Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Non-Notability

Case Opened on 22:02, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Case Closed on 03:42, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Please do not edit this page directly unless you wish to become a participant in this request. (All participants are subject to Arbitration Committee decisions, and the ArbCom will consider each participant's role in the dispute.) Comments are very welcome on the Talk page, and will be read, in full. Evidence, no matter who can provide it, is very welcome at /Evidence. Evidence is more useful than comments.

Arbitrators will be working on evidence and suggesting proposed decisions at /Workshop and voting on proposed decisions at /Proposed decision.

Statement by Fresheneesz
Firstly, User:Doc_glasgow has twice removed (and once striken) a talk page poll I set up at Wikipedia talk:Non-notability to gauge peoples feelings on the proposal. User:Radiant! removed it once before this. Here are the edits:. This is the most clear cut part of this case. Radiant is of the opinion that "A poll is not a comment. Removing polls is common practice."

Please note that some of this has been discussed at Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents.

Secondly, User:Radiant!, User:Dmcdevit, and a couple others have tried to change the status of guideline pages and proposal pages, claiming that they know what consensus is (but won't show us where to verify that consensus). WP:STRAW has been guideline for a year, yet radiant has been pushing WP:VIE and WP:DDV on that page enough to be considered POV pushing and undue weight. Dmcdevit has recently demoted it without consensus :

Radiant and Centrx have pushed Notability as guideline when there is no consensus to do so. They cite that it is "current practice" and thus doesn't need any more discussion:    . Note that on the last edit, Centrx makes no mention that he removed the factual accuracy tag. People have tried to demote it back to proposal, place a "disputed status" tag, and the "factual accuracy" tag. But Radiant and Centrx have repeatedly demonstrated that they *are* a consensus of two, and that the less-than-a-month-old proposal doensn't need anything more to be a guideline - despite heavy opposition and controversy.

Radiant has been pushing his pet proposal WP:DDV with a little help from Centrx and Dmcdevit and Doc glasgow, here are some places where it has been changed into a guideline without consensus:    . Here, radiant removed disputed tags:    More changes to guideline (this is all chronological):    More removed dispute tags:   .

Sorry for the barrage of links, but there has been massive misconduct here, and I'm trying to compile all the references to the wrongdoings of these editors. Please note that many of these links also contain the previous editors objections about the consensus-less edits.

Lastly, there has been some harrassment at Non-notability where these same editors (radiant and doc glasgow) have marked the page as rejected or historical, when there was ongoing debate on the talk page, and editing on the main page:    . Here doc changes a "disputed" tag to "rejected":

The actions taken by these editor greatly disappoint me, and although I have much support from other editors, It surprises me that these people have not already been taken under arbitration.


 * I'm very much concerned abuse-of-power issues, and I feel this is very important to resolve. I appreciate *everyone's* input on this, however short it may be. Thanks. Fresheneesz 04:48, 1 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Short note: the "favorite article" that was deleted that Radiant refers to eventually got consentual support to keep it. My "litigation" is an attempt to make a long and arduous process simple, and quick. Of course the path to get to that simple and quick answer is ironically long and complex. Fresheneesz 18:32, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Someone moved my above post, I don't have time to look into who did this, but don't do it again please. Noone else's posts are being moved, and this one is in direct response to radiant's statment. Fresheneesz 23:44, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Statement User:Doc glasgow
Gosh. Well, I've little to say. I've not been involved with any of this except on the Non-notability - so I'm surprised to be a party, and I'm not sure what I'm a party to. This users seems to have encountered disagreements with a whole lot of people and lumped them together as if we were all working in concert against him. All that happened on Non-notability was that Fresheneesz seemed to be trying to legislate against people uing notability as a reason for deletion. I (with others) marked the 'proposal' as rejected - it clearly ain't going to get consensus. He kept suggesting a strawpoll. I and others argued against that idea. He then unilaterally started one - so I struck it, and suggested that there was no support for a poll. He reverted me, I reverted him (giving clear reasons). Lame, perhaps, but hardly Arbcommable. There have been no earlier attempts to resolve this - no RfC on the issue. This is just one use who sees everyone who disagrees with him as an opponent.--Doc 20:12, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Dmcdevit
Perhaps we're about to get a lot of recommendations for rejection soon, but I'd like to recommend a case to look into Fresheneesz behavior, as I am now convinced it is going to get worse before it gets better. Note that he just spammed 20 people other than the named parties to try to drum up support here. Administrators%27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive139 is instructive. This editor has engaged repeatedly in disruptive editing on policy pages with which he disagrees, changing the tags and wording, and the meaning, and has been met with many reverts. This is combined with proposing polls where none is needed, and engaging in personal attacks and, frankly, harassment against Radiant in particular. There seemed to be at least some agreement for banning him from policy-related pages on the ANI thread, and at the very least there was lots of agreement that he was being disruptive. He's accusing others of vandalism , threatening someone with "If you don't replace my poll, I'm going to arbitrate against you. You are the most abusive administrator I've ever come in contact with.", soliciting help by calling Radiant a "very abusive and violent editor", and just generally calling him abusive at every chance, including Jimbo's talk page and other unrelated talk pages, and is undeterred despite FloNight's diplomacy in talking to him about civility, User_talk:Fresheneesz.

