Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Date delinking/Workshop

Re: Editore99's password
Lightmouse has stated: Subsequently my computer and/or I forgot the Editore99 password and I created the account called Lightmouse.

Editore99's last edit was at 13:55, May 23, 2007

Lightmouse's account was registered at 14:36, May 23, 2007

I'm struggling here with the concept that he could log out and forget his password, and register a new account, all within a 41 minute window. Any help here with my understanding?  MBisanz  talk 15:15, 21 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Editore99 first edited on 5 May 2007 and last edited on 23 May 2007. Lightmouse states that he - like many others, myself included - uses the browser to store the password associated with his account. That means that the login screen is filled in by the browser with the password displayed as dots (or similar). Browsers are quite capable of losing the password list - by software error, by clicking on "Clear Passwords", or by using a tool that clears all your personal information. I know that; I've done it myself. Assume that happened on 23 May. At that point, Editore99 would have to remember a password he created 18 days earlier and had never used or seen since. Is it possible he forgot? I think it is - I've forgotten passwords that I created the previous day (but I'm getting senile, so maybe the analogy is not exact). That's why I have two accounts on Amazon, one of which I can't use. On 23 May 2007, being unable to login as Editore99, Lightmouse created User:Lightmouse 40 minutes later. Does that help? --RexxS (talk) 19:31, 21 January 2009 (UTC)


 * It helps, thank you, still my first thought after losing my password and having to create a new account would be to ping someone about getting my old account back, redirect my old userpage to my new userpage, etc. Still a bit unsettled.  MBisanz  talk 13:27, 6 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I have to agree. — Hex    (❝  ?!  ❞)   13:57, 6 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Personally, I agree that would be my first thought, too - although I'm not so sure I'd have the same attachment to my account if it were only 18 days old. On reflection, I can see why it is unsettling, but I'd urge caution in overlaying our instincts onto the actions (or lack of actions) of others. --RexxS (talk) 03:08, 7 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Of course - caution, but with a healthy dose of skepticism. — Hex    (❝  ?!  ❞)   15:04, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Re: Bobblewik's password
Lightmouse has stated: ''[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Lightmouse&diff=265266647&oldid=265241092 Seven months later, I decided to come back. I created the account Editore99 partly because I wanted to avoid the ad hominem attacks/stalking and partly because of the rather mundane reason of a forgotten password (after 7 months, my computer no longer kept it for me).]''

I just tested Special:EmailUser/Bobblewik and it gave me an input screen. That means there is a valid email address associated with the Bobblewik account that could have been used to reset the password. Again, I am at a loss as to how to reconcile this to Lightmouse's statement.  MBisanz  talk 15:18, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I have several times switched email providers and forgotten to correct various accounts that I had previously attached to the old email address. In a lot of cases, email can be sent to those accounts, but I no longer have a way to access it.  I would not be surprised if others had the same issue. Karanacs (talk) 17:58, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I have to agree with Karanacs on this point. The 41-minute window MBisanz mentions above is of slightly more concern. — Hex    (❝  ?!  ❞)   19:14, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Arbitration estimate?
Are any ArbCom members able to indicate when they might be able to take a look at this case? I appreciate they have quite a workload (even more so with the recent departure of a member) but at present the evidence phase of this arbitration seems to be expanding phenomenally without any signs of slowing down. — Hex    (❝  ?!  ❞)   19:10, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Well I'm not sure I would call it "phenomenally".  Right now the /Workshop page is at 332,138 bytes, Eastern European disputes ended up at 1,064,091 bytes and C68-FM-SV at 883,333 bytes.  This evidence page is at 165,875 bytes and those ended at 510,427 bytes and 480,736 bytes.  Although it might be a good idea to poke some arbs at WT:RFAR to remind them there is a case here.  MBisanz  talk 19:28, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I admit freely to avoiding ArbCom incidents whenever possible, so obviously I'm not familiar with the sizes they can reach. :) — Hex    (❝  ?!  ❞)   20:01, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Arbs usually allow a week from a case opening before they even start to look at evidence & workshop - to give most folks a chance to have their say. If more commentary is still coming in, I doubt they will be in any rush until the pace slows down. There's nothing gained from them starting to deliberate when pertinent information may yet arrive. Nevertheless, my watchlist indicates we are probably past the peak, so I'd encourage folks to switch discussion and analysis to the talk pages and leave the evidence & workshop main pages for any new stuff that may turn up. --RexxS (talk) 20:37, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Two weeks after MBisanz's comment above, the /Workshop page has doubled in size to 670KiB. Just sayin'. — Hex    (❝  ?!  ❞)   03:58, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Purpose of Workshop
Can I please encourage contributors to re-read the two paragraphs at the top of WP:Requests_for_arbitration/Date_delinking/Workshop? The reason that these pages get unwieldy is that contributors fail to understand this is not a vote (nor a !vote). It's not meant to work like an RfA. Review and comments on the draft proposals is helpful; "Support per User:X" simply isn't, and I'm almost tempted to request a clerk start to remove contributions that don't serve to move forward any review of the proposals. At the very least, add some diffs that shed light on the proposals, or use the analysis section to compare and contrast them. Failing that, give the Arbs a break and take it to the talk page. --RexxS (talk) 22:09, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Removal of Lightmouse's comments
As we speak, Hex is removing comments made by a user. May I ask if this is appropriate behavior? Dabomb87 (talk) 02:10, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't believe it is appropriate to remove them. The comment was targeted at independent sections—sections that are read by individuals who might not otherwise see the comment if only placed in someone else's section. The ridiculous dilution of relevant information on the page (by people who think the page is really an airing of grievances) has now reached the point where it is nigh on impossible to follow a cogent debate. Lightmouse's comment merely reflects the frustration felt by those of us who now start to question the whole purpose of arbitration. I would go further and propose that every single comment that is not germane to the topic of date linking be removed from the page. Perhaps that way we might be able to demonstrate some maturity at WP (at least to solving of our problems).  HWV258  02:38, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Inappropriate. I find his attempt at making a point is in itself becoming rather disruptive. Ohconfucius (talk) 02:49, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I believe that his behavior—to paraphrase Tennis expert—was unbecoming of the trust placed in an administrator and not judicious at all. Dabomb87 (talk) 02:56, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

If you place a comment on a discussion page, or start a new section, you're looking for replies and seeking to collaborate with your fellow editors.

