Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Date delinking/Proposed decision/Archive 3

Is motion 1.2 within policy?
I understand the good-faith intention behind another motion concerning delinking, but I can't see how open-ended injunctions covering everyone visitor in the world and every Wikipedian are covered by ArbCom's policy. Under "Injunctions", a temporary injunction must end with the case:

"At any time between the opening of a case and its closure, Arbitrators may propose temporary injunctions, which are binding decisions that shall be in effect until a case closes."

There's no other mention of injunctions (non-"temporary" ones), and I wonder whether ArbCom has the power to impose such a broad injunction that extends beyond the judgement. The policy very clearly says:

Remedies will be of a form similar to:
 * "User X is cautioned against making personal attacks even under severe provocation."
 * "User X is limited to one revert per twenty four hour period on article A."
 * "User X is placed on personal attack parole for a period of Y; if user X engages in edits which an administrator believes to be personal attacks, they may be banned for a short period of time of up to Z."
 * "User X is prohibited from editing group Y of articles for a period of Z."
 * "User X is banned from editing Wikipedia for a period of Y."

There sees to be no doubt about it. Remedies involve the parties to the case, not all who come to the project that "anyone can edit".

I suggest that ArbCom just let the temporary injunction go, as the policy appears to insist, and warn the parties that until the direction with bots is resolved they risk being blocked for disruption if they disruptively delink or relink dates with the major intention of doing just that. I note that clerk Ryan P. says above that he would do so if he encountered a user who was mass de/relinking. Dabomb87 (talk) 19:10, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

