Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Conduct in deletion-related editing/Proposed decision

Proposed decision#Johnpacklambert deletion conduct
Regarding this finding of fact, I don't think "focused" is the right word, as it implies causation, while Cryptic's evidence suggests correlation. John Pack Lambert has been reviewing stubs that are part of the 1898-1914 birth categories, with a focus on Olympians. Within this focus Lugnuts has created approximately 50% of the articles, increasing to 64.4% when you consider only non-medallists who don't meet WP:NOLY and thus are more likely targets to be nominated for deletion, but of John Pack Lambert's nominations only 38% were for articles Lugnuts created.

I suspect, without evidence, that the lower figure is due to John Pack Lambert not limiting his nominations to Olympians but including some from areas that Lugnuts has created a lower proportion of articles in, but as the only other explanation is that John Pack Lambert was deliberately avoiding some articles created by Lugnuts I don't see that discrepancy as an issue. BilledMammal (talk) 02:14, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
 * , I think you misunderstood that comment. For the past several weeks John Pack Lambert has been avoiding nominating articles by Lugnuts as a sensible precaution to avoid throwing fuel onto the fire. My impression of that comment was him asking whether he can now go back to not caring about who created the article. BilledMammal (talk) 15:12, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
 * To add to this: given John Pack Lambert's stated focus and Lugnuts creation rates, the chance of nominating at least this many articles by Lugnuts is 38.5%. I believe this is sufficiently high that we are required to assume good faith and believe John Pack Lambert when he tells us that he was not focusing on Lugnuts.
 * The 38.5% is calculated using the cumulative binomial distribution equation with the variables filled through Cryptic's and Scottywong's evidence; Cryptic's evidence tells us that 37, or all but one, of the articles created by Lugnuts and nominated by John Pack Lambert are of Olympians, so we focus on these. Manually reviewing Scottywong's evidence we see that every Olympian nomination John Pack Lambert has made has been of a non-medallist, so we further narrow this down to non-medallists, and Cryptic's evidence tells us that of the relevant articles 64.4% have been created by Lugnuts. Finally, Cryptic's evidence tells us that John Pack Lambert has nominated 55 articles on Olympians. BilledMammal (talk) 18:03, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Creation throttling
Regarding the comment by the Worm That Turned, such throttling has already been applied; Lugnuts is topic banned from creating articles consisting of less than 500 words. Since that ban was applied, he has created just ten articles (Linked in my evidence, in the collapsed section "Article creation rates"). Unless you are referring to a more general throttle? BilledMammal (talk) 14:31, 25 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Thanks @BilledMammal I'd missed that the topic ban had been so effective. WormTT(talk) 14:51, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

John Pack Lambert participation
I believe the advice John Pack Lambert is referring to was from me, and can be found on my talk page. It wasn't my intention to recommend that they don't participate in the process, just that they participate in an unrushed manner and not reply to everything. However, I was insufficiently clear, particularly with the opening line of my response, and I can see how he misinterpreted it as a recommendation to avoid the process in general.

I apologize to the committee and to John Pack Lambert, and ask the committee considers this when considering his lack of earlier participation. BilledMammal (talk) 14:31, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Low quality participation at AfD
I find this finding of fact problematic, because it suggests several behaviours are closely associated with low quality participation, but this isn't true; while these behaviours can be problematic, whether they are depends on the context.

First, it is often reasonable for editors to !vote after reviewing the evidence currently presented in the discussion and available at the article; WP:BEFORE doesn't apply to the participants. However, the line where editors sometimes appeared to not fully research an article topic before leaving a comment would suggest that participants are required to search for sources before !voting, as if they don't they haven't "fully researched" the topic.

Second, it is sometimes reasonable to reuse rationale. For example, I recently nominated eighteen Nielsen's for deletion. These were mass created articles on 20th century Danish footballers with the last name "Nielsen", sourced solely to statistical sources. Being so similar the same rationale often applied to each of them; once editors determine that the same rationale applies, as many of the editors in those AfD's did so, there is no need to think up a novel argument for each of them. However, editors would re-use reationale at multiple pages suggests that they should do this. As a side note, rationale is misspelt here.

Third, a "short period of time" is undefined; editors making several responses a minute is too fast, but it doesn't take long for an editor to look at an article, realize that its one source is not WP:SIGCOV, realize that the five editors who have already commented have not been able to identify any suitable sources and are instead arguing about whether sources might exist, and !vote Redirect to Gymnastics at the 1908 Summer Olympics – Men's team; fails WP:SPORTSCRIT #5 and WP:GNG, the former of which requires that at least one source be identified for us to assume the others might exist and thus keep despite GNG not being met. However, editors would leave comments on many deletion discussions in a short period of time suggests that such a brief evaluation, despite being comprehensive and based in policy, is problematic.

In addition, GiantSnowman's evidence points out the other issue with this; editors might make several votes in a short period of time, but we don't know how much time they spent considering their vote. BilledMammal (talk) 15:23, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Clarification of topic bans
Mhawk10 has asked most of the questions I was going to ask, but with the proposed topic ban for Lugnuts there is another area of ambiguity that I believe clarity on would be useful: BilledMammal (talk) 10:36, 29 July 2022 (UTC)
 * 1) Would the ban on converting redirects into articles when the articles have less than 500 words include banning the reversion of bold redirects?
 * 2) Would the ban on contesting prods permit turning prodded articles into redirects?


 * For me, yes. I anticipate the other arbs will look at this the same way. I'm happy to defer to any previous interpretation by the community on the point that you can point to.
 * For me, yes. I anticipate the other arbs will look at this the same way.
 * Izno (talk) 16:06, 29 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I agree with Izno here and to Mhawk. And more generally, I would expect anyone for whom a topic ban passes to ask questions first if they think it might be at all controversial. They are on thin enough ice, at least with me and presumably with the other arbs who are already voting for a topic ban, that good intentions may not be adequate if there's a violation. Barkeep49 (talk) 02:23, 30 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you both for the clarification. For #1, I don't believe there has been any formal interpretation by the community, although I note that the previous restriction was not enforced as preventing the reversion of bold redirects. BilledMammal (talk) 04:58, 30 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I would agree with Izno and Barkeep on these points. Best, KevinL ( aka L235 · t · c) 21:15, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

Multiple votes
You accidentally voted twice at Arbitration/Requests/Case/Conduct_in_deletion-related_editing/Proposed_decision. BilledMammal (talk) 04:57, 30 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Thanks! Enterprisey (talk!) 20:36, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

Timely Start of Proposed Decision
I congratulate and thank the drafting arbitrators for publishing the draft proposed decision at the beginning of the day when it was planned. It is framed in a way that should facilitate the difficult process of working toward a decision. Thank you. Robert McClenon (talk) 06:35, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I second this comment. Jclemens (talk) 04:55, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Scope of This Decision
I agree with the comment that was made that there are other issues about deletion that have not been addressed in this case. I think that the arbitrators may discover that this case has opened the door to further cases involving deletion, including the Article Rescue Squadron (not included in this case because not within scope because not in initial statements, but complained about by some editors), and probably other specific editors. We can hope that it only has a second incarnation and not three and four (like Israel and Palestine). I understand that the arbitrators haven't addressed all of the continuing community concerns, largely because the community has only documented some of its concerns for this case. Robert McClenon (talk) 06:35, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Threeish points:
 * While I regret not voting to accept your November case request, I'm not sure we'd have headed off this particular request. So by one measure we could already be at two.
 * I've acknowledged that I am concerned that we'll be back here in 6-18 months time. For me the comparison I'd like to avoid is Infoboxes which took 3 times. Israel and Palestine is a centuries long conflict and so it might just be one where every few years things need adjusting based on real world conditions. That is it's not a failure of the arbcom solution to work, it's an acknowledgement of just how intractable the problem is.
 * Editors complain about lots of stuff at ArbCom. The chance to have a final dispute resolution body implement your preferred outcome is a frequent hope for people at ArbCom. I don't say this in a "they want to abuse the process say" I just say it is as it is.
 * 3A. We took the community seriously when they said "there's problems beyond the two in this case request" and added two additional parties at the start of the case. We further took it seriously by giving the community an extra week to compile evidence that other parties should be added and then no one took us up on it. That extra week of evidence is basically why the decision was posted on the original timetable - much of the evidence came in early so we were able to process it more gradually - so it wasn't worthless but it was a definite miss of an opportunity for those people who say that this problem is larger than this case.
 * Barkeep49 (talk) 14:31, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
 * If I can be candid about my thoughts here, Robert, I was disappointed about how few additional parties the community asked to add, which I think constrained the kinds of evidence the community would end up presenting, which (I believe) constrained the drafters' ability to resolve the broader problems the community raised during the case request. Even with those constraints, I think the drafters hit the ball out of the park with this PD. I hope it will be enough, but can't say so with confidence. Best, KevinL ( aka L235 · t · c) 22:25, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Bludgeoning
I thank the arbitrators for including the principles on bludgeoning and on battleground conduct. Bludgeoning and battleground conduct are all too common in AFDs. They are usually ignored by closers, which is what the closer should do. However, occasionally an editor has a valid argument but cause it to be ignored because they are too combative about it. I don't know how relevant this is to the current case, but there is currently an article at DRV where an editor was ignored because they were shouting too loudly. Sometimes an editor gets ignored because they are yelling, but once in a while they are right even though they act like they are just stubborn. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:01, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for including this principle. Sometimes the obvious needs to be restated anyway. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:01, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Moderator for Formulation of RFC
I am willing to moderate the discussion leading to the RFC and to post the RFC. I don't have a lot of experience in closing contentious RFCs, and so I would ask for two more editors to form a closing panel if I were the opener. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:06, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Portals
This comment is not intended to influence the decision and may be too late for that purpose anyway. However, the Portals arbitration case is mentioned as an example of a case where an RFC was called for by ArbCom but ultimately did not happen. The basic reason for that failure is simply that community interest in the topic declined as the interests of the participants in the controversy shifted to other areas. This meant that an RFC became less necessary than it had been when the case was taken, and was no longer necessary since editors were less interested.

However, I have an observation that may or may not be useful but is relevant. One of the issues in this case, while not the defining issue, is the mass creation of stubs, followed by controversy over nomination of the stubs for deletion. That is also the origin of the Portals case. A WikiProject had gone rogue and had developed a tool for the stealth creation of thousands of portals. After this creation was brought to the attention of the community, attention focused on their deletion, by a combination of mass MFDs and individual MFDs, as well as the deletion of long-standing neglected portals.

The specific guidelines about portals were uncertain. In fact, it was discovered during the dispute that what was thought to be the guideline on portals had never been enacted as a guideline. An RFC to affirm its status as a guideline did not obtain consensus, for complex reasons, so that there was no guideline. The policy that had always been in effect and is still in effect was the fourth pillar of Wikipedia, which is civility. The only sanctions that were imposed were for accusations of lying.