If you paste a comment onto a discussion page eighty times, you're not interested in replies. That's spam. — Hex    (❝  ?!  ❞)   03:07, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * "point" covered above—please read it.  HWV258  03:09, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Perhaps Lightmouse was after eighty replies!  HWV258  03:12, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * (ec) If you want everyone to read what you have to say, you create a new section. You don't spam the entire page. How on earth is it necessary for me to point that out? — Hex    (❝  ?!  ❞)   03:16, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * It would be helpful if some arbitrators would weigh in to direct the discussion. But repeating a comment 80 times merely dilutes it to meaninglessness. 80 replies would be equally meaningless echoes. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:14, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * You are assuming that each person bothers to look at other sections on the page. The "meaninglessness" of the echos would depend on the content of those replies.  HWV258  03:39, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * (ec × 2) Hex, What you think isn't the only thing that matters. You had no right to delete comments. You should have asked a neutral party (e.g. clerk), and should not have taken it upon yourself to "delete spam". As a note, I have in fact asked both clerks for this case to weigh in here. Dabomb87 (talk) 03:22, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I concur that deletion is appropriate. There's no doubt the additions were intended as being disruptive to those sections, although he might, in good faith, believe that those sections needed to be disrupted.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 03:24, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * He might have, but it's starting to look a pretty thin excuse after being stretched out over eighty instances. — Hex    (❝  ?!  ❞)   03:26, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Lightmouse added 16K to a page already much too large; he added almost no content. Whether or not it was his intention, that's disruptive in itself. (Can all members of ArbCom load the workshop?) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:36, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * That's another reason why I never try to judge an editor's contribution by number of edits or kB added. It's not LM's fault the page is already so bloated. I would, however, mention that you are Top of the Pops with 190 edits, mon ami. Ohconfucius (talk) 03:45, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The numbers produced by that tool are utterly meaningless without bytecounts. — Hex    (❝  ?!  ❞)   03:53, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * That's exactly the point I was trying to make. Tennis expert came in at #2 with 154 edits. Even kB does not imply quality, but it would for sure determine who is responsible for the bloatedness of the page. I would add here that if everybody only added 16kB like Lightmouse, the page would be maybe 160k, instead of 660kB - the number of kB hardly proves Lightmouse's 16k was disruptive. Ohconfucius (talk) 04:04, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * And pray tell, who else has contributed 16 KiB of text to the page consisting only of the same sentence repeated dozens of times? — Hex    (❝  ?!  ❞)   04:22, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, it's the low information density that's the problem. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:26, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

The point of the contribution should have been raised and a clerk alerted to decide if action was needed. Removal without confirmation this way was very inappropriate. --M ASEM 06:53, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Removal very inappropriate! There are thousands of hate threads on how to punish those thinking different than you in the document now. If one want to consistenly address all of these Kindergarden threads, one has to put in a comment everywhere (and being the same is only consistent). Period. I thought editing others comments was an offense leading to an immediate block. --HJensen, talk 11:56, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

The removal of comments is unacceptable. There was no reason to remove them as they aren't attacks and merely air the views of Lightmouse. I've warned Hex about this and I'm more than prepared to block any user which removes further comments. If you have a concern, contact either me or Tiptoety.  Ryan Postlethwaite See the mess I've created or let's have banter 11:57, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

On that same note, I ask that Lightmouse refrain from posting the same comment over 52 times into a case. As shown above it is disruptive, and does not constitute constructive behaviour at a RfAr. Like Ryan said, anyone who notices users acting in a inappropriate way are asked not to take matters into their own hands but instead contact the case clerks, or post to Arbitration Committee/Clerks/Noticeboard. Cheers, Tiptoety  talk 18:00, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Clarification on removal of my Comments from parties and accusations of disruption
I try to stay away from Requests for arbitration/Date delinking/Workshop because a large proportion of the debate is ad hominem. Howefver, somebody suggested to me that failing to express a view might be misinterpreted in a bad way. So I expressed my view and that was also misinterpreted in a bad way.

However, I am confused about whether I am allowed to oppose ad hominem proposals in Comments from parties. My comments are no longer on the page because a user removed them. There appears to be popular support for the idea that my contribution was disruptive. However, User:Ryan Postlethwaite told the editor that removed my comments that he was wrong and told me "you're free to readd them". There are still editors/admins that claim my comments are disruptive. Even an arbcom clerk (User:Tiptoety) says "it is disruptive"

I don't want to be disruptive and I have hardly contributed to the many byzantine discussion there. I merely wanted to provide my humble view opposing each of the ad hominem proposals in the Comments from parties sections.

This seems to me to be a question of process. If I have misunderstood the mechanism, then I need additional guidance. I don't want to be seen as disruptive but I would like the freedom to speak against each ad hominem proposal. I would like clarification on the following questions: I am genuinely confused. Lightmouse (talk) 18:44, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Did I misinterpret the term Comments by parties when I thought it was the place for me to respond to each proposal?
 * Are editors limited in the number of proposals to which they can respond?
 * Is it bad to use the same wording in opposing multiple proposals?


 * A few words of guidance:
 * Only arbitrators and clerks should refactor, redact, or otherwise edit other editors' contributions to arbitration pages. This is especially true in the absence of a clear and egregious violation that would normally merit refactoring.
 * Do not copy/paste uniform messages to arbitration workshop proposals. If you have a general plea or broad response to provide, please do so on the workshop talk page.
 * Tiptoety talk 20:20, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Where is the second bullet point located? Tony   (talk)  14:46, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
 * It would seem that a number of statements of facts, remedies etc were boilerplated. You are nevertheless suggesting that even in such circumstances where one might conceivably use C&P to reply to each point, one should not? I mean, we are allowed to reply to each point, aren't we??? I'm lost, like Lightmouse. Your statement is contradictory: in one breath you say there has been an "absence of a clear and egregious violation" (presumably on the part of Lightmouse), then you say: "Do not copy/paste uniform messages to arbitration workshop proposals" - I hope you get my drift... What is more, I am now concerned because I posted a number or very similar (but not all identical) comments/replies recently, not to make a point, but to refer the same repeated, misguided idea. Ohconfucius (talk) 15:03, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Removal of comments objecting to ad hominem
I note that my comments objecting to ad hominem were removed. The answer to speech that you don't like is better speech. Opposition to ad hominem attacks is used as fuel for more ad hominem attacks. If I had listed crimes of several editors and complicated punishments, I am sure my comments would still be here with all the other nonsense. This is a hostile place. Lightmouse (talk) 23:43, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Lightmouse, you should probably move this post to a talk page, or better yet, the evidence page (with appropriate diffs). Dabomb87 (talk) 23:45, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

No. I am tired of my comments being removed (once) and tired of being told my comments are in the wrong place (twice). If anyone wants to move or eliminate my comments, just do it. I don't care any more. Lightmouse (talk) 23:48, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * The comments you were objecting to were not ad hominem. The proposed findings of facts which TE submitted (on this page, rather than the evidence page) is specific evidence, and the remedies were appropriate given the findings.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 01:58, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Reduction of duplicate material
Tennis expert has been ensuring that his sections on the Evidence subpage and here match each other. Once that's done, could the Clerks kindly replace the sections here with hyperlinks to the appropriate places on Evidence? It would reduce this page's size by a good amount. — Hex    (❝  ?!  ❞)   11:03, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Could you provide me with a link to what you are referring to? Thanks, Tiptoety  talk 21:33, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
 * A few examples...
 * this and this
 * this and this
 * this and this
 * Basically, all of Tennis expert's evidential links are duplicated unnecessarily in the Workshop. No offense meant to the gentleman in question, of course, it's just making it harder to read. — Hex    (❝  ?!  ❞)   22:48, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Request for involvement
I have made a direct request to the arbitrators to get involved here, because we're really going nowhere at present. I hope they respond. — Hex    (❝  ?!  ❞)   13:35, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Comments moved from Workshop
Note: If someone has reverted the moving of material, please do not remove it again without discussion.