To the arbitrators
Can I say that Ohconfucius has received berating messages from at at least two of his friends concerning his infelicitous unlinking yesterday. Of these messages, mine used words I wouldn't want my mother to hear. I think you will find there's strong pressure to keep the peace, and to unlink chronological items with care and human oversight, and only among other article improvements—the type of gnoming that Colonies Chris does so well, with minutes spent on corrections in each article. Tony  (talk)  19:30, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Ohconfucius
Any arbitrator who thinks that this decision has changed something is invited to view Ohconfucious' last 7 contributions, , , , , ,. It's January all over again. AKAF (talk) 17:05, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Yeah, and remember to watch Arbitrator Wizardman's many delinks. That's in a completely different ballpark! --HJensen, talk 18:26, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Those who disagree with Ohconfucius' edits are (most of us) free to apply WP:BRD and see what happens. The first point of discussion should be how those particular links are germane to the article in question. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:45, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Of course. Your comment, I guess, apply for Wizardman's delinking as well?--HJensen, talk 21:34, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I've quickly reviewed the rough range of those "delinking" edits by Wizardman, and they don't delink everything. It looks like he was removing "Replace this image male.svg" from infoboxes, and doing some cleanup along the way.  Only some of the edits remove any date links; other edits leave them in place.  I can see the cause for concern, however these edits were a while ago; has someone asked Wizardman about this?  Maybe he was using a tool like AWB that was automatically doing it; I dont know. John Vandenberg (chat) 22:57, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
 * To answer the question on my delinks, the injunction was against all automated/mass delinking. Now, had I done anything automated whatsoever, I'd be in violation, but a look at my contibutions shows that to not be the case. Some were delinked while I was also doing other general cleanup on the articles. Needless to say, while I continued to make cleanup edits to the american football articles, I stopped delinking the dates rather quickly when realizing a party in the case might try to drag me into it for whatever reason. In short, no injunction violation, nothing against the rules, though I probably should've taken the safe route and ignored them. That and the number of delinks was a very small amount given all the cleanup edits in between. Wizardman  23:53, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I am sure that Wizardman did nothing but improve the encyclopedia. But at the risk of labouring a point, I might suggest that John could claim pretty much the same as is presented above. --RexxS (talk) 00:11, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Agree.  HWV258  00:16, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks, guys, for standing up for me. Wizardman, just think, if I was to go back through the history of each of these articles you delinked (something I have no intention of doing) and find that you had already delinked it previously, even three months ago, then you would be "guilty" of exactly what I am "guilty" of; that is making edits intended to improve the encyclopedia, that someone in a new context is able to spin (without even properly researching your contribs) into "edit-warring" and "disruption". The difference is of course that your edits were made after the injunction not to mass-delink, whereas mine were made before it. Now, I don't think either one of us should be sanctioned for what we did, but I admit it boggles my mind that you could vote (even "weakly, acknowledging rebuttal") for my sanctions when you have made many similar edits yourself. As an admin I couldn't block someone who did something I have done myself; I don't know if that makes you a better or a worse admin than me but it certainly sticks in my craw. --John (talk) 03:43, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
 * It sticks very much in in mine too. As for jayvdb's remark that the delinkings "were a while ago", I have no idea as for the relevance of that fact. My 16 edits which I am now being punished for, were an even longer while ago, and also in accordance with policy. The only "amusing" thing about the particular date for Wizardman's edits is that it was the day before he voted for sanctioning me. That's a real irony: "Hey, I'll do some clean up and delink some dates, and then, well and let me see, these guys did the same thing, on a smaller scale though, seven months ago, so, hmmm, let's restrict them so they won't do it again". I am really sorry, but as I explain in my essay, I just don't get the logic of the whole thing. I'll accept it, but please don't tell me it is logical.--HJensen, talk 19:50, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Wizardman's edits are obviously not on the same scale of Ohconfucius, and he did not do any reverts as John did. I said that Wizardman's edits "were a while ago" because I was interested to see if anyone had raised it with him.
 * And John, "three months"? No, three days, and not an isolated incident as you were having a similar dispute with that editor elsewhere at the same time. John Vandenberg (chat) 22:02, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
 * So, Jayvdb, you have evidence that I made one revert three days after I made the initial edits on two articles. Have you actually checked to see if any of Wizardman's edits were reverts, even from many months previously as in the case of some of the "evidence" against me? More importantly, have you actually done what you said you'd do and researched properly the context of my contributions? Finally, do you appreciate the irony of Wizardman voting to sanction us for edits when he made similar edits himself? --John (talk) 22:25, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I have looked at the edits to these 48 articles, of which only 8 delinked dates, and even those delinking edits left dates linked as well. Wizardman has not edited any of them in the last three months, and they do not appear to be a revert.
 * I have looked long and hard at your contributions and your rebuttal. My most recent comments come after having done so.
 * And I can see some irony in Wizardman's edits, however a few delinks is very different from the number that you did(thousands?), and in his case there was no edit warring involved. In short, Wizardman's edits are not similar to your own.  There is also irony in Wizardman demonstrating that he is a proponent of delinking, yet finds your delinking to have been a factor in this case.
 * John Vandenberg (chat) 03:06, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Why not look at these edits of Wizardman, which were broguht up from the beginning? They are from a few days later, and I think all of them involves delinking of dates (you cannot keep calling them "a few", can you?). He beats me on such a grand scale (note that my 16 edits were not at all just reverts!).--HJensen, talk 06:10, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
 * The contrib range that I looked at did include a chunk of those abuse log entries. Again I am not sure why these questions are being directed at me, but I have now looked the subsequent 1000 edits of Wizardman, where the rest of the abuse log entries occur, and I can again say that there was no edit warring involved.  16 delinking edits is a "few" relative to the thousands of edits that Wizardman did on those three days, and it is also a "few" compared to the delinking performed by most of the parties to this case.  That was the comparison I was making.
 * In regards to yourself, I originally only proposed a limited month long restriction on yourself because your edit warring was limited in scope; I cant support the 12 month restriction, but the three month restriction lines up with the three month stability review so I can support it in order achieve a more appropriate consensus. John Vandenberg (chat) 12:41, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your answer and for digging up my forgotten reversal of a date delinking (and using it as arugment for a "milder sentence" here). I have accordingly updated my essay. Your research is very admirable, but I paradoxically think it demonstrates the randomness of the whole procedure: You come up with one edit of mine (that I had forgotten), after the process has been almost closed, everybody except one have voted, etc. I would never have thought that the edit would be important, so only when I re-enter the discussion when I see an adverse verdict approaching, something starts happening. It apperas the whole workshop phase was a waste of time, and one where I had no idea that I should have spend a lot of time digging up evidence in my favor. Such matters ought to be clearer in the future. E.g., a few deadlines and clear instructions to parties, and editors who are declared parties by non-parties, would be very desirable. --HJensen, talk 17:31, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Certain individuals on both sides clearly deserve the Arbcom focus on behavior, but when I look at some of the named people, I honestly dont remember seeing someone like John (who I've never interacted with to my knowledge) being a day-in day-out MOSNUM fighter.  My hope is that the worst behavior is identified and discouraged, that a reasonable way forward come out of Ryan's RFC and its followup, and that all of us can put this behind us and get back to productive contributing. IMHO, closing this in its current state is premature. dm (talk) 03:57, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Remember kids, I'm getting banned for six months, but an editor with a history of ignoring rules (violating a block by using his alt account to edit, gross incivility even on the Workshop of this very case, evading a block by using an alternate IP address and then trying to get another editor in trouble, engaging in long term and extended edit warring with over 9000 edits, etc) and the injunction meant to calm this case is skating through with a topic ban and an automation ban (which ought to be interesting to see enforced). Then there's Tony1, who routinely pretends there is no opposition to his preferred view regarding the MoS seems to be left with a pulpit from which to continue to distribute his screeds while others aren't even allowed to discuss the matter. Arbcom could stand to make these remedies more even handed, especially given the evidence presented. —Locke Cole • t • c 17:30, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Bad portents
If some of the recent edits to this page are anything to go by, we're all set for a resumption of hostilities as soon as the injunction is lifted. This is sad.

