Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Kww and The Rambling Man/Proposed decision

Any activity?
Considering this case is scheduled to close in four days, and considering has stated that the delay to the closure of the workshop wouldn't affect the closure date of the case, are we likely to see any activity here? Some of us may find it difficult to contribute over the weekend should new or unexpected opinions/positions appear from the mysterious Arbcom folks, most of whom currently remain curiously silent. To say this is all a little bit odd is an understatement. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:01, 23 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I stated what I was told via the clerks list but see this diff from one of the drafters, Thryduulf, who states that the committee hopes to meet the deadline. The evidence and workshop phases are closed so no new information will be posted and there is inevitably a discussion after the Proposed Decision is posted.
 * I'm pinging the case drafters (Courcelles, DeltaQuad) to see if they can state whether any action will occur before Monday. Liz  Read! Talk! 21:46, 23 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I created a section for you, The Rambling Man, because on the Proposed Decision talk page, comments and responses go in an editor's section, rather than having threaded conversations (excepting clerks and arbitrators). Liz  Read! Talk! 21:49, 23 July 2015 (UTC)
 * When we have a proposed decision (PD) ready for public consumption it will be posted here, which should happen on or before Monday unless something urgent occurs between now and then. There will be several days at least for parties and others to comment on the PD before it is finalised - that's why it's called proposed. Thryduulf (talk) 22:21, 23 July 2015 (UTC)
 * The PD is still on track to be on time. Courcelles (talk) 01:59, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

Apologies to all, but due to the final bits of the PD a proving trickier to resolve than I anticipated and real life intruding for at least two of us, the proposed decision is delayed. Thursday (UTC) is the most likely day we'll be posting. Thryduulf (talk) 19:06, 27 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Incredible. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:10, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

I hate to criticise, we're all volunteers and all that but ... to say all along that the proposed decision will be on time (including just the day before!) and then 19 hours into the 24 of "Monday" to say it'll be postponed is really unfair to the parties involved. That it's going to be postponed by so many days is actually difficult to understand. On Sunday, it was on schedule for Monday, but on Monday it's postponed for Thursday? --Dweller (talk) 20:38, 27 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I won't complain ... if the PD that I suspect was being written is being contested, that all the better.&mdash;Kww(talk) 21:36, 27 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Getting the PD right rather than getting the PD out on time is being fair to the parties. It didn't become clear that it wasn't going to be fixable in time to get it out today until a few minutes before I posted here - this is at least partly due to my inexperience writing PDs. This has not been helped by myself and another drafter having attacks of real life - I only had about a third of the time today I thought I would have and now expect to be offline all day tomorrow. Thryduulf (talk) 22:18, 27 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Oh, how our expectations have changed!  I remember the days when RFAr could take 3+ months to make it to a proposed decision.  The fact that arbitrators A) have a stated schedule and B) apparently try to meet it, is still a remarkable improvement over the old days.  An extra few days / week won't kill anyone.  Dragons flight (talk) 22:43, 27 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Actually, I am planning to post a PD before I go to bed tonight, though it took a blitz of work. (It is still the 24th in US time). Courcelles (talk) 00:45, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm guilty of delaying it slightly by coming up with last-minute questions and suggestions. Apologies to all involved, and thanks especially to Courcelles for their hard work in moving it along. -- Euryalus (talk) 02:01, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Euryalus. And two hours late, I've published a PD. Courcelles (talk) 02:07, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Must be some kind of record. -- Euryalus (talk) 02:52, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Thanks
I'd like to thank those responsible for getting this posted on time. Going through arbitration can be a very uneasy time - after all, Wikipedia is likely to be an important part of the life of people posting here. Things have definitely moved on very considerably for the better - I also remember the days refers to. Thank you. --Dweller (talk) 09:00, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Kww
The proposed decision continues with the somewhat absurd practice of treating WP:BLP as a one-sentence policy. It is not, and I once again focus the committee's attention on "All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be explicitly attributed to a reliable, published source, which is usually done with an inline citation", which is way up there in the policy. In fact, it precedes the statement about "Contentious material about living persons (or, in some cases, recently deceased) that is unsourced or poorly sourced – whether the material is negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable – should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion", which, if you take the time to read it, is not the list of material which cannot be added: it's the list of material types that must, without delay, be immediately removed.

Please read them. Think about them. "All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be explicitly attributed to a reliable, published source, which is usually done with an inline citation" is explicit: it proscribes the addition of challenged material to a BLP without a reliable source. It doesn't even hint at a waiting period, and it certainly doesn't suggest that after restoring unsourced material to one article, you should wander away to do the same thing to another one, as TRM did. The same sentence is in WP:V, and WP:V also makes no suggestion that we should tolerate editors that restore unsourced material and falsely claim that the sources they have provided support the material they have added.

Similarly, because the statement "All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be explicitly attributed to a reliable, published source, which is usually done with an inline citation", restoring material that has has already been challenged is a BLP violation as well, by plain English definition: TRM knew when he restored the material to Jackman that it had been challenged. No one is claiming that TRM was unaware the material had been challenged. He knew his edits were unacceptable. My evidence demonstrated that he apparently wasn't even carefully comparing the material to the sources, as he was edit-warring in material that wasn't even mentioned in the sources he was providing (and was, in fact erroneous).

The 3RR exemption applies to all BLP violations: it doesn't apply only to material that violates the fifth sentence while excluding all material which violates the fourth. It clearly applies to "removal of unsourced material ... that violates the policy on biographies of living persons", when challenged information has been restored without a reliable source.

