Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Infoboxes/Review/Proposed decision

Active arbitrators for this case
Active:

Inactive:

Recused:

Expected date of PD
I've not seen any date for when the proposed decision will be made available. Could we get an estimated date for this? Thanks. // coldacid (talk&#124;contrib) 14:31, 10 February 2015 (UTC)
 * According to Arbitration/Current 13 Feb. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 14:46, 10 February 2015 (UTC)
 * According to Courcelles at WP:AC/CN, 17 February. Thryduulf (talk) 14:58, 10 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Yeah, evidence closes tonight at 0000 UTC; and PD's are targeted for a week after evidence closure. Courcelles 16:08, 10 February 2015 (UTC)
 * So sounds like 18 February, then. // coldacid (talk&#124;contrib) 16:41, 10 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I should clarify that -- given that evidence closes at the end of day UTC, seven days later means PD should be up before 0000 UTC 18 February 2015 (or afternoon to evening in North America on the 17th). Sorry, I'm getting a bit confused myself here. // coldacid (talk&#124;contrib) 16:46, 10 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, it looks like I'm spending 14 hours (if there's no traffic!) on an Interstate tomorrow (the 17th). So, while I have an outline of a PD, and likely could finish it with another 3-4 hours of work, there is absolutely zero chance of me posting it on the 17th.  Courcelles 00:10, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
 * The PD is now posted for voting. Courcelles (talk) 06:37, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Analysis of evidence
Despite the notice stating "Arbitrators may analyze evidence and other assertions at /Workshop, which is open for comment by parties, Arbitrators, and others", the Workshop page remains a dead link.

So where are we to make analyses of the evidence presented? There is much unsubstantiated mud-slinging among the evidence and, as usual, the process can only benefit from teasing out the many untruths and fact-free assertions being made there. --RexxS (talk) 22:03, 10 February 2015 (UTC)


 * That's the standard notice; I had asked this earlier of Courcelles and the response was that the motion authorizing the review explicitly stated there'd be no workshop. Discussion link // coldacid (talk&#124;contrib) 22:21, 10 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Did understand that it would remove the opportunity to analyse the evidence? Or perhaps he welcomes cutting out the stage where the patent nonsense can be exposed for what it is? That would certainly to speed up this kangaroo court process. --RexxS (talk) 23:32, 10 February 2015 (UTC)
 * You might want to reacquaint yourself with the motion for review before making such insinuations or accusations against . // coldacid (talk&#124;contrib) 03:06, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
 * No thanks, I'm fully aware of what was written:


 * Would it help you if I repeated what I asked? I'm not asking for a Workshop. I'm asking for a place to analyse the evidence. The rubbish that's been allowed to be presented uncritically deserves to be shown for what it is. I'm not making any insinuations. I'm stating quite bluntly that he either didn't consider where we would analyse the collection of bullcrap masquerading as "evidence"; or that he wanted to make sure said bullcrap wouldn't be subjected to critical scrutiny and the presenters cross-examined. I've always found Courcelles a nice enough guy - especially when I met him - so I'd prefer to believe the former. But if the "evidence" doesn't get analysed, it will go a long way to confirming my suspicion that there's a predetermined result which would be jeopardised by a transparent process. That seems to fit what a kangaroo court is, doesn't it? --RexxS (talk) 05:26, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
 * (speaking as a normal editor here, as I'm recused) I would say that analysis of evidence is a "relevant comment" that may be made "on the /review talk page". I'd say the Evidence talk page is probably the best location, doubly so if you link to your analysis from this page. Thryduulf (talk) 11:36, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
 * It would appear that one editor believes that the place to do so is the evidence page itself... I have some comments to make, and would be grateful for a clear a statement of where this should be done, such that it will be seen, read and considered by the arbs.  Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:43, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Do it right here, and, use the section below, and create a new one for the next person.  This is kind of a hack, but, I really don't care, and some analysis/views of evidence would be useful to me. Courcelles 03:20, 12 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Also, I got no pings, despite my name ebign linked twice above. Very odd. Courcelles 03:23, 12 February 2015 (UTC)
 * That's odd, not getting the pings. Did this one work? otherwise it's time to file a bug report! Anyway, I'd quite like to start doing an analysis of the evidence, but each time I find time to have a look, there are more posts made on the evidence page. If we could get a clear idea of when the Evidence will actually be closed, I could plan some time to make a start. Cheers --RexxS (talk) 23:34, 13 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Okay, that ping worked. The evidence page said fairly clearly evidence closed on the 10th; not sure why people were still adding to it, but I've fully protected it to enforce the closure of the evidence phase. Courcelles 01:38, 14 February 2015 (UTC)
 * (ec) I was the last one adding a section there. It was still open.  I was aware of the stated close date at the top, but there's been confusion on dates in this case (including inconsistent statements on PD date in section above) and about process, with this "Review" being unusual.  And about the date of closing for evidence, there was suggestion of one extension between a date expected by editor Ruhrfisch vs. the top-stated date, and I assumed the closing date had been changed again.  I've thought that deadlines to close here are enforced by clerk closing/protecting pages, if the deadlines are real.  And I think there was no activity yet at next stage (decision) page yet, too., Anyhow, it was in fact open, and I changed my mind about not offering evidence, and posted there, in good faith believing evidence phase was still open. -- do  ncr  am  06:40, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
 * No big deal, Doncram. This whole process is a bit strange to all of us, having not done one in literally years.  (And as evidenced by none of the templates we use knowing what to do with the extra / in the page's name.) Courcelles (talk) 06:44, 17 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Anyone wanting to provide analysis of evidence, please do so in the next 24-36 hours. The PD is likely to be published Wednesday. Courcelles (talk) 06:33, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Infobox GB station
AussieLegend hypothesises that I will "nominate the pesky Infobox GB station again... despite having been kept at TfD twice". While he offers this conjecture under the heading "evidence", he is in fact correct; I intend to (specifically, for merger into Infobox station). However, he provides no evidence that this is in any way inappropriate. The previous TfD was in March 2012 - three years ago; and plenty of time for consensus to change, In any case, it was for a merger with different templates. That TfD was closed with a, by the closing admin, to the possibility of the templates being renominated for merging at some point. Once nominated, whether and how to merge the templates will be a matter for the community to decide, and of course AussieLegend can have his say in that discussion. That he includes the possibility in his "evidence" further underlines the point made by me and others, that this process is being used in an attempt to stifle legitimate discussion. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:17, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Alleged insults
Rschen7754 claims that I have been "insulting", but his evidence shows no such thing, One diff has me using the word "poppycock", to describe a proposal (not a person) that I should not be the person to nominate a particular template for deletion. in other words, my response is to an ad homnem comment, and as such is proportionate. The same is true of my description of a baseless insinuation that I have "something against the Irish" (itself an ad hominem comment which should not have been allowed) as "farcical". As others have done, I invite everyone to view the diffs presented and not merely take the false assertions made about them at face value. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:25, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Geobox
Ruhrfisch objects to my asking whether there is community consensus to deprecate certain uses of Geobox (an unusual template, in that it applies to rivers, boroughs, buildings, and a variety of other topics) in favour of more specific infoboxes, that already exist, such as infobox settlement or Infobox river or infobox building. There has already been community consensus to remove its features for other subjects, such as mountains. His objection is curious, given that in March January 2012, :

"if you want to get rid of Geobox, then 1) fix the infoboxes so they can do everything Geobox can, and 2) make sure it is as easy as possible to convert from one to the other, then ask again"

and that is exactly what I am doing. He apparently now seeks to prevent the community from being asked this reasonable question.

He also suggests that "Arbcom could put a wait limit (at least a year before reopening a Tfd?)", even though TfDs often close with a recommendation that the template concerned be renominated for merger with another template (example). Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:48, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Harry's response to Doncram
I endorse everything said by Harry Mitchell in Response to Doncram. My evidence on canvassing, which precedes Doncram's, rebuts everything he (Doncram) says about that activity. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:55, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Twinkle notifications
I have previously attempted to start a community discussion of the handling of TfD notifications, either made manually or with Twinkle, in order to balance demands that interested parties be notified, vs. perceptions of intrusion in articles, but got no responses. I would be happy to do so again. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:16, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Infobox SBTVD standard
A significant part of Mardus's evidence is his allegation that my nomination of Infobox SBTVD standard was in some way improper. Since he posted that, the community has reached consensus that the template should be merged into Infobox technology standard. This, and all instances have been replaced ; all without drama. I note that Mardus did not contribute to that TfD discussion. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:44, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Infobox Ireland station
My contention was that the closer of the TfM was written in such a way that certain parameters would not be included, as I had proposed. At my request, he reviewed his close, revising it and noting "The [original] close didn't address the parameters that the nom mentions to be discarded or merged, and the original close 'merge as proposed' would also mean leaving out those parameters". Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 09:15, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Infobox disease
SandyGeorgia lists a number of diffs, where I was applying the outcome of a legitimate TfD, on Infobox medical condition, closed by an uninvolved admin as "redirect after merging [into Infobox disease]". Her list of diffs is incomplete.

She omits to mention:


 * 22:45 Jan 17 a second revert of my edit

She stops her list at at an arbitrary point where, as she puts it, I "start another talk section" (my emphasis), but omits:


 * 12:03 Jan 17 my subsequent edit

just two minutes later, where I merged the two sections in question; not having previously noticed that there was already a discussion in progress.

She omits:


 * 15:17, 18 Feb her denial of the consensus at that TfD

and she omits:


 * 16:59, 18 Feb her call for Infobox disease to be deleted (i.e. in favour of having no infobox on disease articles)

She then omits to mention that Discussion on how to apply that TfD continues on the talk page to this day. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:50, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Analysis of Evidence by RexxS
One of the things that stands out in the evidence submitted is the paucity of neutral commentary. Contributors are either wholly critical of Andy or just as completely supportive. I suspect that is in the nature of what has developed into an adversarial system of arbitration here on the English Wikipedia.