I suspect that this may be whistling in the wind, but I:
 * Appeal to all parties, even those tangentially involved, to take a step back
 * Urge you to consider carefully if you can participate in a cool and rational manner in the discussions to come
 * Implore you that if you cannot edit without heat, do not participate, even if you are not subject to any Arbcom restrictions

This has all the portents of a blockfest to come. I'd be delighted to be proved wrong.

In the meantime, WP:BOSTONTEAPARTY has rarely been more relevant. --Dweller (talk) 11:39, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I've never seen that essay, and it has been a while since one has made me giggle. Thank you. John Vandenberg (chat) 11:48, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Another bad portent. This comment by Tony asserts, in his usual way, strong consensus for every sentence of the recent addition to MOSNUM, although it was one of four options offered in a chunk at that RFC, each take-it-or-leave-it; and many of those who found the option supportable did so with reservations, or even preferring other options to the final one, and nobody approved the language in detail. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:02, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Users were asked to !vote on which text should be inserted. They agreed on this one overwhelmingly.  Even if we take out the responses that don't appear to be whole-heartedly endorsing this, I suspect that the agreement will still be overwhelming.  This is the text that found consensus, therefore this is the guidance offered by MOS for users to follow.  We should not be able to pick and choose which phrase to follow now. Karanacs (talk) 18:21, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
 * And for the purpose of what should be in MOSNUM, that's fine. Tony, however, is asserting that each sentence has overwhelming consensus, which is beyond the reach of the evidence.


