Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )

Arbitrators active on this case
Active:
 * AGK
 * 1) Carcharoth
 * 2) Coren
 * 3) Courcelles
 * 4) David Fuchs
 * 5) Hersfold
 * 6) Kirill Lokshin
 * 7) Newyorkbrad
 * 8) NuclearWarfare
 * 9) Risker
 * 10) SilkTork
 * 11) Timotheus Canens
 * 12) Worm That Turned

Inactive:
 * 1) Roger Davies
 * 2) Salvio giuliano

Statement by Carnildo
Community-based efforts to resolve this have been uniformly unsuccessful in getting RAN to care about copyright. I've only been involved with the image-upload side of things, and that mostly indirectly, through the efforts of my bots:

The first time one of my bots gave him a notice about an image copyright problem was [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Richard_Arthur_Norton_(1958-_)&diff=42974351&oldid=42963497 March 9, 2006]; the most recent was [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Richard_Arthur_Norton_(1958-_)&diff=529237769&oldid=529195445 December 21, 2012]. In between he has accumulated over a hundred bot warnings about image uploads, FairuseBot has given him ten warnings about fair-use policy compliance, and OrphanBot has given him a dozen notices about missing fair-use rationales (RAN's uploads were one of the reasons I added the since-discontinued rationale check). On March 14, 2006, I was asked to do a special run of OrphanBot to remove all of RAN's uploads from articles on the grounds that most of them were copyright violations; I'd estimate that over half of them were subsequently deleted.

The community can discuss this issue just fine, but resolving it is a different matter. --Carnildo (talk) 04:01, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Statement by Beyond My Ken
Just in case the committee was not aware: The current AN/I discussion reached an impasse and has been hatted on the basis of the matter having been brought here. The prevailing community sentiment had been a topic ban for RAN, but it appears that that editor is incapable of editing within the ban, and, perhaps, does not understand the limits of the ban, or disagrees with it to the extent that he will continue to test its boundaries. Because he is otherwise a valued content contributor, the community appears to be split between those who wish the topic ban to be enforced, and those willing to allow RAN such a degree of freedom that the topic ban becomes, in effect, unenforceable and moot. In such a situation, it requires a "court of last resort" to examine the situation and either re-affirm the community's decision, or alter or remove it. It is not beneficial to the community to have a community sanction which admins are unwilling to enforce, which is much less likely to be that case with an ArbCom-based decision. For these reasons, primarily because the admin corps appears to be unwilling to enforce the community's decision, I believe that the committee should take this case. Beyond My Ken (talk) 15:27, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
 * @Hobit: Indeed, there were editors in the AN/I discussion that were opposed to a block on the basis that the situation was stale, but others - I'm thinking of Carrite, for instance - appeared to be opposed to the topic ban as it stands, and numerous other editors wished to expand it in one way or another. That fracturing was one of the factors that prevented any decision from being reached - that is to say, no admin was willing to take action based on that discussion, and it seems likely that such a division would be the outcome again if another discussion were held today.  Considering that the community did agree at one point on a topic ban, the current state of affairs seems untenable, which requires ArbCom to step in, at least in my opinion. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:08, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
 * @Carrite: I do not share your confidence that there is a consensus waiting to happen at AN/I. I also do not understand what "problems" the committee's deliberative speed could be causing. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:05, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
 * @Carrite: I see no reason that a community discussion can't be started up again if the Committee doesn't take the case, so there's no particular reason for them to rush. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:23, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
 * @Hobit: The proposal by Carrite on RAN's talk page does indeed seem to have a consensus as being either good as is, or as a starting point for discussion; however there is also significant support (by myself, for one) for preferring an ArbCom solution rather than a community-generated one. My own feeling is that ArbCom closure would be more readily enforced by the admin corps than the current community topic ban appears to be.  I don't believe that arbs should wait for a community solution before deciding whether to accept or not, as a portion of those involved in the discussion are waiting for ArbCom.  If the case is taken, Carrite's proposal can be the basis for a comprehensive Workshop solution, so nothing will necessarily be lost, and RAN would remain under his community topic ban in the meantime. Beyond My Ken (talk) 19:52, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
 * @Hershold: For the reasons I've provided, and those in Fram's comment above, I urge you to withdraw your hold and allow the case to go forward. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:59, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Statement by Hobit
A few quick points:
 * I do think we may be stuck here. RAN had a lot of problems in the past and has occasionally (over a more than one year period) violated his topic ban.  Some would prefer to be done with him, others would like to move forward with some type of oversight from a reasonable and uninvolved admin (I've suggested BOZ who is at least willing to consider it).  If Arbcom doesn't get involved, it is likely we'll just have this topic ban (which effectively keep RAN away from doing anything he's interested in at Wikipedia) continue indefinitely.
 * Beyond My Ken, I think, misses the issue with the block discussion at ANI. The only real argument for not blocking RAN is was that the violation of the topic ban was weeks ago and so the block at this point would be hard to justify (some made good arguments each way on that, including me).  I've very little doubt that if RAN were to create another article in the next couple of months he'd be blocked in a heartbeat (as he should be). This isn't a problem with the admin corps being unwilling to enforce the community's ban, it's with the block being so cold that it is highly questionable at this point.

I fully understand everyone's frustration with RAN. But I think he's not done anything in the last year that would cause a ban/block or whatever for anyone not under sanctions. That's a fairly good record. Of course, he is under sanctions (and at least initially for good reasons). The community isn't going to be able to resolve this (unless RAN does something clearly ban-able) I don't think. It would be nice if the committee could provide a way forward (binding mentorship would be my choice)

I do worry that RAN will continue to do things that will get him blocked then banned. But I'd like him to get that chance. Hobit (talk) 20:40, 3 February 2013 (UTC)


 * @Beyond My Ken: I think you are a bit pessimistic. Looking at that discussion, I think 80% would agree to the block were it not cold--that would make it a pretty black-and-white thing. There has never been a problem with blocking RAN in the past. Hobit (talk) 02:06, 4 February 2013 (UTC)


 * While it looks likely this is going to be accepted, the community is making more forward progress on its own than I'd expected it could.  has some general agreement from a wide variety of people.  Worth looking at. Hobit (talk) 14:06, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Statement by Steelbeard1

 * My apology if I'm out of order here, but the "24 hour minimum clock" comment I had to chuckle about as RAN does not understand that can take weeks to develop a consensus as shown by the dispute at Talk:CBS Records (2006)/Archives/2014. Steelbeard1 (talk) 20:31, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Statement by Wizardman
I'll make this short and sweet. RAN has been an editor for a long time, and while he doesn't violate copyright willingly, he does have a tendency to skirt the guidelines. For images, that can be understandable, as image copyright is incredibly complicated with all the variations depending on what country it's from, and it's even more complicated with fair use added in. Text, on the other hand, is a lot more concerning, as is his going past the topic ban. I think the remedy already noted is a good one if RAN agrees to it, but at the same time, the community has known he has has struggles for a long time, yet little has come of it. Arbcom taking the case may be best, since at least something should come of it. One final note: Don't hold the size of the CCIs against him or the lack of progress there. That's due to a lack of manpower. Wizardman 23:08, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Statement by Unscintillating
I am relatively new here, having begun to contribute in Christmas 2010. I see little risk to RAN if Arbcom takes this case, because his current sentence is death by slices. There is great upside potential to the encyclopedia by supporting RAN to return to the level of work he was putting into the CCI when he was indef topic banned in December 2011. I have added this key community discussion that started 16 December 2011 to the initial list above of "Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried". RAN reported there that as per the one-month experimental topic ban of November he had made 2000 edits on the CCI problems, reporting that he was half way through the core of problems. Two key investigators Moonrriddengirl and SPhilbrick agreed with Carrite and RAN that the path forward was to continue with the status quo for a fixed period of a month or months. Moonrriddengirl stated, "...he has been making great strides recently. He's motivated and productive..." Instead of supporting the key investigators and the work that RAN had been doing, the closer placed an indefinite topic ban on RAN, and RAN has been spending a lot more time watching TV. Unscintillating (talk) 03:45, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Amended statement by Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )
Moved from here by clerk.

I admit that I have had trouble adding the most precise image license template to image files. I have also added text to articles from source material and not reworded it sufficiently, or have cut and pasted material I was working on paraphrasing or translating into articles while I was working on the article. I also have been linking to sites, where I have contributed, where that sites interpretation of fair-use allows for more material to be posted than Wikipedia allows. My past subscriptions to the New York Times and Time magazine allow for non-commercial use of their archives. To have the ban on article creation lifted I offer:
 * I will no longer link to any non Wikimedia Foundation page in the external link section.
 * I will only load the following types of images into Wikipedia:
 * Material published in books, magazines, and newspapers in the United States of America prior to 1923.
 * Material from Flickr Commons.
 * Government created public domain documents and images such as the census and draft registration.
 * Photographs taken by myself.

After six months of working with a mentor and without an infraction I will be apply to ANI to upload images under additional licenses such as PD-Pre1978 and PD-US-not-renewed.
 * I will no longer paste the material I am working on translating or paraphrasing into the article I am working on.
 * When merging or splitting articles I will use the appropriate template: on the article talk page. When translating a Wikipedia page from another language I will use the appropriate template  on the article talk page.

Request for clarification (November 2013)

 * [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification_and_Amendment&oldid=582917236#Clarification_request:_Richard_Arthur_Norton_.281958-_.29.27s_topic_ban_on_article_creation Original discussion]

Initiated by  Fram (talk) at 12:24, 12 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Case or decision affected:
 * Arbitration/Requests/Case/Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )
 * Arbitration/Requests/Case/Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )

List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
 * (initiator)
 * 
 * 

Statement by Fram
Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (RAN for short) has been topic banned from creating articles. He has recently requested another user, Carrite, to move a few pages RAN recently created in his user space to the main space (see User talk:Carrite. It is unclear whether this violates his topic ban or not. Carrite was a party to the previous case so is presumably aware of the topic ban. Note; this is a request for clarification, no action against anyone involved is wanted here. Fram (talk) 12:24, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Statement by Carrite
Here's the question: is RAN banned from all article-starting processes (AfC or use of an unambiguous, supervisable proxy) or is he banned from starting articles himself? And here's the underlying issue: is this topic-ban intended to prevent something or is it punitive for past behavior? To wit, is it the intent of ArbCom to stop the creation of new articles with copyright problems by RAN or is the intent of ArbCom to stop RAN from such contributions altogether? Creation though either Articles for Creation or a second party forces a second set of eyes on the creation to ensure copyright compliance — which is no issue on the two pieces here. I feel RAN's creation of new articles in this manner follows the intent if not the spirit of the topic ban. I do follow Fram in asking for clarification on the matter, of course. Carrite (talk) 16:24, 12 November 2013 (UTC) Last edit: Carrite (talk) 16:28, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
 * @WormTT. Per "Wikipedians in turn are not permitted to post or edit material at the direction of a banned editor (sometimes called proxy editing or proxying) unless they are able to show that the changes are either verifiable or productive and they have independent reasons for making such edits." — These articles are verifiable, productive, NPOV, copyright clean. As for my "independent reasons for making such efforts," that would involve my desire to see a productive content-creator return to work on the project. Carrite (talk) 17:04, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
 * @RAN. I still haven't had a news conference changing my gender yet, I'll be sure to let you know if I ever do though. Until then I'm a "he." xoxo, —Tim /// Carrite (talk) 02:59, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
 * @Risker. Exactly. Carrite (talk) 03:06, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
 * @Thryduulf. I don't think one could come up with a more bureaucratic proposal if they tried. Carrite (talk) 18:10, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

@ArbCom. Try this proposed motion for size: "ArbCom acknowledges that RAN may create articles through the Articles for Creation process or through use of a unambiguous proxy. Any editor moving an article into mainspace is cautioned that they become responsible for any copyright violations contained therein. Richard Norton is encouraged to seek formal amendment of his case by ArbCom at his soonest convenience."

