via merge/redirect) shouldn't obstruct an attempt to fix the problems. Anomie⚔ 14:42, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Exactly. But how do you know that something is notable if no sources are provided, or if you can't check whether the named (but not used) sources contain anything encyclopedic? Current procedure is to wait one month or more for improvement, but usually nothing happens except for what "both sides" interpret as wikilayering. We are not discussing here whether Captain Kirk is notable enough for his own article, but Ah! A Demon has Come and is Creating Calamity!. Is it notable? Can it be merged/redirected after one/two/three months if it is not improved, or would that constitute "discouragement"? – sgeureka t•c 15:24, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Actually, we do have an article on Bill Clinton's dog: Buddy (dog). His cat too: Socks (cat). --Gwern (contribs) 23:54 10 December 2007 (GMT)
 * Darn! Why aren't they linked or mentioned anywhere on BC's page? (I checked before I mentioned them, but I couldn't find them and also did not remember their name...) – sgeureka t•c 00:04, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * We also have Checkers (dog) which redirects to Checkers speech. --Jack Merridew 08:11, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * And Fala speech which redirects to Fala (dog). Your point? --Gwern (contribs) 23:14 14 December 2007 (GMT)
 * Reply to Jack Merridew: The slippery slope fallacy is not particularly convincing, nor is a claim that it is "hopelessly biased in favor of inclusionism" as there is no consensus that inclusionism is worse than mergism, deletionism, or any other -ism. Anomie⚔ 03:36, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Let's not establish any bias towards any 'ism', and if the playing field is currently out of level - we fix it. --Jack Merridew 03:43, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree with that, and I was not trying to bias towards any 'ism'. The problem I see is that, after proposing a merge or redirect, some editors post discouraging replies to any subsequent comments which may well have a chilling effect on any attempt to address the actual problems with the article. I would appreciate your assistance in coming up with a wording that both doesn't have a bias (real or perceived, I'm not going to argue) towards any 'ism'. Anomie⚔ 03:51, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I simply can't support Improvement of the article is preferred because this is not always the case. In the case of most episode articles, there simply is not enough real material to build an encyclopaedic article. The very concept of an 'episode article' leads to a plot summary centric article — as opposed to, say, a season article. The view that individual episode articles are appropriate for every episode of every show on every network in every country has to change — and I hope it is changing. There are good articles on tv shows - even individual episodes - but most such articles fail to clear the bar even when the bar is sitting right on the floor. It is time to sort the wheat for the chafe, and time to acknowledge that you can't make a silk purse from a sows ear. --Jack Merridew 04:15, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
 * If there are people who want to try to improve the article, the people who don't want it improved should not stand in the way. The attempt may fail, and in that case the merge should certainly go through, but it's better to try and fail than to waste time arguing with people who only want the removal of the article and not try to fix things at all. Anomie⚔ 14:42, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
 * If an editor wants to improve an article, they can still do so after an unencyclopaedic version has been redirected. This is the core of why this is not about delete. The problem is that too many editors just want to bring the WP:NOT version back. --Jack Merridew 12:44, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Clear Oppose. I am in complete agreement with both Sgeureka and Jack. It needs to be clear that the bias in favour of retaining individual articles is a false premise. As noted above, in many cases a merge and redirect is an improvement when asserting - and maintaining - an encyclopedic standard. Eusebeus 10:45, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Another content decision, and not one that should be supported in any case. Stifle (talk) 10:21, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Actually, the proposal completely involves behavior: people should not stand in the way of an attempt to improve the article in the wake of a merge proposal. Others are dragging content into the debate for some unknown reason. Anomie⚔ 14:42, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
 * True, but the stated intention of improvement alone is not sufficient to undo a merge or redirect. Actual improvement is preferred, but too often improvement is promised, but either no changes happen, or the plot summary is expanded (with quotes added and so on), which is of course not an improvement... Fram (talk) 16:15, 5 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Qualified Support. I think this proposal needs to be honed, but I can not understand why anyone would not support the statement, "Improvement of the article to meet Wikipedia policies is preferred."  Perhaps this statement should be followed by, "Sometimes this improvement may take the form of merging and redirecting the article so that it will meet the standard of Wikipedia's guidelines."  However, I have to believe that telling other editors, "you're not going to be able to find sources to prove notability, so you may as well not even try," is a violation of WP:AGF and WP:CIVIL.  I believe that any editor that feels they are trying to enforce policy by merging/redirecting articles should give notice of their intentions, point to specific policy violations, give examples of the types of changes necessary to comply with guidelines, and give an appropriate amount of time (a week? a month?) for other editors to make these changes.  Telling other editors, "This article can not be improved!  I am going to get rid of it whether you like it or not!  There is nothing you can do about it!" is just plain rude.  Ursasapien (talk) 09:32, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I wasn't going to touch this proposal with a ten foot pole, but your suggestion seems more in line with what (I think anyway) this principle was intended to address. The tricky part is getting it into the proper words. -- Y&#124;yukichigai (<sub style="color:blue;">ramble  <small style="color:red;">argue  <sup style="color:green;">check ) 10:05, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I think the wording Improvement of the article to meet Wikipedia policies is preferred is the main objection. Maybe reword to Improvement of the given information to meet Wikipedia policies is preferred or something similar. As for "you're not going to be able to find sources to prove notability, so you may as well not even try", I don't think that it is often said (or meant) in this way. What I encounter often however is "unless you can provide sources, I won't believe there are any and therefore ignore your ILIKEIT vote". And that is an accepted (and even encouraged) attitude per WP:PROVEIT. WP:FICT and WP:EPISODE are quite clear when a fiction-related article should and should not be started, so when editors violate that with new articles, actions should be swift and may-I-dare-say ruthless. But there needs to be special care for legacy articles, which should be given proper time to e.g. be transwikied or cut down to be brought in line with the now-updated guidelines. – sgeureka t•c 10:21, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

The ends do not justify the means
18) The end result of any changes made to Wikipedia is just as important as the actions undertaken to produce that result. No editor should ever act against the policies, guidelines, or the spirit of Wikipedia, even in an attempt to uphold those same values.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:
 * Proposed. I know, it's a bit wordy and touchy-feely, but I wanted this to be non-specific to any one "camp". -- Y&#124;yukichigai (<sub style="color:blue;">ramble  <small style="color:red;">argue  <sup style="color:green;">check ) 23:22, 4 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment by others:
 * Doesn't this blatantly contradict ignore all rules? I would suggest a rewording, because it reads to me as if it does, but I don't believe it is supposed to. Soleil (talk) 00:38, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
 * You're right, that wasn't my intention. I think I can fix it by striking two words though. Maybe.  -- Y&#124;yukichigai (<sub style="color:blue;">ramble  <small style="color:red;">argue  <sup style="color:green;">check ) 03:49, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
 * This is too circular, I think. Editors who defend articles that are nothing but plot summaries are being as disruptive as someone who engages in an edit war to redirect the content. Is one worse than the other? And who gets to decide? Eusebeus (talk) 17:22, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
 * You're missing the fact that this principle would apply to both sides of the argument. Just because an editor wants to keep episode articles in doesn't mean they think they're going against policy and guidelines.  It's how they decide to get those articles to stay on Wikipedia that is the focus of this principle, i.e. edit warring = bad, discussion = good. -- Y&#124;yukichigai (<sub style="color:blue;">ramble  <small style="color:red;">argue  <sup style="color:green;">check ) 20:50, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
 * While I agree with the spirit of this, it seems one-sided (I know, you said that's not the intent). I am concerned that this would be used to justify endless "discussion" and "dispute resolution" over every Episode and character article. --Jack Merridew 12:34, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Centralised discussions
19) Asking for a consensus on numerous individual talk pages for an issue which affects a wide number of articles can be seen as forum shopping. If the contentious issue in a discussion is a specific guideline or policy, the discussion should take place in a central area, and should not become split into smaller debates.  Consensus is strengthened by wide input from the community.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:


 * Comment by others:
 * Proposed. This builds from WP:CONSENSUS. This seems to me the way we do things on Wikipedia. Hiding T 10:30, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Honest question for clarification. How does this relate the behavior of the parties in this case? I am unaware of forum shopping from both parties. Or would this only relate if a centralised process started? – sgeureka t•c 11:47, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I think that while this may have been a wonderful phrasing from whatever previous RfArb it came from, in this case it is not the right wording. While centralized discussion is a good way to establish guidelines, the crux of the arguments that are raised in the articles involved here is whether or not they meet the requirements of those guidelines.  In that instance centralized discussion doesn't apply because you can't just say "all episode articles are/aren't notable", you have to evaluate each specific article. -- Y&#124;yukichigai (<sub style="color:blue;">ramble  <small style="color:red;">argue  <sup style="color:green;">check ) 11:55, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Were merge tags added? Were pointers placed at relevant guidance pages?  Was there an effort made to widen the debate?  Whether articles meet guidance or not is not simply a matter for those editors who edit the article, but for the wider community. If a number of articles are affected, it makes sense to centralise debate in a manner similar to Afd.  Hiding T 13:02, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
 * A formalized process like AfD is slightly different than a centralized discussion. A formal process, sure; it's generally given that any formalized process will go out of its way to notify users who are frequent editors of the articles in question, usually involving notices on the related pages.  Centralized discussions, however, don't always involve some (or hardly any) of the editors involved in a swath of articles, and is why we're having so many problems with the application of WP:EPISODE now; "TV show fans" were likely unaware that a guideline was being worked on that might very well remove thousands of articles from Wikipedia.  I'm not saying the guideline would have changed necessarily, but I'm sure that had those editors at least been involved in the process they wouldn't feel like they were being, well, "ambushed" by the guideline.
 * Anyway, my point is that we don't want to always favor centralized discussions, because they're not always appropriate. This principle doesn't allow for that. -- Y&#124;yukichigai (<sub style="color:blue;">ramble  <small style="color:red;">argue  <sup style="color:green;">check ) 21:24, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
 * You seem to be taking centralised discussion to mean something other than, hey, we have this underlying issue affecting a lot of articles, let's keep discussion on one page for ease of use. Arguing the same point on each individual talk page is redundant, and can be seen as attempting to stack the vote since you limit the pool of editors to those who are generally happy with the article as it is, and as such is forum shopping. Hiding T 10:32, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Support — with the comment that this is what has been going on! Many of these discussions have been stalled by a few editors who seem to have a local view of consensus. (nb: not necessarily the same few editors, typically a few editors who are fans of Whatever) --Jack Merridew 12:05, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Support - --User: (talk) 20:47, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Consensus means discussion
20) Consensus does not mean that everyone agrees with the outcome; instead, it means that everyone agrees to abide by the outcome. Discussion should continue until legitimate concerns have been addressed and an agreed way forward has been identified.  Consensus also means that all editors work towards finding a position they can abide by. Consensus can only be reached when editors are prepared to give ground on their own position.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:


 * Comment by others:
 * Proposed. This builds from WP:CONSENSUS, the opening sentence is a direct quote. This seems to me the way we do things on Wikipedia. Hiding T 10:30, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Support — but with the clarification that consensus is not local, as has been stated elsewhere. --Jack Merridew 11:55, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Support - --User: (talk) 20:51, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Redirection short articles
21) According to Redirection, guidance allows us to redirect articles which are too short for their own article to a parent article. If, after an article is cleaned up to comply with Verifiability, No original research and Neutral point of view, it is felt too short to exist as an article, it is legitimate to redirect the article.  When that redirection proves contentious, however, dispute resolution processes should be followed.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:


 * Comment by others:
 * As per Redirection. I think this also needs expressing to inform the nature of debate. Hiding T 10:50, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Also, from Guide to writing better articles: It is better to write a larger article about the TV show or a fictional universe itself than to create all sorts of stubs about its characters that nobody can find. And if you find a lot of related fiction stubs, merge them! Make yourself a characters of X page, and go cut-and-paste crazy, leaving a solid characters article, and a trail of redirects in your wake. Merging has long been guided on Wikipedia. Hiding T 14:52, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Support and comment that the two steps, cleaning and redirection, can occur in a single edit. --Jack Merridew 11:50, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Comment on the content, not the editor
22) As a matter of polite and effective discourse, comments should not be personalized and should be directed at content and actions rather than people. Discussion on Wikipedia should not become personalised. If an editor is following a guideline, criticism should focus on the guideline, not the editor. Hiding T 10:50, 5 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:


 * Comment by others:
 * As per No personal attacks. I think this also needs expressing to inform the nature of debate. Wikipedia works through consensus discussion, not personalised debates. Hiding T 10:50, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Generally true, but this RfArb was started specifically to deal with the behavior and actions of one single editor. If anything this process should show that it is possible to follow a guideline to a T and still give cause to have one's actions examined closer for possible disruptive behavior.  (Or to paraphrase, it's easy to use guidelines to make a point or game the system.) -- Y&#124;yukichigai (<sub style="color:blue;">ramble  <small style="color:red;">argue  <sup style="color:green;">check ) 11:20, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Take the point. I may have missed the centralised discussion on the underlying issue. If there isn't one however, which should be running concurrently with this arbitration, then I would say the debate has focussed on an editor. Hiding T 12:57, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
 * It's irrelevant how the ArbCom started, in an ArbCom the behaviour of every party is taken into consideration, not only that of the editor the initial complaint was about. Fram (talk) 16:18, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Support — Too many editors take criticism of "their" articles personally. --Jack Merridew 11:47, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Support - wholeheartedly. Seems that TTN and his co-horts birthed this issue. Yes others are guilty of it as well, however, TTN + cohorts initiated and continue with it. --User: (talk) 20:57, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia; policy and guidance informs that purpose
23) In general, Wikipedia policies are formulated through wide discussion by Wikipedia users who attempt by a process of consensus to make policies which advance the basic goal of creating a free and neutral encyclopedia. An encyclopedia is defined on Wikipedia through policy as being an encyclopedia written for the benefit of its readers. It includes elements of general encyclopedias, specialized encyclopedias, and almanacs. All articles must follow our no original research policy and editors must strive for accuracy. Unreferenced material may be removed, so please provide references. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:


 * Comment by others:
 * Per the five pillars and past principles of arbitration. Relevant to inform the nature of the debate. Hiding T 10:58, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Support — Many, many editors have never seen a policy or guideline page. --Jack Merridew 11:43, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia takes an encyclopedic approach
24) Articles about fictional topics should not read like book reports; instead, they should explain the topic's significance to the work. After reading the article, the reader should be able to understand why a character, place, or event was included in the fictional work.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:


 * Comment by others:
 * Per Guide to writing better articles. Hiding T 14:50, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I support what I believe to be your intent here, but feel that the definition of book report you're using is the one all-too-familiar to too many teachers. Having just looked at the current article, I see it supports your use of the term. Consider my reservation minor. --Jack Merridew 11:40, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment. This doesn't seem very clear to me. Is it saying that any part of an article which reads like a book report (even if the rest would gladden the heart of the most ardent deletionist) is bad and should be removed? Or is it saying that an ideal article would include all sorts of nice out of universe material in addition to thorough book-reportness? (If you follow me.) Or is it saying something else entirely? --Gwern (contribs) 23:49 10 December 2007 (GMT)
 * This is using "book report" in a pejorative sense and urges editors to aspire to a higher standard: an encyclopedic approach. --Jack Merridew 08:17, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

A policy is consensus
20) An editor that applies a policy, such as WP:NOT or WP:V in an objectively reasonable fashion is acting within the global consensus of Wikipedia, and cannot be punished for acting "against consensus."
 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:
 * While I tend to say "obvious support", I should point out that exactly this statement would be/is the most disputed among merge discussions. (There is also arguing à la "guidelines don't have consensus, or they would be policies, so they don't apply to the articles I like".) I see a possible extension for something like, "If an editor doubts the consensus behind a policy (or guideline), he is invited to join the discussions at the policy (guideline) talk page." This would stop the long-drawn-out discussions about consensus in the merge discussion, where policy/guideline consensus is not made but applied. – sgeureka t•c 23:04, 10 December 2007 (UTC)