This may or may not be relevant, but the Portals case was about deletion of mass-created pages. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:10, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

Moderation of RFC
I am still willing to take the lead in moderating discussion to formulate one or more RFCs on issues such as mass creation and mass deletion. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:10, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

Johnpacklambert topic banned
The first and third points of this remedy are unclear (at least to me).
 * What they are banned from? Is it all participation in XfD discussions? Participating in discussions about the deletion process? Nominating pages for deletion? Something else?
 * . Given that contesting a proposed deletion is explicitly allowed under point 2, the lack of mention of contesting someone else converting an article into a redirect means it's unclear to me whether they are allowed to do that (I don't recall any evidence regarding this being presented, but I haven't double checked). Thryduulf (talk) 08:40, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
 * If JPL ends up topic banned from deletion discussions, broadly construed, yes that's all participation. I actually thought adding "participation" would make it unclear if they could nominate stuff still. Reverting someone else's redirect convert isn't "turning an article into a redirect" and thus not covered. And yes there is no evidence about abuse of declined PRODs or reverted redirects with JPL. Barkeep49 (talk) 14:31, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Oh, sorry, I didn't see this prior to making my copyedit. Feel free to revert, but we do need a verb at the start of (1). If you really want, you could make it "initiating or participating in". Best, KevinL ( aka L235 · t · c) 18:46, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Low quality participation at Articles for Deletion
IMO this misses a crucial aspect that while some editors are unwiiling to fully research a topic/look for sources before commenting - whether reaosnably or unreasonably they feel that the burden of doing this should be on those with the opposing viewpoint, others are/feel willing but unable to fully research an article topic/look for sources before commenting due to the volume of articles/nominations. The second part does not (to me) come across in the finding at all. Thryduulf (talk) 08:40, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
 * It's hinted at in the first sentence but not explicitly stated. I'd be open to stating it. Pinging as a drafter and the only one who has voted on it so far. Barkeep49 (talk) 14:31, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
 * @Thryduulf I think you have a valid point: the problem of mass nominations is that it stretches our editors thin. But I think the finding already gets that across? I'm hesitant to expand what is already a long finding. If you have some alternative wording that'd be helpful :) Otherwise, this is a good idea to present at the RfC (should it pass). CaptainEek  Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 06:23, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

General comments (Thryduulf)
Overall this proposed decision seems good at first read, and I have hope for the structured and moderated RfC. Thryduulf (talk) 08:40, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Participants only get one !vote (Thryduulf's comments)
Re S Marshall's comments on this aspect, it's not quite true that participants only get to make one recommendation. They can make as many as they wish that are not duplicates or concurrently self contradictory - e.g. one can recommend "keep or merge", "keep" then later "I'm also happy with the merge suggestion", "delete" then later "changing my !vote to keep", etc. and one can also explicitly oppose as many other suggestions as you wish (whether or not you support anything). And of course when multiple pages are included in the same nomination you can do all this for each page or any combination of pages if you want (e.g. "keep foo, delete bar"). This is all getting very into the weeds though, and I don't think that more complicated than "one !vote, unlimited comments" is beneficial (particularly if note is made that this is a basic summary of something that is much more complicated in detail). Thryduulf (talk) 17:24, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Mass creation
Without wishing to preempt an RfC, my idea set out for brainstorming at Mass action review is for a venue that handles reviews of mass actions of any sort - creations, deletions, moves, etc, in the hope of getting away from a polarised view. I personally find views like "because mass creations (allegedly) disrupted the project we can only deal with them by disrupting AfD/the project", "one disruption automatically justifies another" and "they shouldn't have been created so you can't complain about us deleting them" to be ones that need to end as they don't help anybody. Instead we should be working towards an attitude of "even if the creation was disruptive/wrong, we can deal with them without disruption/another wrong". Thryduulf (talk) 13:40, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

S Marshall
Nothing about canvassing?—S Marshall T/C 09:01, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
 * It is not called that but is mentioned in the TPH FoF. Barkeep49 (talk) 14:31, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
 * OK. I offered evidence of others canvassing but maybe the committee doesn't think that's a big deal.—S Marshall T/C 18:31, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Participants only get one !vote
Suggest: Each participant is allowed to make no more than one recommendation to the closer. These recommendations are often called "!votes", and often but not necessarily phrased as words in bold.Sorry that that's a lot less pithy.—S Marshall T/C 13:06, 24 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Thryduulf, I still think it's precisely correct to say that an editor gets one (1) recommendation to the closer per deletion nomination. You're right to note that there are cases where the discussion consists of multiple nominations bundled together, in which case our editor can reasonably make up to as many recommendations as there are nominations.  You're also right to note the cases where our example editor's recommendation allows several potential outcomes, your example being "keep or merge" and I would include "delete or redirect" or "do not delete" in this; the key point is that the editor seeks to eliminate one or more possibilities from consideration.  I would still consider that to be one recommendation.  You also identify cases where our example editor's recommendation to the closer evolves as they engage in reasoned debate, in which case best practice for them is to strike their previous recommendation.   What's prohibited is to repeat the same recommendation several times in different places in the debate.If an editor puts the same word in bold several times, we have some self-appointed AfD police who will take them to task for it, as if the closer might be fooled into believing there's a false consensus.  I think that in practice, that's needless.  We expect our closers to be observant and meticulous and for the most part they are -- nobody who's got any business closing an AfD should be fooled by such a thing -- but it's become a sacred cow that you only get one word in bold, and I do think phrasing it as a "recommendation to the closer" rather than a "!vote" helps capture that.—S Marshall T/C 20:53, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Comments by Vaulter
In response to BilledMammal, I'm not sure how you can read through the June ANI thread and not come away with the impression that JPL is focused on Lugnuts. He also more or less admitted on your talk page just days ago that he's going to resume focusing on Lugnuts' articles once this case is closed if given the chance. -- Vaulter 14:53, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Copy-editing
Regarding : the confusing aspect is that although the introduction to the list announces a list of actions, item 1 is not an action. It would be helpful if either item 1 could be broken out into a separate sentence, or modified so that it is an action. isaacl (talk) 14:58, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Principle on discussion
Regarding, I think it's somewhat contradictory to say that participants get one not-vote. As described in the linked text, not-votes are individual views in a consensus-building discussion. As discussions have many different aspects, and thus editors can weigh in with different points at different times, I feel it is too reductionist to say each editor can only have one view. I do agree with the underlying concern that overly long and repetitive comments reduce the effectiveness of the discussion process, through drowning out voices and causing people to lose attention. I understand why a lot of editors preferred threaded discussion to separate sections. To be effective, though, co-operation is necessary, as well as focus and patience, in order to allow everyone time to express their views and reasoning. isaacl (talk) 15:32, 23 July 2022 (UTC)


 * You can change your !vote during the AfD. You can't express the same opinion twice as much and hope that it will be given 2x the consideration by the closer. Best, KevinL ( aka L235 · t · c) 22:59, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I would prefer that the principle in question include something along those lines, such as "Repeating your views does not give them more consideration by the closer." I feel that is clearer than saying participants only get one not-vote, when the whole point of is that it's the reasoning behind the !vote that is important. isaacl (talk) 04:44, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Regarding there is a 1-to-1 relationship between a person and how their opinion gets weighted, strength of argument is the key mitigating factor. Sometimes numerical support is used as a proxy to evaluate strength of argument. Sometimes arguments that are clearly contrary to policy or other long-standing, well-established consensus will be rejected, regardless of numbers. Because editors can make multiple arguments, some of the arguments from one editor can be disregarded while other arguments are weighted more strongly. I appreciate that all of the nuances don't need to be described in a principle. Personally, though, I feel that the principle should avoid language that makes discussions seem more like votes, even if there is an exclamation mark in front of the word. isaacl (talk) 15:52, 27 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Regarding [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Conduct_in_deletion-related_editing/Proposed_decision&type=revision&diff=1100790611&oldid=1100784416 this principle being in the context of deletion discussions]: if that's the case, I think the principle should state this explicitly. "Formal discussions" covers a lot more types of discussions, and many of them are not choose-one-recommendation-from-the-menu discussions. isaacl (talk) 20:07, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Regarding, I suggest instead of saying making so many points that they dominate the discussion, say "making so many comments that they dominate the discussion". isaacl (talk) 15:52, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Recommended discussions
Regarding how recommended discussions don't take place, I think there are a few considerations. There's the old "when something is everyone's responsibility, it's no one's responsibility" adage. When there an underlying issue being driven by differing views on best practice, usually by the time an associated arbitration case is held, there's a weariness over discussion on the subject and so a loss of momentum to continue with more discussions. It's also really hard to shepherd discussions towards productive conclusions, and given the high likelihood of stalemate, often through unmanageable sprawl, it can be tricky to find someone willing to attempt to start a discussion. Although it would mean slightly more arbitration committee involvement, perhaps it could try to address the first and last challenges I mentioned by identifying a pool of suitable moderators, with the community making the final decision on which one they wanted to guide discussion. isaacl (talk) 16:13, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Johnpacklambert deletion conduct
I'm concerned about the precedent that would be set by the FoF "Johnpacklambert's 2022 AfD nominations have particularly focused on articles created by Lugnuts (Cryptic evidence)", as seems to take JPL's deletion statistics as prima facie evidence of misconduct. This runs counter to WP:HOUND which allows and even encourages the use of an editor's contribution history to correct recurring problems: "Many users track other users' edits, although usually for collegial or administrative purposes. This should always be done with care, and with good cause, to avoid raising the suspicion that an editor's contributions are being followed to cause them distress, or out of revenge for a perceived slight. Correct use of an editor's history includes (but is not limited to) fixing unambiguous errors or violations of Wikipedia policy, or correcting related problems on multiple articles. In fact, such practices are recommended both for Recent changes patrol and WikiProject Spam." Does this mean that, say, an editor working through a copyright violator's work may be engaging in misconduct? I would encourage arbs to be cautious about what is being said here, absent specific evidence that this is indeed hounding/harassment and not one of the allowable reasons to "focus" on a particular editor's contributions. –dlthewave ☎ 16:31, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Other
, in response to "But it becomes a numbers game. If there are ten people in an AfD, and 8 of them have voted keep using NSPORT, and someone has replied to 6 of them that NSPORT is not the be-all-end-all, that to me is bludgeoning. But it would be fine to reply to one or two of them and point out that GNG trumps NSPORT.": It seems like this hypothetical is being treated as an even, good-faith disagreement between editors when in fact 2 editors are following our policies and guidelines, 8 are blatantly ignoring them and for some reason the one who calls them out is accused of bludgeoning. It seems like we're treating these experienced editors with kid gloves even though they're choosing to ignore our community rules and consensus; would you call for a similar level of moderation if a new editor made a similarly nonsense comment like "Keep - This person likes pizza and so do I, therefore they are notable"?

In my experience, when there are few or no editors who directly contradict the Keep !votes or specifically explain why they are wrong, closers take this as evidence that Keep is the proper outcome and close it accordingly instead of relisting - Again, something we would never see with pizza-related !votes. I wish I could say that closers are willing and capable of discarding !votes that go against our P&Gs, but unfortunately that often is not the case (as shown by the evidence presented) and that is a major reason why we are here today. –dlthewave ☎ 12:43, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

Lugnuts T-ban clarifying question
I see the T-ban proposal as a good middle ground between a warning and a site ban. One clarifying question: Does (3) apply to creating redirects, including recently-deleted pages such as Sarah Forbes (cricketer) or Ivan Pavlovsky? I don't have a strong opinion on this, but it would be good to be clear about whether or not the t-ban is intended to apply to this scenario. –dlthewave ☎ 15:42, 29 July 2022 (UTC)


 * I would suggest no, but if this were an issue I would have expected it to be an issue before now, since the ban has been in place for a half-year at this point. Izno (talk) 16:07, 29 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I would agree with Izno. KevinL ( aka L235 · t · c) 21:13, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

Comments by JBL
In FoF5, the sentence Participants get one !vote, and a reasonable number of replies to make the most salient points but editors need not try to rebut all or even some of the comments they disagree with doesn't work -- perhaps the comma should before "but" instead? JBL (talk) 19:05, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks for fixing this, L235. I also think this removal by Barkeep49 was a clear improvement. --JBL (talk) 17:18, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

The table in Implementation notes currently wrongly asserts that there are 3 abstentions on FoF7. --JBL (talk) 22:11, 24 July 2022 (UTC)
 * @JayBeeEll fixed now and thanks for raising. Dreamy Jazz talk to me &#124; my contributions 22:13, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

With respect to this comment: in my opinion there is a pretty clear reason why 13 has not been blocked more, viz., every time they end up at ANI, the ARS brigade comes to argue that they should not be penalized, and consensus-based systems are function poorly in the face of committed bloc behavior. This is illustrated in Beccaynr's evidence and exemplified clearly by FeydHuxtable's evidence. --JBL (talk) 21:01, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

Comments by HouseBlaster
I assume the drafters meant to say that the discussion will be advertised at WP:ACN, not ACN HouseBlastertalk 00:44, 24 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Indeed. Thanks. Barkeep49 (talk) 00:52, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Comments by JoelleJay
I am concerned with the JPL FoF that states he targeted Lugnuts' articles. He has clearly been focused on non-medaling Olympian stubs in a particular birth date range, which just happen to have been largely created by Lugnuts. When a particular category of articles no longer meets SNG criteria, and furthermore has been found to be a very poor predictor of GNG -- as was determined in the NOLY RfC -- it is perfectly reasonable for editors to scrutinize that category and bring articles in it to AfD. @Dlthewave's comment is highly relevant here. If one user is responsible for the vast plurality of problematic articles in that group, it is acceptable to look over their contributions specifically to address the issues. That's not what JPL has been doing, but even more importantly, sanctioning someone for such "targeting" is completely at odds with HOUND.