Protocol for bots/scripts that remove DA and/or delink chronological items

 * PMAnderson writes This does not address the fundamental problem that bots cannot distinguish between the datelinks that many users find valuable and the others. It’s simple. No manual of style, nor any committee should have to address every conceivable atomic-level detail of what is a common-sense principle of technical writing:




 * What’s hard about that? If I’m reading up on an article on Nikolai Tesla and how he wrote about field theory in 1925, I might be interested in following a link to Mach's principle. Indeed, if the editors responsible for our current Nikolai Tesla article had elected to link “1925”, I could click on it and wade through a list of events that have nothing to do with each other, such as…




 * And if I click on the April 1, I can further learn things that have nothing whatsoever to do with Nikolai Tesla and electricity, such as…




 * Links in an electronic encyclopedias aren’t supposed to be used to turn them into a treasure hunt game.


 * Fortunately, the editors responsible for the Nikolai Tesla article wisely did not clutter up and diminish the value of links by linking “1925”. Our Nikolai Tesla article seems to be fully compliant with MOSNUM. The year “1925” has nothing to do with Nikolai Tesla nor electricity beyond what the reader had just read in the article.


 * It’s double-simple: With millions of linked dates on Wikipedia, there are far, far too many to edit by hand to make Wikipedia compliant with this basic principle of technical writing. It is infinitely more practical to have bots de-link and simply re-link by hand, the few dates that should be linked.


 * This dispute seems to no longer be about adhering to basic principles of technical writing and seems to have degenerated into behavior that made Tony perceive he needed to go visit the unruly kindergarden class down the hall and have all the children recite “I will behave myself.” Most unfortunate. Because of the absurd depths this affair has degenerated into, I rarely visit this workshop. I seldom bother delinking dates I happen upon. I’m just editing away and improving articles I care about. Greg L (talk) 17:09, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Greg, I keep seeing it put forward that date links "devalue" other links, but I've yet to see any concrete evidence of this. Have readers protested over the linking to year articles or month-day articles? If not, wouldn't this be a classic textbook case of WP:SILENCE? —Locke Cole • t • c 17:31, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The vast, vast majority of Wikipedia’s readership has no idea how to go to a talk page and comment or complain; they simply accept the way things are. As most any reasonable person knows, on Wikipedia, the voice of our readership is represented by proxy though active Wikipedians debating and arriving upon a community consensus on various issues. I shouldn’t have had to explain what you and everyone else here already knows. I find your contrived straw man (‘why are there no shrieks of protest from our readership?’), and your linking to a contrived conclusion (WP:SILENCE) in your patented “if it’s blue, it must be true” fashion, to be unpersuasive. Greg L (talk) 17:57, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * So to be absolutely clear, all this hand waving, the mass delinking, the edit wars, everything so far; is all due to an assumption without any facts whatsoever to back it up? I agree that editors act as proxies for our readership, but there's usually something more to it than "I don't like it".—Locke Cole • t • c 19:07, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Let’s parse another straw man: [this] is all due to an assumption without any facts whatsoever to back it up? To be absolutely clear, No. Like a million other issues that have been debated on Wikipedia, such as “binaryprefix jihad” over using “kibibyte (KiB)” v.s. “kilobyte (KB)”, there are always all sorts of facts to consider. The decision on what is the wisest course of action on most debates almost always has editors in a minority camp. In the case of the binary prefixes, there is still an editor who has no other purpose on Wikipedia than keep pushing for “kibibytes” even though the rest of the real world doesn’t work that way. There were RfCs galore on that issue and much bickering. As with the binary prefixes, editors on each side can spout facts to support their position until the cows come home. WP:Overlinking says as follows:




 * Once again, in one of your “if it’s blue, it must be true” stunts, you pulled out your deflectomirror and linked to WP:IDONTLIKEIT. This dispute centers, fundamentally, on the view by a clear majority that links to dates add no value to articles. The basic principle, that links should be topical and germane to the subject matter in order to avoid overlinking, is perfectly sound, simple, technical-writing 101, common sense. That’s why a clear majority of said over and over in RfCs that dates should very rarely be linked. And to the real question we’re all here, watching you grasp at straws with link to WP:IDONTLIKEIT and WP:SILENCE, is the role of bots in all of this, since they are the only practical means at our disposal to get Wikipedia into compliance with this common sense principle. I can see once again, looking at the shear nonsense of what you’ve written twice in a row now, that it is futile further debating this issue with you today. Goodbye. Greg L (talk)  20:08, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't say there are no facts to back it up.... Well, actually, it wouldn't be unfair, as it's all opinions on guidelines.  But there is clearly no consensus as to the "facts".  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 20:39, 4 February 2009 (UTC)


 * GregL makes a very interesting point against himself: No manual of style, nor any committee should have to address every conceivable atomic-level detail of what is a common-sense principle of technical writing. I concur. No manual of style, including this one, should address how often we should link 1685, any more than it addresses how often we should link tree, curtain or isomorphism. Therefore there should be no recommendation of MoS for Lightbot to enforce, at which point we would return to letting editorial judgment on individual articles decide what should be linked. Peace and quiet. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:41, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The point is not the question as to whether 1685 should generally be linked (I apologise because I've been working under the misahrehension that the fundamentals in the "which dates to link" discussion were better understood). Rather, the debates will start as to which types of dates should be linked. "1685" (in terms of being the year of Handel's birth) is a candidate for being linked, but "1685" (in terms of Titus Oates being found guilty of perjury for his part in the alleged "Popish Plot") is not (obviously in my opinion). But "my opinion" will be the continuing problem. Guidelines presented by the MOS will be of welcome assistance in terms of heading-off the inevitable edit disputes that will be fought many thousands and thousands of times throughout WP.  HWV258  00:16, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Ah, I think on this there may be some hope of agreement: the cases to be considered for linking are listed in /Evidence: birthdates, deathdates, dates of peerage creation, years of major significance to the article subject, years in which the year article gives significant further information. But these come under the same criteria we use for any other link: does the new article add significantly to this article? Are readers likely to want to go see it? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:25, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I must admit that such a list alludes me at that page (and "peerage" is not even mentioned there). What I did quickly find reference to was this—which indicates that it might be harder than you imagine to agree on whether even birth-dates and death-dates should be linked. Also, "years of major significance to the article" is woefully inadequate as that will simply open the floodgates of debate. Don't get me wrong, I think a list of appropriate candidate date-types for linking would eventually be good at the MOS—it's just that I haven't yet seen anything suitable.  HWV258  00:58, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Going back to the "devalue" comment; that date links "devalue" other links is a consequence of multiple statements to which there may be individual consensus. It's not the case that there is a specific consensus that date links "devalue" other links, although a specific RfC to determine that consensus might be helpful.  I would go so far as to say that there would be found a consensus that excessive date links devalue other links, but there is clearly no consensus as to what excessive means nor which links are excess.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 13:48, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