I'll lay out the sides as I see them. I won't ping the names on the assumption that everyone interested will be following anyway:

Criticism

 * Francis Schonken criticises Andy for a confrontational approach to TfD, but supplies only one diff and that is a link to Andy's evidence in this case. The "clueless" ad hominem is not helpful and his sarcastic conclusion that Andy doesn't understand outcome of the original case is unsupported by any evidence.
 * Rschen7754 suggests that Andy's presence at TFD has been inflammatory and adduces as evidence that Andy recently renominated a template for merging that he previously nominated in 2011. Although Rschen7754 acknowledges that the four year old discussion was controversial, he asserts that as a reason not to look at the merge now. The diff he provides shows that the previous discussion was closed as "No Consensus" and it is difficult to see the reasoning why we shouldn't re-examine the question of whether Template:Infobox Australian road could be merged into Template:Infobox road after this length of time.
 * Rschen7754 also points out that Andy used the phrase "Poppycock" in the latest discussion on that template merger proposal and in another discussion responded to Dirtlawyer1's "your snarkiness and sarcasm" by calling them as "facile arguments". These are not strong examples of the rudeness that Rschen7754 asserts.


 * Cryptic suggests that Andy made an unreasonable request for a deletion review, claiming that opinion was unanimously against his proposal. I have already refuted that in my evidence where I pointed out that of the four editors commenting, one was in favour of a merger, but into a different infobox; one agreed to the merger as long as the merged infobox could distinguish between Oxford and Cambridge colleges; one simply opposed as an unnecessary change; and one simply attacked Andy. It was a non-admin close by an editor with less than six months experience on Wikipedia. It is hard to see how asking for a DRV in those circumstances should be labelled as "unreasonable".
 * Mardus claims that Andy nominates too many templates for deletion that are useful and asserts this is disruptive, but supplies no diffs to support.
 * Mardus suggests that Andy nominates many templates for merger as redundant to more general ones. His reason is that specific templates are created because general ones are insufficient or are locked and believes the proliferation of templates to be a good thing. He offers no evidence to support his view.
 * Mardus accuses Andy of not discussing his nominations at TfD at each template's talk page before making the TfD and gives multiple examples. he also wants nominations at TfD to be preceded by discussion with the template users, creators and long-term editors. He fails to supply any policy, guidance or precedent for any such requirement being made on anybody who makes a nomination to Templates for Discussion. he then characterises Andy as lacking in good faith because he makes the nominations directly to TfD.
 * Mardus makes a series of appallingly bad-faith accusations about Andy's motives and accuses him of making "meritless accusations of canvassing". He gives as an example Templates for discussion/Log/2014 December 6 where Andy complains of canvassing at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Eurovision/Archive 13 . The notice to the Wikiproject begins "There are a lot of contest templates being nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2014 December 6, all with ridiculous reasons behind each of them", and continues with a list of three nominations along with Wesley Mouse's reasons for opposing them. It seems improbable that anyone who reads that notice could fail to conclude that it breaches the requirement at WP:CANVASS that Notifications must be polite, neutrally worded with a neutral title, clear in presentation, and brief, yet Mardus insists that Andy's complaint was meritless.


 * Ruhrfisch argues that Andy's restrictions should include the act of replacing one infobox with another. He offers four previous discussions of the issue at AE, none of which concluded with any action taken against Andy.
 * Ruhrfisch states that he filed the fourth request because Andy proposed to replace the Geobox template by Infobox settlement at the talk page of Geobox - to which Ruhrfisch is opposed. This could be considered a prime example of attempting to use Andy's sanctions as a weapon to remove him from a discussion by an opponent.
 * Ruhrfisch makes six suggestions that ArbCom ought to consider; all of which seem constructive, but it is difficult to predict if they would be effective unless tried out.


 * AussieLegend contends that Andy is uncollaborative because he doesn't have prior discussions with the users and maintainers of templates, although he brings no evidence to show why that should be required, nor how it could be practically implemented.
 * AussieLegend criticises Andy for making nominations at TfD using Twinkle, which fails to add the Infobox to relevant nominations. (It's worth noting at this point that Twinkle also fails to notify the creator of the target template when one template is nominated for merger into another, another source of criticism of Andy.) This has lead to annoyance and AussieLegend gives an example.
 * AussieLegend criticises Andy for insufficient research before nomination at TfD and gives three examples. He gives detail on two other discussions where he criticises Andy for claiming consensus was with him, but subsequent discussion reached the opposite conclusion.

Support

 * Nyttend points out that the original case arose from disputes over whether articles should have infoboxes and makes an argument that the disruption occurred in changing from articles having no infobox to having one (or vice-versa), and there was no concern over making changes to articles that already had an infobox. He provides no diffs for this reasoning, so it may be helpful to quickly re-read Arbitration/Requests/Case/Infoboxes to make up your mind on his argument.
 * Nyttend links to an AE discussions where Andy's changing of one infobox for another was dismissed as "no violation" of his restrictions. That tends to reinforce his assertion that there was never any intention to ban Andy from changing from one infobox to another.
 * Nyttend also refers to an AE request that suggested that if Andy nominated an infobox template for discussion, it would breach his restrictions. The outcome of that debate was not to take action against Andy when he participates in TfD.


 * MontanaBW suggests that the restrictions have lead to Andy being hounded and baited in unrelated areas and supplies diffs where some editors have shown a pattern of consistent opposition to Andy at TfD, along with diffs where they have personalised the discussions.
 * MontanaBW catalogues some experiences working with Andy where they have disagreed but been able to debate civilly, giving the example of Template:Infobox U.S. county; and also where Andy has been helpful in removing useless templates, mentioning one that had only two transclusions. She suggests that Andy is improving Wikipedia by cleaning up redundant or useless templates.


 * Ched provides diffs and links that demonstrate Andy's commitment to the Wikipedia movement and the high regard in which he is held for his offline work for Wikipedia.
 * Ched asserts that Andy has been subject to hostility and provides diffs to illustrate. He particularly suggests that Andy's restrictions have been used against him, even when he has not breached them, and gives an example.


 * PC-XT makes the point that TfD is the place for discussion of templates, if they are considered for merger, deletion or improvement. This is Wikipedia policy.
 * PC-XT suggests that Andy sometimes unfairly gets blame and gives an example.
 * PC-XT explains that he finds Andy hard to understand at times, sometimes terse, but also says that Andy has been willing to understand PC-XT's reasoning and he considers Andy a valuable member of the community.
 * My evidence contains a refutation of Cryptic's and AussieLegend's, with links and diffs to support.
 * My evidence includes an assessment of the growth of infoboxes and their importance to the encyclopedia and its sister projects, as well as to outside parties.
 * My evidence asserts that the results of the previous case have included a number of occasions where good-faith additions of infoboxes by editors unconnected with the earlier case have been reverted relying on the authority of a WikiProject to decide that issue for all editors. I cited Ludwig van Beethoven from two months ago, but the same problem can be seen at Talk:Frédéric Chopin where an editor who raises the question is fobbed off with misleading statements. I end up in conflict because I'm not prepared to see decent editors treated in this way.
 * My evidence concludes that it's a pity that the review isn't reviewing what has happened with infoboxes since the case, and seems merely focussed on whether or not to apply more sanctions to Andy.
 * Gerda Arendt re-affirms her evidence in the original case and comments on how the infobox debate has moved forward in some areas.
 * Littleolive oil states that she has found Andy to be knowledgeable and an asset to Wikipedia and criticises his restrictions as "one-sided". She criticises AussieLegend for holding Andy to higher standards than other editors. She supplies no diffs.
 * Andy criticises the restriction that prevents him from creating new articles with infoboxes as "punitive, not preventative" and claims that ArbCom's sanctions have not prevented the activities of those opposed to infoboxes. No diffs are provided.
 * Andy claims that he has abided by his restrictions, pointing out that no case has shown him breaching the sanctions and no action has been taken against him as a result. That does support his claim.
 * Andy supplies background to show his contributions to multiple Wikipedias and his efforts in training new editors. He shows examples of giving advice when asked about technical matters and of mutual collaboration with other editors.
 * Andy complains that opponents use his existing sanctions to discredit him in unrelated discussions and gives examples, including an allegation that another editor stalked his edits over four nominations and provides prima facie evidence.
 * Andy further states that no sanctions have been breached and that the evidence presented in the case offers nothing that he should be sanctioned for. In examining the evidence of the detractors, there does seem a remarkable abundance of assertions coupled with a remarkable lack of hard evidence.
 * Andy admits that he is often brief in his replies, but states that his tone is not rude. He admits that he snaps back under provocation, but that these issues have never risen to the level of admin sanctions being imposed.
 * Andy goes on to describe his efforts over several years to reduce the unmanageable proliferation of templates by merging wherever possible. Martijn's evidence shows that Andy has generally been successful in this clean-up work, but in some cases Andy claims he has faced strong opposition, including those who want to move the discussions from TfD to other venues and the problems caused by canvassing. The diffs he provides support those claims.

Neutral commentary

 * Martijn Hoekstra brings statistics showing that Andy makes a lot of nominations at TfD and contributes to numerous debates there; and most of the time discussions closed in line with his view. He doesn't provide diffs, but links to User:Martijn Hoekstra/Infobox statistical analyses and offers review of his methods.
 * Martijn describes Andy's communication style as terse, containing insufficient explanation, and suggests that it may lead to misunderstandings, supplying multiple examples of different results, such as being interpreted as hostility.
 * Martijn supplies diffs of Andy resorting to reversion in place of discussion.
 * Martijn makes a series of recommendations at User:Martijn Hoekstra/infobox recommendations that may be helpful in moving forward positively in this review.

Summary
I'm running out of time, so I can't devote the time I would wish to the contributions by Choess, Harry Mitchell and Doncram, but Harry effectively replied to Doncram, so it may be best to leave that there.

If the purpose of this review was solely to examine whether further sanctions should be applied to Andy, then it's been a colossal waste of time because there's nothing sanctionable presented as evidence.

It's a pity there's no workshop because there are a number of issues brought out that deserve further exploration. The purpose of the original case was to prevent disruption at articles that had no infobox when one was added against the wishes of the writers of that article. ArbCom removed the disruption by banning one side. The original problem remained of course: we can't give a veto to the writers because our encyclopedia chooses to put the readers first and they seem to like infoboxes.