I am also confused by the FoF that the deletion policy requires consideration of ATD, when that language is not present whatsoever at DEL and anyway such consideration would be difficult to "prove" unless nominators outlined why each ATD was rejected.

Finally, I didn't see any evidence that high AfD flows are responsible for copy-paste drive-by !votes, just a post hoc suggestion of correlation. It's not like, e.g., GiantSnowman was providing much beyond "fails WP:GNG and WP:NFOOTBALL" back in 2017, either. I don't disagree that it's tiring and emotionally taxing to review increasing numbers of AfD subjects, or that it likely decreases participation in any one discussion, but I definitely don't think it's the reason for epsilon-effort !votes. I'm pretty sure the real reason is because they work in a system where counting !votes is the primary deciding factor for most closers. JoelleJay (talk) 01:19, 24 July 2022 (UTC)


 * @Barkeep49, regarding I believe Lugnuts has some moral obligation to help address the articles created that are out of line with community policies and guidelines. I'm not going to argue for a Lugnuts ban, but I wanted to point out that I don't see how your reason for not banning him is compliant with our policies. AFAIK no one can force an editor to perform specific editing tasks, so even if "addressing the articles created" was a proposed remedy (which it is not, and was never suggested to be) it wouldn't be an enforceable action. We even have evidence of this unenforceability specific to Lugnuts, in that he escaped a sanction by promising to re-source a few thousand articles he made, and that effort stalled quite a while ago with a lot to still get through. JoelleJay (talk) 01:31, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm not quite sure what you're getting at. A moral obligation to me is one that an editor should do but if they don't they're not subject to any kind of consequence. This compares to an actual obligation to, for instance, respond to inquiries about your actions if if you're an ADMIN. Barkeep49 (talk) 01:45, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * To me, the statement reads as if you are opposing banning because that would interfere with the "moral obligation" of Lugnuts to correct issues with his articles. But absent any enforceable remedy to make those corrections, and in light of his general refusal to make them unless threatened with sanctions (which only worked briefly, anyway; see also the linter issue noted in S Marshall's evidence), I don't see how that oppose rationale is justified. I'm not trying to change your mind, I'm just confused by the reasoning. JoelleJay (talk) 04:52, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * From @CaptainEek, regarding Participants get a reasonable number of replies to make the most salient points, but editors need not try to rebut all or even some of the comments they disagree with. Because that's the key about bludgeoning at AfD. When people start replying to every single comment they disagree with, they are bludgeoning that discussion. What they're doing is making a barrier to entry, and crowding out other's viewpoints. Even if each comment is in some way reasonable, when taken together they are a problem. Its not even about trying to change other's minds, its about editors who feel they have to rebut every even mildly incorrect statement. But that's not necessary. Closers are bright people, they know how to spot a fishy argument.
 * I know @Dlthewave, @BilledMammal, @FOARP, and I would love it if we didn't need to explain that databases and governing sports org websites and routine transactional reports and Q&A interviews don't contribute to GNG, or that NSPORT requires at least one source of SIGCOV cited in all sportsperson articles in order for the SNG to even apply, or that individual sport guidelines don't supersede NSPORT, or that NSPORT itself is subordinate to GNG. And we would especially love it if we didn't need to state these things in response to the same !voters at every athlete AfD over and over and over. But as I said in evidence/workshop, if we don't, closers have no way of knowing the provided sources are insufficient, and are seemingly not empowered or willing to close against a majority even when multiple editors have brought up guideline non-compliance. Not to mention the substantial percentage of closers who clearly are not familiar with or even personally outright reject a guideline. If this wasn't a problem at AfD and DRV, we wouldn't have so many "no consensus" and "keep" closes on the assurance that sources must exist because #international #footballer, despite no one attempting to find the SIGCOV IRS that is required in the article by NSPORT. If we can't get AfD/DRV to recognize an unambiguous criterion with very strong and recent global consensus without needing a numerical majority referencing and defending it, then how can we expect frustrated editors to "catch once and leave"? JoelleJay (talk) 00:27, 28 July 2022 (UTC)
 * @JoelleJay I'm not advocating against that. Its entirely reasonable to say to an editor "hey that's not how this applies." But it becomes a numbers game. If there are ten people in an AfD, and 8 of them have voted keep using NSPORT, and someone has replied to 6 of them that NSPORT is not the be-all-end-all, that to me is bludgeoning. But it would be fine to reply to one or two of them and point out that GNG trumps NSPORT. I in no way intend to stifle discussion, but I do want AfD to be less toxic. CaptainEek  Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 01:02, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

I would still really appreciate clarification of the ATD FoF re: where deletion policy ... requires that alternatives to deletion are considered before nomination is actually stated. I'm not disagreeing with it per se, but I think if that statement is going to be enshrined in an ArbCom decision it should be easily verifiable with text from the policy itself or at least from a global RfC consensus. Evidence/workshop comments from both me and may be relevant here. JoelleJay (talk) 06:57, 1 August 2022 (UTC)


 * This is language that has already been used in an ArbCom case so we're not enshrining anything new. And it's not part of any Finding of Fact (that I see) only in a single principle. ATD was a major focus in the workshop that for outstripped its prominence in the evidence which is why it exists here only as a brief mention of a larger point about PRODs. Barkeep49 (talk) 15:59, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

Comments by Johnpacklambert
The characterization of my targeting any particular editor in my AfD proposals is truly unfair. This is especially true because my methods of finding such articles are entirely creating editor neutral. I an doing my general review of articles in a given birth year. I come upon an article that lacks adequate souring to justify keeping. I then do an indepth search for sources in Google, Google books, Google New archives, sometimes Google News but that rarely brings up much on those born in the 1890s. For some I have also tried to search in another news archive. I also generally try to consult ant other language version of the article. By this method I really do not learn who the creator is until after I do the nomination and then look through the history to find a creator to notify of the proposed deletion. So I do not pre-select deletions based on creator because I do not even know the creator before I do them. At least this is the method I used until June. Since June I skip over any and all Olympic articles because I am trying to avoid an issue. Even the Olympic articles that were not created by a certain editor have generally been edited by that editor, and since creators do not have ownership of articles, If I am going to try to avoid an interaction with a particular editor it needs to be in the form of not knowingly nominating any article they have edited, not just articles they have edited. I should have phrased my question as "articles related to Olympians." One think I do not think has been considered enough. The other editor in question contributed large numbers of articles in fields unrelated to the Olympics as well, but as far asI know I have nominated no other such articles for deletion this year. If I was really trying to target such an editors work, instead of trying to enforce Ina small way the decision that non-medaling Olympians lack default notability, I would have most likely gone after some of those non-medaling articles as well.John Pack Lambert (talk) 02:19, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