And then, get rid of the ill-considered topic ban on creations, which was a really bad decision in his case. Limit him to 5 starts a month for 12 months or some other reasonable number. He'll be monitored with respect to copyvio, trust me. Carrite (talk) 18:10, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Statement by Norton
I want to show that I can create new content free from copyright violation then have it vetted by a second person and if acceptable, posted. My goal is to show that I can create well-written content and then apply to have my ban lifted. I want to show Arbcom my newest entries. The ban should not be permanent punishment for past deeds. "Wikipedians ... are not permitted to post or edit material at the direction of a banned editor (sometimes called proxy editing or proxying) unless they are able to show that the changes are either verifiable or productive and they have independent reasons for making such edits. " This is exactly what Carrite has done, note that he doesn't believe that the quote parameter should ever be used in a citation, and has removed the quotes from the text when he posts what I have created. You are all welcome to peruse my standard biographies to see if I can have my restriction lifted:
 * User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )/John Lawson ▶ John Lawson (cyclist)
 * User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )/Gus Lawson ‎▶ Gus Lawson
 * User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )/Iver Lawson (cyclist)
 * User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )/Iver Lawson (publisher)
 * User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )/Edward Everett Grosscup ‎
 * User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )/Daniel Spader Voorhees
 * User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )/John Ellis Roosevelt
 * User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )/Charles O'Connor Hennessy
 * User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )/Samuel Train Dutton
 * User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )/Luther Tracy Townsend
 * User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )/Arthur Chamberlin Wise
 * User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )/Brandram Boileau Ussher

--Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 17:23, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Statement by Nyttend backup
During the Doncram case, Doncram was banned from creating new articles, but nobody (even those of us who were on the other side) objected to the idea of Doncram creating of articles via AFC. In the same way, if RAN's ban specifically said "no creating pages in mainspace", it would be a violation of the spirit of the ban for him to create a page in userspace and move it, because nobody's reviewing it, but it wouldn't be wrong if someone else were to move it, since the problem has been that RAN has created copyvios in the past. RAN shouldn't be given any sanction whatsoever for these pages, unless they violate Copyright violations or some other standard to which everyone is held. Nyttend backup (talk) 23:55, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Statement by Thryduulf (re: RAN)
As a way forward perhaps the committee should amend the case with a motion along the lines of (but probably simplified from) below:
 * RAN may create new articles in his userspace but may not move them to any other namespace.
 * RAN may ask any administrator or other user with the Reviewer userright to review his new articles subject to the following conditions:
 * He must explicitly state that the draft article must be checked to ensure it contains no copyright violations. Linking to the case for explanation/clarification is encouraged but not required.
 * He must explicitly state that any user who moves the draft article to another namespace takes full responsibility for its contents, including any copyright violations it contains. Any user moving a draft created by RAN is encouraged to explicitly acknowledge their taking of this responsibility.
 * These statements must be included at the top of the draft article page from at or before the time a review is requested and the continuously until at least the draft has been accepted or rejected. The form of words should be approved by one or more non-recused arbitrators or nominated administrators prior to the first review being requested.
 * Users reviewing RAN's draft articles must keep a log of all drafts reviewed, explicitly noting for each draft whether it contained copyright violations or not.
 * Any drafts moved to the mainspace that have not been certified by a reviewer or administrator as free from copyright violations, may be speedily deleted as if they were a copyright violation without further investigation. The user moving such a page takes full responsibility and may be subject to sanction as if they had written the copyright violating material themselves.
 * Any reviewed drafts moved to the mainspace subsequently found to have contained copyright violations at the time of the move must be noted in the log. The person certifying the draft as not containing copyright violations takes full responsibility for the contents and may be subject to sanction as if they had written the copyright violating material themselves.
 * RAN's permission to create draft articles may be suspended for up to 3 months per offence by a consensus of uninvolved administrators at Arbitration Enforcement in any of the following circumstances:
 * Asking another user to review a draft that does not contain the statements required by conditions 1 and 2
 * Asking another user to review a draft that contains copyright violations.
 * After three offences the maximum suspension shall be 12 months.
 * This is in addition to the provisions at Arbitration/Requests/Case/Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ).
 * Administrators who have reviewed RAN's draft articles shall not automatically be considered involved for the purposes of any Arbitration Enforcement action.
 * RAN may appeal this sanction to the committee after 6 months and at least 10 drafts have been reviewed and found not to contain copyright violations.

The aim of this is to:
 * 1) Make it clear that RAN may create article drafts if he makes it clear they must be verified free of copyright violations
 * 2) Make it clear that users accepting these drafts take all responsibility for the drafts
 * 3) Provide a route for RAN to rehabilitate himself as a contributor that has clearly defined boundaries to keep him on course and protect the project. Thryduulf (talk) 12:21, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Statement by Hasteur
I would like to note that Arbitration/Requests/Case/Doncram was a workable solution for how an editor could be restricted from creating problematic articles, yet at the same time be allowed to contribute. While the eventual outcome involved the subject being further topic banned in an Arb Enforcement request. I agree that it should not be ArbCom's place to on a whim amend the sanctions against this user, but feel that an amendment to allow an Articles For Creation submission regime would be a good compromise. Hasteur (talk) 19:02, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Clerk notes

 * This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).


 * Recuse from this particular request. --Rschen7754 09:57, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Arbitrator views and discussion

 * I consider this a violation of the spirit of the topic ban, though since it is not explicitly prohibited in the remedy I cannot fault RAN for his actions. Procedurally, the best way of proceeding would be to tighten the remedy by motion on this page. AGK  [•] 13:16, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
 * It's the age old question of proxying edits. RAN is banned from creating pages and Wikipedians ... are not permitted to post or edit material at the direction of a banned editor (sometimes called proxy editing or proxying) unless they are able to show that the changes are either verifiable or productive and they have independent reasons for making such edits. I don't think there's any need for clarification, it seems pretty clear to me already. Having said that, I don't see the need for any sanctions, just a clear message that if RAN wants to create articles he needs to appeal the ban. Worm TT( talk ) 13:26, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Like I said, it was pretty clear to me already, but to make sure everyone knows where I stand, Carrite is perfectly within his rights to create the articles, but they're totally on his head. Any repercussions from creating the article are entirely on Carrite's head, therefore he should be absolutely clear that the changes are verifiable and productive. The independent reason is "because Wikipedia doesn't have an article on these subjects and this draft I have found and checked is high quality". Richard shouldn't be putting it upon anyone to create articles for him, and should be appealing his ban if he feels he is able to create articles. Worm TT( talk ) 08:26, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
 * The purpose of the topic-ban is to preclude RAN from creating new articles because too many of the articles he did create contained copyright infringements. If someone can suggest a mechanism for ensuring that no further infringements will take place, that should be discussed here. However, simply posting a request that an editor move the articles, with no provision for any vetting or checking, is obviously unsatisfactory. Newyorkbrad (talk) 16:00, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Concur with Newyorkbrad. Any editor who takes it upon him or herself to move an article written by RAN in his userspace takes on the responsibility for ensuring that the content meets all criteria of the project, including but not limited to ensuring that there is no copyvio. If an editor moves an article by RAN to article space and it turns out to be copyvio, the moving editor is completely responsible for the copyvio and is subject to the usual sanctions of the project for such edits.  In other words, if you haven't personally checked it for copyvio, it's on your head. I also agree with WTT that RAN should be appealing the ban rather than using a back door to get his articles published.   Risker (talk) 19:26, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Concur with my colleagues. RAN is trying to work around his restriction and should stop doing so. Carrite may publish the material if they wish but only by assuming complete and sole responsibility for it.  Roger Davies  talk 09:46, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
 * A sensible and appropriate response to a request to proxy edit to circumvent a ban, is to consider suggesting that the banned user appeals the ban. That would be a more helpful and less potentially disruptive route than to agree to the proxying.  SilkTork  ✔Tea time  17:05, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
 * RAN was restricted to protect the project from copyright infringement; if Carrite checks every single article, accepts the responsibility of making sure that no infringing material is present, then I'd say that, in my opinion, there is nothing wrong with what he does. If, on the other hand, there is no quality control, then that's a problem. Salvio Let's talk about it! 17:47, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree with what my colleagues have stated above. I also agree with what Carrite said: "Richard Norton should seek formal amendment of his case by ArbCom at his soonest convenience." One problem with proxying (other people taking responsibility for the content) is that it can be difficult to carry out copyright checks for articles that refer to sources that are not online. Carcharoth (talk) 17:13, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Request for clarification (December 2013)
Original request

Initiated by  Fram (talk) at 07:55, 4 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Case or decision affected:
 * Link to relevant decision: Arbitration/Requests/Case/Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )
 * Link to relevant decision: Arbitration/Requests/Case/Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )

List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
 * (initiator)
 * 

Statement by Fram
In Arbitration/Requests/Case/Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ), Richard Arthur Norton got three sanctions and one admonishment, all intended to stop his copyright violations. Strangely enough, no actual sanction for making copyright violations in the mainspace was included, although the admonishment said "He is warned that continued violations of this nature are likely to result in an indefinite block from editing."

Since then, he hasn't edited a lot until very recently, when he started creating a lot of articles in his userspace, mostly related to subjects where the sources are from 1915 or thereabouts, and the chance of copyright violations is smaller. He has also edited the mainspace, and when he strayed into more recent events, he again immediately created a copyright violation, following the text and structure of the source much too closely. It's not a large one, but it is worrying. Is this sanctionable under the ArbCom cae admonishment, or does it need standard admin sanctions?


 * 

Richard's full text (with link to the source):
 * " In the 2011 American superhero film "Captain America: The First Avenger" as Brooklyn native Steve Rogers tries to enlist in the Army during World War II before his transformation into a super soldier, he lies about his hometown. One of the towns he uses as an assumed address is Paramus, New Jersey."