On a practical note, ArbCom could look at some of Martijn's and Ruhrfisch's suggestions as they are the only ones made. Many of those are likely to be helpful in moving forward. If it's any help, I regularly counsel Andy to step away from confrontations, and I'm happy to continue to do so. I can state with conviction that Andy does listen to advice and doesn't need coercion to contribute positively to Wikipedia. Perhaps the Arbs can see ways to maximise Andy's value to the project and minimise these sort of confrontational episodes, such as this review, that are such a drain on everyone. You know that each person who has contributed to the review firmly believes that they are acting in the best interests of Wikipedia as they perceive them, so solutions that reduce the problems are better than those that seep it under the carpet and store up those problems for later. --RexxS (talk) 21:28, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Analysis of Evidence by Ruhrfisch
Despite the name, this review is not about Infoboxes per se, but about one editor, Pigsonthewing, who is subject to editing restrictions as a result of the Infoboxes case, namely "Pigsonthewing is indefinitely banned from adding, or discussing the addition or removal of, infoboxes." As I said in my evidence, different editors have interpreted this differently, so I am glad ArbCom is (hopefully) going to clarify the restriction.

It is worth noting the first Arbitration Enforcement request was filed by Nucelar Warfare, who was one of the Arbs on the original Infoboxes case, and became aware of Potw's Tfd infobox deletion nominations. The second was filed by Nikkimaria, over Potw fixing a malformed infobox. The third was filed by Wesley Mouse over Ptw's Tfd nominations, and both WM and Potw were admonished. No links to these AE requests were placed at the Infobox case, or at the Editing Restrictions page.

As for the fourth AE request, I watch Template:Geobox and when Potw proposed removing Geobox from several hundred articles, adding a different infobox, and deleting two of Geobox's functionalities, I saw this as a clear violation of his infobox editing restriction. Although I am an admin, I saw myself as involved and bought it to AE, which led to this Review. I have no idea how Potw and Rexxs claim to know my motivations (since we do not know each other IRL or interact much except for ArbCom fun), but their assertions are flat out wrong (that "Ruhrfisch objects to my asking whether there is community consensus to deprecate certain uses of Geobox" (Potw) and Rexxs sees my AR request as "a prime example of attempting to use Andy's sanctions as a weapon to remove him from a discussion by an opponent") - just to be clear I objected to what I saw as a violation of Potw's ban "discussing the addition or removal of, infoboxes".

I made some suggestions for Arbcom in my Evidence, since there is no workshop. I would clarify the fourth "If Potw wants to nominate an infobox (including Geobox) for deletion, then it has to be at WP:Tfd, and I would further add that he had to notify affected WikiProjects." Given the unusual nature of the Geobox template, I would charge the parenthetical statement to "(including any functionality in Geobox)", as otherwise I can see Potw arguing that nominating just a functionality is not nominating the Geobox template itself for deletion. I think the other suggestions are fairly clear, but would be glad to explain / clarify if ArbCom wants that input.

About half of my evidence in the original Infoboxes was about Potw and Geobox - see Arbitration/Requests/Case/Infoboxes/Evidence and Potw proposing removal of Geobox from some articles and deletion of a chunk of Geobox led to the AE request that led to this review.

In the Infobox decision, ArbCom stated in part at Arbitration/Requests/Case/Infoboxes that Potw "also selectively chooses what discussions he considers consensus". His analysis continues this selective behavior. Potw's original Tfd to delete Geobox closed with roughly 4 supports and 15 opposes (plus a number of comments, plus it was in January 2012, not March [Potw corrected this in his evidence, thanks]). Of all this, he only cites my conditional statement "if you want to get rid of Geobox, then 1) fix the infoboxes so they can do everything Geobox can, and 2) make sure it is as easy as possible to convert from one to the other, then ask again". While Potw says in his own Analysis on Infobox GB station that a Tfd was "...three years ago; and plenty of time for consensus to change" apparently I am bound for life by my slightly older statement. ;-) I know that I made a comment saying I had changed my mind somewhat later in a different place (and I believe I quoted and linked it somewhere in the massive discussions on the Infoboxes ArbCom case), but I cannot find that now. [I found it and pasted it below with a link to the original.] In any case, my experience is that Potw does NOT "fix the infoboxes so they can do everything Geobox can". As for Potw's assertion that "There has already been community consensus to remove its features for other subjects, such as mountains.", this was himself and one other editor in favor and myself opposed (over one month - see Template_talk:Geobox/Archive_9). I see this as a continuation of his selectively choosing what he considers as consensus.

While I really like Geobox, I am not opposed to it being brought up at Tfd, but I do object to the way Potw has tried to dismantle it piecemeal since his original Tfd to delete failed. This is why I made the (edited) suggestion that "If Potw wants to nominate an infobox (including any functionality in Geobox) for deletion, then it has to be at WP:Tfd, and I would further add that he had to notify affected WikiProjects." I also pointed out (late - sorry about that) in the Postscripts section of my own evidence that "Potw himself headed a section of his evidence "'Venue for template discussions is WP:TfD'", while his "friend IRL" Harry Mitchell headed a section of his evidence "'TfD is the proper venue for discussing templates'". Potw's actions speak louder than his words, and he has several times tried to delete parts of Geobox (which again is like deleting an infobox for a topic) in venues other than Tfd.

As for my suggestion 6 "Given complaints that Potw reopens Tfds that do not go his way, Arbcom could put a wait limit (at least a year before reopening a Tfd?) or some version of 1RR for Tfds for Potw", this was based on Cryptic's link to Potw's [merge] Tfd with 4 opposes here which Potw then brought to DRV diff. As I noted in my evidence, Potw often seems to have a hard time accepting when things do not go his way. I think anyone reading the Tfd would see it as a fairly emphatic rejection of Potw's proposal to merge two templates, despite Rexxs' tortured arguments otherwise. As for Potw's assertion in his evidence that some Tfd's "close with a recommendation that the template concerned be renominated for merger with another template", that is not the case here, and my proposal 6 (that Potw be barred from reopening Tfds for a period of time or taking them to DRV) in no way limits others from making such a renomination, if the close calls for it.

Finally I am often painted as being opposed to all infoboxes - here is something I wrote in the previous ArbCom case I stand by:


 * The right to say no

Many of our basic rights can be expressed as a right to say no. An election allows voters to say no to the candidates or leaders they do not want. Free speech is the right to disagree, to say "no, that is not what I think". Many protections of a civil society involve the rights of minorities to say no to the majority (no, children cannot work in factories; or no, you cannot enslave others; or no, you cannot stop me from voting, etc.).

On Wikipedia, ALL of the Five Pillars can be seen in some way as rights to say no:
 * What Wikipedia is not (No to all things not encyclopedic);
 * Neutral point of view (No to bias);
 * Wikipedia is free content (No to payment for or restrictions on use and re-use)
 * Civility (No to offensive language, no to ignoring the positions and conclusions of others, and no to attacking others)
 * Ignore all rules (No to any rule that prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia)

As far as infoboxes go, WP:INFOBOXUSE says in part "The use of infoboxes is neither required nor prohibited for any article. Whether to include an infobox, which infobox to include, and which parts of the infobox to use, is determined through discussion and consensus among the editors at each individual article." To me that says that editors have the right to say no (on occasion) to infoboxes. This applies to all sorts of articles, not just classical music. So Waterfalls in Ricketts Glen State Park and Horse Protection Act of 1970* and British military intervention in the Sierra Leone Civil War are all FAs and none of them have infoboxes, and that's OK.

I am not against infoboxes, per se (and most of the aticles I've nominated at FAC have a box of some sort). I am against any "one size fits all" solution, and I am in favor of editors having the right to say no to an infobox. I am also in favor of decisions being decided by consensus, and then allowed to stay that way. Let it stick, and don't bring it up over and over and over and over and over again ...

Ruhrfisch &gt;&lt;&gt; &deg; &deg; 06:07, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

* This article now has a box - I prefer the older version without one here, for example

I found where I changed my mind - it is here and I quote it as it is directly relevant to most of the Geobox dispute (the more things change, the more they stay the same). I am copying and pasting with the original time stamp, rather than dig out the diff. Ruhrfisch &gt;&lt;&gt; &deg; &deg; 12:59, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Found it!


 * My reply to Pigsonthewing is at Template_talk:Infobox_river and reads in part ". I have changed my mind (especially as I would have to do the work of updating the river articles I am the chief contributor to if this comes to pass). Wikipedia allows editors fairly wide leeway on how they do many different things here (please see WP:IAR). One example is that there are at least three different ways to cite references (with many similar but not identical templates). Are you going to "unify" those too?"
 * There are over 20,000 articles which use Geobox River - I know how long it took me to convert when the current version of the Geobox was introduced (diff) and assume conversion to Infobox River would be at least as time consuming. Even if it took only 1 minute per conversion, that would be about two weeks of work to convert all 20,000 plus Geobox River articles. Nor did Pigsonthewing bother to notify the users of Geobox River about his plan to deprecate that version of the Geobox.