 * As I said here, guidelines do not necessarily reflect "global" consensus. A guideline can be changed by a rather small group of editors, amounting to essentially a "local consensus" guideline.  I am sure the desired outcome would not be to edit war over the guidelines.  The only global consensus is the goal of creating the greatest, most comprehensive, most free encyclopedia ever.  Ursasapien (talk) 06:18, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment by others:
 * I don't care if it's TTN's crusade against episode articles, or the constant battle to keep the Disney articles free of "Ashley Tisdale is SOOO CUTE!". If an objective reading of an established policy says that an article contains unacceptable content, the content must be removed, regardless of any editor's opinion.Kww (talk) 22:03, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
 * That's a bizarre reading of things. There are only a very few policies which are 'prescriptive' - non-negotiable, not affected by consensus, and imposed from above. NPOV is the best example (the others apparently are listed here on Meta). The policies in whose name these crusades are being waged are not listed there: those policies have exactly much validity as they can command consensus.
 * If tomorrow, everyone withdrew their consensus and quietly stopped abiding by Naming conventions or Open proxies or Bot policy (all policies), would Jimbo from on high instruct the admins to begin banning en masse to enforce them "regardless of any editor's opinion"? No, of course not. Policies are 'descriptive', not prescriptive. They are not divine writ; they are living compromises whose only purpose for existing are to enable editors to build the most comprehensive and best encyclopedia ever. --Gwern  (contribs) 23:41 10 December 2007 (GMT)
 * People that want to edit against existing policies should change the policies, then edit. Not the other way around.Kww (talk) 00:52, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * They are prohibited by a small group of committed deletionist. However, I am certain you are not advocating that this edit war be transferred to the guideline pages.  Ursasapien (talk) 09:46, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Kww, no, they shouldn't. Suppose that was how things worked. Then proposed changes to a policy would be based solely on arguments (in which case nothing would ever change) and editors' expressions of support - which are of course just votes, and we all know votes are not consensus. And you didn't even rebut my points - "People that want to edit against existing policies should change the policies, then edit." is just an indirect way of saying "All policies are prescriptive", which is proof by assertion... --Gwern (contribs) 18:04 11 December 2007 (GMT)
 * Those are Wikimedia core principles that you quoted, not Wikipedia. What's good for Wikidictionary may not be good for Wikipedia, and vice versa. The primary principles that are being debated here are core to being an encylopedia ... that the topics be notable, information be verifiable, and that original research is not permitted. The articles that TTN redirects fail on one or the other count, and generally both. An individual episode of a series, in the absence of an award or extremely unusual publicity (like South Park's "Trapped in the Closet"), is not a notable thing. It's a natural consequence of the series existence. You might as well write articles devoted to chapters of a book, or an individual article for each city's telephone directory.Kww (talk) 18:22, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Where do you think the Wikimedia core principles come from? For which site was Meta originally set up to be meta to? And we two are not debating core principles or anything, so your comments are irrelevant. We are debating how policies are set, and you have done nothing to show that all policies override all editors no matter how numerous; nothing to show that policies are set by a few users squatting on policy pages and not the facts on the ground; nothing to support TTN &co's particular interpretations of various guidelines being forced on and over many editor's protestations, and nothing to show that customary practice of years is not consensus while TTN &co's practices are. --Gwern (contribs) 20:56 11 December 2007 (GMT)
 * Obvious Support — I like this one and I like Kww's "If an objective reading of an established policy says that an article contains unacceptable content, the content must be removed, regardless of any editor's opinion" even more. --Jack Merridew 08:25, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Unequivocal Support since this goes to the heart of the problem: when consensus-defined policies run counter to individual editors interests, they attempt to wikilawyer about what consensus means. The mantra that consensus is built by twelve editors on a policy page is, in my view, an unsustainable claim. Eusebeus (talk) 21:33, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Object. Don't like the term objectively reasonable fashion, feels like an oxymoron, and I don't like the attempt too tie an arm or two behind the back with the can't be punished line.  If someone went through right now and removed every single sentence tagged with cn per WP:V I think there would be problems, regardless of policy.  WP:CONSENSUS and WP:DR tell us we have to be prepared to discuss no matter what. Arb-com have always upheld WP:DR as the way to go forward in any dispute, I can't see that changing now. Hiding T 23:45, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Repeated creation of out-of-policy articles is vandalism
25) If an editor knowingly and repeatedly creates or recreates articles which violate policies, such as WP:NOT, WP:V, or WP:OR, that editor is committing vandalism.
 * Comment by Arbitrators:
 * Comment by parties:
 * Comment I get what this is saying, and this kind of behavior really is disruptive, but calling it vandalism is a little harsh. All policies and guidelines allow for a little subjective interpretation, like "does an Emmy nomination establish notability so that an episode article may be resurrected?" Anything else is covered by Edit warring. – sgeureka t•c 23:06, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose, per sgeureka's comment.  Ursasapien (talk) 09:33, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment by others:
 * Most of the editors that create the problem articles do so the first time out of ignorance. If they can't be educated, there is no reason not to treat them as vandals.Kww (talk) 22:09, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment. "Vandalism is any addition, removal, or change of content made in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of Wikipedia. The most common types of vandalism include the addition of obscenities or crude humor, page blanking, or the insertion of nonsense into articles.\nAny good-faith effort to improve the encyclopedia, even if misguided or ill-considered, is not vandalism." from Vandalism. --Gwern (contribs) 22:13 11 December 2007 (GMT)
 * So you think knowingly and repeatedly violating policy is a good-faith effort to improve the encyclopedia? I think it goes right under "deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of Wikipedia."Kww (talk) 23:54, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Support – Almost — It's not vandalism, it's disruption.
 * Suggest: Repeated creation of out-of-policy articles is disruption. --Jack Merridew 09:27, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Object. It isn't arb-coms place to rule as to what is and isn't an out of policy creation. Christ, most of us have knowingly created articles that violate WP:V.  We don't source every single edit we put in. If the issue is recreating articles repeatedly without responding to concerns, then say so.  That's a behavioural issue within arb-com's scope.  Deciding policy isn't. Hiding T 09:50, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Strongly, strongly oppose - As a general concept, the wording may have merit. However, the motivation here is an attempt to link the creation of "non-compliant" articles about television episodes with common vandalism. If this proposal is instituted under the guise of addressing fiction-related articles, I can see it immediately being abused. The editors arguing so vociferously for the removal of fiction articles should spend some time cleaning up vandalism; that would quickly illustrate what real "disruptive behaviour" is. --Ckatz <sup style="color:green;">chat <sub style="color:red;">spy  09:56, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Take a look at my edit history before you make such statements.Kww (talk) 12:26, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * With all due respect, my point is that attempting to equate disputes over the notability of episodes with the far more disruptive problem of vandalism is blatantly unfair. If the statement bothers you, consider how it feels to be dismissed as a "fanboy" by TTN etc. on a regular basis just for disagreeing with them. (It would be nice if they looked at the contribution records of the regulars who disagree with them before making such broad generalizations.) --Ckatz <sup style="color:green;">chat <sub style="color:red;">spy  20:59, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose per Gwern. This sort of thing may be frowned upon, but I wouldn't call it vandalism. --Pixelface (talk) 15:15, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose per Gwern. This sort of thing may be frowned upon, but I wouldn't call it vandalism. --Pixelface (talk) 15:15, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Repeated creation of out-of-policy articles is disruption
26) If an editor knowingly and repeatedly creates or recreates articles which violate policies, such as WP:NOT, WP:V, or WP:OR, that editor is committing disruption.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:


 * Comment by others:
 * Proposed, per comment above re It's not vandalism, it's disruption. --Jack Merridew 09:31, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Object. It isn't arb-coms place to rule as to what is and isn't an out of policy creation. Christ, most of us have knowingly created articles that violate WP:V.  We don't source every single edit we put in. If the issue is recreating articles repeatedly without responding to concerns, then say so.  That's a behavioural issue within arb-com's scope.  Deciding policy isn't. Hiding T 09:51, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * This is about behavior — disruptive behavior. The determination as to whether specific edits amounted to this form of disruption would be made some admin reviewing them and considering an appropriate action — a block, for example. --Jack Merridew 10:30, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Clarification: Per WP:DISRUPT, the proposed wording "knowingly and repeatedly" would  generally imply that Step 5 (Editor ignores consensus) had been reached. --Jack Merridew 10:30, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Then make that the principle. Editors ignoring consensus are disruptive. Hiding T 11:17, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Ignoring consensus is disruption
27) If an editor knowingly and repeatedly performs edits in a manner which either ignores consensus or ignores attempts to build consensus, that editor is committing disruption.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:


 * Comment by others:
 * Proposed, per comment above re Arb-com scope. Hiding T 11:17, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment And this begs the question what exactly consensus is: local consensus set in merge discussions, or "global" consensus set by existing policies and guidelines. Depending on the interpretation, both parties would commit disruption. – sgeureka t•c 11:30, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, the crux of the matter is what is consensus. Local consensus made by recent changes to a guideline page or global consensus of what happens in common practice.  Ursasapien (talk) 11:48, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * If you have to ask what consensus is, you need to stop what you're doing. If people are asking you to stop, you need to ponder whether consensus has changed.  Wikipedia is not a democracy, consensus is not immutable, set in stone or a law to be obeyed.  It shifts and is hard to pin down.  The easiest way to test consensus is to act.  If no-one disputes your actions, you act with consensus.  If people dispute your actions, then consensus is not where you thought it was and needs to be rebuilt. Perhaps that is the issue here, that people do not fully understand that consensus can change. Hiding T 16:58, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment — I agree with the above concerns about the definition of consensus. Also, ignores attempts to build consensus goes rather beyond the scope of the title: Ignoring consensus is disruption and presumes awareness of those attempts. Overall, I believe this too broad and that more specific principles are better. --Jack Merridew 12:02, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * See response above. Also see our page at WP:CONSENSUS which defines consensus as being reached by the editing process. Every edit builds consensus. Consensus is always being built and rebuilt.  Hiding T 16:58, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Merger and redirection are not administrator-only actions
28) Deletion is the action taken by an administrator employing the administrator-only deletion tool. It renders the page history and content unavailable to all except administrators.  Merging and redirection, following the process outlined at Help:Merging and moving pages, involve using the "edit this page" link that all editors, even those without accounts, have access to.  Prior versions of all involved articles remain accessible, and their content can be restored or obtained using the same tool, as happens when (for example) edits are reverted.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:
 * Support a great point made by Uncle G. Might not make it to the proposal page in time before the case is closed, but at least those involved should take note of this. -- Ned Scott 05:46, 27 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment by others:
 * Agreed --Jack Merridew 09:11, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Articles for deletion is for deletion
29) As stated at the top of Articles for deletion, its purpose is for discussion of whether articles should be deleted. Whilst a recommendation for merger may be an outcome of a discussion there, editors should not take articles there unless they desire an administrator to actually use the administrator deletion tool.  As stated in Deletion policy, improvements should be resolved through regular editing, rather than deletion, if possible.  One of the ways to improve articles through regular editing, given by that policy, is article merger.  The template notices described at Help:Merging and moving pages direct readers and editors to article talk pages for discussion of merger proposals, and that is where mergers are generally discussed.  This does not, of course, preclude directing such discussion from the talk pages of several parallel mergers to a centralized location, such as Proposed mergers, a WikiProject, or the Village Pump.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:
 * Support -- Ned Scott 05:46, 27 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment by others:
 * The arbitration committee may wish to employ this principle when considering any proposed remedies which involve requiring the use or the avoidance of AFD, or of other discussion venues. Uncle G (talk) 09:00, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Agreed — see above. nb: An AfD seeking a keep or Merge is pointy disruption .--Jack Merridew 09:14, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

An editor dissatisfied with a merger or a redirect is free to boldly improve it
30) If not all content has been transferred during a merger, or an article has been simply redirected, then, subject to Wikipedia's content policies (Verifiability, No original research, Copyrights, Biographies of living persons, Neutral point of view, What Wikipedia is not, and so forth), any editor is free to improve that merger or to turn the redirect into a merger by retrieving untransferred material from prior versions of the source article's edit history and transferring it to the target article using the appropriate steps of the merger process. Per Editing policy, Wikipedia is a collaboratively edited project.  Editors may collaborate on improving the mergers done by others as they collaborate on other tasks.  Such collaboration, rather than reverting, is one way to avoid an edit war.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:
 * Support -- Ned Scott 05:48, 27 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment by others:
 * The arbitration committee may wish to employ this principle in order to inform its decisions on whether to impose remedies that place conduct restrictions on merging and redirection, and also to inform any decisions about whether there were ways in which the various parties to this dispute could have avoided its escalation to the arbitration committee in the first place. Uncle G (talk) 09:00, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Agreed --Jack Merridew 09:16, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

It is inappropriate to use the merge template in order to force cleanup
31) It is inappropriate to use the merge template in order to "force" other editors to improve an article within a few days, or else. This can be seen as a threat and is not conducive to effective collaboration. There is no deadline. See Category:Merge by month and note that some articles have had a merge tag since January 2007. Editors are encouraged to make a good faith effort to research a topic themselves before telling other editors they must do so or have their work turned into a redirect.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:
 * Oppose It's been very clear that all that is asked is reasonable proof about an article's potential. If someone uses the merge template because they don't believe that potential exists, and that anything that isn't excessive should be covered on a parent article, then they are using the merge tag correctly. -- Ned Scott 05:41, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Not that I actually disagree with your thinking, I just don't think "merge threats" were really being used in these situations. It seems most of those involved actually believed a merge to be the desired result, rather than wanting to force cleanup of the existing article. -- Ned Scott 05:50, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Agreed This was the problem with the TV Review process. Artificially putting a deadline on article improvement.  Ursasapien (talk) 06:30, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
 * That's actually a misconception of the process. Like I said above, the actual state of the article wasn't what decided what was to be done. Reasonable potential was all that was needed, not actual edits. The only "deadline" was once used in a template, and the original thinking with that was that "easy" fixes could be taken care of before an article was added to a category, and had nothing to do with the time the discussion would end (rather, it would allow the discussion to be avoided all together, and keeping the article). Via a TfD, that function, even though misinterpited, was removed, and the process still continued for several other discussions, with no deadline at all. -- Ned Scott 06:53, 27 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment by others:
 * Proposed. Forced cleanup is not good for Wikipedia. --Pixelface (talk) 10:29, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Template
32) (text of proposed principle)


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:


 * Comment by others:

Locus of dispute
1) The dispute centers on the existence of articles regarding individual episodes or characters from television series, and is part of a broader disagreement regarding the interpretation of notability guidelines with reference to fictional and popular culture topics.


 * This is from the Proposed decision page — proposed by Kirill.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:


 * Comment by others:

TTN
2), while arguably correct in his assertions, has made disputed changes on a massive scale and in an excessively aggressive manner, causing needless escalation of the dispute.


 * This is from the Proposed decision page — proposed by Kirill.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:


 * Comment by others:

TTN
2.1) has made disputed changes on a massive scale and in an excessively aggressive manner, causing needless escalation of the dispute.


 * This is from the Proposed decision page — proposed by Mackensen.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:


 * Comment by others:
 * Support - --User: (talk) 21:03, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Television episodes
3) Television episodes is a guideline more honored in the breach than the observance. See List of South Park episodes and note that there is an article for each episode.


 * This is from the Proposed decision page — proposed by Fred Bauder.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:


 * Comment by others:
 * I don't think that this is necessary or helpful. It is essentially a content decision and implies that the guideline is in fact wrong because it does not track practice.  I believe that the guideline which says that such articles are disfavoured but not forbidden, is actually a pretty good description of current practice.  While some particularly notable shows have articles on each episode, in many cases lists by season are deemed more appropriate by consensus.  See for example Smallville (season 1).  Eluchil404 (talk) 23:20, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Television episodes
3.1) Like many editing guidelines, Television episodes is applied inconsistently. For example, see List of South Park episodes and note that there is an article for each episode.  An ideal response to such situations would be broader discussion of the guideline among editors with varying editing interest, with consensus achieved prior to widespread changes.