Copyrighted source:
 * "As Steve Rogers tries to enlist in the Army during World War II before his transformation into a flag-clad supersoldier, he is constantly rejected due to his numerous physical ailments and rail-thin build. In order to keep enlisting, he has to constantly lie about his hometown. One of the towns the Brooklyn native uses as an assumed address is Paramus, New Jersey."

@SilkTork: no, my request here was more about "if you violate a restriction, you get reported at AE; but if you violate an admonishment (which was the basis for the restrictions, and which has a block threat in it), where do you get reported? No problem in taking it to AE (or AN or ANI or whatever), but it wasn't clear to me where this was supposed to go. Fram (talk) 09:59, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

@RAN: first, there was no indication in your post that you were restoring older content, which is itself problematic. I didn't check whether you reinserted some older post made by someone else, why would I? Anyway, if you reinsert text, you take responsability for it. Claiming that because Alansohn didn't remove it as a copyright violation, you were free to reinsert it is not a valid defense. But in this case, it is worse, you didn't simply resinsert it, you added the source, so you should have seen that the text you reinserted and the source were basically identical. If you are not able to spot such similarities when sourcing two sentences to a short article, then we have a problem. If you did spot the similarities but didn't see a problem with them, then you have an even bigger problem. Fram (talk) 07:59, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

@All: At, where I warned RAN about a technical violation of his restrictions, which I didn't bring here (something which was not really appreciated however), he compared me to Javert ("You certainly are the Javert of Wikipedia."), which I considered a personal attack and stated as much in my replies there. For him to repeat this here, in his reply, repeatedly, is unacceptable behaviour. I try to make comments about the edits, not the editor, and certainly not in such a deliberately provocative manner. Can someone remind RAN that such comments are not acceptable? Fram (talk) 07:59, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

@NE Ent: don't be daft. When you add a quote in quotes, with the source, then you aren't making a copyright violation (if it short and relevant for the discussion, as it was here). I didn't claim the text as my own: RAN did. Please don't disrupt ArbCom pages to make an incorrect point, like you did here. I've reverted your change. Fram (talk) 07:48, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Statement by Norton
User:Javert User:Fram is 1/3 correct. User:Commander edit on December 3, 2013‎ added "In the 2011 American superhero film 'Captain America: The First Avenger' as Brooklyn native Steve Rogers tries to enlist in the Army during World War II before his transformation into a super soldier, he lies about his hometown. One of the towns he uses as an assumed address is Paramus, New Jersey." It was deleted as unreferenced by User:Alansohn. It was not deleted as a copyright violation. I then restored it and added the reference in this edit on December 3, 2013‎. If User:Alansohn had deleted it as a copyright violation and not as unreferenced, I would not have restored it. Kudos for User:Javert User:Fram for detecting it, but it would be nice if he showed the whole story of the edit. Instead he showed 1/3 of three edits in succession, as a "gotcha" moment, to get me banned from Wikipedia. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 18:05, 4 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Maybe this would be a good time to consider lifting my ban on article creation in Wikipedia space. I have 90 articles waiting in my user space at User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) and I am sure User:Fram has already looked at every edit in the creation of them in the hopes of getting me permanently banned from Wikipedia. If he had found a problem he would have mentioned it here already.

@Hobit: Don't forget where he recently warned me after I adjusted the contrast on an image already loaded in Wikipedia. It is clear there is animosity and he wants to get me permanently banned and has been working toward that goal ever since I had my first run-in with him at AFD several years ago. I think an interaction ban would be in the best interest of both of us. That way he can spend more time editing and less time watching every edit I make. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 17:48, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

@Carcharoth: If you think Patch Media is an unreliable news source, you should work to have it blacklisted. Patch media is a hyperlocal news outlet owned by AOL. The writers are underpaid, but payed, and there is editorial vetting of articles. It is not a personal blog. And of course, anyone who saw the movie would recognize that is correct and not in need of a retraction by Patch. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 17:40, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

Comment by Beyond My Ken
@Newyorkbrad - I don't quite see how you can agree with both SilkTork's and Salvio's comments as they appear to me to be somewhat contradictory. Could you explicate?> Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:16, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

Comment by Alansohn
I've never been a fan of these fleeting references to a place, usually of the sort that reads "On Glee, Adam Lambert's character, Elliott 'Starchild' Gilbert mentioned that he was originally from Paramus, NJ", which I removed in this edit. A statement about Captain America had been added several times, which I removed each time as an unsourced fleeting mention( see here, here for a few recent examples). Most recently, it had been reinserted here. After I had removed it (yet again) here, User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) reinserted the material in this edit, finally adding the reliable and verifiable source needed to support the claim, one that specifically mentions the movie and associates it directly with Paramus. I was still wary, but I looked at the source and came to the conclusion that it supported the statement. If I had felt that it hadn't been an appropriate source, I would have removed it; It was appropriately reliable and verifiable. I read the source word for word and if I had thought there was a WP:COPYVIO issue, I would have removed it; I didn't see a COPYVIO issue. User:Fram's analysis shows that there is some overlap between the source and the material that had been added to the article, but this is at worst a close paraphrase, and the close paraphrase was by User:Commander edit. RAN's actions were intended to add the source that I had specifically indicated as missing, and if I hadn't deleted the edit as unsourced there would be zero issue here; RAN would have only been adding the source, not assuming responsibility for Commander edit's edit with what may be a close paraphrase. I do understand how an editor could see this as a copyright violation or a violation of arbitration terms, but having been personally responsible for the edit that effectively burdened RAN with the claim of a COPYVIO issue, this was not in any way an effort by RAN to insert material in violation of a copyright, but rather appears clearly to me to be an effort to finally add a source to the article for a claim that had been added over and over again without one. RAN deserves credit both for his efforts to address the concerns raised via arbitration and for his efforts to add appropriate references to an unsourced statement. That the two issues sadly overlap and combine in one claimed incident is at worst an inadvertent reinsertion of someone else's possible close paraphrase, and is simply not the type of COPYVIO that is relevant to the arbitration enforcement. Alansohn (talk) 16:50, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Comment by NE Ent
I personally don't care about copyright to the extent many Wikipedians seem to. It's not going to be "The end of Wikipedia." (Fair use, no economic damages necessary to win a case in court, DMCA...)

But if RAN's reversion with a source of a close paraphrase is an inadvertent copyvio, logically Fram's copypaste of the full quote is an intentional one. (I've removed it; will be interesting to see if any reverts the removal and what justification they provide.). NE Ent 00:00, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Actually -- just learned this from a similar discussion on ANI -- policy NFCC states fairly clearly copyrighted material is only allowed in article space (except for exemptions, which do not currently list this forum). NE Ent 03:24, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

Comment by Hobit
I'm running on very little sleep, but I've been meaning to comment on this for a while. First, while NE Ent's point about Fram's copywrite violation was perhaps meant tongue-in-cheek, it does bring up a very relevant point. Fram quoted the article in it's entirety to make his point and no one batted an eye. If it were a 2 page document, I think folks would have rather rapidly redacted it (and I doubt Fram would have done any such thing). But no one (other than NE Ent) seemed to mind even though the case for fair use is much weaker here--there's no way all the points of WP:NFCC are met here. I'd argue that it's because it is such a short quote.

There is serious discussion about sanctioning someone for that short a quote which was simply restored. We've got a respected editor who reviewed the edit and saw nothing amiss either. Shall we sanction him also? He too checked the source.

I feel that RAN is 24601. Yes he broke the law. But now he is being persecuted for things when others (Fram in this case) are doing even worse things in front of ARBCOM. The point isn't that Fram has done anything horribly wrong, the point is that what Fram did is in every way worse (entire article directly quoted, not in article space, etc.) and no one cared. It's like yelling at someone for talking too loud in a library.

And Fram wasn't aware that RAN was restoring text from another editor when he brought this case here. Fram has been stalking RANs edits. He's prodded a disambiguation page in the last couple of weeks when he only found because RAN had created it. I'd urge the committee to direct Fram to stop following RAN's edits--if there is a problem, someone else will notice. Fram is following around someone who is effectively on probation just waiting for him to screw up and breathing down his neck. This isn't helpful and it boarders upon harassment. Long ago I asked Fram to stop following RAN around (years ago?). This isn't something anyone should have to put up with. Fram is by-and-large a reasonable person, but when it comes to RAN everything seems to get blown out of proportion. It's quite plain that he'd prefer RAN be banned. If someone followed all of your edits that closely, they'd find something problematic. And you'd get frustrated as heck.

I've tried to run a wikistalk tool to identify the interactions and I'm not being successful (things are very slow, perhaps because these editors both have a massive number of edits). Perhaps someone else can get it to work.

Sorry for the rant (did I mention I haven't slept much?), but this has been a problem years in the building and it needs to be addressed. Hobit (talk) 09:14, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Clerk notes

 * This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Arbitrator views and discussion

 * This looks to me like a question for AE. That's either an infringement or not - and if it is, then a decision by AE can be made as to the response. However, if the question is if the wording "continued violations" implies that just one more violation would immediately result in an indefinite ban, then I'm not sure it does. I think the wording would allow consideration of each situation, such that a single gross violation may result in an indefinite ban, while a single example of borderline infraction may result in a stern warning and/or a brief block.  SilkTork  ✔Tea time  09:41, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I have always thought that admonishments cannot be directly enforced at AE, because, doing otherwise, would pretty much obliterate the difference between them and the other, more serious sanctions ArbCom may impose (such as topic bans, whose violations may lead to blocks). If the sanctioned editor perseveres in disrupting Wikipedia after (and in spite of) the warning, then it's possible to ask for an amendment of the case which may impose enforceable restrictions; until then, however, it's better to just ask for standard admin actions. Salvio Let's talk about it! 10:53, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
 * The wording of AE is "breach of the remedies", and this particular remedy is worded "...continued violations of this nature are likely to result in an indefinite block from editing." I think that if the wording had been left purely at an admonishment, then I'm not sure we would be discussing this - but that the admonishment carries a block warning for violation does seem to me to allow AE enforcement at the discretion of AE admins; though I take your point that admonishments should be differentiated from direct sanctions. If there is some doubt about if the block warning for violation is enforceable by AE, then perhaps we should be looking to clarify if - in general - admonishments which carry block warnings for violations do come under AE.  SilkTork  ✔Tea time  12:10, 6 December 2013 (UTC)
 * For me, what matters is the expression "are likely to", which does not really authorises AE admins to impose blocks (otherwise, I believe, we'd have phrased it differently, using "may be blocked"), but rather makes it clear that our prediction is that, absent any changes on RAN's part, the most probable outcome will be a block. But that's just a particularly strongly-worded warning, in my opinion, and not a proper restriction... Salvio Let's talk about it! 10:06, 21 December 2013 (UTC)