 * In addition, please note that both Infobox mountain nor Infobox mountain range still CANNOT do everything that Geobox Mountain and Geobox mountain range did (i.e. Geobox mountain had parameters on the geology and geological period and who made the first ascent) . So much for my request that they first "fix the infoboxes so they can do everything Geobox can" and Pigsonthewings claim that this "is exactly what have been doing" sic. Ruhrfisch  &gt;&lt;&gt; &deg; &deg; 03:13, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Two of the four Arbitration Enforcement requests have ended with Arbcom's de facto recognition that Potw can nominate infoboxes at WP:Templates for discussion (to use its full name). Potw and HJ Mitchell both say that Tfd is the place to discuss templates. I was trying to codify this. As for the Geobox, Potw tried to delete it at Tfd in 2012, and since that failed, he has chosen other venues to try and remove parts of it that are the functional equivalent of deleting separate infoboxes. This includes proposing deprecating [i.e. eventually deleting] Geobox River (used at the time on over 20,000 articles) at the Infobox river talk page (and not on the Geobox talk page or Tfd - see here). Potw follows Arbcom sanctions when they are clear. I want to restrict his attempt to deleting Geobox to Tfd, because (quoting Potw) the "Venue for template discussions is WP:TfD". Ruhrfisch &gt;&lt;&gt; &deg; &deg; 17:05, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Reply to Martijn Hoekstra

My six suggestions are just that, and ArbCom can ignore or adopt or tweak them as it wishes. That said, I think Martijn may be misunderstanding me when he writes " I certainly don't look forward to a new policy where all changes to templates should be discussed at TfD." My suggestions dealing with Tfd (4 and 6) are only for Potw (who is the only subject of this review), and only my suggestion 4 requires he go to Tfd, and then only for deletion of a box (where I include deletion of Geobox functionality Foo). This is not "all changes". To try to be clearer, proposing removing a comma from a geobox would be OK, but proposing removing a whole class / functionality of Geobox outside Tfd would not (like Mountains or Mountain ranges or Rivers).
 * Reply to Martijn Hoekstra's reply (sorry)

I do dispute Martijn's assertion that "Potw also, after the TfD ended, worked on other templates to bring them to feature parity with Geobox. That's not disputed either, but there is nothing wrong with that either." While I agree there is nothing wrong with improving templates, I do note that Potw likes to say that the replacement is functionally equivalent to the deleted template, but for Geobox Mountain, Infobox mountain still does not have several specific parameters that Geobox Mountain had: six parameters on geology and geological period, plus parameters on people on the mountain (i.e. who made the first ascent), as well a parameter for etymology of the name. These do not seem like they would be difficult to add to Infobox Mountain (and I have pointed this out before).

Potw was also certainly allowed to propose deleting any template he wished to (at least before his infobox editing restriction). However, as far as proposing deprecation of Geobox River, why propose this at a completely different template's talk page? Why post "I want to delete Template A" at Template B's talk page, but not at Template A's talk page (when Template A is used on thousands of articles)? Or why not post the proposed deletion at the talk page of the one WikiProject devoted to the subject of both templates (rivers)? My feeling is that the pattern here is the same as AussieLegend notes in their analysis of Infobox GB station "By chipping away at smaller infoboxes one at a time, Andy is able to more easily get rid of a larger infobox...".

Ruhrfisch &gt;&lt;&gt; &deg; &deg; 21:48, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Analysis of Evidence by Martijn Hoekstra
I wasn't planning to use this, because I thought everything that needed to be said was already said, but the analyses above by Ruhrfish makes me believe otherwise. They propose the following: "If Potw wants to nominate an infobox (including any functionality in Geobox) for deletion, then it has to be at WP:Tfd" I believe the proposal comes down to:


 * If Potw wants to nominate an infobox for deletion, this has to be at WP:TfD
 * If Potw wants to propose as change to Geobox, and if this change would remove functionality from that template, this change must be discussed at WP:TfD

The first is entirely superfluous and unneeded. The second is very problematic. Discussing changing the functionality of a template is a matter of the templates talkpage itself, and moving every such discussion to TfD would be way too heavy weight process. Making this a process for a single template and a single editor is an even worse idea. What's sauce for the goose, and all that. Unless we are willing to funnel all such changes by anyone through TfD - and hopefully we're not - we shouldn't do it for this editor for this template either. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 10:04, 18 February 2015 (UTC)


 * "Potw and HJ Mitchell both say that Tfd is the place to discuss templates", yes, it is, for deletion and merge proposals. But not for changes in a template itself. I doubt you really disagree with this. I certainly don't look forward to a new policy where all changes to templates should be discussed at TfD.
 * "As for the Geobox, Potw tried to delete it at Tfd in 2012, and since that failed, he has chosen other venues to try and remove parts of it that are the functional equivalent of deleting separate infoboxes." Well, that's a matter of perspective, isn't it.
 * Potw opened a discussion on whether the template should be deleted in 2012, arguing that it should, that's undisputed, but there is nothing wrong with that.
 * The TfD closed as no consensus.
 * Potw also, after the TfD ended, worked on other templates to bring them to feature parity with Geobox. That's not disputed either, but there is nothing wrong with that either.
 * Potws edited Geobox, removing the Mountain and Mountain range parts in this edit. He did this after there were no uses of the mountain functionality anymore for over a year. There has been extensive requests for further input from Potw on Geobox' talk page about the issue over the span of a year and there was no opposition. I don't construe that as disruptive, or as going against either the spirit or the letter of the closed TfD - I think here we disagree. If I'm reading you correctly you believe that when the discussion on deleting the template closed as no consensus, that meant there was consensus not to remove any functionality from Geobox, or that any such changes should go through TfD again. I don't think that's the case. But there was no sneaky behind the scenes trying to push through here. Just look at Template_talk:Geobox/Archive_9:
 * "I therefore propose to add any necessary parameters to the latter, convert the 63 articles, and deprecate then remove the type from Geobox" - 16 March 2012
 * "No response, so I'm going to mark such use as deprecated, for now." - 14 April 2012
 * ... multiple other notifications and invitations to discussion
 * "As discussed some time ago, all instances of Geobox for range and mountain categories have been converted to Infobox mountain range and Infobox mountain. Many thanks to Hike395 for undertaking this tiresome task. The relevant functionality should now be removed from Geobox." 19 May 2013
 * no opposition after two additional nudges
 * "This feature has been unused or the best part of a year. I've now removed the code." -- 19 April 2014
 * To claim there is anything backhanded, wrong, or sneaky about removing the code after no opposition while actively soliciting feedback for two years isn't reasonable.
 * "This includes proposing deprecating [i.e. eventually deleting] Geobox River (used at the time on over 20,000 articles) at the Infobox river talk page (and not on the Geobox talk page or Tfd - see here)." PotW did propose this in 2013. Again, there is nothing wrong with proposing it. There was a lot of opposition, and PotW hasn't brought it up since.
 * "This includes proposing deprecating [i.e. eventually deleting] Geobox River (used at the time on over 20,000 articles) at the Infobox river talk page (and not on the Geobox talk page or Tfd - see here)." PotW did propose this in 2013. Again, there is nothing wrong with proposing it. There was a lot of opposition, and PotW hasn't brought it up since.

Taking this all together, I can't say I see anything wrong with PotWs behaviour on proposing, discussing and enacting changes to Geobox, and I see no reason to restrict his completely reasonable and productive work there. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 18:06, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

In the statistical analysis, I made sure there were no closes by myself. It's in the linked method, which is there explicitly for transparency. I welcome criticism about the method I used to obtain it, but I do ask you to look at the method used before criticizing it. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 16:01, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

I think you're misunderstanding what I tried to say. I did not use any of my own closes in the statistical evidence, and I don't use any of my own closes as an argument for anything. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 16:27, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

, you are saying again that I used my own closes in my statistical analysis. I did not do so. Please stop saying I did. I'm not sure how I can be clearer about this. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 09:06, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

I can see how when I didn't put "ignoring my own closes" there lead you to believe I didn't do that. But I did. I said so multiple times now. I've told you there is a link to the method used. It shows exactly which closes I skipped because I closed them myself. So stop repeating this lie. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 09:19, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Analysis by Gerda
(ec, and I also wasn't planning to come here.) Short reply to Ruhrfisch: True, the infoboxes case was not about infoboxes. It should have been about reverts of infoboxes, the reason for it to be requested. Arbitration failed to look at that, the decision was based on limited evidence. Can we finally let go of that past? After 2013 ("The editor was converting a collapsed metadata box at the bottom of the article into an uncollapsed infobox at the top of the article." - remember: a diff presented by an arb as a reason to ban Andy) and 2014 ("The edit was unproblematic and actually made Wikipedia better"), I would like not to have to ask arbcom candidates again questions about a misundersood edit by Andy. - It is evident, that in many cases where infoboxes were reverted or suggestions not accepted, they are in place now (Carmen, Handel, Rigoletto, Don Carlos, The Rite of Spring, Chopin), in other cases constructive discussions are under way ( Chopin, project composers), proving that the idea ("Curtains conceal, infoboxes reveal", by Nihil Novi) can't be killed by silencing a few people. - I love Floquenbeam's: "No foul, play on." --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:37, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

In the number of attempts to clarify the restriction in the 2013 case, kindly look at the talk of the decision also, where problems with the wording were raised first, and the amendment request of January 2014 --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:58, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

In response to Thryduulf: the number of clarifications is not important (4, or 7, or whatever), - what seems important is that from the start the "remedy" was disputed because it is unclear. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:57, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Two comments per discussion
I don't know if I was the first to come up with a remedy like this. I am subject to it, so can tell you first-hand experience. It saves time, you make your two comments and walk away to write articles, but you often have to leave a discussion being misunderstood. (The restriction has been interpreted as two comments on a topic, wherever. If I feel misunderstood, I can't resume on the other user's talk, I have to turn to email.) I think the whole infobox area would profit if all participants in a discussion would respectfully stick to two comments, and I dream of the day that those are new arguments ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:57, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Analysis of Evidence by PC-XT
I just discovered this page yesterday. I didn't have time to analyze all of the evidence, but here is what I have.

Relating to AussieLegend's rebuttal to Montanabw, I do not believe the hounding of Andy at TfD to be intentionally coordinated. Several editors who frequent TfD were sort of feeding off each others' negative comments across many discussions, which made it seem that way, but they didn't always seem to be in agreement. The side discussions between them and PotW were disruptive, though. It does not seem to be continuing at present.

The following are general notes relating to evidence presented about TfD, though not necessarily by any user in particular.

Since this has been brought up, Twinkle has 3 problems (some will say 4) which cause general TfD trouble, and not only for PotW: I personally try to correct for the tool as I am made aware of its problems, but I don't always remember to correct every problem. Others often do it for me without complaining. These problems have been around long enough for suggestions of improvement to be made, but so far they persist. A discussion on WT:TFD seems to be making progress.
 * 1) It has no option to add sidebar or infobox (or tiny.)
 * 2) It adds extra whitespace to the transclusions, which can be serious enough to break transclusions of previously working templates. Delete !votes have been based on such breakage, without knowing it was caused by Twinkle. (Sometimes manual tagging has the same problem, but not consistently, as with Twinkle.)
 * 3) It does not notify the creators of both templates in a merge discussion.
 * 4) It does not notify WikiProjects, though I'm not sure that is its responsibility. (It would be convenient, though.)
 * 5) Also, I forgot that Twinkle doesn't notify if it can't tag a page.