 * This is exactly the sort of problem which has led to the existing MOS disharmony; a handful of factionalists make a dubious claim (like this) of long-past consensus, and use it to ignore and revert-war present dissent, no matter how strong or numerous. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:40, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Can we show that any sentence in this new paragraph does not have consensus? I would agree with Tony that there is consensus for at least the meaning behind each new sentence.  If we believe there is a significant chance that there is not consensus for certain pieces of this text, then we need to make sure this is clarified in whatever RfC follows this case. Karanacs (talk) 19:45, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
 * We cannot show any phrase in it has consensus, except perhaps for "germane and topical"; no other phrase was discussed at all. Remember, this RfC was engineered, by the author of this text, so as to suppress all opposition to any of the four options, and all support for more than one of them; some people were brave enough to ignore this, but not me. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:01, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I beg to differ. Looking at the 256 people who supported the month-day wording adopted and the 208 who supported the analogous year wording in WP:DATEPOLL, only 2 in each section mentioned "germane" and "topical" - and that included Greg (twice) and Jimp. Surely you're not suggesting that is consensus for the phrase "germane and topical"? No, the poll stated "If supported through consensus, one of the following four proposed guidelines (Options 1, 2, 3 or 4) would be added to Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Linking and autoformatting of dates and Wikipedia:Linking#Chronological items." "Please indicate your support vote under ONE option, accompanied by a concise explanation for your choice. Your explanation is important in determining the community consensus." The only way I can read what happened is that large majorities (79% & 70%) supported the wording; that was then inserted into MOSNUM; and that wording had consensus in its entirety. I cannot find any of the support votes that demurred from that - in fact, considering the amount of comment therein, I am slightly surprised that I could find nobody actually expressing discontent with any part of the wording. The opportunity to dissent was there; the process was clear; and I cannot see how it can be claimed that the wording adopted does not have consensus. --RexxS (talk) 22:48, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
 * That's why I say that "germane and topical" may have consensus; it was at least approved of, and not opposed. None of the other phrases even pass that standard.
 * The general idea (and some of the support did poorly at understanding that much) does have consensus.
 * Beyond that, RexxS' claim is equivalent to the contention that a voter, voting for Candidate A on a closed ballot with four candidates, has endorsed every point of his platform. I cannot agree with either contention. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:59, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
 * If candidate A is then elected with 70%+ share of the vote, then he is surely entitled to enact every point on his platform. That's how a platform is endorsed - as a whole, not point-by-point. Anyway, it's not a good analogy, because the poll specifically asked for an explanation. If nobody objects to a phrase, then they consent by their silence, as we know. On the other hand, if your contention is that the poll contributors did not understand what they were voting on, then I guess you can draw any conclusion you want from the poll. In which case, I don't see how we can ever arrive at consensus. --RexxS (talk) 23:35, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
 * See FoF 3.3 WRT that last point. Dabomb87 (talk) 23:56, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Supported and not opposed; by the logic of this argument, therefore, 3.3 and 3.3.1 are the strong consensus of ArbCom.


 * I hope not to see RexxS' argument used in any country I care about; a 70% majority may well be able to persuade the legislature to pass the party's platform entirely, but it constitutes no right; that is the claim of tin-pot dictators everywhere. (Indeed, FDR was unable ever to persuade Congress to pass that central and traditional plank of the Democratic Party: a low tariff.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 13:44, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Abcom doesn't really arrive at a decision by strict consensus; a simple majority of those not abstaining is sufficient, although I recognise that alternate proposals are often made during voting to try to find a consensus. I am encouraged that arbitrators are highlighting in a FoF the problems of finding consensus; I am disheartened that the only remedies for this (so far) is to remove from the consensus process most of those with the greatest experience of the issues. Is it possible that the problem is not simply personalities, but that the issue itself is intrinsically inimical to the usual processes of consensus formation? I don't know the answer; wiser heads than mine will be needed to address that. --RexxS (talk) 15:03, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

(unindent) RexxS asked "Is it possible that the problem is not simply personalities, but that the issue itself is intrinsically inimical to the usual processes of consensus formation?" Yes, with respect to date autoformatting. Not so much, with respect to which dates to link for the purpose of actually following the link.