 * I agree with the two above comments, particularly Salvio's. Newyorkbrad (talk) 19:24, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
 * If Richard Arthur Norton wants to seek a lifting or modification of the remedy against him, he should do it as a separate request, preferably after the first of the year. The request should provide evidence that the problems that led to the remedy's being imposed to begin with will not recur if it is lifted. Newyorkbrad (talk) 10:06, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Per SilkTork and Salvio. If the original decision has made some misconduct unenforceable, an amendment of the original decision should be sought. AGK  [•] 11:05, 11 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I was under the impression that the admonishment was basically a warning that the community had lost its patience for the copyright violations and that if RAN carried on with them, the community may block him. I would certainly think hard about an amendment, such as the one AGK is suggesting, but as things stand I do not believe the admonishment is "enforceable". Having said that, I certainly have some sympathy for RAN in this situation, sourcing an edit which had been removed in part for being unsourced is certainly a trap I could have fallen into. If we go down the route of an amendment, I hope that it would not be too draconian. Worm TT( talk ) 11:32, 11 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Having reviewed this, I think some form of amendment is needed here. What would also be useful is for examples like the one Fram pointed out to be discussed as a 'teachable moment'. Show (by editing the article) how you would correctly paraphrase the source without coming too close to (or copying) the original wording. Distinguish between facts contained in a source (as opposed to opinions) and the wording used to describe those facts. Demonstrate how you would find other sources to avoid the need to rely excessively on a single source. Acknowledge that it can be difficult to work with existing text in articles that may or may not be a copyright violation. Explain how unless you have access to all the sources, have read them all, and have carefully read through the whole article, it can be difficult to be sure that close paraphrasing and copyvios are not present in any article you may be editing. Point out that this is particularly a problem with unsourced text in articles. Fram could then encourage RAN and Commander edit and others to watch for this sort of thing and be more aware of it, both in their own editing and the editing of others. Finally, on a point of order, RAN, Fram is quite right to ask you to stop using the name Javert, that is a personal attack and needs to stop. Carcharoth (talk) 14:10, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
 * @NE Ent, regarding this, I believe it is relatively common practice to quote (within reason) both the original text and the text being examined, when discussing alleged copyright violations. Quoting brief excerpts has always been allowed on Wikipedia. If you want to take your point further, I would suggest raising it on the relevant policy talk page. Carcharoth (talk) 02:16, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
 * @NE Ent, regarding this, I presume you are referring to this ANI section? What happened there was that someone quoted an entire article from a newspaper (looking at the diff on 21:29, 27 December 2013 at BLPN that is around about 1000 words of quoted text and more importantly is the entire work - a weekly column on news events in a US state). That is clearly excessive quotation. What Fram quoted above may be short enough under the various exceptions. And although the policy may not make it clear, short and relevant quotations in project space, project discussion areas, and on article talk pages are allowed. Black Kite on his talk page in discussion with the editor discussed at ANI pointed to this section of Quotations, which includes the following: "Unlike fair-use images, quotations are permitted on talk pages and project pages where they are useful for discussion, but the requirements listed above should still be observed." Having said that, what Fram quoted here was around 63 words of a 103-word article, that does feel like excessive quotation to me. Maybe you (NE Ent) could raise this on the relevant policy pages if you feel this needs clarification there, or you could discuss with others such as Black Kite? In any case, it would be better to continue such discussions away from this page, as this section needs to be refocused on responding to Fram's original request (which I've done below). Carcharoth (talk) 13:01, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
 * @Alansohn, it is not always easy to add sources to support unsourced text. There are probably numerous instances where an editor added text based on source A, without citing the source, and another editor comes along and adds a reference claiming that the text is based on source B (similar to, but not identical to source A). Whether this is the right approach or not, depends on the exact circumstances. Many times it is better to remove unsourced text and start again from scratch. Carcharoth (talk) 03:33, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Having taken a closer look, the source used here (someone posting on patch.com?) doesn't look like a reliable, relevant, or even useful source to me - standards should be higher for trivia like this, and the material in question arguably should be removed outright. If it is to remain, a much better source needs to be found. So the whole copyright/close paraphrasing discussion seems to have been a red herring. RAN, my view is that here you needed to be more careful when sourcing unsourced text - it is better to reduce unsourced text to the bare facts and source those, and in some cases to remove the unsourced text completely. Fram, my view is that here you needed to look at quality of sources, not just copyright issues. But overall, both these issues are content issues, so you both need to take such issues to the relevant discussion boards before coming here. Carcharoth (talk) 13:01, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

Amendment request: Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )

 * Original discussion

Initiated by  Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) at 21:22, 26 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Case or decision affected:
 * Arbitration/Requests/Case/Richard_Arthur_Norton_(1958-_)

List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
 * (initiator)

Statement by Richard Arthur Norton
I am currently following Wikipedia rules on attributing source material and have been creating articles in my user space at User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) as examples. I would like my restrictions on 1) creating new content in Wikipedia space lifted and 2) on adding images to dead people's profiles under fair use lifted.

I have gone over my earliest edits to attribute the source material used and rewrite blocks of text where the writing was insufficiently altered. I have not found any additional ones and no one has brought to me any further examples that need work. Any additional ones found in the future will be fixed right away. I would like to continue adding images to dead people's biographies under fair use. I will use the most current template and make sure it is filled-in as completely as possible.


 * @Wizardman: Your last edit at the CCI was removing the quote parameter from the reference saying "such a long quote is a fair use violation. especially for a one-sentence article." yet the source material was published in 1911 and is in the public domain. If you want to lobby for the removal of the quote parameter from references it is better to do it at the talk page of the template, than to remove them ad hoc under the guise of a fair use violation or a copyright violation. This is an issue that needs to be resolved globally. If you think snippets used as quotes should be one word, or one sentence, this should be argued at the talk page of the template. That is why the count is so high. That needs to be resolved at the Wikipedia level. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 19:28, 29 December 2014 (UTC)


 * @All: It would take an additional 10 years to go over 10 years worth of edits. Why don't we run one of the bots designed to look for strings of text matching outside sources. I think Coren bot was one of them ... and run it against every article in Wikipedia. And rank them based on how much text appears in the article. It can ignore text in parenthesis and in the quote= function and ignore works published before 1923. A bot would be objective instead of the subjective way it is done now. One person decides that the quote= function from public domain sources is a copyright violation. One person was saying that the title of articles in Wikipedia represents a copyright violation and was truncating all the New York Times headlines down to the first sentence, and counting that as a violation. The 36% number comes from counting use of the quote parameter in references as a copyright violation, even if the snippet comes from a pre-1923 published source. While I have not added text to the CCI pages, I have made over 1,000 edits to my earliest work, in chronological order, not the order presented by the CCI pages. I have changed grammar, and trimmed long quotations, and reworded the Army Air Force biographies, which may/may not be US government public domain. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 20:33, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Carrite
Richard Norton is celebrating 10 years as a Wikipedian tomorrow. He stands as #124 on the Most Edits list with over 153,000 edits (he is a plain editor, not someone with a bot-inflated count). He is #96 on the new starts list, with more than 3,000 articles started. Of these, a very small fraction, mostly c. 2005-2007 were problematic — granted that a very small fraction of a huge number is significant. Regardless, he now understands copyright rules with respect to WP content. No one has complained of copyvio in his work of the past year or two... Richard has a huge backlog of new material to be moved to mainspace, the current system of proxy-editing his starts is not working. He will be under very close scrutiny for any future copyright violation, rest assured. The current restriction upon him (which was ill-advised in the first place) does nothing but fetter his work and should be ended. Carrite (talk) 02:56, 27 December 2014 (UTC)


 * @Psychonaut. The CCI case will never be completed. Their methodology does not scale and, as you mention, their backlog is massive and growing. In short summary: it only takes three demonstrated instances of copyvio to open a case. Once opened, a case can never be closed without each and every edit in the history of the subject of the inquiry being hand-checked. For a new contributor or a small-scale contributor, this is possible; for one of the most prolific contributors in the history of Wikipedia — as RAN is — it is not possible. CCI had fewer than a dozen really active volunteers at the time of the Norton case, these to handle every single case. It's an absolute waste of RAN's time as a content-writer to be hunting copy vio needles in haystacks (not to mention it's probably not going to happen, not to mention it would be a subject of a copyvio investigation policing the ancient edits made by himself...) Carrite (talk) 10:42, 28 December 2014 (UTC)
 * There are 46 unresolved cases older than the Norton case, which was launched in November 2011 — more than 3 years ago! There are 106 additional unresolved cases that have been launched since the Norton case was launched. Not only does CCI's investigative model not scale as it needs to for the Norton case, CCI is an absolutely inadequate, completely bogged down, massively and irretrievably understaffed institution. Mr. Norton's early editing will never, ever, ever be investigated and corrected by CCI. We can point at glossy pictures of "pillars" for newcomers to Wikipedia all we want, but the fact is: done is done, it's not gonna be undone, and the question is whether there is a problem going forward and are we willing to cut off our noses to spite our faces? RAN is not a threat to produce additional copyright violations and he has not been for a long time. He's not going to redo a decade's worth of editing because a minor fraction of his early editing was problematic. He's a content writer and he's writing content. The simple question is this: are we gonna improve the encyclopedia by using it or not? Carrite (talk) 22:11, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Fram
As the one that brought the case against Richard Arthur Norton here in the first place, I have no objection against lifting the restriction on creation of new content (i.e. articles) in the mainspace. His user space articles seem to be copyright-violation free. I believe he still has a tendency to use quotes excessively (in footnotes), but that is less of a problem and doesn't need a restriction if it doesn't get a lot worse. As for the image restriction, I'm less convinced that there won't be problems with this, but have no recent evidence for this. Fram (talk) 16:48, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Psychonaut
Richard Arthur Norton is asking for his restriction to be lifted on the basis that he has fixed all his past copyright violations, and that no one has brought any further ones to his attention. However, at his CCI (Contributor copyright investigations/20111108) there remain literally tens of thousands of edits to thousands of articles yet to be checked. It's true that no further copyvios have been found there since 2013, but consider that no one has even been processing the CCI since that year. (Sadly, CCI has such a backlog that cases there often languish for months or years between edits.) We simply cannot take the lack of any recent discoveries in the CCI as evidence that they don't exist. In fact, I would wager that if processing were resumed, many further copyvios would be uncovered.

In light of this, I wonder if, rather than allowing him to start creating new pages again, it might not be a better use of Richard Arthur Norton's time to assist in the massive cleanup of the old ones. Keeping the restriction in place until such time as the CCI is completed might give him a greater impetus to clear the backlog.