I consider accusations of PotW's preparation (or lack thereof) for nominations a matter of opinion. He thinks TfD is the place to bring out such questions and find answers for them, rather than on talk pages. Others think the proposal should be finished before proposing it. In practice, it's usually somewhere in between. I rarely ever find such accusations relevant to the discussions in which they are made. We tried to find consensus for a compromise on the TfD talk page.

—PC-XT+ 14:33, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Analysis of Evidence by AussieLegend
I'm not really familiar with this process, but it seems to me that analysis would best be done by those who are going to draft the proposed decision. Some of the analysis does bear commenting on though.

Infobox GB station
However, he provides no evidence that this is in any way inappropriate - Andy's edits in relation to this, and other, infoboxes are effectively stepping around WP:FAIT. By chipping away at smaller infoboxes one at a time, Andy is able to more easily get rid of a larger infobox and the recent TfM for Infobox Ireland station is a good example. If Infobox Ireland station had been merged into Infobox GB station as I suggested, it would have been much harder to get rid of Infobox GB station. Merging Infobox Ireland station into Infobox station has been problematic, and merging a combined Ireland/GB station would have been much more difficult. It's not the discussion or the nominations that are inappropriate, it's the back-door agenda that's the problem.

Alleged insults
Rschen7754 claims that I have been "insulting", but his evidence shows no such thing, - When I chastised Andy about making test edits in articles, his response to me was "Hypocrite", which I take as an insult given that it was completely unjustified.

Criticism

 * Rschen7754 ... adduces as evidence that Andy recently renominated a template for merging that he previously nominated in 2011. ... it is difficult to see the reasoning why we shouldn't re-examine the question of whether Template:Infobox Australian road could be merged into Template:Infobox road after this length of time. - As I've explained elsewhere, the template in question was last discussed in only 2013, with a specific aim to replace it with Infobox road. The template that Andy nominated is a lot different from the template that was discussed in 2011. I conducted a major rewrite of this infobox as a result of the 2013 discussion and since then it has undergone tweaking to further improve it. Andy is well aware of the 2013 discussion, only 19 months, not 4 years, prior to his most recent nomination.
 * AussieLegend contends that Andy is uncollaborative because he doesn't have prior discussions with the users and maintainers of templates, although he brings no evidence to show why that should be required, nor how it could be practically implemented. - I'm quite amazed that anyone could actually make this statement. If you want to discuss an article, go to the talk page. If you want to discuss a template, go to the talk page. That's why we have talk pages. For both articles and templates there are usually project banners on the talk page that will direct you to the end users. It's not rocket science. It's required because it's simple common decency and an integral part of collaboration.
 * AussieLegend ... gives detail on two other discussions where he criticises Andy for claiming consensus was with him, but subsequent discussion reached the opposite conclusion. The final part of that quote but subsequent discussion reached the opposite conclusion is not supported by the evidence that was presented. There was no consensus for Andy's changes to Infobox television episode and subsequent discussion confirmed that. Andy claimed that there was no consensus for links used in Infobox Ireland station to be included in Infobox station but the TfM closer clarified that there was no consensus not to include the links.
 * That you are amazed by my statement demonstrates your unfamiliarity with the deletion/merger processes on Wikipedia. Article talk pages are solely for the purpose of discussing improvements to an article. Template talk pages are solely for the purpose of discussing improvements to a template. When an article is proposed for deletion, the discussion takes place at the centralised venue "Articles for deletion" (AfD). When a template is proposed for deletion (or merger), the discussion takes place at the centralised venue "Templates for discussion" (TfD). If you could just learn to live with the process that we have established over many years, you'd find less frustration with editors who adhere exactly to that process. You might as well make the (unreasonable?) demand that every AfD has to be discussed on the article talk page first, because that's the exact analogy that you're using.
 * I apologise that I wasn't clearer where I wrote AussieLegend ... gives detail on two other discussions where he criticises Andy for claiming consensus was with him, but subsequent discussion reached the opposite conclusion. My intended meaning genuinely was that the subsequent discussion reached the opposite conclusion to Andy's claim of consensus i.e. I was reporting that your conclusion was accurate (and it still reads that way to me), but I hope this clarifies it sufficiently for everyone. --RexxS (talk) 00:46, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I apologise that I wasn't clearer where I wrote AussieLegend ... gives detail on two other discussions where he criticises Andy for claiming consensus was with him, but subsequent discussion reached the opposite conclusion. My intended meaning genuinely was that the subsequent discussion reached the opposite conclusion to Andy's claim of consensus i.e. I was reporting that your conclusion was accurate (and it still reads that way to me), but I hope this clarifies it sufficiently for everyone. --RexxS (talk) 00:46, 19 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Despite your assertion to the contrary, I am indeed familiar with the deletion/merger processes on Wikipedia. When a merger of two articles is being discussed, it's carried out on the talk page of one of the two articles being considered for merging. There is no reason that a merge discussion for a template cannot be carried out on an affected template's talk page. TfD is a high pressure and often adversarial process, while template talk pages are considerably more relaxed. If end users of a template see a benefit to merging related templates, there is absolutely no reason why this shouldn't be discussed away from TfD. I've been involved in more than a few such discussions where TfD was the end result and was only necessary in order to delete a completely redundant template after merges had been carried out. Collaborating on the affected template's talk page, and related project talk pages prior to TfD makes the entire process seamless and editors who follow this process don't seem to suffer the problems that Pigsonthewing sees. Note that what I wrote above was directed, not at the appropriate venue for discussions, but at (to paraphrase you) "how prior discussions with the users and maintainers of templates could be practically implemented". That's what I was amazed at, and still am. As I've explained multiple times, it's simply a process of looking through edit histories to find the template creator and its maintainers and looking for project banners on the template's talk page to identify end users. Then one simply opens a discussion on the project talk page and notifies creators and maintainers directly. As I said, it's not rocket science.
 * Thankyou for clarifying your statement regarding consensus. -- Aussie Legend  ( ✉ ) 09:26, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Twinkle notifications
One point that has been raised by a number of editors is Andy's Twinkle notifications.
 * Andy said I have previously attempted to start a community discussion of the handling of TfD notifications
 * Rexxs said AussieLegend criticises Andy for making nominations at TfD using Twinkle, which fails to add the Infobox to relevant nominations. (It's worth noting at this point that Twinkle also fails to notify the creator of the target template when one template is nominated for merger into another, another source of criticism of Andy.)
 * PC-XT said a lot more about this than is reasonable to quote.

Editors are ultimately responsible for all edits that they make. If a tool doesn't do something properly, it's not an excuse to blame the tool for failure to do it manually. That Twinkle doesn't include the option to add Infobox is frustrating. I've complained about it myself, but it's not an excuse not to add it manually, which Andy is obviously quite capable of doing. It's also possible to notify template creators and maintainers (you can find them in the template history) and related projects, as I explained on the evidence page and above. -- Aussie Legend  ( ✉ ) 18:32, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
 * It's true that editors are responsible for the edits that they make, but when an automated tool doesn't work as expected, you need to know that it hasn't worked in order to correct it. If you don't check if it notified the creator of the second template (and who does?), then you'd never know that Twinkle didn't do that. I think that most reasonable people, on reflection, would find that excusable. As a result of this discovery, I've updated the notes at TfD to let editors who use Twinkle know, and Martijn has very kindly offered to work on fixing both problems with Twinkle. Surely that's the best way forward in these sort of circumstances? --RexxS (talk) 00:57, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Most people nominating templates for deletion or merging would be expected to have some level of competency. Complete "noobs" usually screw up the whole process, not just the notifications, and usually don't use Twinkle. Pigsonthewing is an experienced editor with the templateeditor permission, and he knows the deficiencies of Twinkle. I agree that failure to notify template creators might be acceptable, but failure to add infobox is not. -- Aussie Legend  ( ✉ ) 09:26, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Most people nominating templates for deletion or merging would be expected to have some level of competency. Complete "noobs" usually screw up the whole process, not just the notifications, and usually don't use Twinkle. Pigsonthewing is an experienced editor with the templateeditor permission, and he knows the deficiencies of Twinkle. I agree that failure to notify template creators might be acceptable, but failure to add infobox is not. -- Aussie Legend  ( ✉ ) 09:26, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Analysis of Evidence by DePiep
Well, thanks for mentioning me without pinging me.


 * re Evidence presented by Martijn Hoekstra: Martijn closes multiple TfD discussions and now suggests a neutral statistic to prove 'you see, PotW was right quite often'. Of course, this is a self-provided evidence. Martijn Hoekstra's analysis does not address this issue: an editor who spoils a discussion loses their argument. As an editor at the receiving end of PotW's snarks, incivilities, offtopics and derailments, there are three options: go along with the derailment, respond to substantial arguments & add new ones, or leave the discussion. But TfD closers, including Martijn Hoekstra, tend to skip the derailing process prtly (say, throw out incivil subthreads &mdash; partially) and then honour the remaining arguments. Martijn Hoekstra also simply calls a "tit for tat" celarly without checking support provided. -DePiep (talk) 15:41, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
 * re Martijn Hoekstra: you used my contributions weeks ago without pinging me, and now you expect me to perform a discussion in seconds, after closing time? At least we agree: you are concluding here about TfD closings you made yourself. -DePiep (talk) 16:11, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Read your own opening line: Arbitration/Requests/Case/Infoboxes/Review/Evidence. And you are silent on the underlying issue. -DePiep (talk) 16:33, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Read your own opening line: Arbitration/Requests/Case/Infoboxes/Review/Evidence. And you are silent on the underlying issue. You are making a judgement about the TfD closings you did yourself. You are suggesting support for your closings by pinting to other admins closings. If you don't see the fallacy in there - I can't help you. -DePiep (talk) 09:10, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Let me spell it out. You conclude that PotW is often right by TfD result. This omits (the underlying case) that PotW might have disrupted the discussion, and the admins (including you) did not see that at closing time. The route "but I only look at other admins" does not fill this omission. (I might end this conversation at my own choice. After all, you did drag me in but not ping me). -DePiep (talk) 09:28, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
 * At the risk of giving you an off-topic route, there is these angles of looking at it. For the statistics, you should not have excluded yourself. This is not about MH behaviour. (you could have compare your closings with those of others, in a sidenote). Then you give "evidence" that there was a tit-for-tat going on. However, at the moment you did not state it was such. This implies that you make & use judgements you do not mention or explain at closing. This shows that you use prejudice & off-site arguments. (And not notifying while accusing an editor here is another bad judgement). -DePiep (talk) 09:48, 20 February 2015 (UTC)