Courcelle's proposed principle of "Restoring unsourced material that is uncontroversial and non-negative to a BLP article in one edit is not a violation of BLP as long as subsequent edits provide adequate sourcing. Those restoring should indicate that they will be providing sources and should add sources in a reasonably short period of time, such as the same day's editing session. Controversial or negative material should only be restored if it is sourced when reintroduced" is an effort to rewrite and expand policy by Arbcom fiat. WP:BLP simply doesn't say that and never has. Even if it did say that, try reading TRM's edit summaries and talk page contributions while pretending that he isn't a former bureaucrat: his tantrum provided no reassurance that he intended on providing complete sourcing for his edits.&mdash;Kww(talk) 02:54, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

And, Courcelle, if people accept your "complex table" exception, can you explain how that justifies restoring entire articles when the removals had been carefully performed in twelve separate removals so that any editor that chose to restore it would have an easier time restoring it one table at a time as he found sources? Are we really presuming that editors with multiple featured articles and former bureaucrat status are incapable of using either the edit history or the preview button?&mdash;Kww(talk) 03:50, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
 * The edits in question may have been BLP violations; however, not all BLP violations entitle editors to invoke the BLP exception to edit warring or admins to invoke the BLP exception to involvement. Salvio Let's talk about it! 11:24, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm aware that that is your position, Salvio, but I'm curious as to whether you have any policy-based arguments for it. So far, it's been a fairly naked assertion made without any support.&mdash;Kww(talk) 12:00, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Per WP:GRAPEVINE, Administrators may enforce the removal of clear BLP violations with page protection or by blocking the violator(s), even if they have been editing the article themselves or are in some other way involved, the fact so many people have, in good faith, disagreed with your assessment, should be evidence enough that the original BLP violations were not as clear as you think them. Salvio Let's talk about it! 13:58, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
 * What it tells me is that we indeed have a large group of editors that believe violating the fifth sentence of BLP is a "clear BLP violation" but violating the fourth sentence of BLP is not a "clear BLP violation", regardless of how clearly the edit violates the fourth sentence. That's humptydumptyism, Salvio, not a policy-based argument.&mdash;Kww(talk) 14:19, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
 * The problem with your approach is that it assumes policy is prescriptive, whereas it's commonly accepted that, on Wikipedia, policy is descriptive and, to oversimplify it a bit, the way a policy is generally enforced/applied prevails over its literal formulation. Salvio Let's talk about it! 15:02, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I've got no problem with interpretation, Salvio, until it directly contradicts the plain reading. Once that happens, the editors arguing to ignore the plain reading of the text have an obligation to explain why. In this case, I acted based on the plain reading combined with six years of enforcing it in accordance with the plain reading without substantial objection. Now, I'm being desysopped by people that claim that I don't understand what the words mean but choose not to engage in a discussion of what the words actually say.&mdash;Kww(talk) 16:26, 28 July 2015 (UTC)


 * I pity Liz trying to clean this comment section up, because you are all supposed to be commenting in private sections. Stiil, I have said that if Arbcom rules that WP:V and WP:BLP don't mean what they say, I will abide by that. I never expected that to happen, because traditionally, Arbcom has consistently ruled in favor of strong sourcing for BLPs, and there's many an admin that has made decisions very unpopular with the editing community that were upheld by Arbcom. I referenced a few of them in the evidence sections that no one appears to have read.&mdash;Kww(talk) 23:43, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
 * They mean what they say but subject to the general rule of NOT BURO, which basically means  that everything in WP should be interpreted reasonably, in view of the purpose of the policy involved. To use drastic remedies for actions that do not require it diminishes the value of using it when it is required, and puts the emphasis on the wrong place, or what violates the wording, and what violates the intent and the purpose. Any rule, not matter how important, needs to be interpreted reasonably--enforcement here is by people, not computers, and  the reason admins are trusted is not just that they know the letter of the law,  and the outer limits of what they might possibly do. but that they are rational people who know when to use it, and consider the situation as well as the technicalities.  Sure, it's in one sense easier if they were to just consider the technicalities, but blind enforcement of rules tends to diminish the respect for the rules  when they are needed.  DGG ( talk ) 07:29, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
 * DGG, if you don't think editing the way TRM was editing is disruptive to Wikipedia and goes against the purposes and intents of WP:V and WP:BLP in both spirit and letter, we do have a fundamental disagreement. Wholesale restoration of entire unsourced articles (when the removals had been done selectively so as to allow for selective restoration), trying to use unreliable sources to support challenged material, and using general citations in an effort to disguise the fact that much of the tables you are restoring aren't supported by the general sources and that some of the material you are restoring is false is misbehaviour, not a form of editing to be encouraged and praised. Some of this revolves on whether I was extending good faith towards TRM, and no: given the abusive edit summaries and juvenile attacks, I didn't treat him like some senior elder statesman. I blocked TRM for willful disregard of policy in his editing and damaging articles as a result. People are getting wrapped up in whether removal of unsourced awards makes me involved, whether 16 months dead does or does not fall into the 6, 12, 24 month guidance and whether a false award is contentious, while ignoring the question of whether TRM was likely to have stopped intentionally violating WP:V and WP:BLP in the absence of a block. As always, I suggest that people do a comparison of the material being restored to the actual contents of the sources and read the edit summaries (both in the actual edits and the 661 filter log) and decide whether TRM was or was not trying to bypass process in an effort to restore unsourced content.&mdash;Kww(talk) 10:29, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Answering Snuggums
SNUGGUMS, there isn't one. Sometimes it's a day or two, sometimes it drags on for a month or more if there's substantial disagreement.&mdash;Kww(talk) 00:52, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you for saying so. Just figured I'd ask. Snuggums (talk / edits) 00:54, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Answering DGG
DGG,the problem is that TRM's edits were nowhere near any borderline. There's validity in questioning whether the material should have originally been removed, and I accept and agree that there have always been arguments about how much effort is mandatory on the part of the person removing the material. That question is about things that happened several months ago. There is, however, no dispute about whether the material TRM was restoring had been challenged, and there is no questioning that he was restoring it without sources (additionally, as later investigation proved, some of it was false and there were even cases of specific in-line citations being used that didn't even mention the material the citations purportedly supported). The notion that the use of a "preview" button before saving is an unreasonable hardship is really stretching things: why is editing a table from a saved copy of an article harder than editing a table from a preview buffer? I can see the argument for novices, but I don't think anyone believes TRM required the consideration of possible incompetence normally given a novice editor: it can be presumed that any repeated edits are completely intentional.&mdash;Kww(talk) 00:48, 30 July 2015 (UTC)