 * This is from the Proposed decision page — proposed by The Uninvited Co.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:
 * Support. Consensus is always beneficial to the project and we need to step back, take a deep breath, and remember we have time.  Ursasapien (talk) 11:48, 14 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment by others:
 * AYE. This is the heart of it.  Hiding T 11:42, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment — I would like to see this guideline used more, both for guiding the writing of articles and for evaluating exiting articles. This case has certainly brought this whole issue to a wider audience and we may-well meet again there. A problem with this process is that it takes too long — some of those discussions went in circles for months.
 * nb: The wording seems to need a tweak: is applied inconsistently.
 * --Jack Merridew 11:57, 14 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I keep finding myself almost in agreement with you. I actually agree with all you have said but I get stymied when editors say the "problem with this process is that it takes too long."  We have nothing but time.  Ursasapien (talk) 12:18, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
 * As I see it, a remedial process is taking too long if it does not address a problem at somewhat a greater rate than the problem grows. Some of the tv-review discussions took a ridiculous amount of time. In some cases this was obviously a direct function of the popularity of whatever show amongst specific editors who joined the discussion. Other times, when discussing a show that was extremely popular amongst tv-viewers 'out there' the discussions went rather smoothly and quickly (see Friends Season one). --Jack Merridew 12:57, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I promise that discussion will end and a decision will be reached prior to our WP:DEADLINE passing. Let's remember that we don't have to have a finished article complete in our lifetime. Indeed, the point of a wiki is that we are never finished. Let us not forget our core policies at WP:EP and WP:CONSENSUS as well as the guidance at WP:EDIT.  This isn't a war that has to be won today, tomorrow or next week.  This is a collaboration, and the whole point of that collaboration is working with everyone else, not just the people you want to work with.  If you can't agree, put it to one side and work on areas where you can agree, and then come back to what you can't agree on and see if the position has changed.  Hiding T 17:52, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Redirects are not deletion
4) Redirecting an article is not deletion. No information has been deleted from the database, no editing history is lost from the view of editors.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:
 * Oppose. Although this is a "technical" fact, part of this debate has revolved around the use of redirection as a work around for AfD.  Articles that certain editors believe are not notable and should not exist were being put up for deletion.  A mass of other editors showed up at these debates to plead that the article stay and the vast majority did.  The way to get around this inconvenient issue is to redirect the article and then edit war until other editors get tired and move on.  I think this finding of fact should include "redirection should not be used to get rid of articles that would not survive a deletion debate."  Ursasapien (talk) 03:10, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Response to Jack Merridew: I would argue that redirection is a "soft-delete." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ursasapien (talk • contribs) (09:17, 11 December 2007)
 * And I would argue that redirection of an unencyclopaedic article is "improvement"/ --Jack Merridew 09:59, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment by others:
 * Proposed. A technical fact that needs expressing to inform the nature of debate. Hiding T 10:36, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Nobody's arguing the technical aspects of redirection, merely the effective use thereof in relation to episode articles. (e.g. enforced blanking vs. merging the article) -- Y&#124;yukichigai (<sub style="color:blue;">ramble <small style="color:red;">argue  <sup style="color:green;">check ) 11:52, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Enforced redirection would be redirecting and then protecting. Did that occur here? If not then I am unsure what you mean. You may be referring to edit warring, otherwise... Hiding T 16:35, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Enforced can also mean via edit warring. -- Y&#124;yukichigai (<sub style="color:blue;">ramble <small style="color:red;">argue  <sup style="color:green;">check ) 09:51, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Deletion > Redirect > Merge. A deletion is just that, removal of the content from all public view. A redirect is not as strong, as it merely removes the content from direct view (though the end result is the same, as very few people bother to check the history of redirects). Finally a Merger means taking the worthwhile parts of one article and inserting in into another, then redirecting the former to the latter. If this is not done you truly merely redirect, removing worthwhile information. Charon X /talk 15:56, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Of course, if there is no worthwhile information to start with... Fram (talk) 16:19, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Assume good faith, my friend, assume good faith. For both the editor that redirected AND the editors that filled the article.Charon X /talk 18:11, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Agree with Fram, worthwhile information is a subjective issue. I think all parties have been shown to be aware of how to undo a redirect. Hiding T 16:37, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm not certain we all know how to undo a page-blanking, so let's go on a blanking-spree. Just because many know how an action is undone does not mean its ok to perform it. Charon X /talk 18:11, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm not certain we all know how to edit, so let's not edit. You are becoming over-specific.  It is, is it not, a fact that redirects are not deletion.  Point of fact, blanking, which again a redirect is not, used to be preferred to deletion because it retained information that may one day be of use. Hiding T 10:29, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Support — this needs explicit stating because too many editors mischaracterize redirection as delete. --Jack Merridew 11:29, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Response to Ursasapien.What you propose adding, "redirection should not be used to get rid of articles that would not survive a deletion debate" is a principle. It is a fact that redirection is not deletion, as noted in deletion policy. Hiding T 10:50, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment. If merely being accessible in some way is sufficient for content to count as having not been deleted, then nothing has ever been deleted from Wikipedia as you could always find a mirror somewhere or spelunk in a database dump from WP:DUMP. --Gwern (contribs) 23:44 10 December 2007 (GMT)
 * That's not true. We lost a lot of stuff from 2001 due to database loss. If the databases or servers or whatever all failed now we'd lose anything after the last dump or mirror. Hiding T 23:48, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * My point is that people seem to want to have the word deletion both ways as they find convenient - if I proposed a section which stated that "Deleting an article is not deletion.  No information has been deleted from the database, no editing history is lost from the view of administrators", that'd be obviously silly. Either deletion is the actual permanent obliteration and utter destruction of data such that no one has it or can ever have it - like 'deleted' articles prior to 2001 which actually got deleted due to loss of the separate SQL tables (in which case redirection isn't deletion, but article deletion isn't deletion either), or deletion in Wiki-parlance simply means rendered hard-to-get to various degrees (ie, even oversighted bits of deleted pages aren't actually deleted, just hard to get, because you can compare dumps - and various people have in fact kept tabs on the use of Oversight in just this way), in which case yes, redirection is deletion. Or as we used to call it, 'wikideletion'. --Gwern  (contribs) 16:02 12 December 2007 (GMT)
 * I'm not using it to suit any purpose. The developers have always made it clear that deletion should be treated as deletion.  They do not guarantee that we will be able to undelete anything just because we can at present. And going beyond that you are missing the point.  Redirection is not deletion because you don't need special powers to undo it.  Our deletiuon policy and guidance even makes the same point.  I am unclear in what sense it is not a fact that deletion and redirection mean two completely different things. Hiding T 16:52, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose Merging articles often results in either overly-long articles or information is lost. Hobit (talk) 07:41, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment — Redirects are not deletion so no information is 'lost'. See also: WP:NOT; we do discriminate against some kinds of information. --Jack Merridew 10:42, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Slow edit warring is still edit warring
5) Edit warring is disruptive to the project and "is an attempt to win a content dispute through brute force" (per WP:EW). Slow edit warring is still edit warring.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:
 * Proposed. This may need to be seperated into two findings, but I think it is a very important fact that gets overlooked in this dispute. Perhaps, this can piggyback with a principle that talks about how to deal with the content dispute when edits are reverted.  Policy/guidelines do not give a carte blanche license to edit war.  Ursasapien (talk) 12:29, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Response to Jack Merridew: Perhaps it should say "Wikipedia policy states slow edit warring is still edit warring."


 * Comment by others:
 * Comment. This is a principle, not a finding of fact. --Jack Merridew 08:33, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

TTN's edit warring
6) has frequently engaged in edit-warring.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:
 * You're a little late for the party. See Requests for arbitration/Episodes and characters/Proposed decision. Also, that specific example shows IPs and what is likely to be a sockpuppet (Special:Contributions/Still Calico) on the other side of most of those diffs. It's a bit unfair to say TTN was the only one reverting. -- Ned Scott 05:35, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * TTN is involved in this current case. If you feel we should include those other editors in this case, we can certainly try. - Superlex (talk) 05:45, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Concur Ursasapien (talk) 08:59, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose - RfAr is about both sides conduct, not just one. Will (talk) 00:53, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment by others:
 * Proposed. - Superlex (talk) 05:19, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment — For each of those diffs, someone else undid the redirect, so you've also shown that others - a lot of anons in this case - edit warred. And I looked at that article and found a HUGE WP:NOT summary and a HUGE WP:TRIVIA Section, and a references section that's EMPTY. All-in-all, an excellent example of TTN's good work and WP:DISRUPTion by others. --Jack Merridew 05:31, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * It seems to me that people are confusing what someone does with how they are doing it. I have no problem with TTN redirecting that article, but he isn't allowed to edit war.  And, yes, other people were edit warring as well, but TTN should not have continued to edit war.  He should have gone to dispute resolution or found another way to handle the matter. - Superlex (talk) 05:45, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Dispute resolution with anons and sockpuppets that are flagrantly editing against core principles? See the other threads here-abouts re established consensus. --Jack Merridew 05:52, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * You have a good point about dispute resolution not working when you're dispute is with anons. But I still strongly feel that TTN should not have edit warred back. - Superlex (talk) 05:59, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * In which case WP:DISRUPTive tactics are rewarded and unencyclopaedic content flourishes. --Jack Merridew 06:07, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Wait... what? I might be misreading you, but are you saying that it's okay to edit war?  Like I said, I agree that reverting TTN's redirects is disruptive, but TTN reverting back to the redirect just continues the disruption.  Let's look through WP:DISRUPT a sec.  Under "Dealing with disruptive editors" it allows the first two reverts, but then says to begin a discussion.  In TTN's case, he just kept reverting.  Where was the dialogue?  Continuing to revert without looking for an alternative solution is edit warring. - Superlex (talk) 06:31, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * My point is that you can't reasonably resolve a dispute with an anon who gets a new ip by reseting his cable-modem - or a throwaway sockpuppet. These are the examples you gave. I see you've given more on the evidence page, but I've not looked very closely at that. TTN does engage in dialogue when there's someone there to talk with. See Talk:Nurse (Romeo and Juliet character) and User talk:Wrad for examples from today. --Jack Merridew 07:18, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * So, if you can't resolve a dispute the answer is to edit war? I do see that TTN opened up a discussion with User:Someguy0830 and that's good, but he still edit warred to enforce his redirect.  Look, I'm just trying to point out that TTN's "good works" do not justify breaking Wikipedia policy by edit warring.  That is just as disruptive as the editors who are edit warring on the other side. - Superlex (talk) 08:06, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * TTN did take some things too far, probably got a bit frustrated with the situation, which is no excuse. Hopefully we'll all learn better ways to deal with these situations, TTN included. -- Ned Scott 08:20, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * This is precisely why I want such edits to be clearly and definitely defined as vandalism, not disruption. Someone that keeps reverting the redirects in not someone in an editing dispute ... he's a vandal. 3RR gets thrown out the window for vandals.Kww (talk) 19:36, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * The problem is that the editors who are reverting the redirects are acting in good faith, even though they're wrong. They believe that those pages are improving Wikipedia just as TTN believes getting rid of them are improving Wikipedia.  We have to assume that they are acting in good faith even though they are not following current policy and guidelines.  Labeling them as vandals will only make the situation worse and amplify the drama and disruption. - Superlex (talk) 23:30, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

(too many colons) Look, I agree that the anons and any socks undoing redirects are basically vandals - and you says they're acting in good faith yet wrong - so, TTN's is not really edit-warring here. To say he should cede the field to some anon who's entire contribution history is undoing some reverts is to support a disruptive tactic - that of the anon.

Here's another possibility - some of the anons may have accounts, and are editing while logged-out to avoid discussion. --Jack Merridew 08:09, 14 December 2007 (UTC)


 * TTN is most certainly edit warring and that is exactly what the proposed fait accompli principle is all about. Just because TTN (or any other editor) makes good faith changes based on policy does not give them an exception to 3RR.  I would argue that those undoing his redirects are not vandals, just like TTN is not a "page-blanking" vandal.  You seem to be violating WP:AGF, especially when it comes to IP contributors.  Ursasapien (talk) 09:24, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Support - --User: (talk) 00:25, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Template
7) {text of proposed finding of fact}


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:


 * Comment by others:

Template
8) {text of proposed finding of fact}


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:


 * Comment by others:

Template
9) {text of proposed finding of fact}


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:


 * Comment by others:

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.

TTN admonished
1) is admonished to avoid overly aggressive campaigns to impose changes on articles, even when he considers those changes to be justified by previous consensus.


 * This is from the Proposed decision page — proposed by Kirill.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:
 * Comment. This may be a start, but without any possible sanctions if the behavior continues, it lacks any incentive for change. Ursasapien (talk) 12:13, 13 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment by others:

Parties urged
2) The parties are urged to work collaboratively and constructively with the broader community and the editors committed to working on the articles in question to develop and implement a generally acceptable approach to resolving the underlying content dispute.


 * This is from the Proposed decision page — proposed by Kirill.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:
 * Comment. This is fantastic, but we need a mechanism to facilitate this work. Can the Television Wikiproject be used as facilitators for this work?  Ursasapien (talk) 12:15, 13 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment by others:

Parties urged
2.1) The parties are urged to engage in centralized discussion of underlying editorial guidelines and their proper application rather than adopt a piecemeal approach.


 * This is from the Proposed decision page — proposed by The Uninvited Co.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:


 * Comment by others:

All sides warned
3) All sides are warned to stay civil and assume good faith in both edit summaries and discussions.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:
 * Proposed Will (talk) 01:49, 1 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment by others:
 * This is probably the main real issue in the scope of this RfAr, as far as I can tell, since policy is explicitly outside its scope. Unfortunately, I don't think it's so simple. In reading over the discussions on the various pages here, I see incredible amounts of bad-faith-assumptions in contexts where the editor is clearly thinking they are assuming good faith. I also see a lot of "the ends justify the means" style comments in favor of the backdoor-deletion going on. Anomie⚔ 04:24, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
 * This is not the issue. When are editors ever invited to be rude and assume bad faith? And I would caution Anomie not to leap to conclusions about others bad faith or assume that we are backdoor deletionists. Some of us waltz through the main gates.
 * I think the real crux of the matter is: when editors propose changes backed up by explicit reference to policies and guidelines, what is the appropriate response when these are routinely ignored. What has led to this arbcom case is that over the course of many, many discussions, "local" editors have almost as a matter of course ignore our policies on notability, trivia, plot summaries, in-universe style, and the need to focus on real-world significance. The idea that consensus means global policy, not local preference, is also routinely ignored.
 * This imperviousness to policy is manifold and has been repeated again and again and again. Dealing with the same issues over and over again has produced the approach that prompted this arbcom case in the first place. Considered as an instance, or set of instances, it may look abrupt or uncivil. Considered in the aggregate, the steadfast refusal by local editor communities to consider Wikipedia policies and guidelines germane to their topics of interest is by far the greater problem and the issue that sorely and urgently needs redress. Considering the scope of the problem, either we need to change consensus to allow the inclusion of all this in-universe content, or else we need to enforce a more effective way to make articles conform to out policies as they now exist. Eusebeus 12:45, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I see my point has been illustrated. Thank you for your assistance. Anomie⚔ 15:29, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I would support this, I have seen significant civility and ABF issues from both sides of this debate. I'd further suggest we all read WP:KETTLE to refresh our memories. Stardust8212 16:36, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Unnecessary — This is ambient policy. re Anomie's comment that he sees "bad-faith-assumptions" by editors who are "clearly thinking they are assuming good faith" — what's the warning in this case? To be "better" at displaying their good faith? --Jack Merridew 05:52, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
 * To be more careful that they really are assuming good faith. I see a number of comments here on this page that boil down to excuses for not assuming good faith and for biting newcomers. Just because something should be deleted doesn't give license to violate Wikipedia's behavioral guidelines, and we're not working on a deadline so there is no excuse not to discuss the matter with the so-called "local" editors. Just because there are a few keep-everything zealots among the fans doesn't mean every fan is a keep-everything zealot; many probably are just completely unaware of Wikipedia policies and should be educated rather than bitten. Even with the wikilawyering zealots or clue-resistant fans, there is no excuse for being uncivil. As for "clearly thinking they are assuming good faith", I don't know this for sure (maybe they know they're assuming bad faith but feel it is justified) but it would be assuming bad faith of me to assume otherwise. Anomie⚔ 13:27, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
 * But there is an implicit deadline, Anomie. If, say, 50 episode articles are created every day, there has to be a way to delete 100, or the existing backlog will never go away. The deletion has to be rapid, or it might as well not happen at all.Kww 13:34, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
 * There is no deadline. Just because there is a "backlog" doesn't mean we get to skip over established process for the sake of clearing it up.  There are litereally hundreds of "bad" articles being created on a daily basis, and yet TV articles (a vast minority in that sea of daily new articles) seem to be the only ones that people feel are a "serious" problem.  If you truly feel the articles are a problem, well, that's the reason Wikipedia came up with WP:PROD, WP:SPEEDY, and WP:AfD.  There's nothing that says you can't tag those same 50 articles for deletion at once, or add them all to the same AfD nomination. -- Y&#124;yukichigai (<sub style="color:blue;">ramble  <small style="color:red;">argue  <sup style="color:green;">check ) 21:52, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
 * While not de jure forbidden, it is de facto forbidden. A nomination of 50 articles for deletion in the same AfD will almost certainly fail on sight. Nominating separately will probably get the user blocked for point disruption. There is really no way to deal with lots of articles in a series; and that is something I believe needs to be addressed. As for the remedy, I support it, but I don't think it needs to be stated; it's redundant. I (talk) 00:45, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
 * You can't AFD 100 articles a day. If we could get people to agree that episode articles were "shoot on sight", then CSD could work, but, as it stands, you can't speedy an episode article. That's the reason that people view them as a special problem: because individual TV episodes are inherently not notable, the articles need to go away, but there is no straightforward mechanism for getting rid of them.Kww 02:30, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
 * There *has* to be a reasonable way to deal with the backlog and steady stream of new episode articles at at least a somewhat greater rate than that of their creation. As things stand now, there is is bias towards a steady growth of unencyclopaedic articles. I'd be all for a CSD route for new episodes. --Jack Merridew 03:06, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't think a CSD would be appropriate for episode articles, there are some notable episodes that can be written in an encyclopedic way, just not any where close to all of them, and we don't want to discourage people from starting articles on notable topics. Also I think we're drifting from the point of whether both sides should be warned for civility. Stardust8212 03:12, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Clarification: I did not mean that all new episodes should be speedied; rather that new episode articles that do not meet a set of criteria - say something a bit stronger than Notability - then they could be speedied. If a new episode article is created and it clears a bar set at a reasonable height, then it would fail [to meet] a CSD#episode criteria and not be deleted. --Jack Merridew 04:23, 4 December 2007 (UTC) ( clarification to clarification; sorry: I added "to meet" above; hope this is clear ) Jack Merridew 06:27, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
 * The problem with that is that CSD should be for extremely clear cut cases but when you throw in a lot of criteria it gets complicated. I just don't think that is the solution but I don't know what is the solution. Of course, if we knew that we wouldn't be at arbitration. Stardust8212 04:33, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I would propose that asserting that the episode is a premiere, a finale, or nominated for a widely recognized award, such as a Hugo or an Emmy should be enough to save it from speedy deletion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kww (talk • contribs) (04:42, 4 December 2007)
 * I'd go with you re an Emmy Nom; a Hugo Award is a sci-fi fiction award and I don't believe they do tv episodes. As for premieres and finales, I'd say we go on a case by case basis. Enough here, folks, we're off-track re All sides warned. --Jack Merridew 06:27, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Just a note that television episodes have won a Hugo at least twice; and they have been nominated for a Hugo countless times, see: Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation. -- Cimon Avaro; on a pogostick. (talk) 18:39, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I know, now. This thread moved over to my talk page where it was discussed further. I would say that winning a Hugo would usually serve to establish notability. --Jack Merridew 09:35, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Kww, I don't follow your reasoning. I think you're beginning from a premise that has to be proven, namely that there is really a need for deleting entire categories of articles. And even if these articles should be deleted but aren't deleted immediately, so what? Copyvios and other real problems can be CSDed. Anomie⚔ 03:43, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
 * You have accurately identified my premise. I don't know what you would require in the way of proof that isn't self evident from looking at Wikipedia, and the actions that TTN is under attack for. I also don't understand your apparent belief that articles about non-notable things aren't a real problem.Kww 04:42, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Proof by assertion doesn't work too well. I don't believe that articles on non-notable topics should be kept. I do believe that we cannot declare entire classes of topics non-notable and delete them without further examination, and I believe that those proposing the deletion should not bite newbies and should not obstruct an attempt to find sources to satisfy WP:N. Anomie⚔ 14:45, 4 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I fear this remedy is not feasible because one "side" (the side ignoring existing policies and guidelines) is made up of 90% or more editors who aren't even aware of this ArbCom case. – sgeureka t•c 10:52, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I completely disagree with your assertion. I would say 50% of each side's "committed" editors are here.  Certainly, if each side is told to AGF and ArbCom has as a finding of fact that both creators and destroyers of fictional articles can be acting in the interest of improving the encyclopedia, we can point the %50 of each side that have not participated back to this principle.  Ursasapien (talk) 11:58, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * While each "side" makes up about 50% in this ArbCom case and elsewhere, the reality is that there are only about a dozen of editors A who are so committed to uphold the fiction guidelines all over wikipedia, then about three or four committed inclusionist editors B who are not as strict with applying guidelines but are willing to reasonably discuss, and then there is the side made up of people C editing mostly localy who are rarely aware that guidelines even exist. E.g. in discussions concerning a random TV show, there is 10 A (and a few random) editors arguing against 10 C (plus a few B) editors. When you sum that up for 10 TV shows, you have 10 A (plus a few random) editors against 10*10=100 (plus a few B) editors, giving the ratio that I presume exists. And that's also the source of the main problems in this case. And when you warn all sides "to stay civil and assume good faith in both edit summaries and discussions", you completely forget that 80% or 90% of all editors in discussions aren't aware of this ArbCom case and therefore have no reason to stay civil and assume good faith other than WP:CIVIL and WP:AGF. – sgeureka t•c 12:46, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I still think we could point the editors, that are unaware of our policies and guidelines, to this RfA. I plan on doing that, regardless of the outcome.  Ursasapien (talk) 10:28, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

TTN's redirecting limited
4) TTN is limited in changing existing articles into redirects to no more than five times per every 24 hours, for the next 6 months.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:
 * Proposed. There's a lot of explaining to be done about this proposal, and I'll admit at first it seems kinda... vindictive, I suppose.  Lemme 'splain; perhaps it will set your mind at ease.
 * First off, I'm not trying to dissuade TTN from editing Wikipedia. While he has been (let's call a spade a spade here) a douche about episode articles, he's shown that he can contribute constructively to Wikipedia. (Particularly on Dragonball Z related stuff)  The last thing I want to do is stop any sort of constructive editing to the project, constructive being the key word here.  That brings me to my second point.
 * The fact that TTN spends so much time redirecting articles is not only disruptive to Wikipedia, it's destructive to him as well. I think if you look at some of his early talk posts from when he first started "cleaning" article space and then compare those posts to some of his more recent interactions, you'll notice a very, very significant change.  Spending almost all of his time on Wikipedia merging, blanking, and/or redirecting articles has taken him from a relatively level-headed editor and turned him into some raving, near-rabid embodiment of cruft-hate who is willing to do just about anything to accomplish his goals.  It's frightening and, frankly, I think it's something that's feeding itself.  The more he "cleans", the worse he gets.  He needs a vacation from it, and I suspect an enforced break from it is the only way he'll slow down.
 * Finally, I'd like to ask everyone this: when did we get to the point where any one editor must redirect more than 5 articles a day on a regular basis? I don't think I've redirected 5 existing articles in my entire time on Wikipedia, much less in a day.  Now I'll admit that there may be a problem with an excess of fiction articles that need to be trimmed, but if consensus is clearly in favor of doing so (and it very well may be) then there should be dozens of editors willing to take up the slack. There's a very good chance they'll be a lot more nice about it too, and really that's what this is about: TTN has had his shot at being on the "front lines", and I think he's shown he isn't suited for it. -- Y&#124;yukichigai (<sub style="color:blue;">ramble  <small style="color:red;">argue  <sup style="color:green;">check ) 08:38, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment If I get this right, this would just shift the same kind of work (which still needs to be done) onto others. I have some experience in merging/redirecting (several hundred articles in 9 months?) without encountering real criticism, but that's because I'm mostly working on unattentended articles and not on the "front lines". Good that TTN can disassociate from all the crap that's thrown at him daily; I (and probably some others) couldn't do it over long because of the wikistress and frustration it causes in the light of ardent ILIKEIT votes. I guess my point is that it's the wrong direction to limit the actions of those who willingly take up the slack and actually accomplish to bring articles in line with existing policies and guidelines. Taking some of the weight off of TTN is however is a good idea if his current approach can be replaced with a more centralized approach like the old review process or the proposed Articles for Redirection board. (Both would need some weeks to get started and become accepted.) – sgeureka t•c 09:59, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm not suggesting he be banned from Wikipedia altogether, I'm just suggesting that his involvement on the "front lines" is doing more harm than good, at least right now. He's inflaming the passions of other editors unnecessarily, and if I dare say he isn't spending enough time properly evaluating articles anymore.  C'mon, over 200 redirects in 12 hours is way too fast.  He needs to slow down and take a break for a while, remember what other ways he used to contribute to Wikipedia.  After that... who knows.  Up to him, really. -- Y&#124;yukichigai (<sub style="color:blue;">ramble  <small style="color:red;">argue  <sup style="color:green;">check ) 10:25, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment I can see both sides of this issue. I think TTN needs and deserves a break.  However, I don't think this work should be just shuffled off to another editor, either.  I honestly can not see why any editor needs to make over 200 redirects in 12 hours.  Most editors do not fight vandalism that hard.  I do not see how it is possible to thoroughly evaluate what you are doing when you work that fast.  Ursasapien (talk) 12:10, 6 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment by others:
 * Strong Oppose — Not that it looks like things are going this way. And if they did, other editors would step-in. --Jack Merridew 09:36, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Support - and I feel Jack Merridew's comments are what got TTN in this predicament. --User: (talk) 03:31, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Support, and replacing five articles with redirects in 24 hours is still a lot. Tim Q. Wells (talk) 17:17, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Support in agreement with Tim Q. Wells. Sincerely, --  Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles  Tally-ho! 18:00, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Support Seems reasonable in light of the past flurry. --Pixelface (talk) 14:40, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Strong Oppose If TTN can only get rid of 5 garbage articles/day, the number of garbage articles will increase every day ... certainly not the right solution.Kww (talk) 15:39, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