I think I misnamed this and I should have put my name on it. I am nit sure how to fix this mistake from my phone. This is my first time dealing with the Arbcom process. I find the claim that my "judgement" in dealing with Lugnuts created articles is low totally unfair. There are no standard ways to propose a redirect, and be guaranteed actual discussion on it in a reasonable time frame. In fact the ANI reveals some editors arguing one should boldly redirect and go from there, and others arguing that boldly redirecting is a bad policy and one should start by taking the page to AfD. It is clear that this confusion about what to do about articles that are clearly not notable but might be suitable candidates for redirect is unclear. Beyond this I feel thos whole statement ignores the real confusing thing. On a let a few occasions I did redirect an article, it was reverted by Lugnuts, and he then proceeded to argue for redirect in the deletion discussion. Which begs the question, if he supports a redirect, why is he reverting it. Another occurrence was on multiple occasions when nominating an article for deletion I explained why it would not in fact be a good candidate for redirect, because there were multiple other people with the exact same name who were at least as close to notable as the intended target. Some editors then came along and supported redirects without even bothering to acknowledge the other people and explain why they were being ignored. So I do not think confusion around redirects is unique to me, and I find the characterization here to clearly ignore the reality of the ANI where it was clear editors in general do not have clear agreements on the best ways to change articles into redirects.John Pack Lambert (talk) 02:36, 24 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I was advised it was best to not participate in the discussion. This may have been unwise. The statement about "a warning about nominating 1922 articles for deletion" I believe is not a fair characterization of what happened. I neer nominated any articles in category:1922 births for deletion. The comment was by one editor, and not based on fact. I had nominated 2 articles in the that category for deletion, in by that point probably a week or more of time I was able to edit, but if you read the statement that person is not saying those nominations per se were problematic, they were just warning against doing such nominations on a large scale. I do not think an aside like that by one editor, that is not even objecting to activity that has occused but warning against possible future activity that might occur (I did not nominate any articles at all for deletion for over 2 months after that, maybe longer). As far as I know I have only ever nominated 2 articles from Category:1922 births, one on 20th August which when I found it had been tagged for about 2 years as having no sources, and one on 23rd August, which was deleted. The later comment was not made about either of these, just as a general opposition. I do not think including this point is a fair assessment of anything, because no one was objecting to my actual behavior, just making a point about potential future behavior. Whether those two nominations were really good, is open to question, but the person making the comment did not actually analyzie these nominations and the comment seems to have been made without actual knowledge of the nominations, and so I do not think it is worth incorporating into findings.John Pack Lambert (talk) 13:53, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
 * In terms of the advice not to participate, as the policy says Some editors have dug themselves a deeper hole because of poor participation in cases, while others have saved themselves from trouble. Given the ways your participation has moderated some of the concerns at past ANI discussions I think you might have been well served to participate. I make this comment not to pick on you - you'll notice no arb has criticized you for it - and more for the next person who might get that advice. As for the 1922 births there was extensive ANI discussion about it. Am I correct in understanding that you're suggesting that whole discussion was based on a misunderstanding? I want to make sure I know what to be looking at when I go and re-review the evidence. Barkeep49 (talk) 15:13, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Could you link to this ANI discussion. It was almost a year ago. The basic issue was that I had on my return to editing Wikipedia agreed to edit only Category:1922 births articles. This was before the ban on editing articles related to religion or religious figures "broadly construed" and making any edits related to that in any article had been imposed. The 1922 debate was basically about whether or not I should be able to edit Wikipedia at all. Some people made comments about my possibly nominating lots of 1922 articles for deletion, but they did not back this up with any analysis of other 1922 articles I had deleted. Others made some claim that the reason I wanted to edit Category:1922 births was because the father of a person who I had mentioned many times in examples about various issues was born in 1922, and this was alledgely my way to allow me to edit the article on that individual. My actual reason for wanting to edit Category:1922 births was because that was where I was in my article by article review backward through birth cats that I had started in 1927. The debate was really about whether the 12 days or so I had been banned from Wikipedia was sufficient and whether I should be allowed to edit Wikipedia at all. It was really a follow up to a discussion started before the ban, and was a continuation of analysis of pre-ban activity. No one had any real examples of 1922 related edits that they objected to, some were objecting to allowing me to edit articles at all, or claiming that 1922 might still be problematic related to other events, but there were no claim evidence presented in that debate that my 1922 editing was not acceptable at all. At least I do not recall any. From that point until December virtually all my edits were in articles in specific birth year categories. I also had a misunderstanding as to whether it was acceptable to make comments about "religious figures broadly construed" on my talk page. Part of this was fueled by the fact I did make some comments on my talk page about people who feel under that rubric in relation to their birth years being miscategorized in Wikipedia. One person who in some ways falls under that rublic was nominated for deletion. The nomination for deletion in part related to whether the institution of higher learning he lead is such that leading it meets the academic notability guideline related to instutution of higher learning leaders. I made a comment on my talk page about the general principal of what institutions of higher learning trigger a pass of this criteria, in which I mentioned this person by name. I had not realized that such a comment on the talk page that did not say anything about religion broadly construed would be problematic. I was blocked from editing, but was able to convince people that this was caused by a misunderstanding of exactly what was allowed on a talk page relevant to a ban. In the process of that discussion I inquired about whether I was still restricted to only editing articles in a given birth year category. At that time I was told that no, the only lasting ban from the August/September events was the "religion and religious leaders broadly construed" one. So I started doing some edits that were not to articles that were bios in the given birth year I was reviewing. However I believe the 1922 births discussion was never a discussion of any actual activity related to the 1922 births, it was basically that I and an administrator had worked out an agreement where I was able to resume editing if I initially focused on Category:1922 births and basically those objecting had no substantive issues with my editing of that category, they basically just did not feel it was soon enough for me to be editing at all. Others felt that maybe I should be restricted to a different category, but none of that was really based on any edits I had done on the 1922 births year category at all. At least that is how it appeared to me at the time.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:49, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
 * First that's an awful lot of bold. Did you forget to close a tag somewhere in there? The link to the ANI discussion is here and here's the formal unblcok accept. What might be confusing is that the concerns were over your 1921 work continuing into the work you stated you were going to do in 1922. Barkeep49 (talk) 16:18, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes I forgot to unbold.John Pack Lambert (talk) 16:27, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Well actually I put a bold mark (which I can not visually represent without it going into effect) in a spot on accident where I should have put ". I have corrected it now.John Pack Lambert (talk) 16:48, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
 * My 1921 edits were done after my 1922 edits. The spirt of the objections I think are caught by this comment "and even then, "1922 births" seems like such a niche area that it's hard not to assume they may have a biography in mind within the wheelhouse they're best avoiding" - so basically because I chose 1922 there must be some bio in there I want to edit that I should not edit. This was before the religion related topic ban was imposed. I actually started this with 1927 and was going backward, and explained this. the specific year was chosen on the suggestion of the adminstrator who wanted to have me pick one specific category. Category:1922 births currently has 8,375 entries. So I am not sure exactly how it is "niche", and That wording makes it clearly a case of assuming bad faith. I have continued in the main since that point to this systematically going back through birth years. I did not pick 1922 because there was any article there I wanted to edit, I picked 1922 because it was where I was with my project of going back through the birth year articles. I at least do not think we should allow such accusations thrown out with no evidence to stand. Also I think we need to understand that essentially this disucussion and the one that resulted in the Topic ban on religion and religious leaders were going over the same general issues, and occuring at same time, and at heart responding to the same intial circumstances. There is no action done in the 1922 editing that prompts this, it is just a case of multi places on Wikipedia scrutinzing the same editor for essentially the same actions at the same time. It ends up treating what is one reaction as 2 just because it ended up being open in 2 places.John Pack Lambert (talk) 16:40, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
 * While I understnad not wanting people to make too many comments on AfD, other times people fault a nominator for not responding to a request to retract it. If you want to have people follow up and add more comments, we should not treat such actions as a possible violation of policy. Yes, some people do comment too much, but the wording about that issue I think comes to close to saying people should put everything in their vote. I think this is especially unwise because some AfDs come down to assessing sources not in the English language, which many English-language editors may be unable to find. So if someone comes along and says "I found x, x and x sources in Polish", we should not have wondering that would make people hesitant about changing their vote to "keep" from "delete" at that point. At the same time we should not have language that would worry editors about coming back and saying "even with those sources I still do not think we should have this article because the sources do not meet GNG" or any other comments that could follow up. I have even seen multiple times where editors petition previous contributors to a deletion discussion to come back and analyze after the further contributions the article now meets GNG.John Pack Lambert (talk) 16:47, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Lugnuts just nominated some articles related to cricket for proposed deletion. This may be a change in relation to his past behavior that may cause people to want to evaluate things again. I thanked him for the nominations. I at least wanted to bring it up. To me it seems a good sign of a new trend, that I think is an improvement.John Pack Lambert (talk) 16:53, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I am very, very sorry about being disruptive on Wikipedia in the past. I have been trying very, very, very, very hard to abide by the restrictions that have been placed on me. I really think I can be a positive contributor to Wikipedia. If people want to ban me from contributing to any deletion related discussions, I will accept that. However I do not think a full site ban is waranted. I also do not think a deletion ban is warrented. I think it is much better to offer clearer guidelines on some matters related to deletion discussions and allow time to see if people will abide by or follow them. I really enjoy contributing to Wikipedia, and am trying to do many things to make it a better project. I am very sorry that in the past I have been rash, or not thought out my comments. I do not think a ban on editing Wikipedia would be reasonable at this time, and do not think it is really supported by any findings. I really feel I can be a positive contributor to Wikipedia.John Pack Lambert (talk) 20:56, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
 * At a certain level Wikipedia requires people to be able to understand and follow norms even when policies and guidelines are written more broadly and without tons of specifics. I think this comment show that is not one of your skills . I think you have an earnestness and commitment to Wikipedia that has meant you have escaped sanctions others might have been subjected to. But what your comment above fails to address is why the next effort to avoid problems at deletion will be successful where the last ones haven't been. So while your earnestness and commitment to Wikipedia might be enough to lead me not to support a site ban, those alone are not sufficient to convince me not to vote for the proposed topic ban. Barkeep49 (talk) 21:29, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

The current issue seems to mainly be around issues with redirect, Olympians and one editor. Would it work if I promised to only nominate one article for deletion at most every 24 hours, to not respond against any suggestion to redirect that article, to not nominate any article for proposed deletion, to not redirect any article, and to not make more than one comment on any given redirect article. Also if I promised to not nominate more than 1 article in any week by any given editor.John Pack Lambert (talk) 21:38, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

On further thought, since the 1 every 24 hours is the current limit, I would accept no more than 1 nomination every 48 hours and no more than 3 nominations in any given 7 day period.John Pack Lambert (talk) 21:42, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

I would also consider a maximum number of daily AfD contributions. Or maybe a minimum time between any contributions. I have no idea what types of numbers might be reasonable. John Pack Lambert (talk) 21:47, 25 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Hi John. It is helpful to know that you're willing to compromise and accept more speed bumps, but let me warn you here before you write more comments along these lines that not all arbs are going to view these comments favorably. ArbCom decisions aren't really a negotiation, where you offer to consider various remedies that we're pitching in a start-low-negotiate-higher way. ArbCom is structurally pretty heavy-handed and will do whatever it thinks is necessary. Your best bet is to persuade (not negotiate) – specifically, persuade us that you understand why we're here at ArbCom and why we won't be here again if a siteban isn't issued.
 * Your comments thus far haven't been very persuasive on that front. This case isn't really about the "current issue", which you describe as "issues with redirect, Olympians and one editor". It's never really about the "current issue": every one of Wikipedia's dispute resolution system is about preventing the next issue too. So far, we've had two TBANs and something like half a dozen each of ANI threads and blocks, so clearly we are failing to prevent the next issue before it happens. The role of ArbCom is to correct those failures.
 * I'm not saying that you'll end up sitebanned. I've voiced a reluctance to vote for that remedy personally. I think what would be best is if you can show us you understand it's not just about the past – it's about what will happen after this case is over. Best, KevinL ( aka L235 · t · c) 22:21, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

I have been trying to internalize and grow from what I have seen before. I do understand that I need to be more deliberative in my actions. I have been trying to do this. This is why I have been pre-posting about various articles on my talk page to feel o7t what to do before taking any action that would start a clock tooling. In the case of the complaint about my edits to birth years that did not agree with the categories I have gone to avoiding unilateral imposing a specific category unless I can find one and preferably multiple sources I can find that will support the new specific category, in all other cases I have gone to moving to more nebulous categories that cover all disputed content I have seen on the page. I have tried to avoid conflicts, to go to posting on talk pages instead of unilaterally making comments. With the recent rise in the number of biographical AfDs I have tried to make sure to not rush into quickly responding to articles and have tried to be more nuanced in my statements. I have been trying to do due diligence in my research. There have been multiple articles I came across that I was thinking of nominating for deletion but instead I did a search, found an at least marginal source, added it to the article and decided to leave it for later editors to review. I really am trying to avoid conflict and be more collegial. I am really trying to learn a better way to interact with people. How do we move forward? I think a key is avoiding defensive reactions. I think I managed to pull this off with the birth year categories. Before If I found an article that stated in the info box, opening and text that John Smith was born in 1893 but the category was 1894 I would move to the 1893 category without a second thought. Now I review as many sources as I can easily find to see if I can find something that says Smith was born in 1893. If the sources are all off line, behind pay walls, or in foreign languages I can not parse the birth year from, I just move the category to 1890s births, a less specific category that easily signals to other editors that there may be an issue, and instead of using hot cat I edit the page and leave a clear edit summary. There was another recent article for deletion case that I withdrew after I was shown a large number of sources that I had missed. I am trying to find ways to build collegiate and cooperation. It is hard to anticipate future issues, but I do understand I need to avoid escalating the issue. Another example there was a recent case where I was a little frustrated at people arguing keep with no evidence. I initially wrote a post where I let my frustration shoe threw and made accusations against the keep argues. Before I posted it I realized that the accusations were not really justified, so I revised my post to state simply that the article in question lacked any sources providing the needed significant coverage and avoided any further comments. Another editor responded to my straightforward comment saying it was very helpful.John Pack Lambert (talk) 00:27, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