 * re Tryduulf "It's clear from the evidence that the disruption is not coming from Andy but from a few others". No, to me that is not clear, quite the opposite. And that is without my Evidence being added. I also find it strange into unacceptable that you, as major TfD closing admin, a closing XfD admin, take such an explicit position in cases where you have judged before. This says that you have made this same judgement before (in TfD closings), without being explicit about it. -DePiep (talk) 15:58, 19 February 2015 (UTC) - adjusted: Thryduulf is not active in TfD. Again, not being pinged. -DePiep (talk) 19:38, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
 * re Thryduulf. No I won't rewrite or prepare more extensively my posts here. That is because I already missed the Evidence deadline and this page is nearing its deadline too. No one pinged or notified me, while the Evidence page (and more) is stuffed with references to me & 'incidents' (cases) I was in. And let me remind you that a considerable number of contributors here are admins. So I am left in a situation where admins can shout everything at the cost of others (including me), and -- mind us -- ArbCom people are supposed to read & valuate those untested 'Evidences'. That is the discussing quality of admins. It is an arrogance then to tell me through which hoops to jump.
 * Then you say you did not say that you ignore PotW's disruptions. Well, let me read yourself. Thryduulf: "It's clear from the evidence that the disruption is not coming from Andy but from a few others". That's today's adminship for ArbCom. -DePiep (talk) 07:47, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Here is another quote you missed ("or anyone else's" you wrote. Did you even try?). Right here above re Martijn Hoekstra I pointed out that MH is judging about his own TfD closings, along the line: 'you see, much of PotW's TfD results are supporting PotW's proposal, so PotW is often right'. Yeah. (I had to repeat for MH pointing to the faulty logic in there). MH is ignoring PotW's TfD disruptions themselves when closing. And then comes telling us that nothing happened because other admins do that (MH still has not acknowledged this is twisted logic). -DePiep (talk) 07:59, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Thryduulf: "despite almost everybody disagreeing with you" - Sums up your quality of reasoning. Does not address my argument. Won't reply to that. -DePiep (talk) 10:34, 21 February 2015 (UTC)


 * RexxS mentions me dismissively without pinging me. -DePiep (talk) 16:24, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
 * On second reading, I throw out all and any RexxS comment for turning well-described TfD-assessments into "attacks" and "false". Not worth responding, arguing does not help any more. If ArbCom people would actually use such Evidence as FoF or suggestion I cannot do anything else but wish them luck and a broader mind. -DePiep (talk) 09:00, 21 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Evidence_presented_by_Rschen7754. -DePiep (talk) 16:29, 19 February 2015 (UTC)


 * pinging, , , . -DePiep (talk) 16:42, 19 February 2015 (UTC) -DePiep (talk) 18:08, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
 * re Kettle: Pot/Kettle points should no be chained. -DePiep (talk) 18:31, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
 * re Ched: mentions dismissively without pinging me. Anyway, Ched finds an argument in "... is a highly valued member of the community". Prerogatives re regular edits then? -DePiep (talk) 18:31, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Were I notified in time, I would have valued the Evidence by (mentioning me without a ping). For now, I can note that I banned him from my userspace for similarly not-substantiating accusations in this topic. -DePiep (talk) 19:38, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Quality of evidence

 * In total, I am surprised by the low quality of the Evidence page & process I ran into by accident. I would expect that once before ArbCom, there would be a basic sound check (as opposed to WP:ANI, where admins run by their emotion & personal preferences & friends, untested). At least ANI has a requirement to notify editors. Frightening that this behaviour is by admins, who are supposed to know about fair judgement in disputes. (In this thread alone, I had to quote two admins contradicting themselves). -DePiep (talk) 08:19, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

More light on the evidence
Since ArbCom forms an opinion in the PD "in the light of the evidence", I take the freedom & urge to add some illustrations to the evidence. Example [|TfD] (29 Nov 2014, still open). It illustrates the problematic discussion flow, already in the earlier stages: two (2) editors threw the towel referring to earlier (pre-TfD, same topic) encounters with PotW. One editor left leaving a cynical remark, another one wrote an "I leave" comment that could have lead to a block (the editor adding an "I can't be bothered"). That is how far it went. Mr Stradivarius (an admin I respect and with a cool independent head even in disputes), that admin tried to stop the fire by telling one offended editor what to do (not PotW). Quite unbalanced then, and ignoring the run-up. Mr. Stradivarius also mentioned message me by email, which is an indicator that the issue was known being out of control. Only after this I entered that discussion. The TfD is still open today.

This example shows the bad discussion flow (file under: "PotW, problematic behaviour"), editors being chased away in frustration, and also shows that admins who want to close the TfD have no idea on weaht happens or how to answer it. Voila: the damage has been done, and can not be undone or nullified. So far, I have not seen any remedy that would solve this part of the problem: disrupted discussions, editors leaving frustrated, no closing ability by admins (either they have no tools or they have no idea what happened in the discussion).

I myself think along the line of: "all arguments by PotW should be thrown out after such behaviour". It should be forbidden to use any such arguenmt in closing. There is no win in honouring the disruptive argument. -DePiep (talk) 08:48, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Analysis of Evidence by (YOUR USERNAME)
Please create a new new copy of this section below, before using this one.

Decorum
I'm wondering why the "Decorum" principle is included when there are no findings of fact or remedies relating to the evidence of users using the original case's sanctions against Andy as a weapon for harassment? Thryduulf (talk) 09:08, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm wondering why there are no findings of fact or remedies relating to the evidence of users using the original case's sanctions against me as a weapon for harassment? Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 09:16, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
 * A very good question. Thryduulf (talk) 10:05, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Discretionary sanctions (Thryduulf's comments)
I wasn't initially clear about the merits of this but thinking about it a bit more, I now support the idea of DS as proposed. It's clear from the evidence that the disruption is not coming from Andy but from a few others and there are several forms it takes. DS would allow AE the flexibility to deal with this as it occurs. Thryduulf (talk) 14:30, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Response to DePiep
While I can't make head nor tail of most of what you write, you are incorrect to state that I am active at TfD - I comment there occasionally and close a discussion once in a blue moon. My XfD activity is almost entirely RfD (although arbitration work has cut into the time I have to spend there). Thryduulf (talk) 19:08, 19 February 2015 (UTC) Please try to write in complete English sentences, rather than just throwing some words together. I still can't parse almost everything you say here. One little bit I did get (I think) is that you allege admins here have stated they will ignore disruption by Andy. I see nothing of the sort either in my comments or anyone else's. While some of Andy's edits have been less than perfect, pretty much none of the disruption is caused by Andy, instead it is caused by people trying to get Andy into trouble. I'm not sure what evidence Salvio has read, because it isn't the evidence I see presented in this case, but all the other arbitrators can clearly see that Andy's editing is not what is disrupting the infobox topic area. Thryduulf (talk) 02:57, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Do you really think that, despite almost everybody disagreeing with you about Andy's behaviour being disruptive, his contributions should be systematically removed!? I'm not sure I've seen a less credible, less justified proposal. Thryduulf (talk) 10:30, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Substitution of infoboxes
Doncram makes a good point that given the history here, it needs to be explicitly stated whether replacing one infobox template for another is or is not a violation of the restrictions. Given that previous AE and clarification requests have all said it is acceptable I presume that it still will be, but that is not good enough in this topic area given the history. Thryduulf (talk) 11:15, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Pigsonthewing restricted (II)
I think the only reason this has been less controversial is that it wasn't applied to Andy. The evidence presented of him being harassed over his restrictions leads me to suspect that this would have been treated similarly, most likely by asking him questions in threads he is not allowed to comment further on then accuse him of failing to respond, etc. Probably also there would be arguments about what constitutes one comment (a reply to one person? one edit? etc). I do not foresee this being a useful way to end the disruption. Thryduulf (talk) 10:43, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Interpretation of current remedy
there are five (not four) discussions listed. Gerda below also notes that it should be six or seven discussions. Thryduulf (talk) 10:43, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Pigsonthewing: Block log since original case
Perhaps this should be clarified, given there is both the case under review and a case from 2005 mentioned in this review. As it stands, I don't know which of those is actually meant as. Arbs, please edit this FoF to specify which of the cases is meant. // coldacid (talk&#124;contrib) 12:36, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I had thought the "original" case in the context of a review was clear, but no harm in changing it. Courcelles (talk) 14:15, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Discretionary sanctions
Is there a point to including this? Seeing that this review's other remedies are generally a clarification and relaxation of remedies from past cases, I don't understand how discretionary sanctions fit in. // coldacid (talk&#124;contrib) 12:36, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Mainly because the scope of the review was limited only to POTW's conduct, which is not the only point of contention in the topic area. Courcelles (talk) 14:15, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
 * The scope of the review was - on purpose - very narrow. I'm not sure if it is a good idea to introduce new sanctions which are broader in scope in the context of this review. It might be better to do that either by motion, skip them all together, or, to my great, great regret, in a full case. I realize nobody wants a full case, but you can't, in fairness and good conscience, have a broad remedy outside the scope of a case that was held from a narrow perspective. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 14:28, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I'd have had a few more proposals in a full case. In retrospect, limiting it to one party and one party only was a mistake.  Okay, other things to say on the page, but if I don't get out of the house and on the freeway, I'm going to regret the traffic. Courcelles (talk) 14:35, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
 * If the review was a failure, perhaps the best thing to do is to take a mulligan. Yes, that's a colossal waste of time and energy of everyone involved. Yes, it would have been better to have come to that conclusion earlier. But we are where we are, and we can't undo the time, energy and bytes spent so far. Trying to make this review apply to more than just reviewing the sanctions imposed by the original case, because we aught to have had a full case, by introducing DS based on evidence only presented in the context of one editor is wrong. If ArbCom doesn't need a full case to introduce DS on the subject, it can be done by motion. If it can't be done by motion, it shouldn't be done in the scope of this review either. You can't have your cake and eat it too. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 15:00, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm going to have to agree with here. Discretionary sanctioning ability may be needed to deal with the piling-on against POTW, but it's outside the scope of the review and would be better applied as a separate motion instead of the proposed decision. I don't like the idea of throwing out the review just to open up a new Infoboxes case, though. Better to take what we have now and if there's further disruption due to how certain editors interpret the case and review, then start a new case. // coldacid (talk&#124;contrib) 15:27, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
 * That said, I've certainly started seeing the need for DS now, if battleground attitude and insinuating bad faith of other editors counts as something sanctionable. // coldacid (talk&#124;contrib) 19:55, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
 * It's not that I oppose DS per se, but I do oppose them introduced in this review. Either fully examine the broader case, or don't. But don't pretend that this review has had adequate evidence, discussion, and broad input to be more than introducing DS per motion. And I'm not saying introducing them by motion is necessarily a bad thing, but making them part of the remedies of this review implies a measure of scrutiny that it hasn't received, or at least hasn't been demonstrated. also, I'm not sure anymore if writing something in other peoples section is allowed or not. Arbs/clerks, feel free to move this to "my" section if that's better Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 20:08, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Pigsonthewing; 2005 restrictions lifted
I'm curious, what point is there in striking remedy 4 of the 2005 case? The remedy is played out and expired, given it that it was only in effect until 25 January 2008 and there seems to be nothing in the log stating that it had been renewed past that date. // coldacid (talk&#124;contrib) 19:51, 19 February 2015 (UTC) re-signed for ping, I derped