 * I do not think his manner of editing was OK, and I have now voted accordingly in the PD.  DGG ( talk ) 02:50, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

To those opposing Principle #7 (Restoring unsourced material)
Euryalus, Salvio, Doug Weller, this principle really is the lynchpin here. If you believe (as I do), that restoring unsourced information to a BLP is a BLP violation, then the rest of this falls apart. No one is arguing that Hugh Jackman, the subject of the article that TRM was blocked over, is alive. My admitted mistake over Hoffman aside, articles about Hugh Jackman are undeniably BLPs.

If you believe it to be the case, then proposal 5, "BLP exemption to edit warring is not absolute", is irrelevant. Since the material does violate WP:BLP, its restoration is covered by the exemption, and that exemption would logically extend to WP:INVOLVED as well.''

It's hard for me to understand how you can oppose 7 and believe that 5 is applicable to this case.&mdash;Kww(talk) 10:43, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Re: 1RR restriction
Thryduulf, I have stated multiple times, and will state again, that if Arbcom rules that restoring unsourced material to BLPs without providing inline citations is not a BLP violation, I will abide by that. I still have hopes that a majority of Arbcom will recognise that BLP actually does prohibit the reintroduction of unsourced material, fully worthy of treatment as a BLP violation, but if it does not, I will abide by it, regardless of how personally distasteful I find that position.&mdash;Kww(talk) 14:13, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Whether it does or does not, the BLP does not provide an exception to the edit warring policy for material that is not contentious and/or not about living people. The BLP policy never gives any editor the right to edit war indefinitely nor to ignore community consensus. Thryduulf (talk) 17:17, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Thryduulf, I've pointed at the text that prohibits the restoration of challenged material without citations, and that text does not qualify that prohibition with the notion that the referenced text needs to be contentious. Other editors have pointed that out. Even Doug Weller pointed that out. You have yet to explain why you don't believe the prohibition against restoring challenged text applied. You complain that I don't listen, but yet you don't talk: why do you believe that a sentence in WP:BLP that doesn't use the word "contentious" at all only applies to contentious material? I happily listen to people that explain their positions.
 * As for indefinite edit-wars, no: when an editor edit-wars in favor of a BLP violation, he is generally blocked, and the party that is removing the BLP violation is generally not. Hugh Jackman, the topic of the article over which TRM was blocked, is indisputably alive. The ambiguity over Hoffman is a red herring that has unfortunately sidetracked this entire debate.&mdash;Kww(talk) 18:33, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Reply to Writ Keeper
Write Keeper: believe me, your reading seems equally strange to me. If you treat "contentious material" as a unit, then we have to deal with such redundant concepts as "libelous contentious material". Is there such a thing as material that is libelous and uncontentious? Why distinguish between "unsourced contentious material" and "poorly sourced contentious material"? Isn't "unsourced contentious material" just an extreme case of "poorly-sourced contentious material"? It also introduces the concept of material that violates BLP but doesn't violate it enough to worry much about, even though WP:BLP places great emphasis that all BLPs must adhere strictly to WP:V. My reading avoids such strange constructions and redundancies (as well as following standard English grammar rules), and makes logical sense: if the material violates BLP, it's out, and contentious material can be removed immediately only if it is "poorly sourced", while contentious material that is well-sourced is not subject to immediate removal.

There's the further confusion of exactly what part of TRM's behaviour was supposed to reassure me that he was going to stop violating V and BLP, and that by moving to a second article, he wasn't preparing to move to a third and a fourth. To date, no one has given a plausible answer to that question. I assumed that his misbehaviour was so blindingly obvious that WP:INVOLVED wouldn't trip me up even if people decided that I was, but its apparent that attacking the people trying to enforce policy while intentionally violating it doesn't get other admins upset enough to block.

I can see that it's pretty much a moot point now ... the off-chance that enough of Arbcom was going to take the prohibitions on unsourced material seriously enough to reverse this are essentially nil. It's a shame that people are willing to give lip-service to enforcement of WP:V and WP:BLP while simultaneously crippling the only mechanism we have of keeping unsourced material out of Wikipedia.&mdash;Kww(talk) 22:35, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Mz7
Principle no. 7, "Restoring unsourced material", troubles me. My thoughts tend to align with Euryalus' opposing viewpoint. Unsourced material, while it's expanded upon with WP:BLP, is really a WP:V issue. I suppose what is confusing to me is the idea of "restoring unsourced material that is uncontroversial". In the overwhelming majority of circumstances, unsourced content is removed because its factual accuracy has been challenged by an editor, and our verifiability policy is very clear on the point that Any material lacking a reliable source directly supporting it may be removed and should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source. In other words, if unsourced material has been removed, then by the very fact that one editor has removed the content, it is no longer "uncontroversial".