I haven't been involved in this particular CCI but am pinging those who were most active in it (User:Sphilbrick, User:Hut 8.5, User:Moonriddengirl, User:Wizardman, User:MER-C, User:Amalthea, and User:Bilby) in case they want to weigh in. —Psychonaut (talk) 17:57, 27 December 2014 (UTC)


 * @Carrite: Except for the very smallest edits, this is not a "finding needles in a haystack" problem; it is a "shooting fish in a barrel" problem. On the first page of the CCI alone, 36% of the articles checked so far were found to contain copyvios.  Richard Arthur Norton is uniquely qualified to identify his sources, since he's the one who found and copied from them in the first place.  He could save us all a lot of time by actively marking and fixing the positive cases.  No matter how understaffed CCI is, we can't simply throw up our hands and ignore the copyvios; ensuring that our articles are free content is one of our core principles. —Psychonaut (talk) 11:34, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Wizardman
I'd be okay with lifting the restrictions had he been active in helping remove any copyright issues and helping out on his investigation. Instead, There have been next to no edits in 2014 on his CCI, sans a slew I just did. The fact that we have found more than a few just on the first page shows that this is something he has to work on. Yes, CCI is forever backlogged, but if he's not helping then I can't sympathize. Wizardman 22:45, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Rich Farmbrough
As I have stated before, the original case against Richard Arthur Norton 1958- was soggy to say the least.

Richard quite correctly says, and others reflect, that the amount of work required to manually check every contribution he has ever made is enormous, and indeed there are more pressing cases such as Jagged, which introduced falsehoods as well as huge obvious copyvios, into Wikipedia and more widely, and have largely been abandoned (some of my more recent work on this can be seen on meta) - given the lack of decent tools, and those permitted to run them.

I can see no reason that we should perpetuate the sanctions against Richard Arthur Norton 1958- which were always punitive rather than preventive.

I wholeheartedly commend this amendment to the Committee.

A Happy New-Year! Rich Farmbrough, 23:59, 31 December 2014 (UTC).

Statement by Hut 8.5
We do have some bots which scan new pages for potential copyright violations of things found elsewhere on the web. However my understanding is that it isn't possible to use these on existing pages because many sites copy or mirror Wikipedia content and the bot would pick these up as potential infringements. Even with new pages these bots make plenty of mistakes and their output needs extensive review by humans. I would be very surprised if anyone manages to write a bot that can figure out when a piece of text was first published.

The only edits RAN has ever made to the CCI are. While it isn't reasonable to insist that RAN clear the CCI before the restrictions are lifted, it is reasonable to expect him to do something.  Hut 8.5  20:55, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Clerk notes

 * This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ): Arbitrator views and discussion

 * Awaiting any further statements. Statements should focus on whether the concerns about Mr. Norton's editing that prompted us to impose the restriction have been addressed in his more recent editing. Newyorkbrad (talk) 04:44, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I'd like to hear some more statements before making any decision (which may not happen before disappear off the committee), but in principle, I'd certainly have no issue with easing these restrictions to allow Richard to show he's able to work without causing issues especially if he has put right what's been pointed out. Worm TT( talk ) 11:25, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm amenable to applying the standard "parole" (i.e. we lift the sanction, but for the first year it may be reimposed by any uninvolved admin, in the event of further problems). Salvio Let's talk about it! 12:01, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I'd also like to hear from those originally involved, but absent any serious and recent concerns, I'd be amenable to Salvio's suggestion. Seraphimblade Talk to me 20:28, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Based upon Wizardman's statement, it looks like it's not yet time to look at removing these as the conditions for doing so haven't been fulfilled. For reference, though, once that is done, I would certainly be happy to support relaxing these restrictions, and don't in any way hope for them to be permanent. Seraphimblade Talk to me 21:10, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
 * It is a little soon, in my book, to be loosening restrictions applied in 2013. I am likely to oppose the motion suggested above, at least for the time being: the issues identified in the original case, although diminishing, are not clearly gone. Decline. AGK  [•] 23:17, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
 * The restriction states, in part; "in order for appeals of this remedy to be considered, he shall be required to submit evidence of substantial work on his part towards resolving the Contributor Copyright Investigations filed against him". Is any evidence available?  Wizardman only speaks to 2014, but the restriction wa spassed in the first half of 2013. Courcelles 23:55, 29 December 2014 (UTC)
 * The remedy provides that "in order for appeals of this remedy to be considered, he shall be required to submit evidence of substantial work on his part towards resolving the Contributor Copyright Investigations filed against him, most particularly the one focused on his text contributions." I see no such evidence submitted in this request. Decline. T. Canens (talk) 02:44, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Decline per the evidence given by Wizardman -- Guerillero &#124;  My Talk  17:49, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
 * At the moment I'm leaning towards decline given Wizardman's statement, but will wait a few days to see if any of the other CCI regulars involved who were pinged by Psychonaut have anything else to add. Dougweller (talk) 17:50, 1 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Courcelles' and Timotheus Canens' points are valid, and I don't see Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )'s comment above about using a bot to scan all of Wikipedia for copyvios to be terribly relevant. Is there evidence that you could provide of work on your part to the CCI? GorillaWarfare (talk) 03:50, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Decline as the condition cited above is not met - no particular evidence of "substantial work on RAN's part towards resolving the Contributor Copyright Investigations filed against him, most particularly the one focused on his text contributions." I sympathise with the amount of time it would take to review every single past edit for copyright violations, but a) that is not the condition in the remedy, which only requires "substantial work," and b) presumably RAN knows where the likely copyvios are and can address them quicker than others might. The fact that there are other even older lists of copvios to be checked, or that the CCI backlog is very long, are not relevant to this specific remedy. Re bots - sounds great but it doesn't exist as far as I know, so it's not an immediately practical solution. Lastly I note Courcelles' question above - would happily reconsider if evidence was now provided of RAN's "substantial work" towards the CCI investigation from 2013 (or any other time).  -- Euryalus (talk) 07:32, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Decline per Eurylaus. Absent evidence that RAN has done "substantial work" on reducing the backlog of his own CCI there is no benefit to Wikipedia in altering this restriction. The aim of the restriction was not punitive but rather to improve the project by removing doubt about the copyright status of articles he potentially added copyright infringing material to by either removing any copyvios or showing they are clean. By doing this it would also assist his demonstrating an understanding of copyright issues and how they affect the project, without which it would be be very difficult to be comfortable the problems would not reoccur. That is not the only way that understanding could be demonstrated, nor does that understanding alone guarantee the restrictions will be lifted, but it would be a Good Thing all round. Thryduulf (talk) 10:06, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Decline per Thryduulf. That we will never completely clear up CCI is not an argument against trying to at least partially improve the situation there.  DGG ( talk ) 00:45, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
 * My colleagues have already exhausted the reasons for my opinion. I'm obviously willing to consider a change when there is significant effort put in to clearing the CCI, without that, Decline. I do thank RAN for making the attempts in his userspace to show his attempt to resolve the issue. -- DQ   (ʞlɐʇ)  05:26, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Amendment request: Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) October 2015

 * Original discussion

Clarification request: Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) Initiated by Beyond My Ken at 21:33, 14 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Case or decision affected

List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
 * (initiator)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request


 * Notification of RAN

Statement by Beyond My Ken
In the current AN/I thread concerning the editing of User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (RAN), a number of concerns have been raised, however there has been disagreement during the discussion about the scope and meaning of Remedy #2.2 of WP:ARBRAN, "Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )'s topic ban on article creation". I would like clarification of this remedy, both for RAN's information, and for the information of other editors examining RAN's edits, including those involved in the current AN/I discussion.

Here is the history of the remedy as I understand it:


 * In November 2011, a community discussion on AN/I was closed by Jbmurray. The close resulted in a one-month topic ban on RAN, characterized as " he is banned specifically from creating new articles and from page moves".


 * In December 2011, another community discussion on AN/I, closed by Swarm, determined that the topic ban should be made indefinite. It was expressed as " Richard Arthur Norton's topic ban (from creating new articles and from performing page moves) is extended indefinitely".


 * In March 2013, the final decision of WP:ARBRAN was posted. Remedy #2.2 "Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )'s topic ban on article creation" -- which passed 12 to 1 -- reads: "The Committee acknowledges that Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )'s community-placed topic ban on article creations was a valid and apparently successful attempt to curb his text-based copyright violations, and further recognizes that this sanction has been violated a number of times. This topic ban will remain in place and is assumed under the Arbitration Committee's authority. After at least six months have elapsed, Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) may appeal to the Committee to have the topic ban lifted in full; in order for appeals of this remedy to be considered, he shall be required to submit evidence of substantial work on his part towards resolving the Contributor Copyright Investigations filed against him, most particularly the one focused on his text contributions."


 * The topic ban was posted to WP:Editing restrictions with exactly the same wording as above.

Given this history, it appears to me that the Committee did not fashion a new topic ban, but simply accepted, endorsed and adopted the existing community ban. If this is correct, then RAN's topic ban forbids him "from creating new articles and from page moves".

The problems arise in trying to determine the exact meaning of this. There are, I believe, two distinct possibilities:


 * 1) RAN is forbidden to create articles anywhere on Wikipedia, and is forbidden from making page moves of any kind anywhere on Wikipedia; or
 * 2) RAN is forbidden to create articles in article space, but may create them in his userspace. He is forbidden from moving those articles into article space.

Obviously, these are radically different. If the first is the correct interpretation, then RAN has violated his topic ban hundreds of times by the creation of articles in his userspace, and a similar number of times by making normal page moves (i.e. those not related to his userspace articles). If the second is the case, then there have been no recent blatant violations that I am aware of, although an argument could be made that by directly encouraging movement of his userspace articles into articlespace by other editors, and by submitting articles to AfC, RAN is attempting to circumvent the topic ban through the use of proxies. That, however, is not the subject of this clarification request.

To assist in this clarification request, I plan on notifying members of the Arbitration Committee at the time of the ARBRAN decision who are not members of the current committee, in case they have insights into the Committee's thinking at the time. BMK (talk) 21:33, 14 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I have posted neutral pointers to this request to the 11 Arbitrators who voted on Remedy 2.2 who are not current members of the committee: Carcharoth, Coren, David Fuchs, Hersfold, Kirill Lokshin, Newyorkbrad, NuclearWarfare, Risker, SilkTork,Timotheus Canens, and Worm That Turned. AKG and Courcelles are the two current Arbs who voted on the remedy. BMK (talk) 21:58, 14 September 2015 (UTC)
 * My thanks to Worm and SilkTork for bringing up the November 2013 clarification, which I was not aware of, even though it was probably included in a link Choor monster brought to light in the AN/I discussion. BMK (talk) 21:19, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
 * - Could you or a clerk specifically ask RAN to respond? BMK (talk) 03:11, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

To bring everyone up to date, the AN/I thread has been closed by Spartaz, with the implementation of Carrite's suggested community ban on RAN using the "quote=" parameter. In addition, Carrite implemented SilkTork's suggestion that RAN's articles in his user space be tagged with an explanation of the reason the article was in userspace and not mainspace, and informing anyone planning on moving it of their responsibility for the article's content, including any copyvio problems.The question remains, however, of what, exactly, RAN's primary article creation/page move topic ban means, so the closing of the AN/I thread should not cause this clarification request to be closed. I would ask that it not be permanently stalled by RAN's apparently deliberate choice not to make a statement here. BMK (talk) 17:50, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I'd like to point out that the use of the "Quote=" parameter being discussed on Jimbo's talk page is not at all central to my clarification request. What is central is the question of what RAN's topic ban means.  Does it mean he can create articles in his user space but can't move them, or does it mean he can't create articles anywhere and can't move pages anywhere, or some combination of the various possibilities.  Editors discussing his contributions disagree on the meaning and purpose of the ban, which is why I asked for clarification; the "quote=" discussion is a side issue. BMK (talk) 20:41, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