I do not remember exactly which article it was, but the deletion discussion on John Nielsen (footballer born 1911) is one of a few where after I made my vote with comment another editor came along and opened with "Johnpacklambert is exactly right". I am really trying to find ways moving forward to express views, even in discussions that used to really frustrate me, that focus on the facts at hand and avoid stating anything more. I hope I am moving towards expressing views that show a willingness to cooperate.John Pack Lambert (talk) 00:50, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Sorry about that link not working. Here this should work. [Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/John Nielsen (footballer, born 1911)] I am trying to find ways to be more deliberative in my edits and to avoid conflicts but instead take the advice of others and build from it.John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:45, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I really want to be a positive force for good in Wikipedia. I know I have made many mistakes in the past. I am very sorry about those. I am hoping that the Arb com can find a way to allow me to continue to edit Wikipedia. I recognize that I will need to step up and be more patient. I see that I will have to seek to find calm resolutions of things, even when to me my actions are fully reasonable and within a reasonable set of parameters. I need to seek to explain exactly what I am doing in a way that it is clear that I am not attacking others. I want Wikipedia to be a good resource that provides useful information to those who do searches on it. I know that many of my meta-organizing tasks do not outwardly move it much towards that goal, but I do feel that they help in their own way. I also try to add sources at times when I find them, and to otherwise improve Wikipedia. I sincerely hope there is some way to persuade people not to impose a ban. I have really tried to make Wikipedia a better place. I am very sorry for at times not acting in the wisest manner. I wish I could fix the past. I just want to let people know that I am sincerely committed to doing whatever amounts of editing I am allowed to do on Wikipedia in the future in a manner that betters the project. I really want to find a way that we can move beyond the negative and combative discourse that has infected some areas. I have tried to start this by thanking someone who I have often disagreed with for some edits he did. I am trying to move forward. I really want to move to more positive discourse.John Pack Lambert (talk) 17:53, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Is this the time to ask for clarification? From what was said below, it is OK to edit an article even if it is up for AfD. Or is it best to just not edit articles under current nomination at all? As far as I can recall off the top of my head the only edits I have done to articles under AfD nomination have been to add sources, and various style and text edits. I know there are at times issues where people remove lots from an article just before nominating it for AfD, and there may have been cases where people did much removal during AfD, but I have no recollection of doing either and have no intention of doing so now. My editing of articles that are currently under AfD has been fairly rare, I am just making sure such edits are still OK. If it is felt that I should avoid editing any article currently under AfD I would be willing to do so, but it does not seem to me that either the focus of my past disruptive behavior or the wording of the topic ban would extend to such articles. However "broardly construed" is a term I want to get a clear definition on.John Pack Lambert (talk) 17:09, 30 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Also the rule on "turning redirects into articles" only applies to articles that currently exist. Creating new redirects or turning a redlink into a redirect are acceptable activities. Also, if I find a redirect that I feel in fact is better off as an article, I can still go through the process of finding and adding GNG meeting sources to create a new article. Those are all acceptable behaviors, correct?John Pack Lambert (talk) 17:12, 30 July 2022 (UTC)
 * The topic ban prevents me from prodding articles, but expicitly allows me to deprod them. It also says I cannot turn articles into redirects. On the surface this means that I can if I come across an article that was recently turned into redirect by unilateral action, I can if I deem this was an unjustified revert it back to its article form. I would be a little more confident of this though if the language explicitly stated this.John Pack Lambert (talk) 17:33, 30 July 2022 (UTC)
 * All of these answers are my interepetation of the wording:
 * Improving an article up at AfD is alright under that ban - it's not part of a deletion discussion.
 * Yes you can work with redirects, just not from an existing article. So you could create a new one or even retarget a redirect subject to existing policies, guidelines, and practices.
 * Yes you can revert an article turned into a redirect
 * In general the problems that have been identified in this case are about deletion. All your questions are about kinds of creation which the topic ban is not intended to prohibit (though of course your topic ban about religion does limit you in some ways). Barkeep49 (talk) 17:37, 30 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Thankyou for your responses.John Pack Lambert (talk) 17:57, 30 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Does the deletion discussion limiting apply to Categories for discussion, or is it limited to articles for discussion, nominations? On reading it, it seems like it may cover discussions about deleting categories as well. If so, would this apply to any discussion about categories, or only to ones where the question is about deleting them? Or am I not understanding the distinction about articles elsewhere, and we are talking about articles and files etc, but categories are considered a different thing, more metacontent, and so not under the same restrictions?John Pack Lambert (talk) 20:05, 30 July 2022 (UTC)
 * The wording also does not say anything about proposing articles for merger, something I am not sure I have ever actually done. Nor does it say anything about article merger discussions, something I have participated in a few times, but not very often, in part because they are hard to find, which may be why some last for months without being closed. Since there is a "broadly construed" phrasing, I am trying to gain a good sense of what the limits of broad construction are.John Pack Lambert (talk) 20:05, 30 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Merging is sufficiently similar to deletion and redirecting that I would probably avoid it if I were you. I thank you for seeking clarification. Best, KevinL ( aka L235 · t · c) 21:10, 30 July 2022 (UTC)
 * So avoid both initiating and participating in discussions on mergers. OK.John Pack Lambert (talk) 23:03, 30 July 2022 (UTC)
 * On categories, it seems like this whole Arbcom discussion mainly focuses on articles and AfD, and there seems to be no discussion of anything related to categories, so I am thinking CfD is outside its scope, but I want to be 100% sure, especially since the topic ban talks about "deletion" without clearly defining it. I am thinking this was because it was meant to cover files as well as articles, but the exact scope is not as clear as I would like.John Pack Lambert (talk) 23:03, 30 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Lower down Barkeep says this about one of the proposed topic bans, which in the applicable language I believe is very smililar to the one relating to me. "Discussions are a key phrase there. So ARS about an article up for nomination is out, improving the article itself is probably OK." I am trying to figure out what ARS is, it is not clear to me what it means or what exactly it is referring to.John Pack Lambert (talk) 23:09, 30 July 2022 (UTC)
 * CfDs and other XfDs are definitely covered (prohibited) by the topic ban. ARS is WP:ARS, at which some case participants have posted about AfDs (see Article Rescue Squadron – Rescue list). Best, KevinL ( aka L235 · t · c) 23:15, 30 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I will avoid CfD. I think it would be helpful if this was made more clear. The same with some other acronyms.John Pack Lambert (talk) 00:19, 31 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Is contribution to discussions on notability policy in general banned by this as well, or only discussions that are directly tied to possibly deleting specific things, be they CfD, AfD, XfD (which I only know exists because it was mentioned about), and maybe RfD (I think I have never contributed to that, but I will run away from it), as well as merge discussions. So just to throw out an example, that I will stay away from regardless of the answer here, there is an RfC which asks if train stations an inherently notable. Would contributing the that run afoul of the ban, or is it far enough away from actual discussions of deleting things that it is OK?John Pack Lambert (talk) 00:32, 31 July 2022 (UTC)
 * One last question, I am thinking tagging articles that lack sources with a tag that says they lack sources is still OK, but I want to be sure before I do such.John Pack Lambert (talk) 00:32, 31 July 2022 (UTC)
 * The RfC seems fine to me; so does tagging. I believe your topic ban was written to be relatively clear and specific. My personal understanding of part (1), which seems to be the stem of your confusion, is that a discussion is a "deletion discussion" if a possible result of the discussion is that a page that was there is no longer there (perhaps it is deleted or changed into a redirect, e.g. merge discussion). A deletion may also be a "deletion discussion" if it is a more general discussion about deletion but I don't know if that was the intent. The use of the word "discussion" was intended to be specific – PRODs aren't covered by (1), which is why they were covered in (2). Best, KevinL ( aka L235 · t · c) 05:04, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Hi Johnpacklambert. There's clearly a lot of information you've requested here and quite simply I do not believe that every question should be answered for you, because you need to be able to interpret these sanctions yourself. It is not the place of any arbitrator, any administrator or any editor except yourself to interpret every single possible situation. My advice would be more general - that if you believe that an action could plausibly be seen to be in breach of your restriction - do not do it. Regarding "broadly construed", it means "generally related to that topic" - you won't get a specific list of articles, it's up to your (and administrators) interpretation. If you are unable to make these judgements yourself, you will quickly be banned from Wikipedia, so the best advice is to not do anything that could be interpreted as breaching any of the restrictions. WormTT(<b style="color:#060;">talk</b>) 08:52, 1 August 2022 (UTC)
 * General response from WTT

Comments by jc37
Proposed principle #5 is simply contrary to policy, and actually would encourage some of the behaviours that I presume this case is attempting to address.
 * Arbitration/Requests/Case/Conduct_in_deletion-related_editing/Proposed_decision

First, putting an ! in front of the word "vote" has become common place to suggest "not" a vote, but context has it slowly being defined as one. And yes, we can claim that a single expression of opinion is not a vote, but seriously, a single expression of opinion is indeed a "vote" in this context, especially if we are implicitly preventing follow-up discussion. We should be going out of our way to support the consensus process, not to embrace how the process is like voting, and could be more like voting.

And so, whether you are intending to or not, you are turning an essay into policy.

Second, if one of the goals here is to curtail drive-by voting, this finding undermines it. There is an attitude conveyed rather commonly in discussions of "I've posted my opinion, how dare someone question it, or ask me to clarify". Clearly, drive-by, by definition. Consensus is about having a discussion. No one is "required" to respond, but collegiate discussion should be expected, as should requests for clarification.

Instead of counting responses, we should be looking at content of the responses, the quality of the responses. The number of bytes of text should be immaterial, as long as the discussion is collegiate and civil. - jc37 06:16, 24 July 2022 (UTC)


 * 

Per Isaacl comments above - exactly. Again, we're talking about issues with the content of the responses, not how many comments they make. The difference between continuing to engage in discussion, and being disruptive. Saying it's "bludgeoning" hides what the true issue is - whether it is disrupting the consensual process, or contributing to the discussion. - jc37 07:44, 26 July 2022 (UTC)


 * @Jc37 You raise good points. I proposed an alternative to that principle, if you'd like to take a look. Enterprisey (talk!) 05:57, 27 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Hi Enterprisey, Thank you for the ping.
 * I have looked over your alternate proposal, but to me, it is still has many of the issues of #5.


 * I've been thinking about what could be said instead. I went and read over WP:CON, and I'll admit, it's focus seems to be more about how to address edit warring than how to act in a discussion, though some of that is there. I pulled some sentences and sentence fragments from CON, and re-assembled them into the first two paragraphs. The third paragraph started off as also from there, but I expanded it. So it's 3 paragraphs, which could still be whittled down, but I think it's a start. It's mostly a restatement of the policy in regards to discussions.


 * I also pulled some text from WP:TE. I think limiting this to "bludgeoning" may be part of the issue (for one thing, it often "takes two to tango"). What I think we're talking about is disruption of the consensus process. And the phrase we've long used for that is "tendentious editing". I copied sentences from 4 sections that I think directly pertain to deletion discussions. (I added the phrase "or others as an "adversary"".)


 * I welcome your (and others') thoughts on these. And if you think they could be helpful, but that they should be edited down (as I said, this is just a start, to try to convey what I'm attempting to express), I'm happy to try to do so.
 * I hope this helps : ) - jc37 07:58, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Pinging Izno, and Enterprisey.

So in light of the above and your comments in the proposed decision, I tried to write a more general principle that would encompass more of the behaviours that we've been seeing in deletion discussions (as I've noted above) and not merely the idea of "bludgeoning".

I thought about listing/linking to all the TE examples I noted above (and maybe we should, I dunno) but I removed that due to length.

The Principle #3 on consensus, really seems to be more about editing and not so much about discussions, so I tried to make that clear at the start.


 * Discussions on Wikipedia follow the consensus process. When joining in discussions, editors should expect to collaborate in a collegiate and civil manner, and to be treated that way as well. And while no one is "required" to respond to another editor’s query, collegiate discussion on the topic at hand should be expected, as should requests for clarification. However, editors should not engage in behaviors which interfere with and/or disrupt the consensus process. Such tendentious editing exhausts other editors, dissuades further participation, wastes time, and makes discussions less effective.

I of course welcome suggestions/tweaking etc.

I hope this helps. - jc37 10:44, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

Moderator for the RfC remedy
I'm still making up my mind about the RfC remedy but clearly the appointed moderator will be instrumental to the success or failure of the RfC. The power to select the questions at an ArbCom-appointed RfC is not lightly assigned. It would ease my mind a bit on this remedy if an editor highly experienced in moderating and closing RfCs would volunteer as a candidate. Best, KevinL ( aka L235 · t · c) 06:49, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Comments from EW
Some thoughts in no particular order from an AfD participant who's been watching this case from the sidelines—hopefully they're at least somewhat helpful. Hopefully something in here is useful. Thanks again to all the arbitrators for all their work on these thorny issues. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 07:23, 24 July 2022 (UTC)
 * This is a solid PD and I think it's going to be helpful in minimizing disruption. Many thanks to the drafters for their work.
 * I'm surprised that we're only looking at t-banning TPH from deletion discussions, broadly construed. I think there's evidence that the disruption has carried over to PROD as well: see LaundryPizza03's evidence (prodding 637 articles in three weeks, including 146 in a single day). I think a broader t-ban (along the lines of the one that's being proposed for JPL) would be a more effective response to the problem.
 * This sanction supersedes the previous community topic ban – probably best to clarify which of the two topic bans you're referring to. By the way, would there be any harm in leaving the previous t-ban in place? If the ArbCom t-ban were ever lifted, the community would probably prefer for the narrower one-a-day restriction to remain.
 * North8000 prelinary statement and Article Rescue Squandron – typos
 * The Lugnuts finding of fact should probably mention the civility issues (see FOARP's evidence) since I think that's a key aspect of the problem here (plus making personal attacks and engaging in battleground behavior in deletion discussions are both included in a proposed remedy).
 * I'm not sure how I feel about the RfC remedy. It's not a bad idea in principle, but I just struggle to see it generating an actionable consensus that'll stop these issues from bubbling up again a few months or years down the road. If there are structural problems with AfD, then the mass-nomination issues are more of a symptom than anything else (partially a temporary symptom as the community responds to the NSPORTS changes). The main issue with AfD, I think, is simply that the community struggles with dealing with disruptive editors there, as evidenced by the fact that ANI no-consensus monster-threads regarding the named parties have been going on for years. There's no RfC that's going to fix that, I fear. I think it's good that standard discretionary sanctions haven't been proposed here (as CaptainEek puts it, the bureaucratic weight would be stifling in an area that is already short of contributors), but we need some better way to deal with disruption if we're to keep these issues from recurring.