We do have citation needed for unsourced content that is not controversial enough, I suppose, to warrant immediate removal. But if unsourced content is removed by an editor (instead of applying citation needed), policy is very clear that it should not be restored without including a reliable source to verify the content. This policy is important to prevent the encyclopedia from becoming a large pool of information that is still waiting on the editor who added the content to add a source—Wikipedia content needs to be verifiable.

Now, I would agree with Euryalus too in that a certain amount of reasonableness is necessary, but that idea is more or less based on the policy that you should ignore rules when they hinder the improvement of the encyclopedia. I am not very comfortable with passing a principle that makes the occasional exception sound like common practice. Mz7 (talk) 04:53, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

This, that and the other
In proposed remedy 2, it is stated what will happen if Kww is not desysopped. It also states what will happen if Kww is desysopped and later regains the sysop tools. But what will happen if he is desysopped, but does not regain the sysop tools (either by failing an RFA, or by choosing to remain a non-admin user)? The current text reads as though, in the latter situation, he is never permitted to become an edit filter manager again. If that is what was meant, it should be made explicit, I think. — This, that and the other (talk) 09:42, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Proposed remedy 2
If 2 passes but not 1 (loss of EFM but not admin), then this portion of 2 makes no sense: "If he is successful at regaining the tools through request for adminship, this restriction will automatically expire." It only makes sense if both 1 and 2 pass. At least that's how I read it? ☺ ·  Salvidrim!   ·  &#9993;  03:17, 28 July 2015 (UTC)


 * If 2 passes but not 1, the edit filter permission is withdrawn (per remedy 2 sentence 1) but there is no community-based mechanism for restoring it. Any request for restoration would need to go to ARCA. -- Euryalus (talk) 03:21, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Is there any specific reason why a successful RfA would automatically mean an eligibility for restorationg of EFM (if both 1 and 2 pass)? Also, maybe the confusion comes from the "the tools" mention in the bit I quoted above, which could mean adminship of EFM -- at first I thought if 2 passed but not 1 he'd have to go through an RfA to recover EFM, which makes no sense. But perhaps I'm just dissecting the wording too much? ☺ ·  Salvidrim!   ·  &#9993;  03:56, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
 * At WP:EF policy states "quote administrators are welcome to assign the right to themselves if desired." In my mind if he passes another RfA that is comparable to community trust with EF tools. But I haven't had time to dissect the wording quite as deeply as you have. NativeForeigner Talk 08:44, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
 * If it looks like this will be the case, then we can consider how to word it.  DGG ( talk ) 07:21, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Duplicate section heading
The section header "Proposed Final Decision" currently appears twice (in immediate succession). I assume this is simply a formatting error. Dragons flight (talk) 07:13, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

3rd remedy
User:GorillaWarfare and User:Yunshui, why not 1 revert restriction? Took me only 5 minutes to find, and there are many incidents for justifying this restriction. 5 reverts on acupuncture,, maybe 7 reverts in a day on Wale discography, 4 reverts, and more. 41.46.142.126 (talk) 11:24, 28 July 2015 (UTC)


 * The edits at Wale discography were sequential and count as one. I see the report to the 3RR noticeboard never came to a conclusion but I can see why it could be seen as edit-warring. Doug Weller (talk) 15:07, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Cogitating
The concern en:wp has over Kww is not the fact he did this to TRM. The concern en:wp has is that Kww does this to any editor that works on certain classes of articles—regardless of whether they are vandals or good-faith editors. Therefore, the following is proposed as a remedy.


 * Kww reminded


 * Kww is reminded to follow the disruptive editing policy.

Thank you for your consideration. Cogitating (talk) 18:43, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

SNUGGUMS
Out of curiosity, when will the voting for proposed decision conclude? I don't see a time for when a decision is declared unlike the other stages in Arbitration. <b style="color:#454545">Snuggums</b> (<b style="color:#454545">talk</b> / <b style="color:#454545">edits</b>) 00:36, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I'll be voting in the next ~12-18 hours. We can expect in the next 2-3 days. Several arbs have lowered activity right now, but it shouldn't be too long from now. NativeForeigner Talk 07:20, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

The Rambling Man
My only comment. The edit war was regrettable, but given my track record over ten years of contributions to Wikipedia and my high standards on referencing items at, say, ITN, it seems fair to say that I wouldn't suddenly go rogue and destroy my entire "WIki-career" over a couple of lists. I got sick of being continually reverted, so I moved onto something else until the reverting ceased. As you can all see, given the time, I sourced all of the claims (rather well actually) and given they weren't really unsourced claims of rape or murder (which Kww seems happy to let live on Wikipedia, despite me advising him of such) it seemed reasonable for me to go back at a later date once his "enthusiasm" had died down. Exactly as I did. The real discussion here should be related to what is really considered controversial. Claims of rape etc are, claims of a minor critic award nomination are not. But there we are. If this isn't a question mark over the judgement of certain admins, I'm not sure what is. I don't know what Kww considers "controversial" but if one version of the page that Kww reverted to was this then he claims in the infobox that Jackman won Golden Globes and Emmys without any inline citations. Is an infobox error controversial? Is an inline-unsourced critic nomination controversial?