The main problem is his disruptive editing, and edit warring, at policy pages. Examples: Notability:  Non-notability:      Straw polls:   ; Discuss, don't vote ("Voting is evil", which by the way, is an ancient idea, not Radiant's pet project):    

His reasoning is something along the lines of "these people all agree that guideline is basically someones description of what already goes on. Personally, I find that view of guidelines to be very inefficient" and "No matter how hard you push on this, AfDs use voting", both of which are flatly wrong, though he is aggressively warring to try to make it true anyway. An arbitration ruling restricting him from policy pages would be useful, and put a stop to this massive waste of time and nerves. Dmcdevit·t 07:04, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Radiant
DMC sums it up nicely. Fresh is a textbook example of someone who had his favorite article deleted and starts lengthy litigation in an attempt to prevent such happenings in the future. He combines a lack of understanding of how Wikipedia works with a stubborn refusal to listen to people that do, and supports his position with wikilawyering, personal attacks and denial of facts. He shows every symptom of Disruptive editing.

The deeper issue, of course, is that Wikispace is rather murky, most guidelines and policies are in need of pruning and clarifying, and it would likely be beneficial to setup a WikiProject to do so.

I don't see any benefit in having a lengthy ArbCom case for this. Fresh has been warned often enough against personal attacks and harassment (not to mention vote-canvassing for this ArbCom case) that a neutral admin should simply block him if he does it again. &gt;Radi a n t &lt;  10:30, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by Centrx
The article in the New York Times linked by Ansell does not allege that deleting these articles is damaging; it is simply a report on what is happening, with examples. —Centrx→talk &bull; 00:44, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Arbitrators' opinions on hearing this matter (4/1/1/0)

 * Recuse. Dmcdevit·t 07:08, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Reject. Try resolving the dispute(s) at RfC level. Don't assume you'll enjoy what the ArbCom has to say. Charles Matthews 07:39, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Accept to address the questions of how policy is made and what consensus means. Fred Bauder 15:27, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Accept with Fred's reasoning and Charles's warning ➥the Epopt 13:41, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Accept per Fred and Epopt. Jayjg (talk) 19:53, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Accept. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 21:52, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Temporary injunction (none)
=Final decision= All numbering based on /Proposed decision (vote counts and comments are there as well)

Courtesy
1) Users are expected to be reasonably courteous to each other. This becomes even more important when disputes arise. See Civility, No personal attacks, and Wikiquette.


 * ''Passed 6 to 0 at 03:42, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Consensus required for guidelines
2) Guidelines are a product of community consensus, see How_to_create_policy and Consensus


 * ''Passed 6 to 0 at 03:42, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Rejected proposals
3) If, after a reasonable amount of discussion, it becomes clear that there is considerable opposition to a policy proposal, active discussion of it may be abandoned and it may be marked with Template:Rejected.