Statement by SilkTork
We almost reached a decision to suspend the topic ban - Arbitration/Requests/Case/Richard_Arthur_Norton_(1958-_)/Proposed_decision, but I don't recall a discussion on allowing him to create articles in userspace, and then having someone approve of it before moving it into mainspace. I think if that option had been raised, I would have supported it, probably in preference to a suspension. The form of the topic ban, in which he was forbidden to make page moves, implies that he was allowed to create articles in draft space, but not move them into mainspace himself. It is up to the current Committee as to how to proceed; my view is that if the articles that have been created under this method are free of copyright violations, then I don't see a problem, and it would be something to be considered favourably in a future appeal.  SilkTork  ✔Tea time  22:41, 14 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Following Worm's example, I have moved my comment here. And thank you Worm for providing a link to the November 2013 clarification, in which I was involved. My view at the time was that if RAN were urging other editors to move his drafts into mainspace, that could be considered proxy editing as a way to circumvent his topic ban, and that a direct appeal to have the ban lifted would be more appropriate. The conclusion of the discussion was that creating articles in draftspace wasn't explicitly forbidden by the remedy, so RAN could create articles, and someone else could move them into mainspace as long as they assumed full responsibility for them. I think that was an appropriate outcome. I think it's for the present Committee to decide if an amendment needs to be made to explicitly forbid article creation in draftspace, as I think we didn't explicitly forbid it. My own current view is that allowing RAN to create articles in draftspace, and then have someone check them before moving them into mainspace, is a positive remedy as it provides the means to educate RAN on what is appropriate, and also allows the community to assess RAN's progress, which would be helpful in any future appeal. If he continues to violate copyright rules in his draftspace editing, then the ban would remain in place, and may even be extended to draftspace to prevent further waste of the community's time.  SilkTork  ✔Tea time  08:48, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I have proposed that a move notice should be placed on all RAN's draftspace articles making users aware they take full responsibility if moving them into mainspace.  SilkTork  ✔Tea time  09:47, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Jbhunley
I was briefly involved in the ANI discussion that prompted this request and I supported an indef block because of his obstinate refusal to recognize there was a problem with way he was using  to include copyrighted text in violation of our non-free content policy. My thought being if someone does not get a clue after many others describe the problem over a period of years and they are continuing the problematic behavior then they really do not belong on a collaborative project like Wikipedia. RAN is a prolific writer of articles and has created ~300 in his user space [//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:PrefixIndex/User:Richard_Arthur_Norton_(1958-_)], evidently since his ban. I looked at 10 randomly and found one (1) that used   and was a redirect to project space; Five (2) that seem to have the problem with excessive text in   and four (3) not making use of. The articles I looked at are below.


 * 1) User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )/Edward Everett Grosscup ==>Edward Everett Grosscup
 * 2) User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )/John Jacob Esher, User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )/George Henry Payne, User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )/Arthur von Briesen (lawyer), User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )/James William McGhee, User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )/J. Walter Smith
 * 3) User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )/John Milton Potter,User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )/Gerard Maxwell Weisberg, User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )/Death on Birthday, User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )/Johannes Sembach

Looking at his contributions shows me he is a prolific content creator and but for his obstinate refusal to 'get' that he should not be importing excessive quotations into articles and why doing so is bad he would be an asset to the project. The continuation of the original problem in his user space indicates to me that his ban should extent to all name spaces. The question what the original intent of the ban, and his understanding of it, was is really only relevant if he is going to be sanctioned for violating the ban. If he is not going to be sanctioned now just make it clear he may not create articles in any name space and be done. Massive violation of the non-free content policy is not compatible with with the goals of the project. The down side of this is I hate to see what is obviously a lot of time and work, voluntarily contributed by a talent researcher, go to waste. If the articles in his user space are not going to be deleted out of hand I would be happy to, with the permission of the committee, help go through the articles and clean them up so they do not violate our content policies. J bh Talk  23:31, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Worm That Turned
I'm happier out of that section below, the decision should be with the current committee, so I'll just comment here instead. Richard is a prolific contributor and generally an asset to Wikipedia. However, he appears to have a blind spot on how Wikipedia handles copyright. As this is such crucial area for the encyclopedia, we need to be firm on this - and Richard's arguments that his actions are "legal" are irrelevant here. Excessive use of quotes was one of the issues that was raised was with excessive quotes (Carrite's evidence), and that issue is still happening. Personally, I supported Carrite's excellent suggestion at the ANI (topic banning Rich from using quotes at least in references), and given that Carrite has followed this case closer than most, I do recommend listening to his opinion. As for the "creating articles in his user space" issue, I do remember it being discussed - as the November 2013 clarification was specifically around the issue of pages moving from his userspace into article space. WormTT(talk) 08:00, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Coren
When we enacted this remedy, it was very clear that RAN had considerable difficulty with complying with the requirement of copyright law; and copyright violations are just as damaging regardless of which namespace they are in. My intent, when supporting that remedy, was that RAN was not to create any articles in any namespace. &mdash; Coren (talk) 22:13, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Carrite
As Worm That Turned notes above, RAN was expressly permitted to create articles in his own space per the cited November 2013 Arbitration clarification. The core of this ruling is that he could create but that anyone moving his ostensible new starts to mainspace would be doing it on their own authority and under their own responsibility that the material should be copyright clear. To my knowledge no substantial copyright violation has been committed by RAN through this process. Does the process actually work? No, there is a huge and growing backlog of RAN's unported creations and the encyclopedia is the less for it. I've made a proposal at AN/I calling for a prohibition of RAN's use of the "quote=" parameter of the citation template — which is clear "fair use" under American copyright law, but still a point of contention for the Anti-Fair Use caucus. (It's completely unnecessary and should be removed from the template itself, in my opinion, and the source of much of this latest hubbub, in my opinion). I think RAN is completely safe in his understanding and adherence of copyright, but he has his enemies, to be sure. I believe the Arbcom expectation that he should go through 50,000 nearly 10-year-old edits looking for his own copyright violations is patently absurd and should be vacated at this time in conjunction with this clarification request. If RAN doesn't truly "get" copyright and violates it, he'll be banned off almost instantaneously — he knows that, we all know that. Yet because the Contributor Copyright Investigation process does not scale and is backlogged, RAN is effectively lifetime banned from new creations via normal means for no very good reason. Carrite (talk) 15:49, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

Pee Ess. This is still the correct answer to the puzzle:

"'...Get rid of the ill-considered topic ban on creations, which was a really bad decision in his case. Limit him to 5 starts a month for 12 months or some other reasonable number. He'll be monitored with respect to copyvio, trust me.' Carrite (talk) 10:10 am, 14 November 2013"

Step up to the plate and get rid of the idiotic "Must Self-Police Entire Decade of Volunteer Work For Wikipedia First" requirement... The old copyright violations were never so prolific or terrible as alleged, done is done. Carrite (talk) 16:10, 15 September 2015 (UTC)


 * @ - It is an abject waste of time for me or you or Richard Norton or anyone to waste time parsing 10-year old edits, virtually all of which have been through subsequent editing by others, looking for nefarious cut-and-pasting from websites or failure to footnote in the 2015-approved manner. To repeat: an abject waste of time. It is never going to be done, ever, by anyone — so please don't pretend that this is any less absurd a requirement than chopping down the tallest tree in the forest with a herring... Greenlight Richard for a limited number of new starts per month, monitor those carefully, and ban his ass if he violates copyright. That's the solution. Carrite (talk) 19:41, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
 * November will mark the FOUR YEAR mark since the CCI case against RAN was opened. There are cases in the queue that are nearly two years older. CCI does not scale — this queue will never be resolved. Carrite (talk) 19:47, 15 September 2015 (UTC)


 * As I have been working through the backlog of user-space articles started by RAN I have been not only flagging each in accord with the recent AN/I decision in his case but have been removing all "quote=" quotations. Assuming these deleted cites fall within the umbrella of Fair Use under American copyright law (which is nearly certain), I have found ZERO evidence of any copyright violations in the material I have touched so far. It also seems clear that RAN has accepted the AN/I prohibition on further use of the "quote=" parameter. It makes no sense whatsoever from the perspective of building the encyclopedia to tighten sanctions on this very productive editor. Carrite (talk) 06:29, 29 September 2015 (UTC)


 * @ - Your intimation that RAN's 2014 and 2015 have copyright violations is absolutely dishonest — "no consensus that they do not"... That's completely bogus. Show me one example of copyright violation in any of those. Five bucks you can't do it without nit-picking his (soon-to-be-deleted) fair use "quote=" glosses... I'll even loan you a herring. Carrite (talk) 15:50, 29 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Please re-read what I wrote, "no consensus that they do not" is accurate. Your statement that "there are no copyright violations from the last two years, if you exclude the parts where there is not a consensus that they contain no copyright problems" may or may not also be accurate, but it is a different claim and not a claim that I consider relevant. Thryduulf (talk) 16:06, 29 September 2015 (UTC)


 * It is completely bogus, "have-you-stopped-beating-your-wife" type phrasing. It is also equally true that "there is no consensus that they do" contain copyvio. Small sample size either way, n=0. It's an absurdity, and one phrased in a very dishonest way. I'll go further since I've been over the new 2015 material and am ready to embark on the 2014 material — there are no apparent copyvios in that, and I insist you or anyone prove me wrong before you go intimating that there is any such problem with that material. It is simply not a problem with RAN's new material outside of the controversial-and-now-prohibited "quote=" quotations he has been so fond of. We're here to build an encyclopedia, last I checked. RAN actually is doing that. Why are people impeding him? The bad edits of 2005-2008 are buried under the better part of a decade of editing by others, revisions, deletions, and changes. They're part of the sheetrock job at Wikipedia by now, spackled and painted over three times. It's absurd to expect him to waste a year of his time on the really quite unimportant job of analyzing ancient edits. Carrite (talk) 02:18, 30 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Good job, Arbcom, more brilliant INVESTIGATIVE WORK to help cap off an excellent and productive year helping build the encyclopedia. Carrite (talk) 18:52, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Andrew Davidson
Jimbo Wales recently stated that "It should be noted though that extended quotes, properly sourced, are not generally a violation of copyright.  ...  We have never, to my recollection and knowledge, had a legal complaint or threat of any kind about a properly sourced quote."  We should therefore not be officious or bureaucratic in preventing the use of quotes when their use is being endorsed at the highest level. Andrew D. (talk) 17:42, 16 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Also, please note that many of the sources in question were published before 1923 and so are now public domain in the USA. For example, in User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )/John Jacob Esher, there is a quotation from the Chicago Tribune of 1901.  To complain about quoting such sources is as absurd as complaining about the use of photographs from the same period.  This suggests a way forward.  As RAN likes to work on deceased subjects of this sort, he could perhaps stick to pre-1923 US sources and use them freely without all this fuss.  The date provides a clear demarcation, which is what he would like, and there is a vast body of material of that age which will keep him busy for years.  Andrew D. (talk) 16:33, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Choor monster
My involvement began when I raised the issue on ANI regarding a particular article that began as an RAN subpage. After a comedy of good faith errors that turned mildly unfunny, it seemed best to turn to ANI for help.