On an unrelated note, I don't believe the discussion linked to ANI was "The Rambling Man was admonished by the community", more it was "The Rambling Man opened himself up to recall by the community", closely followed by "The community deemed that The Rambling Man did not need to be de-sysopped". There was no overall conclusion of "admonishment" at all. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:24, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Ok, second note, this diff: here is being used to say that I "accepted that admonishment". This is entirely untruly, and it's a good lesson to learn that such diffs, as presented at Arbcom, need to be scrutinised. All that diff proves is that I was generous enough to sit out the block that Kww dished out. It does not, in any sense at all, suggest that I "accepted that admonishment" of the community. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:12, 29 July 2015 (UTC)


 * ,, please confirm that you have seen this note, and will respond accordingly, as I will be potentially unavailable for the next few days due to personal issues. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:16, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I have seen your note (and the one on my talk page) but I will not be in a position to respond substantively until tomorrow. Thryduulf (talk) 22:01, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

thanks. I'm glad someone has pointed to that discussion with some scrutiny. It was neither opened nor closed as an exercise to "admonish" me, but if Arbcom members wish to wade through the various comments there to determine whether it meets their current definition of "community admonishment" (and I'm honestly not sure what that means, nor what the consequences are), then so be it. It was my intention in that thread that I was opening myself up entirely and 100% transparently to the community, along with an acceptance that I could do better, that I would do better, and that if the community agreed that I should be de-sysoped, I would 100% stand by that decision. The latter didn't occur, but my pledge to improve (perhaps to strive to become at least the second-worst admin on Wikipedia for you) remains true. That you took the time to add your comment in the manner that you did, I very much appreciate. Humbly yours, The Rambling Man (talk) 21:07, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

Could you guys please not screw up BLP enforcement?
Proposed principle #7, "Restoring deleted content", is far more harmful than helpful.

First of all, it's policy interpretation. That's not the Arbitration Committee's job. It's the community's responsibility. The community has been addressing the general issue in discussions like this one -- Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons/Archive 38. It's clear that whatever community consensus now exists is more nuanced than the simplistic formulation advanced in the proposed decision.

Second, it's not necessary for the Committee's decision. As several Arbs' comments underscore, the case turns on WP:INVOLVED issues, not whether Kww's reading of BLP policy was accurate or imperfect. Kww has taken part in discussions on relevant issues, including the one I cited above, and was on notice that a significant element of the community disputed his interpretation of BLP policy. That point should have made it clear to him that WP:INVOLVED prohibited the administrative actions he took.

Third, the Committee's language glosses over important BLP policy considerations, to the point of substantively weakening BLP enforcement. Just being "sourced" is not necessarily enough to justify restoring material. It's palpably absurd that the proposed decision doesn't even say "reliably sourced". And even that isn't enough to justify inclusion, as WP:V declares explicitly. BLP scope isn't limited to "Controversial or negative material"; some of the worst problems, as those of us who do the dirty work of BLP cleanup regularly know, come from overly favorable material inserted into BLPs. That's why the WMF resolution underlying BLP policy gives the problem of inappropriate favorable content at least equal weight to the problem of inappropriate negative content.

Fourth, the proposed decision's language undercuts the general principle that substantively disputed content should not be restored without consensus. The language appears to suggest that restoring content with a citation is sufficient to meet BLP requirements, regardless of other issues. Having gone through many, many, many BLP enforcement disputes, I can tell you with certainty that language like this will be seized on to prolong and protract disputes and perpetuate inappropriate content. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk • contribs)

Georgewilliamherbert
<reply in KWW's section>He did. We have been trying to reason with him on this point throughout the ANI discussion, the case filing, the evidence phase, the workshop phase... He's made the same arguments, that we're all misreading it and we're all at fault. He has not budged on that belief. I believe that he believes it in good faith. But admins don't get to interpret policy and enforce it in a vacuum; we interpret and enforce within the community, with feedback. When you spend a month rejecting feedback vehemently, people want to desysop you. This makes me very sad. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 22:08, 28 July 2015 (UTC) Regarding BLP enforcement and the sourced thing...

Re to Hullaballoo Wolfowitz, we got here because of a palpably unreasonable enforcement of standard preexisting BLP policy. We still have a party who appears to be about to be sanctioned insisting that the policy as written supported the unreasonableness and that they should get a pass for that reason. It is tempting to say "Ok, this is the only time this will ever happen, and smacking them down for unreasonableness will set the example. Won't happen again." But in reality, Wikipedia is a project full of rules lawyers. Are you sure this is the only time it will happen?

I think that "sourced" in a reasonable, reliable sense should be enough to get past the "deleted for BLP without source" deletion reason. One can then argue sources quality and accuracy compared to negativeness or disputation of the content, but it should prevent the trivial "I can delete this because it's not sourced." A source which is misrepresented or false should be removed normally and people using them regularly sanctioned. Those are different issues.

Perhaps we need better wording to balance things. Bad cases and bad behavior can lead to tortuous policy. But we have a proof example that people can go this far off the rails on interpreting existing policy. We need a balance point that works again, including existing reasonable BLP enforcement concerns from those working in the field now. I don't think making your jobs harder helps anyone. I just don't want to enable the next overzealous enforcer like this did. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 20:47, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

IJBall
(Note: I'm making a more general point here, than a specific point about this specific case...) In the "The Rambling Man's admonishment endorsed" section, you state, "Supporting also the extent to which this remedy actually imposes the admonishment, given TRM has a different view of what the community actually said at ANI. But all a bit academic really; as per my comments on previous cases I'm not convinced admonishments have much value in changing conduct." In my opinion, the general point of "admonishing" or "censuring" is less designed to "change conduct" than it is the "establish a record of behavior" in case future issues arise. So, in that respect, "admonishing" has some value, even if it doesn't necessarily "reform" current behavior. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 22:14, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
 * That's a fair point. Even if the person admonished doesn't care about it, it serves as a nominal minor black mark which could be taken into account if the conduct recurs. But I suppose I'd argue that in a world of easily searchable diffs, past outcomes are equally findable without formal admonitions. And there's insufficient evidence that the other purpose of admonitions (a polite way of asking for user conduct improvements) actually happens.