TTN barred from AfD and merge discussions on fiction
5) TTN should not suggest articles on fictional topics for AfD or merger or take part in such discussions.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:
 * Oppose - There's nothing wrong with TTN taking articles to AfD, and in fact I encourage him to do so since AfD is perhaps the most efficient form Wikipedia has of establishing true consensus on an article's merits. If he starts violating WP:POINT as you suggest (which I don't believe he is doing or will do) then he'll be banned, quickly, since AfD requires administrator involvement and admins are perfectly capable of detecting WP:POINT-ish behavior. -- Y&#124;yukichigai (<sub style="color:blue;">ramble  <small style="color:red;">argue  <sup style="color:green;">check ) 01:15, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose If anything, those who have issue with TTN's actions would seem to want him to use discussion more, which makes this kind of an odd proposal. -- Ned Scott 20:19, 14 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment by others:
 * Proposed. With four votes to admonish him on the proposed decision page TTN has apparently decided that now is the time to go on a deletion spree. This WP:POINT behaviour does not bode well for his continuing participation in this topic. When people feel passionately about something to the point of disruption they should not be involved in making 'impartial' decisions about it. Throw in a time limit or conditions for this to expire or whatever other caveats, but this user needs to walk away from this topic for awhile. If they won't do it voluntarily it should be mandated. --CBD 06:31, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Strong Oppose — TTN does good work. Feel free to participate in the discussions. --Jack Merridew 08:47, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * You agree with his opinion on what Wikipedia's standards for fictional topics should be. Even if he is 'right'... charging into the china shop like a bull is never 'good work'. There is tension and disagreement about how this issue should be handled. A deletion spree is really what we needed at this particular juncture? That's going to help calm things down and develop a consensus? Somehow, I really don't think so. --CBD 11:35, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, I agree with TTN on this issue. I have been looking at some of his recent AfDs and they make sense, the stuff should go. You should avoid words like spree and idioms like a Bull in a China shop as they are inherently biased against one party. Did you see the reference to the Augean stables on that AN/I thread? I think it wonderfully illustrates the nature and scale of the problem. --Jack Merridew 12:17, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose, the RfAr is about both sides conduct. Will (talk) 12:07, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * And if someone on 'the other side' were to choose this moment to go and start reversing every merge TTN had ever done that would be equally disruptive and worthy of sanction. --CBD 12:34, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * What evidence do you have that he sped up? The whole reason this arbitration began is because TTN is a master of speed and efficiency. Several hundred articles in a day is not unusual.Kww (talk) 12:41, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Like this anon: Special:Contributions/60.241.170.216 who undid a whole lot of TTN's edits re My Name Is Earl episodes? (and I reverted them) --Jack Merridew 13:01, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Laughable.Kww (talk) 12:27, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose. As I've said elsewhere, there are about a dozen dedicated editors upholding fiction policies and guidelines against a number of hundreds and thousands of editors who have never seen a policy or guideline (not to mention their lacking participation in P&G consensus finding), and cutting down the number of dedicated editors by force is not the answer. – sgeureka t•c 13:35, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Heh. "About a dozen" bravely defending 'consensus' against the "hundreds and thousands" who disagree with them. I couldn't have said it better myself. --CBD 16:36, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't know where your "bravely" is coming from, but what numbers would you say are more correct? E.g. look at the contribution history of Arwing, then count how many people recommend merging/deletion at Articles for deletion/Arwing after it had been brought to attention. Or Death Egg versus Articles for deletion/Death Egg. Or, although the contribution history is no longer accessible to non-admins, Articles for deletion/List of planets in Futurama, a rare case where policies and guidelines actually "won" against masses of ILIKEIT votes. – sgeureka t•c 17:15, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Sorry, guess that was too oblique. 'Policies and guidelines' are, with rare exceptions, defined by consensus. If "about a dozen" people are saying one thing and "hundreds and thousands" are disagreeing, then it seems clear that the dozen do not have 'consensus' for their actions. Those actions are thus only 'correct' if this is one of the rare cases where the foundation, Jimbo, or some other 'higher power' has established a policy or guideline by decree... which is not the case here. WP:NOTE, WP:FICT, WP:EPISODE, et cetera are all subject to consensus. In short, if taken literally, your argument about the numbers would establish that you are on the wrong side of this thing. That being said, I don't think the disparity is so extreme as 12 vs 2,000+, but I agree with your assessment of the overall balance... the consensus of opinion is against the notability standards you are arguing for. --CBD 18:36, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * It goes back to the old problem of democracy, which is the worst form of government except for all the others. In this case, we have a relatively narrowly-focused horde. They aren't concerned with making an encyclopedia ... they are concerned with making a television guide, and using someone else's servers and connectivity to do it. There may be a huge number of them, but they are working agains the goals of the project.Kww (talk) 18:52, 11 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I have to disagree with CBD here. The 12 vs 2000+ number (or insert ratio of your choice) seems to me to only show that among people who work on television articles, and thus contribute to discussions on their talk pages, there is a consensus that the episodes/characters are notable. Certainly you could say the same for any article, the people who majorly contributed to it think it is notable, why else would they have devoted time and effort to it? I have not seen a wider discussion on that particular topic to gage the ratio among all of Wikipedia but when the same aricles are brought to AfD and subjected to a new group of editors the consensus as of late seems to be to redirect to relevant lists (examples:1,2,3). Perhaps a wider community discussion is what is really needed but it seems every time it gets to an appropriate forum it dissolves into the same dispute between the same editors that led to this case. Stardust8212 19:12, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Stardust8212, I actually agree with merging articles on minor fictional elements into lists. That is the longstanding consensus of how these things were handled for years rather than some recent innovation. What I, and I believe most people, don't agree with are the recent efforts to then delete (or 'merge' with no content) those lists. --CBD 22:01, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * OK, sometimes I have trouble telling which of the myriad of "bad things" that happened we are discussing at any point since different people have different opinions on which items were specifically the bad things. I am not overly familiar with the motions to delete the lists so I'll refrain from commenting on that. Stardust8212 02:08, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Okay, CBD, let me put it this way: everybody is invited to participate in building policies and guidelines. That includes the "dozen" (just a guess, not important here) and the other hundred/thousand/whatever editors. Yet only about two dozen (again, a guess) of people actually participate(d) in the past few months, of which there are deletionists, mergists, inclusionists, and whatever philosophies wikipedia has to offer. WP:FICT is just getting tweaked (right in these minutes) by some non-deletionist editors who thought it was too strict, and, all in all, rather-deletionist/mergist-minded editors agreed to these changes or have at least found a compromise. That is consensus, even if consensus can change (mostly only in details, not overall). Imagine a world where no-one went to election and then complained that Bush/Brown/Merkel are idiots and do not have consensus for their actions. Well, on wikipedia, you can actively do something against that in real-time and not wait for the next election. To get back to this point, TTN is just one wikipedian applying consensus by normal wikipedia measures; if someone doesn't agree with the consensus, then the right measure is to change consensus with the policies and guidelines, not barr TTN from applying them. – sgeureka t•c 19:34, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Neither consensus nor the guidelines change when someone edits a page to say something new. The guidelines only change when there is consensus agreement with a particular approach. For years there was consensus agreement that lists of minor fictional elements were notable enough for inclusion if the fictional topic itself was notable. In the past few months some people have been trying to change the guidelines to say that these lists now are not notable. That's fine... as you say, consensus can change. The problem is the assumption that it already has. This proposed change in notability standards has been continuously disputed. It has never been shown to have any sort of consensus. That people haven't edit warred to keep it off the guideline pages doesn't make it 'the new guideline'. It doesn't become any kind of standard until there is general support for it... which there demonstrably isn't. THAT is why TTN's mass actions under a non-consensus proposed guideline are disruptive. Until people agree that 'this is the way things should be done' nothing good can come of trying to 'push it through by force'. --CBD 22:01, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose Completely ridiculous suggestion. Eusebeus (talk) 15:38, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Strong Oppose - This would constitute an absurd overreach in this case. I understand there is perhaps a desire to perhaps slow his vast activities in terms of article removal for a period, but exclude him from the process? Especially when those who he has dealt with on the inclusion side have not been saints themselves, and he would be the only one punished? Terrible idea. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 22:10, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Strong Oppose - Wikipedia is sorely in need of people who do cleanup work, especially with respect to fiction. One of the reasons why there's a lack of people doing cleanup are the controversies which inevitably arise. Banning an editor from cleanup because he ran into such controversies will not only discourage him, but many more who do the same (or are planning to do the same). The proposal is one of the most counterproductive one could think of in this respect. --B. Wolterding (talk) 22:29, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Support per CBD. I would like to see more effort made on improving and referencing articles rather than discouraging folks from contributing by deleting their factually accurate work.  Encyclopedias collect knowledge; an online encyclopedia can collect an even greater deal of knowledge and there is no real reason to limit the scope of our venture.  Best, --  Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles  Tally-ho! 18:43, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment — Improvement is a subjective term. Some consider adding ever-more plot summary and trivia to be improvement. And all the factual references in the world won't make something someone stepped in on the street an encyclopaedic subject. Frankly, editors adding unencyclopaedic content need some discouragement and some incentive to edit more appropriately. --Jack Merridew 08:20, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Again, this isn't about which side of the dispute is 'right'. Just the simple fact that nobody should be looking at the conflict around this issue and deciding, 'Hey... now would be a great time to step it up a notch'. When there is dispute you stop and talk about it... not charge full force ahead with the things people are objecting to. --CBD 18:53, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Yet this "remedy" would restrict TTN's ability to talk about it. --Jack Merridew 07:52, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose - I agree with Ned Scott. We need more discussion, not less. - Superlex (talk) 22:27, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Seek consensus
6) All parties are to cease disruptive editing tactics (revert warring, mass redirection, mass un-redirection, articles/categories/templates/etc for deletion debates) on fictional subjects until a consensus is formed concerning Notability (fiction), Television episodes, and other relevant notability and/or content guidelines such that both sides of the debate are sated.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:
 * Agreed. Ursasapien (talk) 08:38, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Support, if it's doable. I think a lot of this boils down to the fact that WP:EPISODE sort of popped up as a recognized guideline one day, much to the surprise of numerous experienced TV article editors. (Personally, I was quite surprised by it myself)  Most of them (in my estimation) feel like they weren't consulted on a change that dramatically altered how their main locus of editing fared on Wikipedia; it would greatly improve things if they felt like they were involved.  It'll take some serious work to ensure that happens, a lot of notices placed on television show article talk pages to start with, but I think by the end of it there won't be this huge, Wiki-wide edit war going on over it like there is now. -- Y&#124;yukichigai (<sub style="color:blue;">ramble  <small style="color:red;">argue  <sup style="color:green;">check ) 01:22, 12 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment by others:
 * Proposed.— Ryūlóng ( 竜龍 ) 08:01, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment. Much consensus is established; i.e. established policy. This fails to address the fact that new unencyclopaedic episode and character "articles" are created everyday and is thus biased towards the proliferation of such inappropriate content. --Jack Merridew 08:39, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * It is not possible to prevent articles from being created. It is only possible to discuss the encyclopedic merits or unencyclopedic aspects of the articles that have already been created. If Wikipedia does not have an article on a notable character in an established fiction setting (for example, if an article were to be created on a secondary character in Hamlet), then what is to stop someone from creating an article there? While this case's name really only covers recent works of fiction and prose, that is not to say that some day, there will be analysis of the Greased Up Deaf Guy in Family Guy or an episode of One Piece (There probably has been, but the language barrier is always an issue). Regardless, consensus changes, particularly when two opposite sides sit down and discuss the issues and try to find a compromise.— Ryūlóng ( 竜龍 ) 10:11, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * True enough. I realize that this proceeding is not going to establish new rules for dealing with the new articles. And, of course, I don't object to the concept of seeking consensus. My concern is with the characterization of such a wide range of activities as disruptive. It is a fact that a great many of these articles fail many policies and guidelines. Editors are free to improve them (if they can) and other editors should remain free to trim them, merge them, propose their deletion and to discuss them. If critical editors are restrained, new unencyclopaedic articles will appear without any mechanism available to deal with them. --Jack Merridew 10:43, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * This is why I say that both sides should stop going through disruptive editing practices and find a middle ground concerning WP:FICT, and all of the other policies in question. If TTN and his group cease their actions until there is an explicit middle ground, and the other side stops edit warring over pages that have been acted on prior to this case's opening, then compromises can be made, and a new consensus be formed.— Ryūlóng ( 竜龍 ) 23:05, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * The claim that "It is a fact" that these articles "fail many policies and guidelines" is part of the problem. I'd disagree with that assessment... and can point to years of consensus to back that up. Things only 'fail policies and guidelines' when there is a consensus agreement on the relevant text... which there obviously isn't here. There used to be consensus that these articles were appropriate. The WP:FICT guideline was created to document that consensus, and did so until it was rewritten a few months ago. Now there is dispute about the matter. Saying, 'it is settled - our view is the correct one' doesn't help. That's why all those things up there are described as "disruptive". Until consensus is settled acting as if it already has been just causes arguments, and going 'full steam ahead' causes massive disruption across large swaths of the encyclopedia. --CBD 11:22, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Please note that I did say great many of these articles — not all. I have not been here for years but do see that the consensus has changed (and acknowledge that it is not coincident with my view). I expect that the prior consensus was, in part, driven be the then-scale of this project, which has now become huge. Once upon a time getting an entire set of episode articles into some sort of coherent shape must have seemed like great progress. Now, with endless editors showing-up and making myriad edits about everything they see on their television is a huge problem. These users come from every country on earth. These countries have an ever increasing number of tv networks that produce evermore shows about flying bananas and sneakers that sing. Then throw in the huge number of video game characters. What does this mean for this project? It means millions of articles about dross. The editors creating and defending such articles must start facing these realities.
 * Excuse me, I got a bit off track. I am not in favor of disruption. As I see it, there is an inherent bias towards allowing this problem to persist that needs addressing. --Jack Merridew 12:50, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose Consensus does exist and it reflects the growing conviction that Wikipedia is NOT a fan site, but instead aspired to encyclopedic content. Eusebeus (talk) 15:41, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Consensus obviously does not exist if there are people who disagree with what is currently being touted as policy.— Ryūlóng ( 竜龍 ) 22:07, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Support. Either consensus can change or it can't, and our policy is that it can. In fact, it's a foundation issue and is pretty much non-negotiable in that sense. The issue is that a large number of editors do not busy themselves writing guidelines, they edit.  And another pool of editors do not write articles, but write guidance. (There's some overlap between the two) And the pool describing common practise need to check with the people doing the practical work that the guidance they are writing is representative of a community wide consensus.  A consensus that doesn't have input from the whole of Wikipedia is not as strong as one that does, and ignoring the views of people you disagree does not mean you can declare consensus exists. Hiding T 01:05, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Support These edit wars have drawn in a large number of people who only edit parts of wikipedia and aren't into the "meta". With these changes by the "deletionists" happening in mass, I think people will find consensus has changed. Hobit (talk) 07:51, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Support I don't see how encouraging further discussion and consensus on WP:FICT and WP:EPISODE could be a bad thing. If the actions by the involved parties are seen as disruptive due to those two guidelines, and if those two guidelines are disputed, the mass editing should be put on hold until those two guidelines have input from many more editors and have consensus. --Pixelface (talk) 11:59, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Support --User: (talk) 14:29, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

TTN restricted
7) User:TTN subject to an editing restriction for one year. He is prohibited from reverting or making any edit that substantially amounts to a revert or partial revert. Should he make such an edit, he may be blocked for the duration specified in the enforcement ruling below.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:


 * Comment by others:
 * Proposed. I copied this from a recent ArbCom case, so the wording might need to be played with. - Superlex (talk) 05:30, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose — utterly unwarranted. "good work" --Jack Merridew 15:31, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose. I guess the theory here is "let no good deed go unpunished."Kww (talk) 15:35, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment If this goes through, I volunteer to revert instead of him in those cases (the majority) where month(s)-long merge/redirect discussions resulted in nothing but WP:ILIKEIT votes without any article improvement. Resurrecting articles with proven improvement of course should not be reverted into a redirect except with renewed discussions, but there also needs to be a way to undo "anon kneejerk" reverting. This is a point that I feel strongly about, so sorry for the language. – sgeureka t•c 16:00, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree and will do likewise. Heck, I already do. Eusebeus (talk) 16:16, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment - I think I've done a poor job of explaining why I added these proposals to the workshop (I put down some thoughts over here, but nothing on this page). I'm not trying to punish TTN for doing something good. I'm trying to show him, and others in this debate, that there are better ways to go about this that might not result in this constant dispute everyone is in. Maybe I shouldn't have started with what I saw as edit warring, but that seemed like the easiest to fix. Also, the text I copied for this proposal doesn't mention anything about reverting vandalism, so that's my mistake.


 * I also feel everyone should dial down the combatative talk. One side has been labeled "deletionists" while the other side labeled "fanboys." What that ignores is that we're all editors who are here to improve Wikipedia and we all have different views about how that should be done. We need to find ways to work together. I ran across a great comment here from Eusebeus. I think it's a wonderful example of were we can take this dispute. If both sides can come together then maybe we won't have to deal with so much drama. - Superlex (talk) 23:09, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

TTN must notify the major contributors of an article after placing a merge tag
8) After TTN places a merge tag on an article, he must notify the major contributors of an article (the creator and any editor who has edited the article 3 or more times) on their talk pages so they can discuss the merge or improve the article. If an editor responds, they will be given no less than 3 weeks to improve the article.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:
 * Oppose TTN has been very good about giving proper notification of these discussions. I do support what Will says below, that this should be strongly encouraged, and for everyone, but it's not relevant in this arbcom case. -- Ned Scott 07:07, 18 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment by others:
 * Proposed. Editors need to be notified and given time to improve an article before it is turned into a redirect. I suppose the "3 or more times" portion could be modified a little and the time period could also be modified. I do not think that watchlists are sufficient notification. --Pixelface (talk) 14:36, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose — The burden is on interested editors to pay attention. TTN's would have to analyze the history of articles that may have thousands of edits; absurd. --Jack Merridew 15:46, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I doubt there are many articles that have "thousands of edits" that could redirected or merged. Tim Q. Wells (talk) 23:07, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
 * The major contributors of a page can be found by plugging the page title in after this url:
 * http://vs.aka-online.de/cgi-bin/wppagehiststat.pl?lang=en&page=
 * TTN wouldn't have to search through the history himself. --Pixelface (talk) 11:06, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Interesting tool — one I did not know about. I still oppose and feel that the burden is on others to pay attention. Merge tags are noticeable and sufficient. Plus watchlists. Goal here seems to be to add work for TTN. --Jack Merridew 08:45, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Support - This proposal is a reasonable way in which to gain consensus and to improve articles. Best, --  Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles  Tally-ho! 21:09, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Support in principle as a matter of courtesy, but only if not forced, but strongly encouraged, and not on TTN, but on all contributors. Will (talk) 21:16, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose. This is what a watchlist is for.Kww (talk) 22:00, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
 * So should we stop warning users about their fair use images with no rationale? Tim Q. Wells (talk) 23:07, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
 * And what about editors with huge watchlists? I have over 8500 articles on mine. --Pixelface (talk) 10:34, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Support. Completely agree with Pixelface. Tim Q. Wells (talk) 23:07, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree with Jack. It is the job of users who care to be informed. We have watchlists for a reason. I also agree with Sceptre that it would be nice if we all were to notify users about things like this, but it should not be an ArbCom mandate. I (talk) 23:18, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
 * How about if only the first contributor has to be notified on their talk page, with something like redirectnotice ? --Pixelface (talk) 04:01, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Extending that courtesy would be great. But I do not believe it is something the ArbCom should/can mandate. I (talk) 05:10, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
 * This hits a snag if the first contributor has left Wikipedia or been inactive for a long time.  Broken Sphere Msg me 05:30, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
 * WP:AFD says "it is generally considered courteous to notify the good-faith creator and any main contributors of the articles that you are nominating for deletion." The same courtesy should be extended to the contributors of articles that are going to be turned into redirects &mdash; especially if the merge tagger has no interest in looking for reliable sources himself. --Pixelface (talk) 06:58, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Wishy-washy sorta support, sorta oppose -- On paper, great theory. In practice, this could be a nightmare due to the sheer number of editors that fall into the category laid out.  I think this shouldn't be a precise, highly specified directive so much as a general common sense directive, e.g. the bit of text from WP:AFD that was quoted should be applied to redirects and merges as well.  Perhaps the appropriate documents on redirects and mergers (WP:MERGE at least) should be updated with this text; someone should be bold and do it right now I think. -- Y&#124;yukichigai (<sub style="color:blue;">ramble  <small style="color:red;">argue  <sup style="color:green;">check ) 10:23, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
 * How about the top 5 contributors of an article? That information can be found by using aka's tool here. --Pixelface (talk) 11:21, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Notification of merge proposals
8.1) Any editor proposing a merge is encouraged to notify any major contributors, and, if existent, any relevant Wikiprojects.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:
 * Proposed. Neutral version of 8). Will (talk) 15:25, 19 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment by others:
 * Support I do think this wording is more neutral, and it may be helpful to propose this to all involved parties. Encouragement may be better than a mandatory edit restriction (although encouragement can be ignored). The committee may leave this sort of thing up to various guidelines though. --Pixelface (talk) 15:45, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