"Call to Arbitrators"

 * It’s (again) quite clear that there is precious little common ground between the two camps and arguments are (again) circuitous with nothing new being said, including the desire by the pro-linking camp that they wish the arbitrators A) should limit their activities only to meeting out punishment (not actually trying to solve the crux of the dispute), and—should it come to actually trying to settle this, B) arbitrators should ignore the community consensus as evidenced by the RfCs. They would like to dismiss solutions based on the community consensus as some arbitrary standard that doesn't satisfy everyone. I assume that a solution that satisfies Locke is something that, in his mind, “satisfies everyone.” I reject that notion. Clearly, there is a community consensus on many maters pertaining to date linking, autoformatting, and bots, and some editors just aren’t going to be happy with what that is. I repeat my call for arbitrators to act. MOSNUM is locked down until this dispute is resolved.  Greg L (talk) 00:11, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Sorry, that's inaccurate. There's common ground within your WP:GANG.  There's little common ground within the other camp, except an agreement that your WP:GANG is disruptive.  As it stands, Dambomb's summary of the RfCs, although it takes a position further against linking than there is necessarily consensus, still makes it clear that bots should not be used until the specific standards for families of dates which may be linked are set.  The delinking gang's assertion that no day-of-year or year links should be used is not supported by the RfCs.  Still — this section should be on WT:DATE#Where do we go from here, rather than here, except as an example for how both the delinking gang and Locke may both still be unable to edit RfAr's properly.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 01:43, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The indications of tag-teaming are becoming more and more obvious in this case. For example, if you look at the history of User talk:Lightmouse, in July 2008 Tony1 appears and starts deflecting queries into the validity of date delinking, a trend which continues right up to and into the beginnings of the current major round of this disagreement. — Hex    (❝  ?!  ❞)   02:04, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Shouldn't that be in ../Evidence? The arbitrators might be aware of it.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 02:11, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I've added a note here. — Hex    (❝  ?!  ❞)   02:18, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Oh dear! A clear violation of WP:Starts deflecting queries. Greg L (talk) 02:51, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
 * If you're trying to get a rise out of me, you've failed. — Hex    (❝  ?!  ❞)   03:06, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
 * No, I was trying to show the absurdity of all this. But thanks, I enjoyed your response immeasurably. I’m nearly crapping my pants reading this stuff! Greg L (talk) 03:11, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Do you have anything to contribute beyond sophomoric comments? — Hex    (❝  ?!  ❞)   03:17, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
 * At the moment? Apparently not. Greg L (talk) 03:21, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
 * (r to Greg L from above) I think this current proposal is moving in the right direction. However, the pro-link camp should have an opportunity now to develop a counter-proposal. I'm going to go ahead and start User:Kendrick7/Summary of the Date Linking RFCs and maybe by Monday or so we can come up with something. -- Kendrick7talk 03:01, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Looking forward to it. Hopefully, between the two proposals, we can agree on optimal guidelines. Dabomb87 (talk) 03:25, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, I want to get my own thoughts down and see exactly where some of the more pro-linkers are at. I'm not normally the sort to call for a partisan caucus but I hope in this case it is worth a try. -- Kendrick7talk 04:01, 13 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Having examined a few ArbCom case histories, it appears that they are usually closed within one month of opening. Cases have been known to go on for three months, maybe more. There appears to be little going on, except Dabomb's proposal, which looks remotely like proposals which could take us forward and not become a lose-lose situation for WP and its editors. Keeping this case open continues to fuel an already acrimonious dispute by keeping the door open to continued recriminations, bickering, sniping, sarcasm, spamming, and other similar behaviour. The only benefit I see to prolonging this case is that the 'verbal fisticuffs' are confined to these few pages, where few people aside from the parties involved are likely to visit. WP is a work in progress, and there is work to be done; prompt closure is much needed. Therefore, I would echo the call for ArbCom to begin their arbitration. Ohconfucius (talk) 03:42, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
 * (ec) Hear, hear. The appalling behavior by both sides from MOSNUM has been carried over here and nothing productive is happening any more. I don't see what more there is to wait for. Dabomb87 (talk) 04:54, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
 * By the way, I hope I'm not out of line, but here's an example of the confusion Greg's RfC is creating. I would suggest people don't really know what they are voting for as the definition of "date" is left somewhat undefined. This editor's vote of support will be used to further the cause of not linking to years when that isn't what they meant. -- Kendrick7talk 04:50, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Oh dear. You jumped to an invalid conclusion. The *confusion* you cite was just an editor trying to disagree with you using Wiki-polite language (Sorry for the repetitive question, but I am a bit confused…) rather than use more blunt language that might be used in real life. The editor wasn’t confused, and, only nineteen minutes after you wrote your post here, the editor struck his that text about “confusion”. . The wording in the ongoing RfC are the most direct, probative, explicit ones to date on the subject of date delinking and a bot’s role in that. I think that the fact that the community consensus—as measured by the totality of the comments and collective thought of the community—is absolutely clear. I think your disagreement with the results might be making you too anxious to point out “confusion” where none exists. Greg L (talk) 18:00, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
 * That was Dabomb, not Seav, who struck his own comment. -- Kendrick7talk 18:06, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Oh is that what you’re referring to. Dabomb was the only one who used the word “confused” in a post on that thread and your above comment lead him to strike his post. OK, so let’s look at Seav’s “confusion”. Seav’s comment on the RfC was—and  still is  (after Seav explained himself), this:


 * Gee, I duknow. His views on the matter seem clear to me. Not only that, they are probably the most succinct, pithy, best-written words I’ve seen on this issue (I'm now not linking to dates at all if I don't feel the linked date article will provide further relevant details to the current article, which is almost all the time.) He expresses my views on this issue perfectly . If you want him to revise his opinion and explain away his “confusion”, I suggest you go persuade him to do so. So far, based on all the objective evidence, he seems content with his statement. Greg L (talk) 18:24, 15 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't even think dates should be linked, excepting holy days and holidays. My point is this editor said nothing about linking years. Continuing to write RFCs which conflate the two only continues to muddle the results. -- Kendrick7talk 18:33, 15 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I appreciate your candor. It’s not so much the *vote count* that matters in RfCs; an integral component of it is the accompanying statements. When you objectively read the statements, you can get a feel for what the most common, shared views of the community are. Seav’s vote statement clearly adds to the pot that the community consensus is now I'm now not linking to dates at all if I don't feel the linked date article will provide further relevant details to the current article, which is almost all the time. As for your insistence that the RfC wording on this point is somehow confusing, go look at the wording here. The only examples it uses are years. There is no “confusion.” There are, however, slightly different views about how best to adhere to the principle of keeping links germane and topical to the subject matter. If one looks at the totality of the votes and vote comments on the RfC, a clear community consensus emerges. Greg L (talk) 18:47, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Whatever, the point is this guy voted support when he had no opinion on linking years. You start talking about date links then give a bunch of year link examples, which seems to be the source of the confusion. I don't care to argue about it, as I've said in my section I believe this to be a WP:5P matter which thus can not be overridden by an RfC. I trust you will strike your inaccurate remarks above. -- Kendrick7talk 18:56, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
 * All this to say that "chronological items" should be used in these discussions whenever possible to avoid confusion. Dabomb87 (talk) 19:36, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) Kendrick. No, I will not strike text in a post of mine with which you disagree.