The problem with date autoformatting is that citation templates, infoboxes, etc., need to be designed to either ignore the possibility of DA, or take advantage of it. Thus the traditional Wikipedia solution of letting editors do nearly whatever they want in an article, and only asking for consistency within the article, does not work. --Jc3s5h (talk) 15:17, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
 * They should probably ignore it; it will rarely matter to an infobox, and inconsistency between citation templates and the text is hardly anything to worry about. If it does matter, templates should concern themselves with the unautoformatted text; only a minority of the minority who edit use autoformatting, and our attention should be to the vast majority. (If the minority complains, then we can discuss it.) Sensible? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:12, 4 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree with PMAnderson, but it's hard to prevent all template writers from getting too clever for their own good. --Jc3s5h (talk) 16:20, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
 * "...and inconsistency between citation templates and the text is hardly anything to worry about" - all well and good if the date formats within and between citation templates are uniform. I can tell you that it is quite often not the case: quite a few use ISO but not exclusively, and it creates a right old hamburger in the reference section. Ohconfucius (talk) 02:01, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
 * If citation templates are inconsistent, put in a switch; or -better- copy the formatted citations and insert them by hand. The templates are really only only punctuation and fonts, after all, which Wikipedia's syntax does very efficiently. (If date format inconsistency is the worst thing about an article's citation, it's extraordinary anyway.)  Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:31, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Indefinite injunction (remedy 1.2)
The indefinite injunction against mass delinking proposed by bainer would be very blatant policy writing and way outside the remit of ArbCom. I suspect such a policy, if presented to the community, would be roundly rejected. --Apoc2400 (talk) 18:36, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
 * It does seem to tell the community and the Bot Approvals Group "You may not approve a bot that does X", which I don't believe is within the ArbCom's mandate. Why not let the community (via BAG) decide what automated tasks are appropriate and what are not in formatting decisions? – Quadell (talk) 18:50, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
 * No, it says that such a bot may not be used, temporarily (for three months, if the Committee then decides that things have calmed down). Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:20, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Clarify and appeal for clemency
I'm staggered that John is subject to any restrictions whatsoever based solely on this evidence. Requests_for_arbitration/Date_delinking/Evidence. Am I missing something else or is this really based on three edits? If not, I'm going to stand up and ask for the committee to consider clemency before this case is closed. Hiding T 10:51, 3 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Hi, I have only seen your comment now. Please see my links provided on the 18th of last month at User_talk:Jayvdb and my recent comment on the PD..  There is a long history of involvement here, which John does not mention in his rebuttal, and is not included in those diffs.  However those examples are indicative of the gaming that has occurred, was contributed to fait accompli.  If this gaming was not intentional, it was quite convenient all the same, due to the tools employed, like minds, or other.  All we know is that John, who has a long history of pro-actively removing date links in articles, and of supporting Tony1 and BoobleWik, has repeatedly re-enforced the delinking of many articles, running the same script on the same article multiple times.  If this is just chance, then the remedy is unfortunate but necessary to prevent further chances happening.  They are too frequent to ignore.  Using a tool is not an acceptable excuse for edit-warring. John Vandenberg (chat) 11:31, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I find I can't reconcile making four edits over such a period of time with the term edit warring and even if it does, when I look at our policy on edit warring, I find that "Editors who edit war after proper education, warnings, and blocks on the matter." The user has a clean block log. I can see a lot of discussions about edit warring in the talk page archives, but nothing relevant to this case. Fundamentally, I think if you're implementing this, every editor needs to start looking over their shoulder otherwise we'll find ourselves with an encyclopedia edited only by dynamic ip's, until we whittle those down too. Hiding T 11:53, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Three edits to that article, over a three month period, not four. Otherwise I tend to agree with you, Hiding. I think it is time for Jayvdb to "put up or shut up", as I believe they say in parliament. If he has better evidence (and I don't think he has) to support these allegations, pop up some diffs. Otherwise this proposed sanction is ludicrous. --John (talk) 21:06, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I will go on record, again, as saying that I don't think John should be getting any sanctions at all in this matter. Weeks or months between edits is not revert warring, and this sends a terrible message. I think the finding should be vacated and the motions struck. ++Lar: t/c 01:26, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Agree.  HWV258  02:02, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I've said it before, and I'll say it again. The sledgehammer punishment for John (someone who has casually and innocently waded into a revert war waged almost single-handedly by Tennis expert plus side skirmish with G-Man) cannot possibly be right - John's a gnome, and thus goes eveywhere, for crying out loud. It seems to me this arbitration is making Tennis expert out as the tank man (sorry, I just had to slip that in after yesterday's anniversary). Make no mistake, he is not. Ohconfucius (talk) 02:21, 5 June 2009 (UTC)