 * Essentially, remedies should be curative, and admonishments don't cure anything. If we just want to note something for future reference, recording it as a FoF is sufficient without an accompanying (and redundant) admonishment as a formal remedy in a PD. -- Euryalus (talk) 00:08, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

TRM should be dsysopped
TRM has been admonished by Arbcom once before to my knowledge, in 2009 for failure to pursue dispute resolution procedures in lieu of 1) his intense and prolonged campaign to encourage editors he did not like to quit Wikipedia, 2) his long edit warring spread over many different articles, 3) bullying and insulting other editors with his bellicose and sarcastic edit summaries and talk page comments, 4) outright lying, 5) various efforts to find like minded belligerents to stack opinion gathering mechanisms. One would think that his behavior would improve after an admonishment by this body. But it did not. His burdensome and "you're all wrong" personality has landed him at ANI several times in the last few years. There, he refuses to participate or lashes out at everyone who criticizes him. He just doesn't respect out community expectations of Administrator behavior. Because this has been going on sooooo long without improvement, he should be removed as administrator at the very least. Failure to take this step would make a mockery of your code of conduct for administrators, which TRM has on countless occasions refused to respect even when asked to change his ways at ANI. 111.184.169.28 (talk) 09:57, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
 * None of this was brought up during the evidence or workshop phases, and you present no links or diffs to back up your assertions here. We will not be desysopping anyone on the basis of this comment. Thryduulf (talk) 10:24, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Writ Keeper
<reply in KWW's section> We tried. You've made it clear that you're not interested in any interpretation but your own. For example, you keep insisting that The 3RR exemption applies to all BLP violations, but that's not what's in the text of the 3RR exemption: it says libelous, biased, unsourced, or poorly sourced contentious material and then goes on to say that violates the policy on biographies of living persons (BLP); the fact that it has both qualifiers implies that they're not 100% identical. And after all, if it were that black and white, there would be no reason for it to go on to say that what counts as exempt under BLP can be controversial. Consider reporting to the BLP noticeboard instead of relying on this exemption. You insist that libelous, biased, unsourced, or poorly sourced contentious material doesn't mean "contentious material that is libelous, biased, unsourced, or poorly-sourced", which is how I believe most of the rest of us interpret it; you insist on your interpretation of "libelous material, biased material, unsourced material, or poorly-sourced-and-contentious material"--meaning that unsourced but not contentious material is still exempt. That to me is not at all a natural reading of those words, but you evidently weren't (and aren't) interested in any other reading. So if your mind isn't open to other interpretations, why would we keep offering them? Writ Keeper &#9863;&#9812; 16:49, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

@KwwAs we keep trying to tell you, your edit-warring was not justified even if TRM's restoration of the material was against policy. You keep getting hung up about whether the BLP policy disallows TRM's restorations. That's not the main issue. Two wrongs don't make a right and the ends don't justify the means here. The BLP exemption to 3RR, as listed at WP:3RR, does not apply to non-contentious material, even if that material is otherwise a BLP violation by virtue of being unsourced. See my post just above for why that's the case, and if you need, here's another quote from the edit warring policy: Reverting to enforce certain overriding policies is not considered edit warring. For example, under the policy on biographies of living persons, where negative unsourced content is being introduced, the risk of harm is such that removal is required. (emphasis mine) This is the thing you keep ignoring, and why everyone is losing patience with you; you keep talking about why TRM was wrong, but even if he was wrong, that does not make you right. As I've quoted to you before, the edit warring page says that An editor who repeatedly restores his or her preferred version is edit warring regardless of whether their edits were justifiable: "but my edits were right, so it wasn't edit warring" is no defense. Writ Keeper &#9863;&#9812; 18:47, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

TransporterMan
If I might offer some historical background:
 * Until this edit at 00:17, 22 April 2010, the material relied upon by Kww in what is now the second paragraph of GRAPEVINE read, "Administrators may enforce the removal of such material with page protection and blocks, even if they have been editing the article themselves. Editors who re-insert the material may be warned and blocked." (Emphasis added.) "Such material" clearly referred to the first paragraph of GRAPEVINE, which only has to do with contentious material. There was at that time an extended discussion about what administrators who are involved should be able to do. This edit is, for purposes of today's discussion only significant for the fact that it split the first quoted sentence into two sentences reading, "Administrators may enforce the removal of such material with page protection and blocks. They may do so even if..." (Emphasis added.) The introduction of "do so" refers back to "such material" which in turn refers back to the first paragraph of GRAPEVINE which, again, only involves violations regarding contentious material.
 * In this edit at 02:29, 22 April 2010, that material was rewritten to read, "Administrators may enforce the removal of such material with page protection and blocks. In the case of clear BLP violations, administrators who been editing the article may block or protect the article themselves; in more ambiguous cases, removing the material, protecting the article and referring the dispute to ANI is recommended." Note the retention of "such material," the clear intent being to still limit the extent of this authorization to contentious material.
 * Finally in this edit at 05:26, 22 April 2010, with the edit comment, "was a little strangely worded, trying to tweak & keep the meaning" (emphasis added) the material was rewritten once again into something very close to its current form: "Administrators may enforce the removal of clear BLP violations with page protection or blocking the violator(s), even if they are involved in editing the article. In ambiguous cases, removing the material, protecting the article, and requesting the attention of an uninvolved administrator at Wikipedia:Administrators Noticeboard/Incidents is recommended." The author of this change tried to start a discussion thread about it but that discussion quickly got sidetracked into the (10^23rd) discussion of what "contentious" means. The subject of whether non-contentious material should be immediately removed came up during the course of that discussion, but the author of this change makes it clear that his edit is only intended to affect contentious edits.