You exude a great deal of confidence in what what you think another editor believes is best editorial practices. Further, you do so over diaphanously thin evidence. If the question is “What are the editorial practices of Seav with regard to dates”, well, I think Seav’s actual contributions are a splendid way to determin this. Here is his most recent edit that involves "chronological items". Note that he edited on both sides of a MM-DD-YY date and didn’t see fit to link a stitch of it. This edit occurred one day after he participated in the RfC. So let’s not assume he *forgot* about the datelinking issue. This practice—as evidenced by his actual editing behavior—is perfectly consistent with his statement on the RfC, where he wrote…

If an editor’s actual editing practice regarding a sentence that had a date in it isn’t probative enough for you, and if his above vote statement on an RfC that used years in it as an example of what not to link isn’t clear enough evidence for what is in an editor’s mind, I suggest you go ask him again what is inside his head. Short of that, let’s stick with the available evidence, which is quite clear. OK?

Now, if you want to say that


 * 1) Seav is all confused and didn’t understand the clear wording on the RfC, and he
 * 2) overlooked the fact that the RfC wording used years as an example, and
 * 3) he forgot to change his vote comment after you *clarified* it all for him, and
 * 4) he actually likes to link dates, but
 * 5) he actually forgets to do so when he edits

…well, you are entitled to your opinion. But it’s not passing my *grin test* here. Not by a long shot. And the next stretch of logic from you, that Seav’s alleged *confusion* (he doesn’t seem confused to me) somehow means the arbitrators ought to disenfranchise all the votes and arguments of all the other editors who’ve taken the time to participate in the RfC… well… that doesn’t pass my grin test either. Not by a long shot.

Finally, your assertion that WP:5P (the five pillars of Wikipedia) somehow supports your desire that we invalidate the RfCs is beyond absurd. One of the pillars is “Wikipedia has a code of conduct”, which says that consensus (which RfCs are a part of) is central to this, and that editors should “avoid edit wars”. Ahh… wouldn’t that be nice… Greg L (talk) 21:15, 15 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Please stop saying "*grin test*" [sic]. It is starting to become annoying hearing something so meaningless so often. — Hex    (❝  ?!  ❞)   21:38, 15 February 2009 (UTC)


 * No. If you want to argue facts, buck up (that’s another idiom). But I’ll thank you not to presume to tell me how I may think or express my thoughts here. The term “grin test” is not uncivil. Furthermore, it is not a misspelling so your “[sic]” is rather humorously in error. The definition of grin is here. And what the idiom *means*—it may be annoying (to you), but it is not meaningless—is “the most basic screening test for being remotely credible”. Greg L (talk) 21:56, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I didn't mention anything about civility, so we can ignore that non-point. Your use of asterisks in lieu of actual formatting is what merits "[sic]". And if it's hard for you to understand why your little phrase is "meaningless", try "valueless, pointless and a waste of bytes" to boot. It is of no utility to any other editor whatsoever, except as an indicator of your own inflated sense of self-importance. — Hex    (❝  ?!  ❞)   22:18, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
 * What you think of my inflated sense of self-importance has no bearing whatsoever on the facts of this arbitration. I’ll have to ask that you remain civil here Hex . Try to stick to the all-important facts and not attack other editors here—including me. As for filling up these pages with this sort of stuff, see the below from Risker. Greg L (talk) 22:32, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I think it would be beneficial to move this whole thread, from "Having examined..." by Ohconfucius to my comment right here. Dabomb87 (talk) 22:27, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
 * "It is of no utility to any other editor whatsoever"—um, wrong. GregL reminds us that we shouldn't lose sight of a common-sensed-approach to the issues being "debated".  HWV258  22:28, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Greg L has previously used this notion of his as justification for his grotesque incivility. Anything that would be used for such a purpose is inherently debased and worthless. — Hex    (❝  ?!  ❞)   22:39, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
 * (r to GregL) I only meant that you should strike your false assumption that Seav struck anything from his page related to my conversation with him. As to your list: 1, 2, and 3 all seem to be factual, and 4 and 5 resemble nothing of what I have said. You can grin at your strawman all you want.
 * As far as consensus overriding WP:5P, I do not believe this to be possible. You could not, for example, get 100 editors together and decide in an RfC that Wikipedia should become only a cookbook. In my view, getting some number of editors together to decide that Wikipedia should no longer incorporate almanac pages is the same thing. -- Kendrick7talk 22:47, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

I didn't realize that my !vote and my talk page comments would elicit this amount of discussion. For the record, I voted support to the following statement: "Per Wikipedia:Why dates should not be linked, it should be a rare date indeed that is linked in regular body text. All links should be particularly topical and germane to the subject matter. Links to lists of historical events that have little to nothing to do with the subject matter at hand should generally not be made." The fact that years were used as examples is slightly tangential.

My talk page comment clarified that my initial support is on date links (month-day or month-day-year) (for which auto-formatting is bad and linking is almost always irrelevant) and that I had no opinion yet for year links. (Month-day articles like March 14 are just a hodgepodge of unrelated events that occurred over centuries, but year articles like 2007 have events that are often causally related, so may be more relevant.) But just because I didn't have an opinion yet for year links doesn't mean that I was confused regarding the RfC; I simply gave my moral support for that particular proposal.

Now, that I've had a day or two to think about it. I think that linking to all years is NOT OK (even if you just link to the first instances in an article) and that selective linking of years is OK, provided that the year is relevant to the article. Example, 1944 would be a nice link from World War II, simply because events in 1944 were dominated by WWII. (But I won't throw a tantrum if the link to 1944 is removed.) Better yet, having the year link to topical year articles Timeline of World War II (1944) or 2007 in music is good whether in the article body or "See also" sections.

--seav (talk) 01:46, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Dabomb87’s RfC summary
Locke, what do you think of this? Dabomb87, Tony, Lightmouse, and I (Greg L), have been working on a solution to run by you all.

In a nutshell: We see resolution of this dispute as requiring the following seven-step process:
 * 1) Identifying what the RfCs say regarding the community consensus
 * 2) Revising MOSNUM with a detailed guideline that captures the community consensus
 * 3) Make a bot as compliant with the community consensus as technology allows
 * 4) Identifying the degree to which a bot’s activities can conform to the new MOSNUM guideline
 * 5) Compare the false-positives of bot activity (incorrectly de-lined dates) v.s. those that it correctly delinks and those it leaves alone that shouldn’t be delinked
 * 6) Compare the amount of manual labor required to re-link false positives to the amount required to manually delink dates that should not be linked
 * 7) Make the decision as to whether or not Lightbot should go back to the task of delinking dates based solely upon the metric of whether the labor to make en.Wikipedia compliant with MOSNUM’s updated guideline is less with the assistance of a bot

User:Dabomb87 produced a summary of the past and ongoing RfCs. It is titled When to link.