 * Just noting that several of your suggestions were implemented in the PD. I thought it worth saying here. Barkeep49 (talk) 15:04, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Comments by Lugnuts
FWIW, taken directly from BilledMammal's talkpage: "I was very unhappy to see proposed bans for you (JPL) and Lugnuts - I don't believe either would be in the interest of the encyclopedia."  Lugnuts  Fire Walk with Me 08:03, 24 July 2022 (UTC)


 * And the reply from BM - "We disagree on a lot, and I believe you (and, to a lesser extent, John Pack Lambert) need to adjust your behaviour at AfD, but I also believe the encyclopedia is better off with both of you contributing at AfD and in general".  Lugnuts  Fire Walk with Me 14:53, 25 July 2022 (UTC)


 * again, FWIW, the last three new articles I've started have all become frontpage DYKs too (Muzamil Sherzad, Arlene Kelly and Alex Horton).  Lugnuts  Fire Walk with Me 14:59, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I've noted that, thanks. I'm no longer considering further throttling. <b style="color:#000;">Worm</b>TT(<b style="color:#060;">talk</b>) 15:06, 25 July 2022 (UTC)


 * said - "I believe Lugnuts has some moral obligation to help address the articles created that are out of line with community policies and guidelines. Banning him would stop that from happening". Indeed, and this is something I've been doing my best to address. Nearly 100 expansions this year, plus the DYKs, etc. It's taken a back-burner this month for obvious reasons, but it's something I want to continue with - IE addressing the articles I started.  Lugnuts  Fire Walk with Me 06:45, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks for pointing out this work. Barkeep49 (talk) 15:14, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * No problem. - You've said - "However, I also see no likelihood that Lugnuts would help tidy up the articles he created" - please can you take a look at the above link with the work I've done since the start of the year (IE when the article creation ban was enforced). Thanks.  Lugnuts  Fire Walk with Me 17:52, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * @Lugnuts. I did see this ping, and your email and you talk page message. None have done much to change my mind. My primary concerns with your editing is the combative attitude, the personalisation of disputes and the personal attacks. The fact that you have been blocked twice for said personal attack in the past 6 months. The fact that you have had two separate topic bans in the past 12 months. You're not a new editor, and this behaviour is unacceptable, hence my vote. Philosophically, and not as part of the reason I have voted for the ban, I feel I need to say something about mass creation of BLPs - it may be extremely important if the ban does not come to pass.
 * So many of the articles you created as one line stubs are living people who have done nothing more than compete quietly at a major sporting event. They've trained for years, competed and then moved on with their lives - quite often with little or no media coverage outside the competition. Each article you have created is about a person, who can suffer real world consequences as a result of the article being created. Mass created stubs are less likely to be watched for vandalism, and so a real person's life can be affected. I'm aware that there's nothing in policy against creating these articles, but I'm also aware that the manner in which you created them has significantly increased the risk of real world harm to individuals. That leaves a sour taste in my mouth.
 * I have no idea if a ban will pass. If it does not, I hope you understand how close you came to be banned and why it is so important for the articles you created to be improved. <b style="color:#000;">Worm</b>TT(<b style="color:#060;">talk</b>) 09:30, 28 July 2022 (UTC)
 * It was more about correcting your statement of "I also see no likelihood that Lugnuts would help tidy up the articles he created" - which is false as you can see from the work I've been doing, and have linked to, above. Your second paragraph makes a lot of assumptions of what might or could happen to a BLP - I'm not sure how this relates to "conduct in deletion-related editing" though.  Lugnuts  Fire Walk with Me 09:48, 28 July 2022 (UTC)


 * - I cleaned up >2,000 of them when there were 4,452 articles with that source. It's now down to 2,362. I stopped at the time as lots of them were being redirected, making it pointless to change the source, then for it to be redirected. I can update the others too.  Lugnuts  Fire Walk with Me 10:58, 28 July 2022 (UTC)


 * I've just posted this question on 's talkpage after I've spotted 6.1 (topic ban) has been added to the case AFTER several voters have posted (in relation to myself). - I don't know if you would have supported a topic ban rather than a site-ban if it was on the table originally. Thanks.  Lugnuts  Fire Walk with Me 11:24, 29 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Hi @Lugnuts. The committee generally keep voting until all proposals are either passing or failing, then there is one more vote to finalise the decision. I'm still watching the PD, and yes, depending on new proposals it is possible that I will change my vote. I believe the same is true for other arbitrators. I will consider the topic ban when I get a moment. <b style="color:#000;">Worm</b>TT(<b style="color:#060;">talk</b>) 11:47, 29 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you.  Lugnuts  Fire Walk with Me 11:49, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

Outgoing
Apparently, I have a "moral obligation to help clean up the mess". Despite working on cleaning up said mess for the last 6 months, that hasn't helped, and it's even harder to do with an indef block. In a case about conduct in deletion discussion, votes are made with rationales on anything but condcut in deletion discussions. It used to be fun to create stuff, then the rules kept changing. Deletion monkeys spend their time at guideline/policy talkpages, playing with their own fecal matter, rather than actually creating, adding and expanding content. Despite the token "(I) genuinely hope that I see them back on Wikipedia after a successful appeal" I'm not going to wait until August 2023 to write a begging letter to a group of users who couldn't care less.

About a year after joining the project, I started creating articles. Some early creations from 2007 got tagged as copyvios. A year later, they were still being tagged. I got added to some white-list at the time, and avoided adding OBVIOUS copyvios and further scrutiny, but made no attempt to either stop or remove the ones I added. Guess what - that continued since then. Not just across the 93,000+ articles I created, but across the 1.5 million edits I made too. Tens of thousands (a low-end estimate) now have these issues. Have a look at any film article from before 1930, for example. And that's before I mention the countless deliberate errors on pages that have very few pages views. Was that person born on 21 June, or was it 12 June?

So that moral obligation? Ha. Good luck with that. "The mess" is now your mess and the burden falls with YOU to fix it. Enjoy.  Lugnuts  Fire Walk with Me 18:38, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

Comment by GoodDay
This is now in the hands of the arbitrators. Let's allow them to make their own collective decision. GoodDay (talk) 15:29, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

FWIW, I'm relieved to see that none of the 'parties' will likely be site-banned. GoodDay (talk) 13:10, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

Well, this didn't turn out the way I expected at all. I was hoping that nobody, would get banned :( GoodDay (talk) 18:43, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

Comments by CT55555
Regarding Arbitration/Requests/Case/Conduct_in_deletion-related_editing/Proposed_decision

At first I was very happy to see this. I reminds me of WP:COAL which I wish was a norm, but right now AfD feels a bit exhausting and I've recently reduced my participation due how much work it can take to defend a !vote. So I welcomed this at first, but then I realised that it's a bad way to reach consensus.

I wonder if there is a more nuanced way to get a similar outcome that discourages bludgeoning but allows debate and consensus building CT55555 (talk) 15:39, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Comment by Spartaz
I posted the following at wikipediocracy on their thread about this case but thought I should just cut and paste it here.

This whole case is completely disgusting and might just be the straw that finally breaks my wikipedia addiction. What basically happened is that JPL was attacked by Lugnuts behaving at his most combative, patronising and disrespectful worst for the cheek of nominating one of his permastubs for deletion and I picked this up on my watchlist. I have twice blocked him for this kind of behaviour and should have just blocked him again but instead took it to ANI as I didn’t feel it should the same admin blocking him all the time. Instead of someone stepping up the discussion was taken over by an obvious claque of Lugnuts adjacent editors who turned the whole thing about JPL. Then here we are at RFAR and to be honest it feels like a kangaroo court. JPL can be annoying and his votes are often formulaic but are easy to discount, but he wasn’t The protagonist here but the victim. Once again we see a process support the abuser who looks like he will get away scot free, since warning and admonishments from arbcom will be just as easily ignored by him as the warnings from myself or previous discussions. The whole thing leaves me sick to the stomach as I have been watching this car crash unfold.

Why didn’t I say this in evidence you ask? Basically, the system is designed to reward the most obsessive editor prepared gather diffs and all that shit, which I don’t have the energy to engage in suffering as I am with an extended loss of focus and energy after a recent bout of covid. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Spartaz (talk • contribs) 22:22, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Comment by BeanieFan11
I agree with Spartaz above in that this case is completely disgusting. I find it sickening to see arbitrators support banning two of our top editors. Saying that Lugnuts and Mr. Lambert are not a benefit to this project is BS. I am really upset by this. BeanieFan11 (talk) 22:54, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Comment by TenPoundHammer
I posted this initially and then reverted it because I thought it might come off as poking the bear or trying to influence others' opinions. But in all seriousness, I am willing to accept a topic-ban from XFD (and presumably also PROD and CSD). It's clear the process causes me and everyone else a great deal of stress, and I feel this would be the best solution for me. I don't know enough details about the other editors to weigh in on what might be best for them and I'm disgusted that it got to this for anyone at all, but I think a site ban would be way too much for anyone within the scope of this discussion. Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 00:01, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Comment by Rhododendrites
Seems like a reasonable proposed decision. I'm surprised more people weren't added during the evidence phase, but that's in the past now. The only point I want to make, which others have made, too, is that there should be a counterpart "Request for comment" section (or something like it) relating to mass creation of articles. While some portion of the community clearly considers this completely settled business between WP:MEATBOT and WP:MASSCREATE, those pages leave a lot of ambiguity and the discussions about this have thus far failed to nail down consensus. As I said in this WT:N thread last year, the issue isn't that people don't follow MASSCREATE and MEATBOT; it's that those sections don't actually say what many people want them to say. If someone mass creates pages without the use of a tool, without making errors, and without doing anything clearly against consensus, those sections are satisfied. Or, at worst, discussion is shifted to what does/doesn't have consensus.

The poor condition of our rules about mass creation will throw a wrench into the discussion about mass deletion at best, and influence the outcome at worst (there are many people who resent that it takes more effort to delete a mass created stub than it does to create one, and if the first opportunity to intervene is in the proposed RfC, I suspect we will see changes that do more to facilitate deletion than if we addressed mass creation first). &mdash; Rhododendrites  <sup style="font-size:80%;">talk \\ 02:55, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Comment by NotReallyMoniak
(formerly NotReallySoroka)

Please also see Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Content assessment/A-Class criteria by TPH. Thanks. NotReallyMoniak (talk) 03:45, 26 July 2022 (UTC)


 * I see reasonable participation there, even if it's what I would personally call a bad idea. Izno (talk) 04:53, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

How about the following change to the bludgeoning principle? This eliminates the contentious "one !vote" part while maintaining the rest of the ideas of this proposal. Thanks. NotReallyMoniak (talk) 08:06, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

had changed their vote regarding the Lugnuts ban and struck out their original oppose. Please consider whether to change your vote, since you stated "Per Barkeep". Thank you. NotReallyMoniak (talk) 04:21, 2 August 2022 (UTC)


 * Done--and I hadn't even seen your ping yet. -- BDD (talk) 21:26, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for your email. NotReallyMoniak (talk) 08:50, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Comment by Nosebagbear
I have no objection to ArbCom saying that an RfC should take place with the following terms of reference. But I have a major objection to ArbCom creating a structure where appeals on either moderation or the close can only be made to arbcom. To me, that latter goes well beyond their scope. Indeed, assuming that the RfC has any content-relevance at all (as opposed to say, purely being on conduct at AfD) then I believe it would go beyond ArbCom's authority.