Pigsonthewing restricted
Looking at the difference between remedies 1.1 and 1.2, I notice the one that leaves things open to further confusion is the remedy leading. Let's not forget that a big part of why we're here is because in the eyes of some editors, POTW commits the oh-so-high crime of editing infoboxes, or even just discussing them in TfD. I'd highly suggest that the arbs consider the proposal from in the ARCA discussion preceding this review: "Remedy 1.1 of the Infoboxes case is replaced by the following: " is indefinitely prohibited from adding an infobox to any article, or participating in discussions concerning whether an infobox should be added or removed from either a specific article or group of articles. He is explicitly allowed to: edit infobox templates; to nominate and discuss specific infobox templates at templates for discussion; and to discuss specific infobox templates on their own template talk namespace pages.""

At the very least, it's important to include explicitly what POTW may do, to avoid further disruption regarding his work on infoboxes. // coldacid (talk&#124;contrib) 00:43, 20 February 2015 (UTC)


 * I'd like to reiterate to the arbs that unless a remedy explicitly dealing with infobox replacement, editing, and discussion is added and passes review, this case is likely to keep coming back and causing more drama for everyone. Again I suggest putting forward and voting on a remedy that covers these points. // coldacid (talk&#124;contrib) 00:13, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Decorum
About Proposed_decision#Decorum. First of all, calling this decorum is already too much of a reduction. Even when we assume that the definition "prescribed limits of appropriate social behavior" (wikilink from the article kept) is applied. Because, even when that bad behaviour is stopped for a future (because of a block), the earlier offense is still there in the discussion. And there is no word about what to do with that. So an editor can disrupt a discussion, chase contributors away, make false or unfounded accusations, trick other editors into bad behaviour, etc etc, and these derailments are still there for the closing admin. And the proposed Decorum rule still does not guarantee that the closing admin will throw these bad arguments out.

Interestingly, in this arbitration case two active TfD XfD (see 2nd post) closers have spoken their opinion. As it appeared, they both saw no problem in the past decorum (behaviour) as presented here and that the committee found necessary to address in the proposed decision. In other words: next time same admin decision. That implies that decorum breaking contributions are still rewarded with a weight in the closing decision. (And with that, no obligation for the closing admin to explain, defend, or even acknowledge such a weight).

This leads (or keeps) me in the position that I am not protected against disruptions of a discussion. Whatever I do (respond in equal terms, go back to the arguments, or leave the discussion): the bad post is part of the closing process.

Personally, as I wrote above, I am thinking along the line: you who disrupts a discussion, loses the argument before it is even used. That implies a removal from the discussion whole, including past posts. -DePiep (talk) 18:05, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Learned that Thryduulf is not active in TfD but in another XfD, so I adjusted the phrase. What remains is that two XfD closing admins explicitly note that they see no issue in bad (block-worthy) contributions being present when closing. (If you Thryduulf find it difficult to read my posts, don't blame me having to post here in seconds after discovering the topic before closing time. Where I here earlier, I could have asked you about your inexplicable ambiguous opening line here). -DePiep (talk) 19:27, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Then there is this. Current Decorum proposal suggests that we are dependent on a single admins personal impression & decision. That is we can expect those uninformed, out of place, out of control admin responses like . (repeated in regular process, ). In other words: uninformed admins can shout anything (and of course, grave dancing not far away ). Giving this behaviour ArbCom/AE support is not needed. -DePiep (talk) 20:50, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Templates for Discussion 7)
The proposal now writes for Templates for Discussion 7): "If an editor is dissatisfied with the decision made by the closing administrator in a TFD discussion, the close may be brought to deletion review". Is the TfD process being rewritten here? Currently, it has elements: 1. First go to the closers talkpage. 2. One can also ask clarification. Are these gone with this? Hard to believe for what this is a solution. -DePiep (talk) 21:51, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Communication
"Editors should recognise when this [An editor's failure to communicate ] is the case and take steps to address the problems, either on their own or, where necessary, by seeking assistance." I did. Got bullied by ANI-admins and their friends. And, in this very topic admins already have announced that they will ignore PotW's problematic behaviour. -DePiep (talk) 22:03, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Missing remedy in PD: undo the damage
What I am missing in the proposed remedies is: What to do with damaging contributions (in this case: by PotW)? A block or restriction would only prevent future, repetition of such edits. I see no remedy mentioned to remove all contributions by the trespassing editor, especially in TfD discussions. That leaves those comments and their effects part of the closer's thoughts. And that is in thoughts only: no responsibility to address those in the closing statement. This way, predictably: editors still may be chased away, discussions still may be derailed, blockable uncivil behaviour will stay in there, TfD results still will be manipulated.

And as I concluded above, active closing admins have explicitly announced in this case that they are willing to keep weighing any "problematic contributions" by PotW. Even worse, they did not even see them being problematic. -DePiep (talk) 09:14, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Communication: go away, says arbcom

 * Arbitration/Requests/Case/Infoboxes/Review/Proposed_decision says:
 * "Editors should recognise when this [editor's failure to communicate] is the case and take steps to address the problems, either on their own or, where necessary, by seeking assistance."
 * Yes we know. Great. But that is why this arrived at arbcom. So arbcom says: "when trouble is so big you need arbcom, solve it yourself." -DePiep (talk) 22:10, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Comments on proposed decision by doncram
I note that proposed remedy 4 currently speaks of "edits that add or remove an infobox", without specifically clarifying whether that allows or disallows substitutions. Findings and proposed remedies do not yet clarify whether an edit removing one infobox and replacing it by another constitutes a removal plus an addition, or neither. As Ruhrfisch raised in the 4th AE discussion, it seems reasonable to understand that a substitution does constitute a removal and an addition. I think Ruhrfisch might have said it most clearly does when any specific functionality at all, is lost, and there was some specific functionality which would have been lost in that case. But it's not just when functionality is lost, that a substitution changes functionality. In the infobox academic division TFD, still open, there are principled positions on both sides for keeping a simpler infobox that prevents likely editor errors vs. substituting use of a much more expansive one that would not prevent those errors. The substitution is contended, even though one side could argue the bigger template doesn't lose any functionality as it doesn't lose any fields; the other side's position is that it changes functionality or fitness for use nonetheless.

Definition matters also for restrictions that apply to just additions. Pigsonthewing's removals of many instances of one template, before opening a TFD to eliminate the template, or during the TFD, and then asserting it is used only so many times, has been one point of contention. If additions are restricted, and a substitution is considered a removal and an addition, then he is restricted from doing that.

Technically i'm not sure it's in evidence directly within this review, and/or whether pointing to a specific instance now is allowed or not. But the Templates for discussion/Log/2015 January 22 (which I linked to in some diffs in my evidence) is one TFD where that behavior is/was an issue. Diffs for December 8 and 13 comments are not available there, as I guess the TFD must be a relisting or something, but it shows: "I have replaced the transclusions of the AD template which do not use the parameters listed above. Further investigation shows that "symbol" is unused. "alumni" is used in the remaining six transclusions, but its meaning is not clear (one is footnoted "The number of living alumni as of the year 2012"; others not, and most are uncited). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:52, 8 December 2014 (UTC)"

and separately "Comment: Why did you replace all uses of this template before resolution of this discussion? The point of such discussions is to come to a consensus, then act on that consensus, not to preemptively act on a proposal then have to undo such changes if consensus doesn't agree with that proposal. Mindmatrix 17:32, 13 December 2014 (UTC)"

with reply "Nobody did. However, since the template is demonstrably redundant, many instances were replaced with a more suitable, generic template. The existence of a TfD does not preclude this. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:28, 13 December 2014 (UTC)"

I think it is essential that these definitional questions should be clarified, if there are any restrictions on additions or removals that will be in effect. -- do ncr  am  08:48, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Discretionary sanctions, final remark
There is no finding of fact that shows a need for DS. I don't believe a case with this scope can even have a FOF supporting DS. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 10:18, 20 February 2015 (UTC)


 * selecting 20 random TfD's gives a reasonable statistical insight. The reason for not doing all of them was sheer lazyness. If the undertaking is trivial, as you suggest, and significantly increases statistical significance, as you suggest, I invite you to do it. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 15:27, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Pigsonthewing; article creation (remedy 3)
To forestall mischief making, would it be wise to add something about how to handle the situation if other editors remove any infoboxes that PotW creates legitimately under this clause? --Stfg (talk) 12:11, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Interpretation of current remedy (FoF 3, minor detail)
Five are listed, not four. --Stfg (talk) 12:11, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Comments on proposed decision by RexxS
I really hope that this review of Andy's restrictions will help reduce the ill-feeling that resulted from the original case. I am optimistic that giving Andy some leeway to improve the articles that he himself creates will go some way to generating goodwill. In response to, my advice to Andy if someone removes an infobox from the article he created is not to revert but to step away from the ensuing debate. It's not in his interests to pursue that and I expect it would be a rare occurrence. Anyone systematically targeting Andy's article creations would of course be in breach of the the original case's remedies anyway.