Below is that summary:


 * Month-day links
 * In articles about chronological items (Ex: 1789, January, 1940s, Sunday). (It's unclear whether year-in-topic articles are included in this category.)
 * In articles about holidays that fall on the same day every year (Ex: Christmas Day, April Fools' Day, Cinco de Mayo).
 * In very limited instances where linking to such an article would provide a global and historical context (Ex: Armistice Day).
 * Other instances that would be decided on an article-by-article basis and according to consensus gained on the article's talk page. Such instances should be rare and should to be limited to those in which a date link would significantly deepen reader's understanding of the article's topic.


 * Year links
 * In articles about chronological items (Ex: June 17, January, 1940s, Sunday) and years in a specific field (Ex: 1990 in art, 1967 in sports).
 * On a limited basis, in articles of a historical nature where it is not possible to link to a more relevant event. For example, in an article about German history, instead of linking to 1942, it might be more beneficial to link to World War II.
 * In the "See also" section one could add a year article link if that year article puts that specific event in the context of the year. (e. g. listing "see 1346" in the "See also" section of Battle of Crécy)
 * As a seealso tag in a paragraph where the date is relevant to that paragraph.
 * In some timelines.
 * Link to year-in-field links whenever said links' content would be more relevant to the subject than plain year links.


 * Centuries, decades, months and days of the week
 * Centuries and decades—In articles about a certain historical period or a series of related events that occur over multiple years (Ex: Punic Wars, Roaring Twenties, Age of Enlightenment).
 * Months and days of the week—In articles about a subject that concerns the nature of a month or day (Ex: April showers (weather phenomenon))

We would propose to update MOSNUM with this. Then…

The next key steps are to look at how compliant Lightmouse thinks he can make Lightbot with this new guideline. We worked on this here on Lightmouse’s talk page.

We twice looked at that day’s date and went to Wikipedia’s article on that date. We looked at the first ten articles that linked to that date and the last ten articles that linked to it. We then asked the question “what is the compliance v.s. error rate” if Lightbot were to go over the twenty articles that linked to it. Here is what Lightmouse said regarding this:

The first ten articles that link to todays date are:
 * April - would not be parsed by bot: all 12 'month' articles would be avoided
 * August - would not be parsed by bot: all 12 'month' articles would be avoided
 * April 6 - would not be parsed by bot: all 366 'month+day_number' articles would be avoided
 * April 12 - would not be parsed by bot: all 366 'month+day_number' articles would be avoided
 * April 15 - would not be parsed by bot: all 366 'month+day_number' articles would be avoided
 * April 30 - would not be parsed by bot: all 366 'month+day_number' articles would be avoided
 * August 22 - would not be parsed by bot: all 366 'month+day_number' articles would be avoided
 * August 27 - would not be parsed by bot: all 366 'month+day_number' articles would be avoided
 * August 6 - would not be parsed by bot: all 366 'month+day_number' articles would be avoided
 * August 9 - would not be parsed by bot: all 366 'month+day_number' articles would be avoided

The last ten articles that link to todays date are: I hope that helps.
 * Jean-Achille Benouville - All linked dates would be delinked. I count 2 linked dates and several unlinked dates.
 * Nicholas Byron Cavadias - All linked dates would be delinked. I count 1 linked date and several unlinked dates.
 * Kazutsugi Nami - All linked dates would be delinked. I count 9 linked dates and several unlinked dates.
 * List of Cabinets of Iceland - All linked dates would be delinked. I count 93 linked dates and 1 unlinked date.
 * Murray Takes It To The Next Level - All linked dates would be delinked. I count 2 linked dates and 3 unlinked dates.
 * List of The Veronicas tours - All linked dates would be delinked. I count 89 linked dates and several unlinked dates.
 * Institute for Health Freedom - All linked dates would be delinked. I count 10 linked dates and no unlinked dates.
 * 2009 in British music - would not be parsed by bot: all ' in ' articles would be avoided
 * Il Giorno (newspaper) - All linked dates would be delinked. I count 2 linked dates and several unlinked dates.
 * The Fat Tail: The Power of Political Knowledge for Strategic Investing - All linked dates would be delinked. I count 3 linked dates and several unlinked dates.

The bottom line: For these twenty articles analyzed, Lightbot would be 100% correct in the avoiding the dates that should remain linked, and would be 100% correct in delinking the dates that should not be linked.

This ultimately leads to point #7, above, “Make the decision as to whether or not Lightbot should go back to the task of delinking dates based solely upon the metric of whether the labor to make en.Wikipedia compliant with MOSNUM’s updated guideline is less with the assistance of a bot”.

We are mindful that even though our small sample of forty total articles produced 0% false positives and false negatives, there will clearly be an unavoidable number of dates that might improperly remain linked and some that might improperly be delinked that should have remained linked. However, we think the labor saved by having a bot assisting in making en.Wikipedia compliant with the new community consensus wildly exceeds the relatively much reduced amount of labor required to fix the proportionally much smaller number of false-positives and false-negatives.

What do you think?


 * Comment by Arbitrators:
 * (*sound of crickets chirping*)