In practical terms I think it is significantly more unreasonable for ArbCom to try and impose these additional restrictions when they have not previously asked the Community to run a traditional RfC on the scope first. I would like to ask how it delegates ArbCom authority to an RfC when seemingly it abrogates Community authority on a topic that is not purely within ArbCom's scope, and whether that is reasonable without the minimum of a "clean-run" community RfC first?

With regards to the remainder of the PD, I particularly like the principles, and I think the other proposed remedies and their discussions look reasonable. Nosebagbear (talk) 10:06, 26 July 2022 (UTC)


 * It is quite normal that remedies in an ArbCom case can only be appealed to ArbCom. In fact it's so normal that a casual look for an exception didn't turn up any counter examples. Why is that the case? Because outside of adminconduct cases - which have "you can try RfA again" provisions which I don't really consider an appeal but if you do would be the category of exception that doesn't undermine the point that's about to come - ArbCom is dealing with things that the community has tried and failed to resolve on its own. Like that is definitionally true by policy and is if anything even more true in practice if you look at how committees in recent years have accepted or declined cases. Reading through the June ANI discussion which proceeded this case shows just how divided our community is about these topics. So ArbCom making the decision on an appeal - which the community could and would give its thinking about - is appropriate with the role we are playing. Especially because all that would be decided is whether or not the panel of closers accurately judged consensus; that piece of what kind of appeal would be considered is not explicitly said but I feel confident in saying that's all this committee would consider.I don't know what direction this RfC will go - that'll be up to the moderator with community input. But we should be clear that ArbCom has pretty broad abilities to interpret policies and guidelines (PAG). So we could have done what some asked for in this case and given our interpretation of how WP:BEFORE and WP:ONUS and other PAG interact based on the events of this case, in the same way that an ArbCom of days past interpreted Consensus to say that there are different levels of consensus which the community liked well enough to put it in the policy. However, instead of us interpeting existing policy to say how things should have happened, we're asking the community. By asking the community it has the additional benefit that the answer could be something outside of our scope, but it's also possible the question won't go that wide which is why I say that the committee is delegating some of its authority to the mod and community to resolve the issue. In practical terms I would ask you to point to me of a recent example where an ArbCom recommendation was effective. I wouldn't call this recent but in the case that spurred CONLEVEL the committee recommended a large scale discussion which I don't believe ever happened. I feel like you're saying but it might work for us and I'm just not willing to say that. Barkeep49 (talk) 15:06, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't expect to find conduct remedies levied by ArbCom that are appealable elsewhere because that is obviously arbcom's scope - and were arbcom just implementing conduct rules then while I might well say something about that, it wouldn't be surprising that they were only appealable to arbcom. I'm raising it here because of the appreciable chance of a non-conduct aspect ending up only appealable to arbcom - unless arbcom made an ongoing trend to have such aspects there wouldn't be examples.
 * Regarding your latter point, I should have made clear (and didn't) that I don't disagree with the large majority of this proposal (re-reading, in fact I present it as a dichotomy, which was even worse of me) - I would have the discussion actually started by arbcom (rather than a request that someone in the community do so), and finding moderators and willing closers in advance to make sure the process continues would also be good positives.
 * All of that would be streamlining the regular RfC process. It's the two following points, primarily the latter:
 * To maintain decorum, moderator(s) may collapse comments, move comments to the talk page, remove comments entirely, ban editors from the process [my stress], or take other reasonable actions necessary to maintain decorum.
 * Any appeals of a moderator decision or of the panel close may only be made to the Arbitration Committee at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment.
 * I believe, in absence of a equivalent failure, the usual community processes for dealing with poorly behaving editors in RfCs (aided by ArbCom already having found willing editors to moderate), and for reviewing closes, should be allowed to operate. @Barkeep49, with apologies for a poor initial comment set Nosebagbear (talk) 15:44, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Comment by Avilich
I agree with BeanieFan11 above: neither Lambert nor Lugnuts are net negatives to the project, and just because the community hasn't found a way to deal with the latest issues between the two does not justify throwing away all that comes with their presence. JPL's case is especially unfortunate since (as noted above) he was named as a victim, not a subject, in the ANI discussion that triggered this ArbCom case; his actual wrongdoings here seem to be (1) supposedly low-quality participation in AfD, (2) being mentioned in ANI discussions, and (3) targeting Lugnuts' creations. [2] deserves no comment; [3] has little merit; and it's hardly fair to single him out for [1] when this is (as has been found here and here) not restricted to him and is indeed allowed for everybody else. Also note that Carrite's evidence that JPL's opinions, whatever their quality, aren't really at variance with wider consensus has so far been ignored by the arbitration. As for Lugnuts, the complaints against him are not groundless but he has subject-matter knowledge and the ability to contribute competently; the previous sanctions on him seem to have done their job, and if the new concern is civility and battleground behavior then I don't see why a as-of-yet untried interaction ban couldn't be imposed instead of going straight for a punitive blanket ban. Avilich (talk) 15:48, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

FOARP comment
I agree with commentators above that this decision needs also to deal with WP:MASSCREATE/WP:MEATBOT not being enforced leading to the complete imbalance between the rapid mass creation of failing stub articles and the slowness with which they can be cleaned up. At the very least it needs to be made easier to WP:Bundle mass-created articles.

The original report made at ANI that led to this discussion was about Lugnuts. I honestly think Spartaz just should have given him a month ban after the behaviour complained about was repeated. This would have avoided the whole rigmarole that we have gone through, though no doubt at some point we would have ended up considering an indef ban. It was a surprise to me when no-one submitted clear evidence of Lugnut’s repetitive disruptive/uncivil behaviour, so that is why I submitted the evidence I did.

I proposed a warning for Lugnuts in the workshop as it really needs to be made clear to Lugnuts that their behaviour - especially the continual repetition of it over such a long time - is not acceptable. I think Lugnuts’s banning is ultimately inevitable as they seem incapable of accepting clean-up of their articles as being in good faith. It still seemed wise to give him that one last chance with the clear indication that he would be gone if he did not heed the warnings. We really should not have to discuss this again.

JPL has a long track record of problems, however I admit that I was surprised by just how much this discussion has ended up focused on them.

If they were held to the same standard that the average Wikipedia editor is held to, however, probably both Lugnuts and JPL would have been banned years ago. FOARP (talk) 06:55, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

ETA: I'm not sure what the Bludgeoning part of this is supposed to achieve. Bludgeoning is a problem because repeatedly making the same point is a problem, but it is very hard to define it in a way that does not simply allow the majority in a discussion to prevent the other side of it from even being able to respond to what they have said. Particularly the statement that editors should "avoid...making so many points that they dominate the discussion" is clearly nonsensical - if there are a lot of points in favour of a position, then yes, any editor should make them, because Wikipedia is the encyclopaedia that anyone can edit. Wikipedia is not a vote and so even one editor, with sound grounds for their position, should be able to discuss a point with any number of other editors, so long as they do not devolve into repetition. Telling people that they should not make relevant points because they have already made lots of other relevant points is an obvious non-starter. FOARP (talk) 07:59, 27 July 2022 (UTC)


 * I’ll keep this short and sweet: Lugnuts was exactly the net-negative that I and many others said he was and y’all should have listened. Now let’s do what we should have done in the first place: delete the garbage mass-created articles that he now tells us are riddled with copyvios and deliberate errors. FOARP (talk) 21:19, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

Paulmcdonald comments
Bludgeoning -- in my experience, this is a term that is widely used but not necessarily widely aligned in definition. Examples inclue the following essays:
 * Don't bludgeon the process
 * Encourage full discussions
 * Drop the stick and back slowly away from the horse carcass
 * Avoid repeated arguments
 * Don't overuse shortcuts to policy and guidelines to win your argument
 * WTF? OMG! TMD TLA. ARG!

Don't write too much. Write as much as you need. Feel free to express yourself. Don't express yourself too much. Use shortcuts. Don't use shortcuts. Too long, didn't read. Too short, just a !vote.

Communication in and of itself can be hard. I apprecaite any and all guidance that comes from this process and hope that it can help everyone. I also apprecaite all the efforts everyone is putting toward this.--Paul McDonald (talk) 17:25, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Request for Comment -- from what I read at Requests for comment, pretty much anyone can make a request for comment. If the Arb Committee wants to make that request--great. If not--great. There is some discussion about if they can do it or should do it. I believe they can do it. Should they? Their choice.--Paul McDonald (talk) 17:51, 27 July 2022 (UTC)


 * User:L235 has made an interesting comment here and I think there is merit in it. However, I wouldn't want to see a project called "Lugnuts Cleanup" or something like that, it feels too targeted.  A more general name and purpose could be a longer-standing utility or tool that we could all use for this and other situations.  I'm thinking something like "Former Editor Article Review" or "Past Editor Contribution Assessment" or other similar terms.  It might be more of a campaign and community contriubtion process.  I don't believe for a moment that 100% of Lugnuts contriubtions should be kept, nor do I believe that 100% of the contriubtions should be removed.   It is somewhere in the middle.  I expect lots of work and a coordinated effort to share that workload is warranted.--Paul McDonald (talk) 14:00, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Comment by Mhawk10
I'm seeing a number of proposed remedies that include topic bans on deletion discussions, broadly construed. In order to make this more explicit to those who might be sanctioned, does this include talk page discussions regarding whether a page should be blanked-and-redirected and/or merged? Additionally, does this also cover discussions about the notability guidelines and WP:COMMONOUTCOMES? I understand that broad means broad, but it might be best to explicitly spell this out so that we can avoid ambiguity and not have to file requests for clarification/amendments in the case that one of these users gets involved in one of these sorts of discussions. I think that this would result in clearer and fairer enforcement guidelines for users who get slapped with a T-ban, and would be likely to prevent future wastes of community time debating whether or not these sorts of discussions are within the scope of deletion discussions, broadly construed. — Ⓜ️hawk10 (talk) 21:29, 27 July 2022 (UTC)


 * I have not interpreted this to cover discussions related to notability guidelines or common outcomes, nor talk page discussions. I do not know the drafters' intent. Izno (talk) 16:11, 29 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I agree with Izno. Barkeep49 (talk) 02:22, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

Comments by Cryptic
It was more about correcting your statement of "I also see no likelihood that Lugnuts would help tidy up the articles he created" - which is false as you can see from the work I've been doing, and have linked to, above (Special:Diff/1100917226) - and do you plan on stopping that as soon as you're not facing a ban? Exactly the same way you stopped cleaning up your koyumuz.net refs the instant you were no longer under scrutiny at ANI? —Cryptic 10:47, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

in response to Special:Diff/1101403951: Yes, a query can be made to look for edits by Lugnuts after a certain date to pages he didn't create (or that create new pages) - query/66314. What it can't do is to also exclude pages he "previously substantially contributed to" as stated in the remedy. Also, the query is relatively slow (about a minute per 12000 edits in the date range), and getting new results and updating the date range aren't exactly user-friendly. —Cryptic 03:53, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Comments by Levivich
I think the arbs should try to come up with something in between "warn" and "siteban" for Lugnuts. Those are two extremes, something in between may gain more consensus. One of the problems is that the Lugnuts FOF has accurate statements about Lugnuts' prior sanction history by the community, but more or less doesn't say anything about Lugnuts's conduct since the sanctions. The only thing it says is "has sometimes removed a PROD only to vote redirect at a subsequent AfD discussion", although it's not clear when that "sometimes" occured. If Lugnuts has abided by the community-imposed sanctions and hasn't been otherwise disruptive since then, the committee should say that. If Lugnuts has done something to violate a community-imposed sanction, or to be otherwise disruptive, then the committee should say that. Identifying or clarifying the disruptive behavior (if any) could help identify a potential remedy. Levivich (talk) 19:48, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