 * To be accurate, John did put himself in the wrong. On 6 September 2008, he corrected the format of four dates in Neville Chamberlain and removed DA from the other dates. That did not contravene MOSNUM. G-Man promptly blind-reverted him, restoring the wrong format to the four dates without an edit summary. However, John duplicated his edits on 9 September (effectively a reversion) and that was a mistake. John also did almost exactly the same thing on Ramsey MacDonald - corrected three dates and removed DA on 6 September; blind-revert by G-Man same day; duplicated the edit on 9 September - except he left the edit summary "these links aren't going anywhere useful". John was wrong to effectively re-revert; it starts to become an edit-war, since in both articles his second edit was only 3 days after his first. So there's no point in opposing the proposed remedies on the grounds of "weeks and months".
 * But I have to agree with Lar's conclusion, although coming to it by a different route: John was wikignoming, going through a subset of articles (probably British politicians) and cleaning them up in accordance with MOSNUM as it was at the time. He went back to the same set a few days later, probably dismayed at finding his clean-up work had been "thrown out with the bath-water". Does anybody think that sanctions are really needed to persuade John not to do that again? He's not an edit-warrior - just read through User talk:John/date linking from 2006 where John (Guinnog) can be seen to be a sensitive admin who spent many hours neutrally mediating a dispute over guess what? ... date linking! John has his views on date-linking, as do all of us, but I still believe that through his wikignoming he was caught up in a dispute that he was never part of. I hope the arbitrators will find time to reflect on this. "There, but for the grace of God, go I" --RexxS (talk) 03:09, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your kind comments RexxS. It's hard to recall what exactly was going through my mind when I made that series of reverts 9 months ago. At the time I was in the habit of applying these uncontroversial MoS fixes (as I saw them at the time; perhaps naively, but then no one had warned me they would be seen as controversial) to articles on my watchlist. The best I can say is that as I unlinked the articles I must've thought "I thought I had already delinked these" and checked the history of Ramsey MacDonald, then reverted with the edit summary you picked out. This is the only time I think I consciously and knowingly edit-warred over date linking, if you can call one revert an edit war. I've already apologized for it and I repeat that apology here. Thanks too for bringing some insight, understanding of context and AGF to the matter. Here's a more detailed analysis and rebuttal of the evidence against me. --John (talk) 03:10, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

"Indefinite"
This phrase is being used an awful lot in this case. What's the definition and is there any right to appeal or sense that the community can overturn the length? Hiding T 11:36, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I've looked at a fair number of historical cases over the years. "Indefinite" usually means "until something changes".  To give an example, User:Rootology was banned indefinitely in Requests_for_arbitration/MONGO.  He stopped doing the thing that caused him to be banned and after two years asked Jimbo and Arbcom to let him return.  They agreed as along as he agreed to not interact with MONGO.  He's been back a year now and is an admin.  Also, Arbcom decisions are appealed to User:Jimbo Wales and alterations to a closed case are requested at Arbitration/Requests/Amendment.  Hope that is useful.  MBisanz  talk 11:55, 4 June 2009 (UTC)


 * All remedies can be appealed. Indefinite is used when the committee doesn't believe that "one year" will resolve the problem; it means "until significant behaviour change has occurred" and requires an appeal. John Vandenberg (chat) 12:47, 4 June 2009 (UTC)