 * ''Passed 6 to 0 at 03:42, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Revival of rejected proposals
4) Discussion may continue regarding rejected proposals and, if support develops for them, they may be revived. However, while such discussion continues, their status as a rejected proposal should be maintained. Polls would be appropriate only if substantial interest in the proposal developed and a significant number of users were engaged in the conversation regarding the proposal.


 * ''Passed 6 to 0 at 03:42, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Community custom and practice
5) Wikipedia customs and common practices are, in proper circumstances, policy, Arbitration_policy.


 * ''Passed 6 to 0 at 03:42, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Polls and voting
6) Straw polls and voting are used in a number of situations. There is a tradition which discourages excessive voting, but no actual policy. Polls may be used when appropriate to gauge opinion.


 * ''Passed 6 to 0 at 03:42, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Arbitration committee
7) The Arbitration committee may determine the meaning and status of policy as it relates to particular disputes.


 * ''Passed 6 to 0 at 03:42, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Fresheneesz edits policy disruptively
1) edits policy-related pages frequently by engaging in edit wars on project pages and in incivility on talk pages. He treats Wikipedia as a battleground, and is therefore a disruptive editor of policy, guideline, and essay pages and their talk pages. See Requests_for_arbitration/Non-Notability/Evidence.


 * ''Passed 6 to 0 at 03:42, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Fresheneesz fundamentally misunderstands Wikipedia policy and practice
2) Fresheneesz has shown by his comments that he fundamentally misunderstands how Wikipedia treats policy, and how it is created. He has stated that guidelines need not be reflections of common practice, and that Wikipedia resolves discussions through the use of voting..


 * ''Passed 6 to 0 at 03:42, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Fresheneesz is uncivil
3) Fresheneesz interactions with others regarding policy-related pages has frequently been uncivil and hostile. See Fresheneesz refers to others' edits as vandalism, Fresheneesz engaged in harassment, and Fresheneesz has been warned many times about edit warring and incivility.


 * ''Passed 6 to 0 at 03:42, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Removal of poll by administrators exacerbated the dispute
4) The removal of the straw-poll from the talk page of Wikipedia:Non-notability by Radiant and Doc Glasgow increased the intensity of the dispute rather than cooled it down, something that could have been anticipated by these experienced administrators.


 * ''Passed 6 to 0 at 03:42, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Discussion of notability
5) Notability as a criterion for inclusion has been discussed at Notability/Arguments, Notability_proposal, Non-notability, Notability, and their talk pages. See also User:Uncle G/On notability.


 * ''Passed 6 to 0 at 03:42, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Non-notability
6) Non-notability clearly failed to achieve consensus and was appropriated tagged "Rejected,", see Wikipedia_talk:Non-notability.


 * ''Passed 6 to 0 at 03:42, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Fresheneesz
7) failed to recognize or accept the failure of Non-notability to achieve consensus. Following the recognition by other participants that the proposal had been rejected, he continued to vigorously agitate for it, going so far as to edit war over placement of Template:Rejected on the page and initiate a straw poll regarding the rejected policy.


 * ''Passed 6 to 0 at 03:42, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Discuss, don't vote
9) Polls are evil, copied from Polling is evil by Radiant! on January 20, 2006, has been moved to Discuss, don't vote. Radiant! has maintained that it is a guideline . Others have maintained it is an essay.


 * ''Passed 6 to 0 at 03:42, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Doc glasgow
10) actions, while a bit aggressive, violated no substantial policy.


 * ''Passed 6 to 0 at 03:42, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Radiant!
11) actions, while aggressive, violated no policy.


 * ''Passed 6 to 0 at 03:42, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

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.

Fresheneesz
1) Fresheneesz may be placed on probation if he continues to disrupt policy pages. Such action shall be by a successful motion at Requests_for_arbitration by any member of the Arbitration Committee after complaints received from one or more users.


 * ''Passed 6 to 0 at 03:42, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Log of blocks and bans
Log any block, ban or extension under any remedy in this decision here. Minimum information includes name of administrator, date and time, what was done and the basis for doing it.