Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Betacommand 2/Evidence

User:BetacommandBot/Opt-out
I'm not familiar enough with the arbitration process to know if this is usually done, but can an arbiter or a clerk please temporarily undelete User:BetacommandBot/Opt-out to facilitate evidence gathering? The page can be courtesy blanked, but it would be helpful to us non-administrators to be able to access the history there. Thanks, &#10154; Hi DrNick ! 17:24, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅. AGK § 17:35, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Scheduling
I hope to post a proposed decision in this case on Sunday evening or Monday morning (USEDT), consistent with my goal of moving cases to voting after about one week in the evidence phase. Could any editors with additional evidence to present please do so as soon as possible. Thank you. Newyorkbrad (talk) 00:39, 23 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I think you should wait. Carcharoth is away over Easter and says he can't submit evidence until Tuesday. Carcharoth has been following this issue for a long time, is deeply familiar with image policy, and has been a reasonable critical voice of BC and his supporters. If you move to a proposed decision now, you're leaving his evidence behind.  r speer  / ɹəəds ɹ  05:55, 23 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I'd agree with Rspeer. If there is one guy who is solidly in the middle of this, its Carc and I'd really like to see his take on the evidence and what he thinks could resolve this.  MBisanz  talk 06:17, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Good point, thanks. We are trying to render timely decisions in every case, but I appreciate your comments here. I'll wait a few more days. Newyorkbrad (talk) 13:24, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Only just found this exchange. I'm back after my Easter break but have lots of other things to catch up with. I appreciate the thoughts on waiting for my evidence, but have only had time to follow the presentation of evidence and suggest a few obvious corrections to people on their talk pages regarding their evidence, and then read through the workshop page as it developed (and over Easter it seems to have become longer). What I said over on the proposed decision talk page is one of the main points I wanted to make - the arbitrators should really make an effort to either go through in detail the history of what happened here (the history of the non-free content policy; the history of Betacommand and BetacommandBot; the history of the talk pages of the bot operator and the bot; the history of the most recent disputes, such as the so-called "attack page" and its MfD; etc.) or concentrate purely on specific problems with behaviour. As I said on the proposed decision talk page: "Arbitrators trying to comment on how the community is handling this policy area will end up merely repeating previous arguments and misunderstandings, unless they read those archives". In terms of behaviour (which is what ArbCom deal with best), I still think the aggressive defence of Betacommand and BCBot was unhelpful, and would like to present evidence to that effect, but not if that will be pointless. Ultimately though, my evidence might not change things that much (though I am planning to present evidence of Betacommand being helpful as the current evidence presents rather a distorted picture). I'll see what time I have this week, but please don't hold things up just for me (I'd be very happy to systematically present the evidence over weeks and months - after all, the evidence is not going anywhere - but only to the extent that it will shed light on what happened or provide lessons for the future. *cough* WP:NFCC-C *cough* One of my personal bugbears is myths and legends arising in the Wikipedia namespace because people misunderstand or misrepresent what actually happened). On the other hand, if others also say they want more time to present evidence (I was hoping BrownHairedGirl might present some evidence, as her longer statement was the most sensible thing said so far about the whole set of issues), that might be different. Carcharoth (talk) 21:02, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I would very much welcome your continued input. If you can't post a full evidence presentation, then a narrative statement of the dispute(s) as you see it and your thoughts on how they could best be addressed would be appreciated. (And anyone else's too, of course.) By Friday, maybe? Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 11:16, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks. By Friday sounds good. I know the current stats bit I put up isn't quite what anyone was looking for, but I thought it might be useful. The more relevant behaviour bits will come later. Carcharoth (talk) 11:51, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Or maybe not. . Sorry, didn't find the time. Carcharoth (talk) 00:33, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Inappropriate use of nobots
Betacommand has mentioned incidences of inappropriate use of the nobots template as his rationale for not using that template for his bot. I found at least one instance of this ; is anyone else aware of other such uses? --bainer (talk) 11:28, 23 March 2008 (UTC)


 * thanks. I just got an idea, Image:UKofGBandNI COAs.png, Image:001 AWB illustrations for AWB manual.png,Image:002 AWB illustrations for AWB manual.png,Image:003 AWB illustrations for AWB manual.png,Image:004 AWB illustrations for AWB manual.png,Image:005 AWB illustrations for AWB manual.png,Image:006 AWB illustrations for AWB manual.png. βcommand 13:37, 23 March 2008 (UTC)