TTN must list the merge proposal at Proposed mergers
9) Because TTN's behavior has involved stealthy redirecting, TTN must list any future merge proposals at Proposed mergers.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:
 * Question. Does the merge tag automatically add article's to this category? If it doesn't, shouldn't it?  Ursasapien (talk) 12:04, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Support in principle, oppose due to lopsidedness. Will (talk) 12:21, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment Again, I'd like to point out that TTN has been doing a rather good job at leaving proper notification. That does not seem to be the issue. -- Ned Scott 20:34, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment by others:
 * Proposed. Again, this remedy is about TTN notifying editors in order to enhance collaboration, something I think is important so articles can be improved. --Pixelface (talk) 11:31, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
 * In response to Ursasapien, the mergeto and mergefrom templates do place an article in Articles to be merged since December 2007 (and other months), but there are articles that have had merge tags since January 2007. I believe TTN typically waits a little over 2 weeks to turn an article into a redirect, and I don't think the existing category is helping much. Editors can check what articles link to the merge template, but as of the time of this post, that's 4,072 articles to wade through. --Pixelface (talk) 14:38, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
 * The category may not be helping much since it is backlogged but WP:PM is even more backlogged (September 2006). Also what makes you think that a contributor that didn't notice 20-200 pages show up as changed on their watchlist would notice the one change to WP:PM instead? I don't think this is a solution to the problem and I agree with User:Sceptre that it is lopsided. Furthermore I disagree with characterizing TTN's actions as intentionally stealthy, he made no attempts to hide his work he just didn't go screaming it from rooftops, the word "stealthy" indicates to me an inherent assumption of bad faith. Stardust8212 15:14, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I suggested this remedy because editors were saying it would be too burdensome for TTN to notify an article's major contributors on their talk pages. This way, there may be a centralized place where editors can look. I think talk page notification would be best though. I used the word "stealthy" because it seems to me that most contributors don't realize an article has been turned into a redirect until much later and they never knew any sort of merge discussion took place. That leads to edit wars after an article has been turned into a redirect. Should article contributors add any article they've worked on to their watchlist and check their watchlist? Yes. But this remedy is meant to enhance collaboration and increase awareness of problem articles &mdash; which will hopefully lead to article improvement and less edit wars in the future. --Pixelface (talk) 15:29, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I think if an editor cares enough about an article that they're willing to break policy and edit war over it then they should have it on their watchlist, yes. Contributor's not knowing that a merge discussion is going on is not because TTN is being stealthy but because they weren't paying attention, as I said there's plenty of good faith room between sneaking around a shouting from the rooftops. Anyway, Sceptre's version is much more neutral so I'd be more likely to support that but I still doubt that the people who seem to need this because they weren't informed will be watching WP:PM, I see this as less of a solution and more as another hoop to jump through but if others think it will help then by all means give it a go. Stardust8212 15:44, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I think editors are editwarring over redirected articles because they never knew a merge discussion took place. I don't consider talk page notification "shouting from the rooftops." The short time period until an article is turned into a redirect may be another problem. I think talk page notification is superior to this remedy, but this is just another way of increasing awareness of these problem articles and getting wider input from the community. I probably should have given this proposed remedy more neutral wording though. --Pixelface (talk) 16:01, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Support as it seems like a good way to get discussion going. Best, --  Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles  Tally-ho! 15:10, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Indeed. But we shouldn't force just one user to do so. It would be better if it was encouraged to all users, and the page made more public (I hadn't even known of PM until this). Will (talk) 15:13, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Strongly oppose. Bad faith wording in proposal ... TTN has been anything but stealthy. If he had wanted to be stealthy, you would be fighting a TOR-supported sock-puppet army. He has publicly proceeded to enforce policy in an objective, reasonable fashion.Kww (talk) 15:44, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Do you think the merge discussions have typically involved an adequate number of editors before the articles were turned into redirects? And WP:FICT and WP:EPISODE are not policy. That seems to be a point of contention in this case. --Pixelface (talk) 16:08, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I think that anyone watching the articles was free to join in the discussion, and TTN did nothing to hide from them. In general, discussion was light because there was no rational defense for most of the articles.Kww (talk) 17:31, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Or the major contributors were unaware the articles had problems and didn't know a merge discussion was going on. I suppose we could ask them if they were aware an article was tagged with the merge tag, or if they found out an article was turned into a redirect a considerable time afterwards. --Pixelface (talk) 17:38, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Current merge discussions take between one and two months, and if a major contributor doesn't have his favorite articles on his watchlist, doesn't check up on his article to notice the merge tag, and missed both WP:FICT (updated in summer) and the controversy surrounding TTN's edits, then it seems WP:PM won't help here much either. If I found one of my articles merged/redirected after a while, then there must have been something seriously wrong with them anyway, and an un-redirect would likely be disruptive. – sgeureka t•c 18:03, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
 * If the major contributors don't bother to watchlist an article that they are interested in, why should someone else be forced to notify them?Kww (talk) 18:13, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose — Merge tags have sufficient visibility and interested editors will not miss them. Object to term "stealthy" and believe that this is primarily an attempt to add work to TTN's approach to E&C articles. --Jack Merridew 08:34, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
 * So if an editor misses a merge tag, they must not have been interested? --Pixelface (talk) 15:39, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, your hypothetical editor would presumably have not been interested enough to visit the article or notice it on a watchlist. Perhaps you're using a rather loose definition of interested — say an interest in a million or so articles that are not in conformance with some policy. --Jack Merridew 09:25, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Response to Ned Scott. A merge tag is not really proper notification that an article will be turned into a redirect in a few weeks. That's not what merge tags are for. --Pixelface (talk) 15:39, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Your bolding of the word "will" merely draws attention to your assumption of bad faith here. --Jack Merridew 09:25, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Your bolding of the word "will" merely draws attention to your assumption of bad faith here. --Jack Merridew 09:25, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Proposed mergers
9.1) Editors proposing a merge are encouraged to list the merger on Proposed mergers


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:
 * Neutral version of 9) Will (talk) 15:28, 19 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment by others:
 * Support, neutral language is better. --Pixelface (talk) 16:04, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose — Merge tags have sufficient visibility and interested editors will not miss them. --Jack Merridew 08:28, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Actually, it's very easy to miss them. I do all the time. Tim Q. Wells (talk) 18:55, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Support Seems reasonable. Tim Q. Wells (talk) 18:55, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Centralized listing
10) Although Television episodes/Review was rejected by the community the parties are urged to discuss whether some aspects, such as the list of current discussions, should be revisited.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:
 * Comment I've marked Television episodes/Review has historical, since it was used, but isn't used anymore. That page was more for keeping track of the discussions, rather than being the process itself, which was documented at Television article review process. I've marked Television article review process as an essay, since it's nothing more than advice on one possible way to conduct a merge/redirect discussion, and isn't at odds with any other policy or guideline. I hope that this process, or something like it, can be further explored, as there is still a need to orchestrate such discussions about an article series. -- Ned Scott 03:41, 22 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment by others:


 * Proposed - I am not proposing that the review process was a good idea overall but simply that a centralized page with a list of ongoing episode merge discussions would be useful. I think this is a better alternative to WP:PM since it is specific to the topic area and wouldn't junk up that process nor leave the pages in the year and a half long backlog limbo. The discussion would still take place at the appropriate talk pages as was decided when the review process was deprecated. Stardust8212 15:29, 19 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Object — I don't feel that this process is rejected by the community. Yes, it is opposed by some, but I feel that this process needs a bit of work based on the discussions re this case. That some process for dealing with E&C articles is needed is fairly obvious, right? --Jack Merridew 08:24, 20 December 2007 (UTC)


 * It's been labeled as rejected, that's all I know. Yes I think something needs to be done and as I expressed above I have concerns about WP:PM, particularly it's lengthy backlog, this is just an attempt to find a suitable alternative. Stardust8212 12:20, 20 December 2007 (UTC)


 * It was tagged as 'rejected' about four days ago by User:Soleil aka User:I — a user I'm usually in agreement with. I have an unanswered note on his talk page about this. Someone made a comment somewhere else around here about this (up north). I see this process as still being refined; it needs work. That this process took too long may be part of why some have taken other options. --Jack Merridew 12:29, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

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Enforcement by block
1) Should any user subject to an editing restriction in this case violate that restriction, that user may be briefly blocked, up to a week in the event of repeated violations. After 5 blocks, the maximum block shall increase to one month. All blocks are to be logged at Requests for arbitration/Episodes and characters.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:


 * Comment by others:
 * Proposed. Copied from a recent ArbCom case. - Superlex (talk) 05:33, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Premature --Jack Merridew 15:28, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

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 * FYI, I'm dealing with some real life stuff here for the next few days so my contributions to this RfArb will be somewhat sparse during that time. That being said, I do have time right now to expand further on why I initiated this and to mention some things I think need to be addressed. (Which I'll get around to adding to the appropriate sections sometime here)
 * First, I'd like to mention that I am not a "we need to keep every episode article ever" editor. On the contrary, I think many of the articles TTN has redirected had little merit for inclusion on Wikipedia, and most episode articles in general would probably be better off trans-wiki'd elsewhere. (Compare Star Trek episode articles on Wikipedia with those on Memory Alpha, for example; less restrictions means better articles in many cases)  However, that is my opinion; it is not fact, nor can it override a clear consensus expressed by a majority of editors who have contributed to a group of articles.  My main problem with TTN is that he does not acknowledge that last point, and if anything adheres to the opposite view.
 * The other fundamental issue I have with TTN's behavior is that (based on a browsing of his contribution history) roughly 95% of his mainspace contributions to Wikipedia overall are either edits which remove content or edits which are part of a process to remove content. Now I will admit that ensuring articles meet policy and guideline requirements is not detrimental to Wikipedia 99.99% of the time, but when an editor focuses their editing efforts all but solely on doing so by way of removing content are they really "contributing" anymore?  At that point I posit that it crosses the line from "helpful" to "disruptive", and based on the not insignificant number of editors who have "piled on" to this RfArb (not to mention the overwhelming number of complaints on TTN's talk page) I am not groundless in holding that opinion.
 * Now in the process of starting this RfArb a number of non-TTN-specific issues which need to be addressed have come to my attention. First and foremost is the issue of the current merge process; if anything TTN's edits and the subsequent backlash have shown that, at least for merges which are likely to be controversial, the current merge process simply does not cut it.  Now to their credit many members of the TV Project realized this and attempted to create an alternative, but their result was a highly specific process for only a small subset of articles, and one which did not address what I feel is the core of the problem with the current merge process: it is not specifically subject to administrative oversight like AfD and RfD are, and doesn't even require administrator involvement.  If these merges were performed after a lengthy discussion as part of an official (non-article-type-specific) Wikipedia process, one that was closed by an uninvolved administrator, I doubt we'd be here at all.  I think an "AfR"/"AfM" process is one of the things that must come out of this RfArb, regardless of how any of the other matters are resolved.
 * There are some other, minor issues I'd like to raise relating to this this RfArb, but they are not nearly as important as what I've mentioned already. Once I have more time I'll make sure to detail them. -- Y&#124;yukichigai (<sub style="color:blue;">ramble  <small style="color:red;">argue  <sup style="color:green;">check ) 22:13, 26 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Administrators have no authority in discussions over any other user, and the only reason they are required to closed AfDs and such is because the closures often require admin access to deletion tools. A process not involving someone with an admin bit really means nothing when the process does not require the tools. -- Ned Scott 07:18, 27 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Also, arbcom cases aren't here to set policy, but rather over look the behavior and actions of the editors involved. An AfR/AfM process would have to be proposed and adopted by the community like any other process. -- Ned Scott 07:22, 27 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Other than that, I do agree that we need such a process, it's just unlikely that the arbcom case will actually start it (the events around all of this most likely will, though). -- Ned Scott 07:35, 27 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Authority, no. However, most editors by and far trust administrators moreso than their fellow editors, because the fact that someone is an administrator indicates they have a certain, higher level of responsibility, rationality and other such qualities.  Even if there should technically be no real difference between the weights of opinion between admin and non-admin editors, in practice the involvement of a previously uninvolved admin, particularly when they close a debate or determine consensus, goes a long way to stop potential discord.  That was my point, sorry I wasn't clearer. -- Y&#124;yukichigai (<sub style="color:blue;">ramble  <small style="color:red;">argue  <sup style="color:green;">check ) 09:34, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Comment by others:

 * I've been waiting for this to make it to the Workshop so I could comment without becoming officially a party. I strongly recommend that ARBCOM endorse TTN's activities, and, with minor reservations, his techniques. He is not insulting, derisive, or belittling to his topic. He simply recognizes that run-of-the-mill episodes of Farscape and Hannah Montana cannot be notable by any reasonable definition, and not even by many unreasonable ones. He indicates his intention, and, after not receiving a single argument that is based on policy, proceeds.


 * He is taking care of a necessary function, and doing it in a reasonable compromise fashion between expediency and politeness. The only better approach would be to make episode summaries that don't meet some objective standard (maybe premiere, finale, or nominated for an Emmy) a Candidate for Speedy Deletion.