Thus the adoption history of the second paragraph of GRAPEVINE makes it clear that the intent of those who crafted it was to only have it apply to contentious edits. I would, however, contend that the third edit, above, which was supposed to only be a clarification to keep the meaning instead created a huge ambiguity in which everyone involved with the discussions at the time — which had to do with INVOLVED, not with the question of what authority admins had over non-contentions edits — missed due to their unspoken consensus that everyone understood that the admin provisions only applied to contentions edits.

However, in Kww's possible defense (see my disclaimers below), and notwithstanding Salvio's prescriptive/descriptive argument, it seems rather extreme to me to take negative action against someone (beyond admonishment or instruction) for taking actions which on the surface of policy plainly state that they — be they admins or regular editors — can do what they did and which they have not been told previously that they shouldn't do. Prescriptive/descriptive or not, you ought to be able to rely on policy to at least enough that relying on it will not get you blocked, banned, or desysopped without specific warning about that particular reliance, and you ought to be able to rely on it without going on a history hunt as I've done above. I'm not familiar enough with this case to say whether or not Kww persisted in reliance upon this section to block someone after the community had clearly told him that it did not apply to non-contentious BLP violations, but desysopping him solely on this reliance or on the basis of him arguing his right to rely on it at the time he did so (but not in the future) during this case it without more would seem to me to be inappropriate. If he's arguing here — I don't know if he is or is not — that he had the right to rely on it and will defiantly continue to rely on it in the future is, however, a different kettle of fish. Regards, TransporterMan  ( TALK ) 17:51, 28 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Let me emphasize that, once again I'm not specifically talking about what Kww has done or not done (mainly because I'm not looked into it enough to make a fair assessment of it), but about principles which may or may not affect his case. This is also not in reply to or comment upon anything said by Kww in his 10:29, 29 July 2015 post, just above. It would appear to me that if the "follow the spirit not the letter of the rules" argument founded on, inter alia, NOTBURO is to be validly advanced in any particular case then in that case there must necessarily also be an implication that the existing policy is inadequate and defective since the Content subsection of the Policies and guidelines policy says,"'Policy and guideline pages should: ... Emphasize the spirit of the rule. Expect editors to use common sense. If the spirit of the rule is clear, say no more. Maintain scope and avoid redundancy. Clearly identify the purpose and scope early in the page...'"(Emphasis in original.) I spend a lot of my time as one of the commenters over at the Verifiability policy and as a veteran of many battles there can vouch that it is, like a very small number of other core policies, i.e. BLP, NOR, NPOV, and perhaps NOTABLE and two or three more, more solidly based upon community review and consensus that just about any other policy here. If its spirit and purpose (and the same is true for the other core policies for the same reason) are not clear from its text, then I cannot imagine a policy here where they would be clear. To be frank, my experience here is that when the "spirit of the rule" or the "prescriptive/descriptive" argument is raised that the person raising it almost never takes the next step — in my opinion necessary to make that argument valid and not just a sophisticated form of I don't like it — of going on and explaining why or how the existing policy does not adequately express its spirit or purpose. I am, therefore, very tempted at this point to ask you how it is that V doesn't adequately express its spirit or purpose. If you were to do so, then I would very much expect that whatever you might assert as a defect has already been raised as a proposal at V and has been rejected by the community via consensus, thus also rejecting it as part of the spirit or purpose of the policy, though in all fairness perhaps you have a view which has not been considered. Though I don't work at BLP or the other core policies nearly as much and cannot be as certain as I am with V, I rather suspect the same would be true there. Having said that, let me also say that how Kww applied policy may (or may not) have left a great deal to be desired, either due to misapplication, mistake, or due to not following the standards required of administrators. But if that is the case, it has nothing to do with whether the spirit or purpose of the policy has been followed if he followed the letter of V or, most likely, BLP since they, unless someone can offer an argument to the contrary, clearly express their spirit and purpose. Best regards, TransporterMan  ( TALK ) 15:00, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
 * @TM, and @Kww: NOT BURO is intended to deal with exceptions, special cases, and borderline situations, not all of which can be foreseen, and not all of which require changing the policy or guideline. In fact, I consider it generally a poor idea to try to over-specify in a general rule, or to have it deal explicitly with every particular case. Looking at the comments of my colleagues on the committee, there seems to be continuing disagreement about the degree  of rigor appropriate for BLP non-contentious material that this case may not ultimately clarify (there is no disagreement that everything in WP does need to be sourced, even though we are never likely to actually accomplish this; and I would agree with Kww that even awards can be contentious--I've removed quite a few that turn out to be mistaken or overstated).  WP:V very adequately expresses its spirit and purpose--just how to apply it is where the difficulties arise. No matter how it would be modified to clarify how to apply it, there will remain borderline cases. DGG ( talk ) 00:09, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Concerning TRM's "admonishment"
Looking back at the thread TRM opened on AN/I, in which he initiated a self-recall, the clearest result of the discussion was the community's opinion that TRM should not be desysoped. (I was one of the very few who was in favor of desysopping.) As for the question of whether he was admonished by the community in regard to the dust-up between himself and KWW, there was general disappointment expressed in his behavior, but, in my opinion, it did not rise to the level of an "admonishment" -- so, in essence, I agree with TRM's comment above. I would characterize it as "He certainly could have behaved better." So if that is what the PD means by "community admonishment", then I don't believe those portions should pass.