I believe the issue boils down to a single question. Just how absolute is our policy regarding WP:NFCCP?

I would say that, despite the words written there and quoted above, there is in fact an unstated but widely accepted gray zone. We normally do not delete non-justified fair use quotations, we bury them in the history. They remain on WP, available for any reader who knows where to look. They can be linked to from anywhere on the Internet. In particular, they are sometimes linked to in Talk discussions. Meanwhile, admin-level deletion, whether a simple RevDel or a full-scale AfD, is left for the extreme cases only.

I suggest that user subpages fall into this gray zone. They are the sort of page which you have to know where to look. You do not stumble upon them in normal browsing, and even Talk discussions rarely link to them.

Placing the two in the same gray zone does not imply identical treatment. But it does provide breathing room. Choor monster (talk) 14:00, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Rich Farmbrough (RAN)
Indeed the "quote=" issue should be set aside in considering the stated question for clarification: "What was the meaning of the restriction assumed by the Committee?"

However there are additional questions:
 * 1) What should the restriction say henceforth?
 * 2) Has the restriction passed its sell-by date?

For these questions the "quote=" issue has some relevance. It should be understood, that "quote=" fills at least four functions, which I discussed some years ago:
 * 1) It provides concrete, albeit de-contextualised, citation support for a statement.
 * 2) It relates a specific passage to a specific citation.
 * 3) It provides insurance against link rot.
 * 4) It provides a means of limited verification, especially important in hard to find or restricted content.

(As remarked elsewhere, copyright concerns are somewhat misplaced.)

It would seem that the "quote=" issue shows that RAN is interested in providing quality citations, providing them requires more work than not doing so, effectively refuting claims (if any such were made) that previous issues around using copyright text were born of a desire to produce articles with he least effort.

On the other hand it might be argued that RAN failed to see the writing on the wall in both these issues, and it was for that reason that sanctions were imposed, and since that has not (apparently) changed sanctions should be maintained. However even if we impute an inability to see community consensus before a restriction is imposed, there is no doubt that RAN is aware of and has understood and complied with copyright concerns of the community.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 23:03, 22 September 2015 (UTC).

Addendum

There seems to be a mistaken idea that we benefit from preventing good content being created by people who created poor content in the past. On this reckoning no-one would be editing Wikipedia (except one or two who only tell others what to do, or delete things, I suppose).

Some time ago I looked at the "examples" of alleged copyvios by this editor, and remain unconvinced by some of them. For example one was text written by a Smithsonian employee. Approximately half of their employees are funded by the federal government, and their work is PD-USA. No-one has made any effort to establish if this was the case. If the copyvios were as egregious and extensive as was claimed it should have been simple to find numerous unambiguous examples.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 20:36, 30 September 2015 (UTC).

Second addendum

I would be very interested to see a bona fide copyvio from RAN in the last few years. The vast majority of his later edits before the CCOI have been passed copyvio free, and even in the early ones true copyvios are pretty scarce.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 02:19, 15 October 2015 (UTC).

Statement by Only in death
Someone who knows advised me it would be simple (5 minutes!) to write a bot to strip all the uses of the quote= parameter from the articles in RAN's userspace (leaving the references otherwise untouched). Since this is the primary cause of the COI material, perhaps ARBCOM could pass a motion this be done instead? Given that RAN is now prohibited from using the quote function by the community, this would resolve a lot of the issues and allow people to actually move forward without the need for excessive and time-wasting vetting of his drafts. The refs are the important bit, quotes are not needed 99% of the time. Only in death does duty end (talk) 08:39, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
 * If only it were that simple, but while the quote= may be the primary cause of copyright violating material in the recent drafts, it is not the only cause for concern in all the drafts. It does need human review. Thryduulf (talk) 09:54, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
 * True, but it would be a damn sight quicker if the quote= issue was taken out of the equation. The actual backlog of articles with issues from last time still exists, there is now a backlog of *drafts* (500+ at last count I think) in his userspace due to the less than explicit wording from the previous case.. Surely the prime purpose of any alterations in his restrictions at this point (since no one is willing to pull the trigger and go for an outright ban despite RAN's unrepentant refusal to obey consensus on this issue) is to reduce the backlog of RAN-related issues? How does the below do that? Preventative measures have had no effect previously, so why not try doing something to actually clean up the mess? Relying on some outside influence to get RAN to do his own cleanup is folly, he has no intention to, has made no efforts to, and is not going to just because an additional restriction is placed on top. Only in death does duty end (talk) 10:14, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
 * User:Yunshui, the problem which you seem to be missing is not that quote use may or may not be a copyright violation, its that RAN's use of it certainly violated the use of non-free content. Non-free quotes have to be short and provide detail that could not otherwise be paraphrased or explained without the quote (in context). Extensive quotes are prohibited. RAN's use of quoted text was not even in the article as read, he used (and still does in his userspace) excessively long quote= that added nothing to the article. Even a short quote of non-free text would generally not be used in that situation. RAN's issue is that despite being repeatedly told time and again his extensive use of non-free content violated wikipedia's policies he has shown no inclination to stop and has just moved from doing it in article space to doing it in his userspace. Policy and the non-free use guidelines are very clear on this. Enforcement on this has been consistant for years. RAN either argues his additions are not a violation, or that they are a violation but not according to US copyright law so he doesnt have to obey wikipedia's policies. The first has been rejected soundly by the community repeatedly over a number of years. The second has been rejected as irrelevant as wikipedia's policies and guidelines are by neccessity, stricter than the law allows for. All of the above is merely explanatory and could be gleaned from 5 mins looking at the past cases, and discussions, and restrictions placed on RAN. At this point RAN is community banned from using quote= at all anywhere because he cannot be trusted to use correct judgement in line with wikipedia policy in his use of it. His past articles have extensive problems, his drafts have the same issues. Literally every single one has to be checked, line by line in some cases due to his past history. Only in death does duty end (talk) 08:38, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Because this really is getting old now:
 * 2006
 * 2010
 * 2015 Only in death does duty end (talk) 08:53, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

Statement by {other-editor}
Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should opine whether and how the Committee should clarify or amend the decision or provide additional information.

Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ): Clerk notes

 * This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).


 * I've moved Coren's section to their own section. The Arb section below is for the current Committee. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 10:05, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Per a recent discussion on the clerks' mailing list I've removed qualifiers ("ex-arb") from section headers, if you'd like to make it clear that you're commenting from that perspective could you please say so at the beginning of your statement. Thanks, Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 10:13, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ): Arbitrator views and discussion

 * Copyright violations are possibly the most damaging things to include in Wikipedia, regardless of where they are. The December 2014-January 2015 amendment request was declined because there was no evidence of him doing the "substantial work" on clearing the backlog of his CCI, and there appears to have been none since, rather more copyright issues have been introduced. Accordingly I believe that we should be clarifying/amending the restriction to disallow all article and article draft creations in all namespaces and disallow all moves of pages into the article namespace by him or at his request/encouragement. Anyone else may move pages he has created, but they must explicitly take full responsibility for any copyright violations on any page they move. This would last indefinitely but may be appealed when (a) all draft articles in his userspace and all pages he authored in the draft namespace have been verified free of copyright violations or deleted; and (b) he presents evidence of substantial work on his part towards resolving the Contributor Copyright Investigations filed against him, most particularly the one focused on his text contributions. I will propose a motion to this effect if my colleagues agree with my opinion and think such clarification is required. Thryduulf (talk) 11:42, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
 * As was made clear in the most recent ammendment request, we do not expect RAN to go through his entire contribution history, we expect him to undertake substantial work towards clearing his CCI backlog. To date we have seen evidence of almost zero work towards clearing it and so I will vote against any proposal to remove the requirement or relax the restriction until that changes. If you believe the encyclopaedia is poorer without RAN's creations, you are free to confirm they contain no copyright problems and move them yourself, until that time please do not complain that others are not doing so. Thryduulf (talk) 18:23, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I largely agree with Thryduulf. Before considering scaling back any restrictions, I want to see that the existing issues have been addressed, meaning that RAN has made substantial efforts toward addressing the previous problems, and has done so properly. The point here, to be quite blunt, was that RAN was to help clearing up the issues he caused, and I won't consider relaxing the restrictions until substantial effort is made toward that. If instead it's more of the same in a different namespace, we may need to make the creation ban apply to all namespaces until the existing issues are addressed. I do agree that the original restriction was not on all namespaces, so if we decide that's needed it would require an amendment motion. Seraphimblade Talk to me 19:54, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm awaiting comments from RAN before making any decision, but I would note that I can't see any clear evidence that he's fully accepted the community's views on extensive quotations/copyvios at this time. I would like to hear an explanation of his current understanding of the copyvio policy before accepting or denying this request. Yunshui 雲 水 10:06, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I've asked RAN to respond here, but note that he's already done so at JimboTalk. Still considering. Yunshui <sup style="font-size:90%">雲 <sub style="font-size:90%">水 11:32, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Doesn't look as though we're going to get a response, so here's my take on BMK's original request: As I read the wording of the sanction, it allows RAN to create drafts in userspace, but prohibits him from moving them to mainspace. This may not have been the intention of the original drafters of the wording, but it was confirmed to be the approved interpretation in the 2013 clarification and I see no reason to differ from the consensus arrived at there. If there is to be a proposal to amend the sanction so as to explicitly prohibit the creation of drafts, this would need to take place by motion, but I for one would not support it. Yunshui <sup style="font-size:90%">雲 <sub style="font-size:90%">水 08:11, 22 September 2015 (UTC)


 * By way of clarification, RAN's ban allows him to create articles in his userspace, but not to move them to mainspace. And, regarding the proposal to lift the restriction, I am opposed. Salvio Let's talk about it! 10:28, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm with Thryduulf on this one, and it does seem that a new motion will be required. I don't think RAN should be working on new material while there is outstanding material that needs to be cleared. 12:27, 24 September 2015 (UTC) previous unsigned comment added by

Motion: Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )
Remedy 2.2 of the Richard Arthur Norton (1958 - ) case is struck and replaced by:

2.3) Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) ("RAN") is indefinitely prohibited from: 7 Other editors may move pages created or substantially edited by RAN, but only if they explicitly take responsibility for any copyright violations on that page.
 * Creating any articles or draft articles in any namespace.
 * Moving any page into the article namespace from any other namespace.