 * We have a huge problem on Wikipedia in the pop culture area. Pop culture is fine, but the involved editors frequently lack perspective. Sure, The Rocky Horror Picture Show needs and gets an article. But every song? My Gym Partner's a Monkey needs an article, but every episode? It took a tremendous amount of effort to get to the point that not every Pokemon character had its own article. When these things are nominated for deletion, the fans come up in enormous numbers, and the closing admin tends to go with the count, even though the keep votes are usually based on nothing more than "I like it", and the delete votes are grounded in policy. In some way, we need to get the effort involved in cleaning this stuff out down to a reasonable level, because 300 Disney fans writing articles on every character in every episode of every series on the Disney channel can create more articles in a day than any group of editors can redirect and delete if they have to go to AFD and DRV on each one.Kww (talk) 13:53, 23 November 2007 (UTC)


 * The hypocrisy of TTN, Eusebeus, and their accomplices is rank, and is plainly demonstrated by Kww's comment above and Fram's comment below. It is beyond any reasonable dispute that these bullies are not enforcing any legitimate Wikipedia policy. As the acknowledged policy governing the creation of policy pages like the one these vandals claim to be enforcing says, "The purpose of a written policy or guideline is to record clearly what has evolved as communal consensus in actual practice, rather than to lead editors prescriptively toward a given result. Wikipedia polices may change as consensus changes, but policy and guideline pages must reflect the present consensus and practice. The easiest way to change policy is to change common practice first." There is no communal policy supporting these mass removals of content. Instead, there are thousands of editors writing such articles and no more than about two dozen unwriting them. As these dishonest users make clear in their comments, they know they have no real consensus behind them.  Intead, they edit war pages incessantly in order to to exhaust users who want to write articles in accordance with current practice. And they target the editors least likely to have the stomach to deal with their bullying, mostly adolescent females and younger males. These users contribute next to nothing to Wikipedia, their editing is more disruptive across a wide range of articles than almost any users the Arbitrators have dealt with in years. Ban them. VivianDarkbloom (talk) 21:06, 8 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Indeed. 0ne of the problems is the huge discrepancy between the intention of Wikipedia (an encyclopedia), and how it is used by many people. When you look at the most popular pages on Wikipedia, there are basically three categories: news, sex, and popular culture. Bizarrely, Wikipedia is not a news site, not a sex site, and not a fan site... To me, it is the gap between "sticking to the core of Wikipedia (which is already wide enough as it is)" and "expanding to include popular subjects, even if they are not strictly notable in the Wikipedia sense" which causes all these problems, and which inevitably puts editors on opposite sides of the spectrum on a frontal collision course. More succinctly put, it is the clash between policy and consensus. Fram (talk) 14:23, 23 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia is also not paper and if we have readers interested in episodes and chracters and editors willing to devote their volunteer time to improving factual articles that do not personally attack anyone we shouldn't turn away our readership and potential editors, because of "I don't like it" arguments. As editors work on episodes and characters, they too may edit other aspects of the encyclopedia over time as well.  We should improve our project and try to catalog as much of human knowledge as possible rather than systematically destroy verifiable information put up in good faith by hundreds if not thousands of dedicated editors.  Best, --  Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles  Tally-ho! 17:16, 23 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Is the opinion of people in favor of merges really based on "I don't like it", or rather that the articles in question currently violate WP:NOT, WP:NOTABILITY/WP:FICT, WP:WAF, WP:TRIVIA, WP:QUOTE, etc? Isn't it "improvement" when these articles are brought in line with policies and guidelines by merging, or, in the case that there is nothing to merge, redirecting? What kind of improvement are articles exactly hoping for that simply lack any (secondary) sources? There is also this thing with wikipedia trying to be as "free" as possible. While trying to make wikipedia void of any unfree content is virtually impossible and also not desirable, there should be at least some care to not declare openhouse for detailed plot "human knowledge", which consensus has agreed is not what wikipedia is for anyway. Fortunately, there are other outlets for this purpose, and the longer I think about it, the more I believe that a better collaboration between them and us would be favorable for both sides and all of our sanity. – sgeureka t•c 19:08, 23 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Then instead of merging articles or nominating them for deletion, look for and add secondary sources. We shouldn't discourage people from editing verifiable stuff that they want to edit and limit our abilities when we have a rare opportunity to go farther than any paper encyclopedia ever has.  Plus as many have said to me consensus changes apparently constantly.  Best, --  Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles  Tally-ho! 19:16, 23 November 2007 (UTC)


 * As I said: How can one find secondary sources if there aren't any to begin with? If even fans are unable to find (and/or provide) such sources during "dangerous" merge/redirect/deletion discussions, how is the "cleanup personal" expected to find them? (There is also the issue of WP:V.) Someone brought up Isola (fictional city) in a recent discussion. I have never heard of it and frankly doubt its notability, but what's the right thing to do? Let only the people familiar with this topic (i.e. fans) decide what should be done? My impression is they hardly ever recommend merging/deletion (only known exceptions I'm aware of: Kingdom Hearts and WikiProject Harry Potter/Notability). And how often have I been asked during my cleanup efforts, "why do you hate fans so much?", when the association of "trim information / delete articles" and "you hate the article contributers" is completely mistaken. This whole thing, as Kww and Fram have already pointed out, is not about what fans want wikipedia to be (a fan site), but what wikipeda is (an encyclopedia). If you can cover your favorite subject from a real-world angle backed up with reliable secondary sources, you can cover even the most obscure fictional topic without ever being threatened of deletion, even if that sometimes means you have to cover all of it in one article instead of ten. – sgeureka t•c 20:21, 23 November 2007 (UTC)


 * There are enough sites like E online IMDB.com, tv.com, etc, that have generally verifiable information for episodes and all anyone has to do is watch an episode to see if what we have in our articles is true. I wholeheartedly agree that hoaxes should not be on Wikipedia, but if we operate on consensus then obviously the fact that so many editors are willing to edit episode articles must be proof that we do not have consensus that these articles should not be here.  Not all editors want to spend time on AfDs (how many AfDs have a half dozen or so participants versus the scores of editors who actually worked on the article?) or ever-changing policy discussions (it is hard to cite policies and guidelines when they too are edited just about if not every day and their talk pages suggest a constant evolution in opinion and interpretation).  We should do our best to fight vandalism and nonsense, but sometimes "primary evidence" is what encyclopedia writers have to turn to.  When I get the book of the year from Britannica it will likely have some items on current events issues, for example; well, to a historian a newspaper article can be a primary, not a secondary source, an official government release can be a primary source, etc.  Having an article on an episode that is likely to at least have a mention in say Entertainment Weekly and/or TV Guide and which thousands of viewers watch on its original airing, when it is re-run, appears on DVD, etc. gives the episode notability.  We need to encourage editors to not shy away from printed sources and we definitely should not diminish our project by only worrying about select articles when our contributors and ready and willing to improve a multitude of topics.  Do we really want to just be a repeat of other encyclopedias or do we want to give our readers the real fulfillment of cataloging the sum of human knowledge!  Best, --  Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles  Tally-ho! 22:57, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
 * (Trying to keep my points short because we should actually discuss editors' behavior and not content) Per WP:RS, Articles should rely on reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, meaning that primary sources should be kept to a minimum. WP:PSTS and WP:WAF specifically demonstrate why that is (mainly because it is very easy to abuse primary sources by trying to analyse them, which unfortunately happens almost naturally in editing because this is exactly what we all once learned in school). Take Jack Shephard from Lost (randomly picked) - "Jack is a talented spinal surgeon [...] He is taciturn, but speaks bluntly, and is somewhat emotionally reserved [...] He lets go of matters that appear important to him [...]" from one paragraph, all bolded entries are unsourced analysis of his character. Per WP:WAF, maintain a balanced use of both primary and secondary sources (which I take to mean about fifty-fifty), you should have about one sentence of secondary information for each sentence of plot. If sources are (currently) not available, the episode plots or character arcs can still be sufficiently described in episode or character lists. Popularity (not notability) may come from the number of people watching something, but in wikipedia, A topic is presumed to be notable if it has received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject (WP:N). Granted, popularity may create demand for secondary coverage, which in turn is a demonstration of notability. Wikipedia can then compile these sources, as stated in my intro. By the way, WP:FAC rejects imdb and tv.com as sources (other than for cast information) because they lack editorial oversight. I guess the situation of ever-changing guidelines is a sign of improvement instead of destruction of encyclopedic content.
 * (Back to the behavior of editors) If editors don't like the current state of policies and guidelines (P&G), the right way is to start a discussion at the P&G talk pages, not in AfDs or in merge discussions. Think an article is notable because of sufficient secondary coverage? Add and use these sources. Still find yourself unable to bring the articles in line with existing P&G? Consider collaboration to bring them in line with P&G. Think that redirecting is too strict? Help in merging. Never act against consensus by reverting to the version you like. It's really simple, actually. – sgeureka t•c 01:49, 24 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Okay, well, as I do not like to only focus on negatives, I do respect TTN's withdrawal of this discussion. Best, --  Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles  Tally-ho! 02:20, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

TTN doesn't merge, he redirects, even if the article has multiple, non-trivial, reliable sources. If what he's doing is right, why don't we just make a page called redirected for notability reasons and he can redirect every article that doesn't conform to his standards, completely circumventing AfD? The reason why is because we have a consensus to use AfD. It's a time honored tradition that doesn't allow him to blanck a hundred articles a day, so he ignores it. He's gotten a little better since the spotlight that is arbitration has been shined on him, but we should really revert all his edits, or at least the ones he enforced with edit warring and take them to AfD if necessary. I've seen a lot of consensus merges result from AfD, and no one argues with those, but that isn't what he's doing. - 00:21, 24 November 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Peregrine Fisher (talk • contribs)
 * Have you got a link to where TTN redirected an "article [that had] multiple, non-trivial, reliable sources"? If you're talking of All Hell Breaks Loose (Supernatural), then TTN's persistance has significantly improved the articles from their original state. The plot is still overly long, and buddy.tv and tvsquad are not reliable sources (but are okay-ish for the reception section for the moment, I guess), so there is much more work ahead. And it seems there are people who are in favor of a five-day source-it-now-or-kill-it AfD, while others prefer a 30-day prove-notability-and-thou-shall-be-spared discussion approach (with the option to resurrect the article). What's probably best is to combine both - discuss for 30 days first, then iniate AfD if nothing happens. TTN stated he is considering AfD now, so your wish may become true. – sgeureka t•c 01:49, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
 * "It's a time honored tradition" ? AfD is a tradition? AfD is nothing more than one of many ways to discuss decisions about an article, and is only necessary when one seeks outright deletion. I understand your concern, but AfD is not some sacred (or even time honored) tradition. If the argument is that an AfD attracts more people to the discussion, then why shoot down ideas like WP:TV-REVIEW? I hope that one of the things this arbitration case can clarify is that not every merge or redirect decision needs an AfD. I might start drafting such a proposal, actually.


 * And on that note (as a general comment to the recent discussion on this page), remember that we're not here to debate the merits of the policy, but the actions of those involved. -- Ned Scott 02:58, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Clearly TTN's redirects and the abrasiveness in which he has carried them out are disputed. If TTN unilaterally deems that a page fails notability guidelines, does the page automatically fail notability guidelines?  Isn't gaining consensus before redirecting, not after, the name of the game on Wikipedia?  --  Wikipedical (talk) 06:33, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Only if people revert. Otherwise, it's perfectly allowed under WP:BOLD. I (talk) 06:35, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
 * So, if an editor reverts TTN's redirects, he is then supposed to take it to discussion, correct? Ursasapien (talk) 07:10, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Ideally, yes. But he hasn't always, hence the arbitration case we now find ourselves commenting on. I (talk) 07:13, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

User:Yukichigai referred above (way-up, in Comments by parties) to "a clear consensus expressed by a majority of editors who have contributed to a group of articles" and I would like to state that I feel - and believe policy says - that a local consensus does not rule, and that established policy and established consensus will overrule a locally expressed opinion. Am I somehow wrong here? If a local opinion can "win" in such situations it would allow local fiefdoms and secessions from the wider project. From my experience, local opinion lacks perspective. --Jack Merridew 10:51, 27 November 2007 (UTC)


 * What is the "local consensus" you speak of? What is "established policy and established consensus"?  I really like this quote from MalikCarr.  "That's the way consensus is supposed to work, and in practice, the way it does. Guidelines proposed, drafted and implemented by a few editors will never replace the consensus of editors. This is why guidelines should follow consensus, not consensus follow guidelines. It's counterintuitive, a form of circular logic, and wholly ineffective."  Ursasapien (talk) 07:11, 29 November 2007 (UTC)


 * By "local consensus" I mean any subset of the community comprised of a small group that actually edits a specific group of articles - as opposed to the wider community of all editors. In otherwords, a group of fans do not own the artices about whatever show and wider policies and precident can overrule local opinion. --Jack Merridew 07:23, 29 November 2007 (UTC)


 * One could argue that in this case, "local consensus" is that of TTN (et al), and "precedent" is represented by the wider community's acceptance of individual articles for many, many years. --Ckatz <sup style="color:green;">chat <sub style="color:red;">spy  09:46, 29 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Or, one could argue, if longstanding things like WP:NOT and WP:N (both from which the fiction guidelines are drawn) are considered "local consensus", then there is no point in having policies and guidelines at all. The precedent you speak of may not come from "acceptance" after all, but from resignation. (I remember not even bothering to propose merges and deletions or do anything in popular articles because I knew that I'd be drowned in local keep as it is votes. I'm glad this has changed at least a little.) – sgeureka t•c 10:26, 29 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Sorry, again I should have been clearer. The "group of articles" I was talking about were TV articles in general, not just articles for specific TV shows.  True, virtually all of those dissenting opinions have been presented in individual show discussions, but it seems that people are under the impression that after that discussion is over all dissenting opinions are considered null and void.  I think we can go out on a limb and say most of those editors still hold those opinions.  As you said, consensus is not determined locally, but must be considered based on the opinions of Wikipedia as a whole.  The consensus on this matter is not a clear-cut "most of Wikipedia versus a handful of fans of X TV show" situation anymore, it's "fans of ALL TV shows versus editors in favor of WP:EPISODE." (Due in no small part to TTN's inflammatory behavior)  The question now is which side reflects consensus, and counter to TTN's dismissive opinion that is not clear-cut anymore. -- Y&#124;yukichigai (<sub style="color:blue;">ramble  <small style="color:red;">argue  <sup style="color:green;">check ) 20:20, 29 November 2007 (UTC)


 * The problem is we have several levels of consensus, and certain levels are able to get their way much more easily than others. We've got maybe 1-10 editors per TV show who would like to keep these articles.  We've got maybe 10 editors at WP:EPISODE who would like to get rid of them.  WP:N has however many people who like to use it to remove what they deem fiction related "cruft," and a larger group who uses it to delete garage bands and other stuff that isn't controversial to delete.  Then there's an even larger group of editors who just edit real world topics and don't have to worry about notability.  Finally, there's the millions of readers who have no idea how much we fight about articles.
 * If you watch WP:N's talk page, frequently an editor shows up to complain, is shot down by the same 3-10 people, and they leave. Then someone else comes along, is shot down by the same people, and leaves.  If 1 in 10 TV editors participated in policy discussions as aggressively as the current people who support notability's strict intrepretation, the episode articles would be safe, but they don't, so they aren't.
 * This whole RfAr is really about how our system enables small groups of dedicated editors to control what large amounts of other, less dedicated, editors do. I don't think anything can really be done about this, short of major adjustments to the mediawiki software.
 * I like to think that the number of TV editors should show that there's a consensus to keep these articles, but Ned Scott has pointed out that the larger group of all editors may be against TV related articles. He may be right, I don't know.  I also don't know if reader's preferences should be considered, but I have seen a top 100 article be deleted for failing WP:N.
 * We used to use AfD to deal with these articles, and AfD allows for smaller groups to get there way, even if they can't make headway on the guideline pages. This new model of redirection that TTN has devoloped has closed that loophole, to the great joy of some, and the great dissapointment of others.  I've been reading some articles on group dynamics, and apparently rules are the result when groups become to large to actually discuss individual issues.
 * I doubt if arbcom is meant to address these types of issues. It probably couldn't if it wanted to.  Mabye they could use their pull to get this issue a watchlist notification for some sort of vote.  That would be cool and at least we'd finally know.  Jimbo could make some sort of pronouncement, but I don't think he wants to.  He's already created a fork for this content (wikia, with ads) so that's probably what he wants done.
 * I guess arbcom will let TTN continue as he has been, tell him to be more civil, or tell him to use AfD. Should be interesting. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 21:27, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I think Perigrine's raised some very important points, not the least of which is that we really don't know what the community as a whole wants with regard to this specific issue. For that matter, what about the readers? (After all, at some point we do need to take the audience into account, not just the content creators.) --Ckatz <sup style="color:green;">chat <sub style="color:red;">spy  21:55, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Satisfying the readers is a far easier prospect; all they need is for the information to be easily accessable. Were the blanked/redirected episode articles trans-wiki'd to the appropriate wikia pages and (this is the important part) cross-wiki links and soft redirects put in place directing readers to those articles then the readers would be satisfied.  Realistically non-editing readers don't care where the information comes from so long as they can get to it.  Besides, Jimbo set up wikia for articles that, while useful, might not be appropriate for Wikipedia, which to me sounds like a large chunk of these episode articles.  Wikipedia even has a link prefix for linking to these pages with a non-external link.  (e.g. wikia:jfc:Main_Page)  Sounds to me like an invitation to use it. -- Y&#124;yukichigai (<sub style="color:blue;">ramble  <small style="color:red;">argue  <sup style="color:green;">check ) 23:19, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Peregrine Fisher has some good points, but ideally, the easiest and best solution is similar to what Yukichigai says. Instead of keeping the articles on wikipedia despite violating policies and guidelines badly, they should be transwikied. That's also why I consider deletion bad. Redirection however allows interested editors to transwiki stuff elsewhere and link there. Now it's our job of encouraging these editors to do so. The unfortunate thing is that there are only a handful of TV shows that actually do so, and the popular TV shows mostly haven't started. There are quite a few experienced editors supporting TTN's actions (including me), and the best we can do is set examples of how it's done correctly. I started transwiki'ing popular TV show episode articles two days ago, and the early result (List of Stargate SG-1 episodes, links will be cut later) looks surprisingly practical and useful. I really do think that's the future. (And I also like the idea of a AfR board (Articles for Redirection) to keep track of what got redirected). – sgeureka t•c 12:23, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with wikia - and don't want to be. I've seen the idea of stuff being "trans-wiki'd" before and suggest that folks who care about all this fiction "cruft" bone-up on the process and get a move-on. It is my understanding that the arbitration process is about behavior and not policy itself, so there will be no ruling that tv stuff gets a pass on, for example, WP:N and WP:V. And I believe that, for the most part, at least, the editors working to clear-out the dross have done so in ways that are safe from serious reprimand. This means that criticism and harsh treatment of crappy articles will continue - possibly using a somewhat revised methodology. Editors who are 'fans' of tv stuff need to either improve such articles or move them to someplace with different rules, and they need to not disrupt the editors seeking to improve the 'pedia by dealing with sub-standard articles that should never have been created. The idea of "Articles for Redirection" and "Articles for Merge" have been suggested - somewhere around here - and it may be a good thing for the community to test the workability of such processes. At the moment, I see an un-level playing field where it is far too easy for fans to create "cruft" articles and too difficult for other editors to deal with their mess. There needs to be a speedy criteria to smack en masse new articles that fail tests such as notability and verifiability and an accepted process for dealing with the huge backlog of extant dross. Every time I check to see what TTN's been doing, I find him working on another pile of crappy articles about junk. Three Cheers, TTN. --Jack Merridew 08:35, 30 November 2007 (UTC)