As a side-note, I complained in my analysis of evidence that disputes still continue, yet I am heartened to see that at Frédéric Chopin, the considerable debate on the talk page has reached a compromise that isn't everyone's first choice, but one that all seem to be able to live with. That's a good definition of consensus and makes me optimistic that the prospect of Infoboxes 3: the dark box rises seems to be receding. --RexxS (talk) 14:19, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Comments on proposed decision by SandyGeorgia
I offer this recent example wrt Proposed remedies 3.3.1; specifically, this example may help sort the different wording regarding adding infoboxes or making any edits to infoboxes. One revert against consensus and based on a very old and weak TFD is an improvement over past behavior, so I offer this recent example only as it may help sort decisions over "any edit" relative to "adding" infoboxes. Sandy Georgia (Talk) 14:22, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Template:Infobox disease
 * September 2013 TFD on Infobox medical condition
 * 05:40 Jan 16, suggests addressing old TFD:
 * 13:27 Jan 16, PotW completes merge:
 * 01:00 Jan 17, reverts:
 * 01:04 Jan 17, Doc James initiates talk discussion:   and links previous discussion:
 * 02:46 Jan 17 concurs with Doc James:
 * 10:40 Jan 17 concurs with both:
 * 11:57 Jan 17, PotW reverts Doc James:
 * 12:01 Jan 17 PotW starts another talk section:


 * Responding to PotW, the chronology is to provide feedback vis-a-vis "adding an infobox" or "any edit" to an infobox.  While I have recognized one revert and subsequent discussion is an improvement over past behavior, you nonetheless reverted against consensus, before discussing, and based on your interpretation of an extremely weak (and old) TFD.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 15:16, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
 * To be fair, Sandy, the discussion at TfD was unanimous between the four users who took part, so the consensus was to merge. I'm afraid James reverted against that consensus without prior discussion; although I understand his concern for the principal template used by WPMED, I'd have advised him to seek consensus before reverting. Similarly, I'd have advised Andy to give the new discussion time before his revert. Johnbod of course didn't concur with James; he was happy just to get in a dig at infoboxes. I consider all three of them friends of mine, and I accept they hold their views honestly whether I agree or disagree with them. If we could just persuade the two camps in this review to tolerate each other and use discussion more than reversion, we would have no need for this present process. --RexxS (talk) 15:59, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Perhaps you can help in that needed persuasion :) Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 16:13, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I promise you, Sandy, I'll do my very best. Regards --RexxS (talk) 16:55, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Are we saying all four here are in agreement? One says delete the template. One just leaves a comment. And one suggests a merge. The person closing went with merge. Hardly a consensus of four.  Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 17:23, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Question for ArbCom management: are we still hairsplitting about a 2005 issue "add vs edit vs replace", or have we moved beyond since? And why do I have to ask at all? -DePiep (talk) 18:22, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, James, the four users (not the IP who merely commented) opined "could be replaced by Template:Infobox disease" (eh bien mon prince, nominating); "should be superceded by Template:Infobox disease" (LT90001); "merge and redirect" (Frietjes); "result of the discussion was redirect after merging" (Plastikspork, closing). I'm not seeing what the disagreement was - surely when we replace one template by another, it's done by merge and redirect? and that was the consensus. Cheers --RexxS (talk) 20:54, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I see one merge, one delete, and one which is neither merge nor delete ("could be replaced by" can be interpreted as either merge or delete, just saying to use the other box instead). Lt90001's full comment was not a merge, it was: "delete this should be superceded by Template:Infobox disease. LT90001"  Anyway, here we are having a conversation that should have been had before any merging of that content, and before any reverting.  So, the issue being one of editing infoboxes as opposed to just adding them.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 21:30, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Comments on proposed decision by Ruhrfisch
Since Proposed remedies "Pigsonthewing restricted" I and II both include the phrase "Pigsonthewing is indefinitely restricted from adding an infobox to an(y) article...", and since the enforcement request that I filed that led to this review was about whether replacing was the same of adding an infobox (after removing the old one), please clarify if Potw replacing an infobox is allowed or not. My opinion is that if addition and removal are [is] not allowed, then replacement should not be either, but what I really want is for there to be as little uncertainty as possible in the proposed remedies. Please. Ruhrfisch &gt;&lt;&gt; &deg; &deg; 22:14, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
 * You do know that Andy has never been restricted from removing infoboxes, don't you? Arbitration/Requests/Case/Infoboxes . That kind of puts a hole in your reasoning. --RexxS (talk) 23:17, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks Rexxs, the first instance was a summary of my argument (replacing an infobox is a removal followed by an addition - I have tweaked my prose to clarify). The second instance related to proposed remedy "Potw restricted II", which mentions a restriction on discussing removal of infoboxes and I conflated that with plain old removal. I have struck the offending prose and apologize for the error. Ruhrfisch &gt;&lt;&gt; &deg; &deg; 23:54, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
 * PS For the sake of argument, I note that Potw "is banned by the community from the FA of the day and any articles nominated or scheduled as FA of the day", so I could argue that Potw is restricted from removing an infobox from any TFA (as well as an other edits to a TFA). Ruhrfisch &gt;&lt;&gt; &deg; &deg; 23:54, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
 * PS Rexxs, my goal is to have Arbcom clarify whatever they adopt so we all avoid future cases - I assume you and I and Potw have better things to do with our time. Ruhrfisch &gt;&lt;&gt; &deg; &deg; 00:12, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, you're right that Andy isn't allowed to remove the infobox from TFA, but I suspects pigs will fly before that happens. I think you'll find that the original case contained complaints that Andy (i) added infoboxes to articles that others objected to; (ii) engaged in extensive discussions when infoboxes were added to articles (and then reverted) or when existing infoboxes were removed from articles. As I remember it, the Arbs decided to remove Andy from those three specific areas and the restriction was phrased to reflect that intent. I don't remember anybody suggesting at the time that Andy replacing one infobox with another caused any problems, which is why I think that an literal interpretation of "replace" as "add + remove" wouldn't be in line with the spirit of the original restrictions. It's not up to me, of course, so I share your desire not to have to re-litigate the issue endlessly.
 * To the PS: I'd love to never have to come back to this venue again, ever. I'd much rather be looking for opportunities to collaborate with you than arguing with you. Cheers --RexxS (talk) 00:35, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
 * That would be nice for all of us, but PotW intensely likes infoboxes, and others don't, and here we are. And now that I'm reading this add-remove-replace dilemma about the wording, I'm wondering what is going to happen when we have two choices in health content (Infobox disease and Infobox medical condition, per the DRV underway now, to undo the merge that led to my commentary above).  So, yes, clarity would help for such a potential situation.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 00:41, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

Comments on proposed decision by Carcharoth
Apologies for making these comments so late in the day. I've been half-following this review case, but was not around for the past few weeks. A couple of points: Closing with a general comment, the issue here has never been whether Andy has expertise (he does) but whether he can collaborate with others who have equal or more expertise in their areas (and sometimes in the area of templates as well), and whether he can recognise that sheer volume of edits can overwhelm others who are unable to see the overall picture. Those undertaking project-wide clean-up projects need to explain clearly what they are doing (a list in userspace isn't really enough) and generate and point to ongoing consensus for that project. Whether the consensus needs to be local or project-wide is not entirely clear. Carcharoth (talk) 14:53, 1 March 2015 (UTC)
 * (i) Courcelles, when voting on the PD that he posted, said that the proposal to let Andy add infoboxes to articles he has created has never been a real point of contention. This puzzles me because it was a point of contention in the original case. Back then, Courcelles made this late change here, which he described as 'unusual' and said 'revert if you disagree'. I removed that later the same day. I explained in my next edit and suggested that Andy file a request for clarification if he wanted that change made. As far as I am aware, Andy never did that. This part of the proposed decision feels like a tidying up of the loose end from the previous case, with Courcelles putting out for voting here, his late change made in that case - that would be a more accurate way to describe it. He is perfectly entitled to do that, but the other arbs should be aware of the context here.
 * (ii) On the evidence page, Martijn Hoekstra's evidence included some statistics: "In 2014, Andy made 492 nominations on templates for discussion. Of those, I've selected a random sample of 20 nominations for analyses." What puzzles me here is selecting a random sample for analysis. What is needed here, and should be trivial to do, is give the results of all the TfD nominations Andy has ever made (which would give arbitrators an important insight into the sheer volume of nominations). What makes this more puzzling is that Andy made a list of 75 people he helped. Why make a list like that, but rely on someone else to do a statistical analysis of his TfD nominations? Anyone who makes the volume of nominations that Andy does should consider keeping a comprehensive and running tally of the TfD work he is doing and how many times he encounters problems. That would have been more valuable evidence than what was presented.

@Martijn Hoekstra, thanks for the reply, I'll follow up on your talk page. Carcharoth (talk) 17:00, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

One final point, which came out of some discussions elsewhere. There is a FAQ that Andy pointed out in his evidence: Infobox consolidation. This FAQ is an essay that Andy wrote back in 2012 which doesn't appear to have been discussed much. It also doesn't actually appear to have been linked to much from TfD discussions. I'm wondering whether something as simple as more linking to that FAQ from relevant discussions might help make the more acrimonious of such discussions less, er, acrimonious? Pinging Guerillero, as he has started the vote to close the proposed decision, to see if he thinks this is something worth considering. Carcharoth (talk) 01:45, 2 March 2015 (UTC)