This remedy may be appealed after the later of 6 months and when all draft articles he has authored, in his userspace and in the draft namespace, have been verified free of copyright violations and moved to the article namespace by other editors or deleted. In order for appeals of this remedy to be considered, he shall be required to submit evidence of substantial work on his part towards resolving the Contributor Copyright Investigations (CCI) filed against him, most particularly the one focused on his text contributions.

Any article or draft article created contrary to this restriction will result in a block, initially of at least one month and then proceeding per the enforcement provisions. The article or draft article may be speedily deleted under criterion G5 by any administrator.

Any page moves made contrary to this restriction may be enforced by blocks per the enforcement provisions. The page move may be reversed by any editor able to do so.
 * Enacted - Amortias (T)(C) 12:51, 16 October 2015 (UTC)



Support
 * 1) Thryduulf (talk) 11:09, 28 September 2015 (UTC) as proposer
 * 2) Doug Weller (talk) 13:26, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
 * 3) -- Guerillero  &#124;  Parlez Moi  16:08, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
 * 4) I understand Yunshui's concerns, so my vote, at least, does not reflect any thought on exactly how the "quote" parameter should be used. It is, rather, that RAN is still and yet creating articles that are at least in a grey area as copyright and nonfree content use go. The spirit (if not the letter) of the original ruling was that RAN was to help clean up the mess, that being, substantially work on the CCI, before returning to such activity, and that it would be wise for him to stay well clear of the line when it comes to copyright and nonfree material, not try to dance right along it. Seraphimblade Talk to me 10:01, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
 * 5)  AGK  [•] 23:18, 3 October 2015 (UTC)
 * 6) (see comments) Yunshui <sup style="font-size:90%">雲 <sub style="font-size:90%">水  09:04, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
 * 7) Brings this more in line with the intent of the original ruling. This is potentially more restrictive than necessary but I think with the substantial number of borderline copyright cases this is the best solution at this time. NativeForeigner Talk 17:06, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
 * 8) Support. this was the intent of the original restriction.  I'd like to reconsider this eventually, but I think we need to   see progress make on the original problems first.  DGG ( talk ) 05:40, 14 October 2015 (UTC).

Oppose
 * I can't get behind this. Unless someone can show me either clear evidence of copyright violations in RAN's recent drafts, or clear consensus/policy that use of the  parameter violates WP:COPYVIO, I'm opposed to tightening the existing restrictions. Yunshui <sup style="font-size:90%">雲 <sub style="font-size:90%">水  11:47, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
 * RAN's drafts need to be individually examined for copyright violations - whether they contain them or not (and there is no consensus in the community that they do not). This motion is required to stop the backlog of contributions needing to be examined growing faster than it can be cleared, and to try again to get RAN to do the substantial work towards clearing his CCI that he needs to do. Thryduulf (talk) 15:20, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Equally, I see no community consensus that they do. My concern is that this skirts the fringes of policy-by-fiat; if we decide that the use of  in these drafts constitutes a copyright violation, we are effectively amending the copyvio policy to that effect. I am not convinced that the current policy's interpretation should be so broad as to encompass this, and it certainly isn't our place to make changes to it. Yunshui <sup style="font-size:90%">雲 <sub style="font-size:90%">水  07:09, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
 * This is not about the quote parameter, which is why it is not mentioned at all in the motion. I have no opinion at all on whether it is a good or bad thing in the general case. This is, per Seraphimblade, about RAN continuing to create work for other editors without even attempting to help clean up the backlog he has already left. Thryduulf (talk) 17:21, 3 October 2015 (UTC)


 * 1) In the absence of the evidence of more recent copyright problems. Show me some, and I'd support this. Courcelles (talk) 19:29, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
 * 2) In my opinion, the restriction recently imposed by the community should be enough to curb the disruption caused by RAN. Salvio Let's talk about it! 10:47, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

Abstain


 * Comments
 * As best as I can tell, we're sitting on a motion at 5-1 when the subject of the motion has not been formally notified of it. I'm going to ask the clerks to do a round of notifications.  Courcelles (talk) 05:45, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Jumping to the comments section to lay out my position, so that the Oppose section doesn't get too crowded... I do get where you're coming from with regards to reducing the workload on other editors with this motion. However, as I understand it, the primary reason for the copyright complaints made against RAN is the "excessive" quotation from sources. I am unsure whether this constitutes a clear violation of the copyright policy, and it seems to me that the community is too: some argue that long quotations are a copyright violation, others that they are not. There appears to be no clear consensus. It is therefore unclear to me whether there actually has been any consistent history of copyright violation in RAN's contributions. I do not think it's possible to make any meaningful headway with the CCI until this question is resolved - if the overuse of quotations is a copyright violation, then this motion has merit and I would vote in favour of it. If the use of quotations is not a copyright violation, then unless a pattern of other text-based copyvios can be demonstrated, the CCI is moot. I am not happy imposing a prohibition on draft creation until that issue is decided. Yunshui <sup style="font-size:90%">雲 <sub style="font-size:90%">水  07:27, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Actually, on reflection and having reviewed some of the history more closely this morning, I'm starting to think that I've focussed too heavily on this one aspect of the case. There are other copyright concerns that need have been raised, and taking those into account, I've become convinced that the best course of action for Wikipedia is to pass this motion. It may not be entirely fair to RAN, but Wikipedia isn't benefitting from contributions tha have to be checked like this, and ultimately it's the good of the project that we need to consider. Striking my opoosition, and moving to support. Yunshui <sup style="font-size:90%">雲 <sub style="font-size:90%">水 09:04, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

Clarification request: Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (December 2015)
Original discussion

Initiated by Callanecc at 06:34, 9 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Case or decision affected

List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
 * (initiator)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request


 * [diff of notification Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )]
 * [diff of notification Beyond My Ken]

Statement by Callanecc
I am filing this request here as an uninvolved administrator in response this AE request. Sorry for another job for you all to do (hopefully this can be resolved one way or the other without a motion) but there does seem to be some uncertainty regarding whether this edit (for clarity, this was the series of edits made by RAN, before the first edit by someone else) breaches RAN's prohibition on creating articles.

So the question is does turning a redirect into an article count as "Creating any articles or draft articles in any namespace" (from the restriction as modified last month)?

Whether or not the Committee considers this possible violation worthy of sanctions or not I believe it's worth clarifying that point for everyone's benefit. Thanks, Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 06:34, 9 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Thanks @arbs that's pretty clear. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 11:06, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Beyond My Ken
I don't have anything much to add to what I'd already posted on the AE Request. As Callanec says, I contend that although they are both pages, a redirect is not an article – see How to edit a redirect or convert it into an article on WP:Redirects, where the word "convert" is a clear indication that a redirect is not an article, but must be changed in some fundamental way in order to become one; see also Criteria for speedy deletion, in which there are different rules for the deletion of articles and for the deletion of redirects; and Articles for deletion vs. Redirects for discussion. By converting a redirect to an article, RAN created the article, violating his ban. Another editor has proposed that the redirect was an article from the time it was created (by me). I reject this contention, but if it is true, then RAN has violated his ban by creating numerous redirects, as can be seen here. BMK (talk) 07:43, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Since 8 Arbs have confirmed that converting a redirect to an article is the creation of an article, and therefore a violation of RAN's topic ban, would it be possible to formally close this Request for Clarification and either alter the topic ban per Thryduuf's suggestion or, at the very least, give RAN a formal notification of the findings of the Committee? BMK (talk) 00:24, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Andreas Philopater
I'm not sure how appropriate it is that I speak up (I have nothing to do with this), but this is a case where I think "no harm, no foul" can safely be applied, as long as there is clarity moving forward as to an edit of this type (article creation vs page creation) being subject to the ban or not.--Andreas Philopater (talk) 09:44, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Bencherlite
FWIW, the act of turning a redirect into an article was regarded by Arbs in October 2013 as the creation of an article for infobox restriction purposes at Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Infoboxes (there may be a better link to be found to more a pertinent discussion than that). In other words, if X is restricted from adding infoboxes to articles save for those articles that X has created, X can turn a redirect into an article and add an infobox without breaching the restriction. If Y is restricted from creating an article, then it would seem to follow that Y is not allowed to turn a redirect into an article. BencherliteTalk 15:11, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Rich Farmbrough (RAN)
Committee should clarify that this will be considered a violation in the future. Then take time for a motion to remove the restriction completely. There is no benefit to it. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 20:15, 9 November 2015 (UTC).


 * Thryduulf@undefined What purpose? All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 22:53, 9 November 2015 (UTC).

Statement by {other-editor}
Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should opine whether and how the Committee should clarify or amend the decision or provide additional information.

Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ): Clerk notes

 * This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).


 * Recuse Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 06:42, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ): Arbitrator views and discussion

 * For the purposes of RAN's restrictions, changing a redirect to an article is the same as creating an article from scratch meaning this was a violation. As there are almost no occasions on en.wp where this is not regarded as creating an article, I am more inclined to see this as an intentional gaming of the restriction than I am to see this as a genuine misunderstanding - however I invite RAN to convince me otherwise if he wishes. Thryduulf (talk) 17:25, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
 * To hopefully prevent a future requests for clarification:
 * If a page was previously an article (written by someone other than RAN) but was redirected without consensus, RAN may revert that redirection, but he may not completely rewrite the article (i.e. it must remain based on a revision prior to redirection).
 * Completely rewriting a page such that almost no previous material remains and/or the topic is changed does count as a violation. Thryduulf (talk) 17:25, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
 * We will not be amending or removing this restriction without an appeal by RAN. The purpose of the restriction was explained and discussed when it was enacted, and again when it was recently amended - that you disagree with the committee about whether it will achieve it's purpose does not change this. Thryduulf (talk) 22:42, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes it is. --In actu (Guerillero) &#124; My Talk  20:20, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
 * With respect to what counts as starting an article, I agree totally with Thryduulf ;
 * With regard to asking us to modify our decisions. I think anyone can ask. We may make mistakes, what we say may become superseded by events, there may be factors we had not taken into consideration, or we may simply be well advised to reconsider.  The idea that we might do something wrong and not want to fix it because the wrong person asks us is totally alien to my sense of justice, but it is unfortunately true that most of the current committee  seems to feel  otherwise.  DGG ( talk ) 05:42, 10 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Changing a redirect into an article is creating an article, unless RAN is as one scenario above suggests simply undoing a redirect made to an article without consensus. Doug Weller (talk) 12:46, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
 * A redirect is not an article, it is a navigational aid with no content. Changing it into an article is, therefore, creating an article. Seraphimblade Talk to me 14:17, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Per bencherlite. That being said no harm no foul here. NativeForeigner Talk 10:44, 15 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Turning a redirect into an article is a violation of the restriction. Please take this to heart in the future. Courcelles (talk) 21:01, 18 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Agree with Courcelles and various others. Turning a redirect into an article is creating that article, unless it is simply a reversion (or any similar trivial use-case). -- Euryalus (talk) 09:14, 23 November 2015 (UTC)
 * (Late to the party) Redirect --> Article = creating an article. -- Amanda  (aka DQ) 03:48, 5 December 2015 (UTC)