 * "Ways that are safe from serious reprimand"?!? Since when has adhering to the letter of the law, while violating the spirit of it, been considered acceptable? There is a real pattern of what can only be described as abuse - dismissive attitudes, demeaning asides, lumping anyone who disagrees with the "master plan" into one nice, tidy, "crufty" group. You know, this backlash against TTN's (and other's) actions isn't coming from IPs who want to add their personal theories about how Bart Simpson's dog is really the second coming of Christ. The real opposition is from the many (many many) editors who work really, really hard to produce decent articles, and to maintain them so that "cruft" is swept away as quickly as possible. Why not actually look through article histories, and see how many editors are constantly working away to clean things up? Why not look at the editors who defend the episode articles you seek to delete, and see how they are simultaneously deleting articles that are purely speculative, or fan-theory-based? Should an article be lumped in with the "dross" just because it is about an individual episode? No, it should not. There certainly are "crappy articles" in the television project - just as there are "crappy articles' in astronomy, arts, technology, and every other section of the project. While I'm sure it is wonderfully convenient for you, it is completely unfair to generalize about the "fans of TV stuff" and presume that they - we - are all the same, and worse still to continually insist that our opinions are worthless because we disagree with you. That is not how this project is supposed to work; in fact, it is exactly the opposite. --Ckatz <sup style="color:green;">chat <sub style="color:red;">spy  10:04, 30 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I certainly don't believe that the 'spirit' of the law is to keep every bit of trash that every editor ever dumps on this site "in the house". What TTN and others are doing is "emptying the trash". I don't mean to disparage the work of editors who have done good work on tv related articles - true, policy-conformant "good" work. Maybe I've spent too much time reviewing the lamest of the lame tv stuff; some the Disney shows come to mind. As I've looked further afield than the tv episode articles, I've encountered "crufty" tv character articles, Dungeons and Dragons junk, and video game shite. This is a vast sea of unencyclopaedic content and it will bury the content of substance here. Somewhere - the AN/I Episode page? (here) - I referred to these "articles" as silverfish - and an essay still needs writing under this name. --Jack Merridew 10:35, 30 November 2007 (UTC)


 * (edit conflict) I first wrote a lengthy rant, but I'll stick to one example, which has both "camps" around (for simplicity's sake:the "redirecters" and the "improvers", not the "drive-by fancrufters").
 * We're So Screwed Part I: Fetal Attraction was tagged for merging on August 11, was heavily defended by the regulars (Ckatz, Matthew, and in the discussion Peregrine Fisher), but has not been improved one bit in four months (during which it was redirected and unredirected) and still violated WP:NOT until two days ago, when TTN again redirected it. Now, can you explain why reversing to an article which violates WP:EPISODE and WP:NOT is not more disruptive than redirecting the article to an episode list, which makes it in line with policies and guidelines? How is keeping this article as it stands in line with the spirit of the law? The defense basically is "the article should be kept because one day it will get real world information", while the spirit of the law and the core of an encyclopedia is "we shouldn't have this article until real world information is provided in it".
 * If I would see an attitude of "redirecting articles which are only plot summaries is fine, but keep your hands of reliably referenced articles", I would be more inclined to listen to the complaints raised (some of which are valid). But as long as it comes across to me as a "I'm a kettle, but look only at the pot please" dispute, I find it hard to have any sympathy for it, and in my opinion any sanctions for disruptive behaviour should clearly go both sides, to those redirecting articles which have real world info, and to those recreating articles without real world information. Fram (talk) 10:59, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I wish to second everything that Jack Merridew and Fram have written - I couldn't agree more. I will also note that the usual suspects who are strongly opposed to the existence and application of the guidelines for writing about Fiction have largely weighed in on the ongoing debate at that guideline's talk page without effect. To speak directly to the arbcom case, and I respect User:Yukichigai's efforts to encapsulate the problem, the crux of the matter is whether WP:CON|consensus]] backs up TTN's efforts. I feel that it clearly does so. There is no interest in weakening our prohibition on in-universe persepctive, plot summaries, and trivia. As a result, I find the complaints of Yukichigai and White Cat, etc..., to be completely beside the point.
 * I too hope this arbcom case produces a warm endorsement of TTN's efforts, so that the provess of removing the accumulated fan-driven dross from Wikipedia can accelerate and that the mistaken view that local consensus trumps policy can be decisively dismissed by simply linking to this case. Eusebeus 17:14, 30 November 2007 (UTC)


 * How about I, E.T.? The revert of the redirect is the latest edit, but TTN made no effort to merge any of the out of universe information.  I picked a random episode and improved it, using the first couple RSs I found and some info from the first few minutes of the DVD commentary.  Improving 100 articles is not done in a day, and I don't feel especially motivated with this gun pointed at each articles head. - Peregrine Fisher 19:21, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Come on, that's almost insultingly absurd. You can label this stuff with whatever you want, but the real word for it is trivia (except perhaps for the critical reaction which is hardly grounds for asserting notability per our guidelines). Redirect is the correct call and what is there to merge? Trivial production details? That's called TV.com or the Farscape wikia. This is an encyclopedia. I still cannot understand why people persist in making themselves unhappy here by brushing up against our policies, when wikia can take as much fancruft, trivia, and the like as one likes. Now that you have pointed out this dross is still around, I think I will go ahead and revert the revert of the revert of the revert of the revert of the revert of the revert of TTN's redirect which remains the right thing to do. Eusebeus 19:34, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
 * (de-indent) OK, let's look at this stuff since it brings up another important point. The real-world encyclopedic information in that article asserts such gems as:
 * 1) The prosthetics requirements brushed up against child labour laws
 * 2) One scene features D'Argo and Aeryn hiding in a tree where they adlib a gesture.
 * 3) An IGN reviewer felt that the production values for "I, E.T." were "humdrum" whilst a BBC reviewer disagrees.
 * "I, E.T." was included on a DVD with the premiere episode.


 * The "redirecters" usually rely on policies and guidelines, which I understand. The article conforms to Trivia sections as far as I can tell.  Which part doesn't? - Peregrine Fisher 01:21, 1 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm trying not to get too involved in this case but I do have a comment on this line of thinking: While I agree that the real world information is at best trivial at this point I would like to remind everyone involved here that we are currently under agreement to leave a group of those articles ("I, E.T." included) in tact in order for editors to attempt to improve them as discussed at Talk:List of Farscape episodes This was done to stop the rampant redirecting and unredirecting so could we please just abide by that agreement for the time being and see how things go and then discuss each article individually after some time has passed? I know some people don't want to wait and some people still think every episode is notable without limit but could we please just all stay calm and try the compromise for a couple more weeks? Stardust8212 21:10, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
 * True, my bad. Eusebeus 21:15, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Just thought I'd weigh in again. Some above have stated their belief that Wikia is the best solution, and I wouldn't immediately disagree. However, I do not think the beef of this arbitration case is where the content should go or why the content is being deleted: we can look to existing policy for that. The focus on this case is and should be looking at solutions on how to transfer, redirect, or delete the content. As many have said above, this case should not be setting policy, and I would agree with that. Hopefully editors do not look to arbitration as a Supreme Court but rather just a binding conflict-resolution system. Back to the case at hand, I want to emphasize that the Committee's decision will not rule on modifying WP:N or deem WP:NOT relevant to any specific article but rather it will deem editors such as TTN's behavior appropriate or not. I feel the discussion here has strayed from discussion of behavior to policy. Let's say for a minute that TTN has good intentions and his redirects are appropriate (I feel this is true for the most part). Now, do we feel that his sudden redirects and overbearing comments on talk pages are appropriate and civil? I don't. But I hope the discussion can get back to discussing such behavior on Wikipedia and brainstorm solutions that will check and balance inappropriate behavior, perhaps with a new process, rather than discussing how the content should be disposed, as I don't think that matter is as pressing and we already have adequate policy. Happy December. -- Wikipedical 18:34, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

I've had my eye on this for a while now, and I have a few thoughts. First off, a mandatory "Requests for Merge" is a case of instruction creep and will inevetiably become a vote (see also Polls are evil). Centralized discussion is only useful for AfDs because only admins can see deleted articles, and community input is needed for something that drastic. TTN's method is actually good since it solves one of the drawbacks of AfD - it does not discriminate between the merely non-notable and copyright violations, hoaxes, BLP violations, and other harmful material. It is my opinion, considering recent AfDs, that consensus is turning against fan club style information, but with a significant minority wanting to keep this information. The redirection process allows these people to easily move information to Wikia (or another site outside) more easily than straight deletion. As for what is being redirected (or proposed to be redirected), I think a few examples may be helpful: Hot Tub (Drawn Together episode), | And Then There Were 10 (Ben 10 episode), | Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy (Spongebob Squarepants characters). --Phirazo 06:08, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

The lack of good faith and lack of intellectual honesty by TTN, his chorts, and his accomplices in disruption is well-demonstrated by edits like these: summarily redirecting without discussion after indisputable citations of notability (Emmy Award nominations) provided;  summary deletion of page regarding major Shakespearean character; and, in as dishonest a display of editing that I can recall seeing on Wikipedia, removing dispute tags from a key page involved in this dispute on the bizarre rationale that he doesn't believe there's a dispute  — Preceding unsigned comment added by VivianDarkbloom (talk • contribs) 17:10, 13 December 2007
 * As a loyal chort, let me state: what a load of rubbish from an editor, long on highly disagreeable and querulous engagement, short on credibility. This editor exults in the shrill insistence of their own rectitude and, in frequent descents into personal attacks and vicious parley - well documented on their talk page, becomes too tedious to bear. Ah dear Vivian, I now await your smears, but alas your many attacks against fellow editors means you have no probity left. Maybe you should change your username again and start over. Eusebeus (talk) 18:21, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Can we keep this sort of talk for the bar afterwards? Hiding T 11:41, 14 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Disruptive editing: Whatever be the final decision of the community about the content of this sort of articles, the important thing is to try to reach it in an amicable fashion. This has become much more difficult because of the polarizing effects of TTN's outrageous pattern of editing. VRD WP:BRD applies only within the limits of reason, and the extensive single handed unsupported changes made are not conceivably within it. The reluctance of the arbitrators to take firm positions on this will only lead to more disruption. There are two possible appropriate remedies: The minimal one is a extended topic ban of TTN from all discussions involving fiction, and policy related thereto, in the hope that he will not show similar conduct on other topics. The other is an extended ban from wikipedia. It is with dismay that i see that there is not even agreement to admonish him.  I do have decided views on the question involved, but I would say just the same if it were someone whose views i supported. this sort of editing is destructive of the possibilities for collaboration and the opportunity to compromise. People who do this and show no signs of realizing their need to change their ways do not belong on wikipedia. At least some arbitrators have apparently confused their role, and are possibly affected by their opinions on what should be the correct composition of the articles, which is not any of their business. Saying that "I believe that TTN is making a good-faith effort to implement an editing guideline" is ignoring all human probability.  Saying that "I don't believe it's fair to single out TTN in our decision when the editors creating and retaining the articles appear no more willing to discuss and compromise than TTN." is confusing ordinary dispute with conduct destructive of any chance of consensus. It is not a matter of "both sides as being too heavily invested in the issue to reach a resolution of the dispute" but rather of one particular person trying to have his way and using what he must have known were unacceptable methods to do so. Refusing to take note of this is injecting opinion on content into the arbitration. There is nothing corresponding to this from those of the other position. I cannot help thinking if there were, such a party would have been banned decisively.  DGG (talk) 04:24, 23 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I hate to break it to you, DGG, but there's not going to be any kind of ban on TTN. -- Ned Scott 07:01, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Although I understand DGG's pain, I don't share it, needless to say. I am happy to see the arbcom case fall as it has and am encouraged that no sanction shall be forthcoming since it affirms our basic principle that content need aspire to an encyclopedic standard and that actions in defense of that principle are not disruptive but fundamentally salutary. I feel that DGG is being unintentionally but highly disingenuous when he states I do have decided views on the question involved, but I would say just the same if it were someone whose views i supported. There are ample instances of editors adding massive amounts of unencyclopedic fancruft to Wikipedia, despite our exhortation that we are not a fansite. Where can we see trenchant efforts to defend our principles then? Eusebeus (talk) 11:29, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
 * How about here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here, for starters. (That's just a quick list from my own edits over the past day or so - I'd add a more extensive list including DGG and numerous other editors if not for the late hour.) However, I'd add that you know perfectly well that there are many, many "regulars" who work damn hard to weed out the "cruft". --Ckatz <sup style="color:green;">chat <sub style="color:red;">spy  11:58, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Ckatz, that's both misreading my comment and being highly unfair (via an assumption of my bad faith) to DGG, whose contribution history is beyond reproach. What I meant was - where was he lining up behind an arbitration case for editors who systematically add in episode articles, all of which fail to assert notability, etc.... More generally, I mean that one's position very much affects how one interprets "disruptive" editing, and I mean that without imputing anyone's good faith or the efforts they make. Only that perspective matters a bloody hell of a lot in this issue. Eusebeus (talk) 12:56, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Is the show notable enough to have its own article? Then why should each episode article have to assert notability? The show is nothing but a series of episodes. How can a show be notable yet none of its episodes be notable? --Pixelface (talk) 10:43, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
 * By that logic we should have articles for every chapter in a book. -- Ned Scott 05:36, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
 * The analogy is with books in a series. DGG (talk) 18:41, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Chapters in a book is far more appropriate. A single episode of a series is essentially never notable, and there really should be a CSD category for episodes articles for episodes that weren't nominated for an award.Kww (talk) 20:22, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Dear Kww, you wrote that a "single episode of a series is essentially never notable." That statement, like many generalizations in arguments, is simply untrue.  Some single episodes of shows had phenomenal cultural influence and notoriety.  Please consider Who shot J.R.? as an example of what I mean.  Thus, it is inaccurate to say "never".  Moreover, even less culturally significant episodes seen by millions of people on original airings, DVDs, re-runs, etc. have a degree of notability.  By the way, on an unrelated note, I also was born on military base!  Finally, I hope everyone is having an enjoyable holiday break!  Sincerely, --  Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles  Tally-ho! 22:14, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Indeed. While it is frustrating at how many episode articles that get needlessly created, we should remember the growing number that make for excellent articles with real-world information. -- Ned Scott 22:28, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Books normally are not released once a week, and contain more than half an hour's worth of entertainment. I do, however, really like the idea of season pages, and could see them as the "books", and the show as the over-all series. -- Ned Scott 22:25, 27 December 2007 (UTC)