Comments by Indy beetle
Just reaffirming JoelleJay's points on Barkeep's reasoning I believe Lugnuts has some moral obligation to help address the articles created that are out of line with community policies and guidelines. Banning him would stop that from happening. This is faulty logic for a vote that would set an awful precedent. Aren't the governing norms around letting a user who has caused trouble in the past stay on described at WP:ROPE? I feel like the two considerations in any siteban are "How disruptive/harmful has this user historically been" and "do we trust them to not do those disruptive things again". If you feel like you can trust Lugnuts to not cause any further problems, just say so. But, theoretically, we could argue that any user, the worst of the worst, has "moral obligations" to repair their damage, couldn't we? Wikipedia is not a place for this pseudo-restorative justice, because we can't enforce community service. Even if Lugnuts agrees to help with cleanup and actually follows through, that's entirely on their own volition, and it would indeed build lots of good faith. Not doing so would leave them in jeopardy further down the road if they caused further disruption, yes. But we can't make a siteban decision contingent off of such aspirations. Realistically, this would suggest that if Lugnuts did not do any cleanup but went off and did perfectly acceptable work elsewhere, ARBCOM would show up out of the blue in six months with the ban hammer, which would be downright punative, not preventative. Far as I've seen, sitebans have only ever been stopped on the promise that the disruptive behavior of the perpetrator in question ceases (which is fairly easy to observe), not that they go back and atone for their sins by doing restoration (by what objective standard could that even be measured?). -Indy beetle (talk) 08:24, 29 July 2022 (UTC)


 * As for the merits of Lugnuts' case, has an intermediate option not been considered? I second Levich's comments. -Indy beetle (talk) 08:26, 29 July 2022 (UTC)
 * In general, the Wikipedia expectation is that sanctions stop future disruption rather than merely punish past misdeeds. So if Lugnuts were to do zero to help clean-up the past mess but also were to cause zero future disruption, I would not like this but would also not suggest he should face a sanction for the choice. Barkeep49 (talk) 17:40, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

Comments by IP 2601
There is now a topic ban for Lugnuts being voted on by the Arbitrators right now. It targets the areas where Lugnuts is most problematic (behavior in deletion discussions and mass-creation of articles). 2601:647:5800:1A1F:7D84:4818:D907:69B5 (talk) 17:13, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

Conclusions
This case has shown that the community has been unable to deal with unhelpful conduct in deletion discussions, despite years and years of attempts to resolve this issue. Most likely, these issues will continue, just with different editors. Hopefully we have learned our lesson though: That we need more diverse, richer participation at XFD to help balance out the conduct issues of specific editors, and that we need to move past "inclusionism" and "deletionism" to get to a more mesopedian kind of deletion. After all, the reason we do deletion is to make Wikipedia a better encyclopedia. Everything else is peripheral. 2601:647:5800:1A1F:81D5:6D64:11E:646B (talk) 17:46, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Comments by Mellohi!
I would like to ask for a little clarification on Thirteen's incoming topic ban. Is he allowed to edit articles nominated for deletion (to say, copyedit or add sources) but not comment in or about the discussions? The ban states that he is banned from deletion discussions "broadly construed" but nothing about the nominated articles themselves. — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 03:36, 30 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Discussions are a key phrase there. So ARS about an article up for nomination is out, improving the article itself is probably OK. Barkeep49 (talk) 03:43, 30 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I appreciate the clarification; thank you. — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 03:46, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

Notes from Guerillero
If you would like indef blocks to be a possibility for enforcement, you will need to propose an alt to the standard enforcement boilerplate -- Guerillero  Parlez Moi 11:06, 30 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I assume you are referring to my comments here, but is it not true that eventually "escalating block length" will result in an indefinite block? Primefac (talk) 13:25, 30 July 2022 (UTC)
 * The standard enforcement provision only allows for escalation up to a 1-year block duration. Guerillero appears to be correct to me. IznoPublic (talk) 13:51, 30 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Fair enough, I will strike my comment. Primefac (talk) 13:52, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

Comments by Sistorian
I have been reading the proposed principles and I am pleased that 1-4 and 6-7 have all passed. These are very sensible ideas which will enhance the project. I would, however, alter the opening words of (2) to "Disagreement is unavoidable".

I am not happy about (5) because I think the bludgeoning issue needs further thought. The proposals seem too vague to be satisfactorily implemented. I would suggest that each editor is given one opportunity to state their views and, if necessary, cast a vote. They should not then return to the discussion unless someone asks them personally a specific question. This may seem a drastic measure but it would solve the issue, although the constraint may be the inhibition of useful dialogue, but that could be pursued at the editors' own talk pages. An alternative approach could be to have all discussion pages structured as on this page, wherein everybody must confine their comments to their own sub-section instead of making direct responses immediately below the comments made by other editors. Within their sections, editors should refrain from repetition of their arguments.

I cannot comment on the cases in the fact finding and remedy sections but I think it is very important that people working on a project like this encyclopaedia must treat each other with respect and civility although I know, as I said above, disagreements about content are inevitable. I think people who are disruptive should be suspended for their first two offences and then banned. Perhaps a seven-day suspension for a first offence, then a one-month suspension for the second. If they offend again after those, then I would support the principle of three strikes and out with an indefinite ban for the third offence which may be appealed after every twelve months, as in the ban remedy wordings. Topic bans are an interesting idea but, as this site is run by volunteers, I am not confident that policing would be effective.

Sistorian (talk) 16:17, 30 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your comments. The principles in this case are not intended to be a prescriptive statement about changes to how the project ought to run in the future; rather, they're descriptive statements about pre-existing project norms. They are not in themselves binding except insofar as they summarize or clarify existing policy. It's therefore not within our remit to mandate a change to the AfD process. Best, KevinL ( aka L235 · t · c) 21:06, 30 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I understand. Thank you, . Sistorian (talk) 03:06, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

I agree with Paul MacDonald about Kevin's suggestion. A project like this must do all it can to ensure its content is credible. I have played cricket for many years and, looking through some of Lugnuts' pages, I am interested in this list of women cricketers. Most if not all of the names are familiar to me but, with perhaps a few exceptions, I have to say I would not expect them to be the subjects of encyclopaedia articles. Let us face facts, you will not find them in Britannica. Taking one example, Jackie Clark, this article has only three lines with an information box. Of the three sources, one is a dead link, one is a closed statistical database and one is an open statistical database. I really do not think you could say much more about Jackie. You could, I suppose, itemise her performances on a match-by-match basis but who would want to read that? Especially as the same statistical sources would be deployed and you could not describe her skills or technique except by recalling your own personal observations? Which would be original research, no?

I have been made to feel very welcome since I joined Wikipedia and I have had mixed feelings about everything I have read in these cases. Some comments have made me laugh but, on the whole, I must say I am saddened by and concerned about the disruption that gave rise to the cases. I agree with most of the outcomes but have reservations about others, such as the bludgeoning issue I mentioned above. If Kevin's idea about the Lugnuts articles should be taken forward, I would like to assist if I can. I am still very much on the learning curve but I am finding that help and explanation is always available. Practice and experience are what I need. Please let me know if I can help.

Sistorian (talk) 16:20, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Comments by Sdrqaz
I can't help but be dismayed to see that part of your voting rationale at Remedy 7 (Lugnuts banned) is that they refused to change their signature. was (as far as I can see) first asked in December 2017 to change their signature. That was archived without response (January 2018), prompting another message, a removal without comment, another message and a reversal saying "please leave me alone". Subsequent messages were left in May 2018, January 2019, January/February 2020 (a, b; ending with this conversation), December 2020, April 2021, and October 2021. It took nearly four years and six different editors (and a bot being approved) to get them to change their signature.

While to Maxim's credit they aren't using that as part of their rationale (rather, they are voting against the proposed remedy) and hasn't edit-warred to change markup (at least as far as I'm aware), this discrepancy in outcomes is disappointing. Sdrqaz (talk) 12:36, 31 July 2022 (UTC)


 * I suppose it's a bit moot now with Lugnuts's exit. But I wanted to say,, that I appreciate the note. I think with this context I would have focused less on the signature behavior in my vote comment, but I also think Lugnuts's behavior was uniquely aggravating and illustrative of the broader concerns I brought up in terms of collaborative behavior and collegiality. (The arbitrator's behavior and Lugnuts's behavior were not directly comparable for a few reasons, which I think is one of the reasons we hesitate to allow OTHERSTUFF arguments.) That remedy was definitely my toughest vote and I spent several hours thinking about just it. Sadly I think we were proven correct. Best, KevinL ( aka L235 · t · c) 18:53, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Writing on the merits of Remedy 7 from the perspective of a new page reviewer patrolling Lugnuts's articles following their loss of  but prior to the mass changes to NSPORTS, I found their creations easy to review – for the ones I did, they met the applicable notability guideline and I don't believe I ever had to tag any of their pages for orphaning issues, miscategorisation etc. This was helped by the fact that unlike many article creators, Lugnuts also did WikiProject tagging in tandem with the articles.

The "burden" (if it could ever be called that) on the New Pages Patrol may have looked significant on the surface due to the volume of creations, but a closer look revealed that there was not much work to be done on our part.

I would find it unfair to blame Lugnuts for working within the notability guidelines as written and therefore view Remedy 7 as disproportionate, especially in light of their more fleshed-out (and peer-reviewed) contributions as of late. At their very core, bans are meant to protect the encyclopaedia from further disruption. Given the more tailored measures passing, I view a site ban as an unnecessarily blunt instrument in this instance and unduly punitive. Sdrqaz (talk) 00:48, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

Comments by 78.26
just for what it’s worth, the original topic ban for Lugnuts was set at new articles under 500 words, because that was the minimum DYK requirement. However, that was in error because minimum DYK is actually 1500 characters, which roughly translates to just over 250 words (I used word count for Carmen y Laura to try to digger it out.). I guess this is a point of order, but the assumption used in the original topic ban is incorrect. 78.26 (spin me / revolutions) 16:55, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

Comments by Weeklyd3
Looking at the chart on the page (scroll down to Proposed Remedies to see it), it looks like TenPoundHammer, 7&6=thirteen, and Johnpacklambert won't get banned. However, the proposal to ban Lugnuts passed. This wasn't really what I was looking for. I was hoping everyone, especially someone with over 1.5 million edits and a lot of experience, would learn from their mistakes and would be allowed to continue. If the pages turn out unfixable, there's a tool for mass deleting them. Thanks, weeklyd3  ( block &#124; talk &#124; contributions) 18:47, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

Comments by Ingratis
I second Sdrqaz's and weeklyd3's comments to the effect that the proposed banning of Lugnuts was excessive (although he has since burnt his own boats), and out of step with the non-banning of the other three named parties, particularly JPL, who it seems from the evidence has annoyed considerably more people. Regarding the proposed RfC I have to say that I have no confidence in its achieving anything except to give yet another field of display to the deletionist wikilawyers presently so much in evidence - really the last thing needed. Ingratis (talk) 05:06, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Comments by BusterD
I'm unexpectedly impressed by the principles espoused and I think this process has moved the pedia forward. Nice drafting, response to feedback. I rarely get the chance to blow smoke up arbitrators' patoots, but at least in principle this is fine work product. Thanks to all involved. BusterD (talk) 12:50, 4 August 2022 (UTC)