 * If the darned database would cooperate, I could give you a list of candidate images, which had the nobots tag. Needless to say, the database is not cooperating: I'll post a list once I get a reasonable result. --uǝʌǝsʎʇɹoɟʇs (st47) 14:01, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
 * ST47 dont forget the API, like I did.  :P. βcommand 14:05, 23 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Both the API embeddedin and Special:Whatlinkshere are only going to give current uses; it's going to take someone with access to a text table to look for historical uses. --bainer (talk) 14:12, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
 * none short of developers have that access. the toolserver does not store page text. βcommand 14:14, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
 * The db dumps store that information, assuming they happen to hit the time frame we'd be looking at. Which would be, what?  Alai (talk) 03:59, 25 March 2008 (UTC)


 * (ec)I also didn't realize that betacommand already did it on his talk page. I obviously don't have access to a text table, but I can try is against edit summaries. --uǝʌǝsʎʇɹoɟʇs (st47) 14:15, 23 March 2008 (UTC)


 * If there a Cat like magic word HIDDENCAT's that could holdall these images with nobots. Ideally it should be a warn-able offense to put images in Nobots for the purpose of avoding NFCC compliance.  MBisanz  talk 21:18, 23 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Wait, none of those examples that Beta gave are evidence of abuse for nobots. I'm a little confused here.. -- Ned Scott 04:09, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
 * those were just current usage of the template in image space. most of the cases that it was abused have been long deleted or fixed. (I dont have records of that, as I did not think I needed to. I just handled the abuse by ignoring the template.) βcommand 2 14:28, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
 * And what people are trying to assess is whether said "handling" was proportionate and appropriate to the (alleged) initial problem. Alai (talk) 21:42, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
 * It looks like people disagree on what "abuse" means. Given that people disagreed on whether something was an "attack page", this is not entirely surprising. Carcharoth (talk) 10:54, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Is there a distinction to be drawn between recognizing "nobots" on an image page and recognizing "nobots" on a user talkpage? Newyorkbrad (talk) 11:12, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I believe this was suggested at some point. One problem is that people sometimes use non-free images on user talk pages. Possibly these examples are so few that a bot could generate a list for humans to check and police, with the idea that humans leave kinder messages in the process of removing the images (though some humans leave rude messages as well). The point is that bots do more than just leave messages on talk pages, they also remove images. What is really needed is a "no bot messages" template. Carcharoth (talk) 11:54, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Why not just (have bots that "need" to worry about this) place that interpretation on the existing template, in the instances where it occurs in the user_talk: namespace? Alai (talk) 21:46, 25 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Granted we're getting a bit off topic by having some of this discussion here, but just to throw it out there, could nobots be ignored or followed per task, rather than by namespace? Some tasks would require an edit, regardless of an editor's preference, while others are less of an issue and don't need to be strictly enforced. -- Ned Scott 23:29, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree this is in some respects not the ideal place to be having this discussion, since while I think (personally) that it's fairly clear that BC's acted with what's at best reckless disregard, I would hardly want to browbeat him with having not complied with the precise details of some best practice or policy that's determined after the fact. Maybe we would move this aspect to the bot-policy page, or the BON.  I think the point is that for this task, it does need to be sensitive to namespace, in addition, for the reasons described.  (Unless it's going to actually comply with the nobots in all cases, in line with Carcharoth's observation.)  Alai (talk) 01:32, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Refactor
Requests for arbitration/Betacommand 2/Evidence needs to be refactored. User:Cary Bass has stated that what John254 has presented is not an accurate representation.  Lara  ❤  Love  13:57, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Slippery slope. Lots of inaccurate stuff in arbitration cases should in theory be refactored. Where do you stop? Anyone reading the section will read Cary Bass's response. That should be enough. Carcharoth (talk) 14:28, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Speaking at least for myself, the contents of that section do not strike me as likely to affect the outcome of the case one way or the other. Newyorkbrad (talk) 14:45, 25 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Ironically, I think the evidence itself helps BC (showing him granting an opt-out without issue or a big fuss). Maybe someone should copy/paste this to their own section with a new heading. -- Ned Scott 23:26, 25 March 2008 (UTC)