However, there was also a feeling expressed by the community in that discussion that while a valuable editor, and not guilty of anything which would merit desysopping, TRM's behavior as an admin in general was not as good as it should be, and that he would be advised to modify the way he deals with other editors. If this is what is meant by "community admonishment" in the PD, and not the community's reaction to TRM's behavior in the specific case with KWW, then I believe the members of the committee need to take a closer look at that discussion to determine in that can be construed as an "admonishment".

I do not disagree with the general feeling of the community -- and apparently of ArbCom as judged by the current voting -- that KWW is by far the party in most need of being sanctioned in this case. It's also true that TRM and I have had a number of disputes, so I am far from neutral and dispassionate on this subject. I may, because of my previous feelings, be misreading the community's responses in that discussion. This is why I suggest that -- as long as these parts of the PD have not yet been closed out -- the members of the committee should take the few minutes necessary to read the thread, and use it to guide their views on whether TRM was admonished or not. BMK (talk) 20:41, 1 August 2015 (UTC)


 * @TRM: I have already seen a change in your behavior, in regard to the IBan that was recently lifted between you and Bugs and Medeis. BMK (talk) 22:00, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

Drafting an edit-filter policy
Proposed remedy 5, which will clearly pass, recommends that "[t]he community is encouraged to establish a policy or guideline for the use of edit filters, and a process by which existing and proposed edit filters may be judged against these."

I am in the process of thinking through, and trying to write up, a first draft of a policy or guideline page that would implement this recommendation. I have taken on the task of putting together a first draft of this page, although it will need a lot of input from others, including both edit-filter-tech-savvy users and others (I, for one, am decidedly in the "others" camp). The trick will be to improve our guidance and policies in this area, without creating yet another wiki-bureaucracy.

I hope to have my decidedly preliminary draft ready for people to look at within the next two days, and will post a link here when it is live for editing. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:06, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Please don't take offense at this, Newyorkbrad, but I strongly encourage you to write this in concert with an experienced edit filter creator before even putting anything forward. I'm in favour of seeing more firm guidelines on the use of edit filters, but it is important that the first draft put forward already includes the technical perspectives, or the draft will wind up in tatters. Risker (talk) 02:55, 29 July 2015 (UTC)


 * My (very rough) opinion is that EFM should be generally anologuous to bot-flags when it comes to access. There could be equivalent to BRFA, requiring discussions amongst the requester of the user-right and the established EFM community; if there is consensus to allow the user-right, then 'crats would be the one to flag the user, like for bots. However, another point to strongly consider would be granting full-read-only access as part of the admin package. Reading filters is the only reason myself (and many admins I assume) grant themselves the EFM right. Editing EFs has a very high potential for severe project-wide consequences and I definitely would not trust "all admins" to perform these complex actions. ☺ ·  Salvidrim!   ·  &#9993;  03:13, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Re Risker's point above, part of what I am trying to accomplish is to develop a policy that speaks in non-technical terms to non-technically-oriented editors. But certainly editors experienced with the edit filters need to be part of the discussion from inception, so if there is anyone fitting that description who is interested in collaborating please let me know.

Re Salvadrim!'s point, does anyone know whether the configuration allows separation of an edit-filter-reader's right from an edit-filter-editor's right? Newyorkbrad (talk) 04:19, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
 * According to mw:Extension:AbuseFilter, yes, it does. (Look at the "Added rights" section in the infobox.) Writ Keeper &#9863;&#9812; 04:36, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
 * A couple of Arbs have noted that the assignment of rights to non-admins is currently discussed on a fairly obscure page. Perhaps these discussions could be moved to Requests for permissions?
 * I also think Salvidrim's proposal is a good idea, such that:
 * All admins get edit-filter-reader automatically;
 * Edit-filter-editor is only assigned (even to admins) if there is a consensus (it would need to be packaged with edit-filter-reader for non admins who are assigned the right); and
 * In addition, if this additional safeguard is thought necessary, assignment of Edit-filter-editor could be limited to bureaucrats (rather than all admins) and we would judge consensus for granting the permission in the usual way...
 * <strong style="font-variant:small-caps">WJBscribe (talk) 12:22, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I appreciate no one is likely to read this, but for the record it seems that admins already have edit-filter-reader; I just removed EFM from myself and I can still see private filters, but can't edit them. Sam Walton (talk) 22:16, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

I have put together a very, very embryonic form of what could evolve into the sort of page the Committee is recommending in my Sandbox. I would appreciate input from some tech-savvy editors into how the basics of the page might be improved before I move it into Wikipedia-draft space. As this page is not highly trafficked, if anyone has a suggestion for where else I might request additional input, please let me know that, or alternatively, feel free to post there yourself with a cross reference to this thread. Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:26, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
 * One or more of the village pumps (policy, proposals and/or tech - it's been a while since I read the headers) and Wikipedia talk:Edit filter would seem appropriate locations for notes. Thryduulf (talk) 22:05, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Is there any benefit to saying that filters must be developed with consensus, as opposed to an EFM unilaterally creating one? Kharkiv07  ( T ) 23:07, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
 * No, because it isn't true. The majority of edit filters were created unilaterally, although they may be used by other individuals or groups. Risker (talk) 04:19, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I've tried to come up with some language on that point, subject to input from anyone and everyone. But I'm also concerned that the edit filter needs to remain a practical tool to combat abuse; we don't want a huge bureaucracy surrounding every instance of its use. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:15, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I think the main thing that's needed with filters is exposure. I believe this case was an eye-opener for many editors. Isa (talk) 23:39, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Quick reminder for all interested in this that I started a discussion regarding some aspects of the edit filter to collect the community's thoughts on it. It was used to write the current version of WP:EF and further input would certainly be useful. Sam Walton (talk) 23:43, 30 July 2015 (UTC)