 * Comment by parties:
 * I think Dabomb87 has done a great deal of much-needed research to develop a detailed analysis of the RfCs. Some Wikipedian’s here that would be considered to be avid “delinkers”, have had *difficulties* with Dabomb’s analysis—there are a lot of dates that would remain linked per Dabomb’s summary. I had to do some arm twisting to get these editors to agree that they should put their personal preferences aside and accept and embrace the general consensus; “compromise” on what goes into MOSNUM. And with Lightbot able to achieve such a high hit ratio on Dabomb’s clear-as-glass, highly specific summary of the RfCs, our job as editors making Wikipedia compliant is made much, much easier. Greg L (talk) 04:24, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Greg, dabomb's proposal is an impressive piece of work, and your presenting of it as partial or whole solution to this imbroglio is perfectly timed. I support the proposal in principle, but will be making a few suggestions for tweaking it (or perhaps others will pre-empt me in doing this). I'm concerned that there might be a loophole that some might argue open the dam-gates to the linking of dates of birth and death in bio articles, claiming—somehow—that they have consensus behind them. Specifically, the second point under "Year links", I believe, needs to be tightened to match the community's now-cautious attitude towards this and other low-value links. Tony   (talk)  08:09, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Please do. I wasn't quite ready for prime time but if this will help move things along then I have no problem. Dabomb87 (talk) 13:27, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I'd like to point out that this wasn't some one-sided solution; I also consulted Masem, Wrad, Locke Cole and Kendrick7 on this. Dabomb87 (talk) 13:35, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Reject in its entirety. Reject content:
 * Once again makes the claim of "community consensus" against free linking of years, a claim which has been debunked repeatedly.
 * As Kendrick7 notes below, we will end up with a galaxy of abysmal "year in X" articles.
 * Reject implementation:
 * Cooked up out of the public eye and dropped here as a whole largely by a group of editors all of whom are facing charges of incivility and disruption; "consult[ing] Masem, Wrad, Locke Cole and Kendrick7 on this" does not make it somehow representative of everyone.
 * Relies on an untrustworthy bot operator who has repeatedly demonstrated his unsuitability for the task.
 * Attempts to shortcut its way out of an arbitration regarding user conduct.
 * Nothing even remotely approaching the scale of this proposal should be considered before the arbitration has run its course. Then, and only then, the issue should be opened up publically again in a very cautious manner and proposals made. — Hex    (❝  ?!  ❞)   13:48, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Hex, I would like to know what incivility has to do with this. I did not post this here (just as an FYI), nor did I plan to. I was originally planning to wait till after this case to finish and touch up, but it seems that the forward momentum of some users changed those plans, although I am not complaining. I don't quite understand what "free linking of years" means in this context. Dabomb87 (talk) 13:55, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
 * What it has to do with this is that this is the wrong place for this proposal. This arbitration was called to investigate user conduct issues, and you are using it as some sort of strange extension of WT:MOSNUM. Proposals have been made to prevent some editors from participating in guideline-making activities; how can guidelines even be suggested until it is clear whether these restrictions will be made or not?
 * Your proposal restricts where and when years may be linked. Free linking of years is any editor's ability to link to a year where and when they want based on the same judgment and discretion that they use for writing the rest of articles, on the understanding that our readers have sufficient intelligence to decide for themselves whether they want to follow links. — Hex    (❝  ?!  ❞)   14:17, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Agree with Hex, this should be considered after arbitration (as should s fix for auto formatting which would negate the need for delinking entirely). —Locke Cole • t • c 14:59, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
 * As an aside I resent that this proposal starts out naming me ("Locke, ...") as if I'm the only person who disputes date delinking... —Locke Cole • t • c 19:04, 12 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Comment by others:
 * This proposal erroneously assumes that compliance with the Manual of Style is mandatory, i.e., the MOS is not just a collection of recommendations. This proposal also fails to deal with the numerous and very important behavioral issues that already have been outlined and discussed.  This is not the right venue for attempting to obtain consensus on a change to the MOS.  And finally, as I already have indicated, the proposed language is ambiguous and, therefore, would not prevent major future controversies.  Tennis expert (talk) 05:08, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
 * It appears not to make any such assumption. The principal assumption is that both sides want to see an end to this time-wasting dispute. Some may be happy to propose punitive sanctions against their 'opponents or continue spamming these pages with stuff which has no bearing on resolution or going forward. Your total opposition to any form of delinked dates (read "date and date fragments") is quite clear and quite clearly against the community view that dates should only be linked "in rare or exceptional cases". Ohconfucius (talk) 05:31, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Your side continues to trade on the misplaced understanding that 1312 and 1300s and the 14th century are "dates." 13 February 2009 is a date, those others are not. -- Kendrick7talk 05:46, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Of course the proposal makes that assumption. That's why it has all the stuff about sending bots out to make changes in conformity with the Manual of Style and about the rarity for dates to be linked in the future.  And, once and for all, stop being disruptive and misrepresenting my position on date linking.  As I have said repeatedly, I couldn't care less about whether dates are linked.  As for the behavioral issues involving you and certain others, I didn't set the scope of this arbitration.  Your past and present misbehavior is a serious issue, regardless of what I think.  (Again, you are a party to this arbitration and should be responding under "Comment by parties".)  Tennis expert (talk) 06:13, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The proposal does not "erroneously assume that compliance with the Manual of Style is mandatory". What it does is get closer to the point where the bots can continue the enormous (and necessary) work of delinking the vast majority of dates now agreed as unnecessary. As pointed out many times before, the MoS is a guideline, so if there are local issues that require over-riding of the MoS, those can still be debated on the relevant talk pages—after the bots have finished their work. This is a subtle point that I hope you will take the time to consider carefully.  HWV258  06:56, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The proposal deals explicitly with the "behavioral" issues as it strives to create a tighter framework under which to move forward. With eventual consensus, there will be far less reason for the problems (reverts, etc.) recently encountered. We must all assume good-faith in future work.  HWV258  07:02, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I generally disagree with having to split every almanac page into multiple "Year in X" pages and believe the effort to track all the possible X's to be too burdensome. Instead of having one poorly written "Year" article, we instead end up with hundreds or thousands of poorly written "Year in X" articles for every possible X and every possible Year. I don't believe the Admins should give their imprimatur to this, nor do I think it would be likely that they would.
 * I also disagree with the notion that our almanac pages are some bastard child of the rest of the project such that links to those pages need to have second class citizenship compared to gazetteer and encyclopedia links which have always be inlined. -- Kendrick7talk 05:40, 12 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Dabomb87's summary is inadequate. It omits several useful links (for example, links from Saint George to April 23, and links to 18 Brumaire and August 10 (1792)); it misunderstands the functions of several links: for example,   Battle of Guadalcanal could profitably link both to World War II and to 1942, which is substantially a chronology of that year of the war. The only useful sentence is (cleaning up the grammar and the thought) is Such instances should be limited to those in which a date link would significantly deepen reader's understanding of the article's topic; this is true whether such occasions are rare or not. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:01, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Absurd. Saint George, who died on April 23, 303, would not be linked according to the current community consensus. Why? Because if a reader clicked on the April 23rd link, they would be taken to a list of historical trivia that is not germane or topical to the subject of Saint George, such as entries like this: “1940 - The Rhythm Night Club fire at a dance hall in Natchez, Mississippi, kills 198 people.” Links are not supposed to be like a treasure hunt game; that much is clear from the RfCs. Tell me PMAnderson, what does a 1940s nightclub fire in the USA (a country that hadn’t yet been born, on a continent that hadn’t been yet discovered by Europeans) have to do with St. George??? Again, MOSNUM guidelines are determined by community consensus and ignores the personal whims of individual editors who come to this ArbCom to post what they believe *ought to be the case*. Once a reader knows that St. George died on April 23, 303, they have all the date-related, pertinent information about him. The same goes for the vast, vast majority other body-text links, which, according to the community consensus as evidenced by the past and ongoing RfCs, are not supposed to be linked.  And if someone is reading up about the Battle of Guadalcanal, there are much more germane, WWII-related articles to link to in that article’s See also section, such as Category:Conflicts in 1942 (the article-space-equivalent to this), which truly enhances a readers understanding. The See also section is also a much better place for the 1942 article because it could be aliased with a more informative name such as “• Other notable historical events of 1942”. Fortunately, the 1942 article is organized with WWII-related stuff at the top, so readers can stop reading when they get to entries like “June 19 - Michael Broggie, Disney historian and author [is born]”.  You can point to exceptions until you are blue in the face and that simply won’t change the simple fact that Lightbot’s error rate (both false positives and false negatives) is so low that our relying upon it will save vastly more labor than will ever be required to fix its errors.  This view of the role of bots is also in keeping with the current RfC on this issue, which is clear on the mater. Again, *community consensus* on the role of bots trumps the individual whims of any of us editors.  Greg L (talk) 20:06, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Setting aside the lies on consensus, the underlying logic here is:
 * GregL wouldn't navigate a date link,
 * Therefore no-one wants to,
 * Therefore we should make it impossible for any reader to do so.
 * On the contrary, we have categories and direct links and infoboxes because different readers have different tastes, and find different methods of navigation useful. GregL does not understand that, and never has. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:02, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
 * To Pmanderson: Actually, an even better link than 1942 is Timeline of World War II (1942). Those were only examples. The proposal was unfinished, and I had not planned for it to be posted yet. Dabomb87 (talk) 22:28, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
 * That should probably be merged into 1942, which has perhaps three events unrelated to the war. But let us see your proposal when you are done with it, despite the enthusiasm of your friends. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:15, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Once again Greg L wheels out the same tired old arguments. First, picking a year and reeling off some random events from it as a justification to treat Wikipedia readers like children ("no, you are not allowed to browse freely"). Year articles contain many disparate events - yes, Greg, everyone knows that. Secondly, another transparent and tedious attempt to paint a giant and seething lack of consensus as "the individual whims of... editors". Even the beginning of this proposal section he addresses personally to Locke Cole, as if (as Locke comments) he is the only one in opposition to date delinking. Stop repeating yourself, please, Greg, it's not convincing anyone. — Hex    (❝  ?!  ❞)   20:37, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Pay no attention to that RfC behind the curtain. We know what you want Hex. We know you like to deminish the intentions of your evil, uncivil opponents as desiring only to treat readers as “children”. We know that you feel you have a solid grasp of what Hex Universal Truth of Best Technical Writing Practices™©®. Again: what you or I think doesn’t matter here. What each and every editor here thinks is best does not matter. The only thing that matters is the community consensus. Period. And our best evidence for what this is the RfCs. This is for the arbitrators to help us on as it is clear that you and I could never agree upon the basic facts of what is the current community consensus on these maters. We’ve all seen your post below where you would like us all to think that no actual progress is supposed to be made here on these important issues and that the only task at hand for the arbitrators is to meet out punishment to doers of all things bad (presumably limited exclusively to those very mean delinkers) and nothing more pertaining to the meat and potatoes of what precipitated this dispute. We can all see through that tactic. I happen to think that what is at the core of this dispute is a bilateral (mostly “lateral”) unwillingness to see what the community wants and abide by that. Now… Some of the questions answered on the RfCs are general principles that need interpretation. Others, like the three questions in the ongoing RfCs are exquisitely explicit and unambiguous, such as whether a bot has a proper role in delinking. Everyone’s job here is to faithfully try to best implement the will of the community; ergo, point #1 from the above seven-step process.  22:31, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Actually, I concur with step 1. The other steps may or may not be appropriate, depending the results of that.  However, we're nowhere near there.  We don't have agreement as to what Tony's RfC means (it seems to me that it at most says that dates and date fragments should not be linked as a matter of course); we don't have a real consensus as to the detailed RfC, and, as I noted above, even if Greg's RfC passes, Lightbot is still off limits, as the premise is clearly wrong; a bot cannot tell if a (year) link "significantly deepen(s) reader's understanding of the article's topic."  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 01:52, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Your last point is a fallacious conclusion. If the community consensus is clear on a matter, then all of us must abide by it. That is an inviolate principle on Wikipedia. The RfC wording on this mater is exceedingly clear and detailed. It says “…all bot operators are required to do is ensure that their bot activity is as compliant as possible with the guidelines of MOS and MOSNUM.” Your assertion of fact …a bot cannot tell if a (year) link "significantly deepen(s) reader's understanding of the article's topic." is a red herring that ignores the most probative and telling experiment as to whether the bot is sufficiently accurate. Lightmouse and I examined 40, randomly-selected articles and the error rate was 0% false positives and 0% false negatives. Greg L (talk) 17:45, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
 * You are lying this time, and perhaps again. It is not the case that "all bot operators are required to do is ensure that their bot activity is as compliant as possible with the guidelines of MOS and MOSNUM" (and your quotes are not compliant with the guidelines of MOS, for that metter.), but that "bot operators are required to ensure that their bot activity is compliant with the guidelines".  Specific allowances for known bot errors, in a rational world, would have to be specifically approved by the community at large; the bot board should not approve bots which make known errors without wide community approval.
 * Since you don't think there are any negatives, your findings that there aren't any in the sample is not surprizing. However, the latest bot written would have had false positives — your assertion that "decade in topic" articles would he excluded by the bot appears not to be the case in the latest revision allowed to run.  Furthermore, there is no consensus as to whether year-of-birth in biographical articles should be linked.  The !vote was fairly close on that specific question, and I don't see an overwhelming arguement for either side.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 18:56, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Call to Arbitrators
Much of the above is either highly off track, such as how the proposal doesn’t address “very important behavioral issues” with editors (there are scores of proposals on this page addressing this issue so there is no need to bog this proposal down by even pretending to address that), or ignores the obvious fact that a major reason for this ArbCom is to settle the issue of the role of a bot in date delinking. Thus, we have editors here with wildly divergent views on the fundamental purpose of our even being here. I believe it is high time for arbitrators to arbitrate. We have only a few editors, above, who have so far exhibited a willingness to discuss the details of the proposal in an effort to ensure its wording is the best implementation of the community consensus. I ask that the arbitrators weigh in above as to whether you view the above seven-step process as the proper framework around which editors should endeavor to craft a solution. Greg L (talk) 17:40, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
 * While I have to second the call for the abitrators to please do something, I object strongly to this repeated attempt to force through an illegitimate and inappropriately-timed proposal in the name of a totally disputed "consensus". Also, the major purpose of our being here has been apparent from the start. Here's a copy and paste from what I wrote further up the page:


 * I suggest that you look at the statements made by ArbCom when accepting this case. I'll save you some time, here are quotes:
 * "There is... a broad range of alleged behavioral issues surrounding these circumstances" - Vassyana
 * "Date delinking is only the latest incarnation of MOSNUM problems" - Rlevse
 * "Accept... [to] address any user conduct issues" - FloNight
 * "when the topic focus causes large, repeated threads... This invariably means there is a behavioral problem" - Coren
 * "I agree that the issue for ArbCom here is behavioural" - Roger Davies
 * "I support just keeping it to the date delinking conduct issues" - Wizardman
 * "I do agree with those who have stated that this case should most emphatically be about the behaviour here" - Carcharoth


 * It is completely wrong to try and use a case about behavioral issues to push a proposal formulated purely by the group whose behavior is under examination. — Hex    (❝  ?!  ❞)   18:07, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I have contacted a clerk about this whole section. Dabomb87 (talk) 22:34, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks. This ‘hands off’ approach has been going nowhere. It’s like locking the prisoners in the courtyard and letting them riot with clubs and shanks and piling the bodies over by the exercise equipment. We can’t even agree upon the basic purpose of being here for arbitration. To listen to Hex, the only purpose of being here is for arbiters to meet out punishment to mean bad people (presumably, editors other than Hex). We’ve got a perfectly workable seven-step plan proposed. It’s time for arbitrators to act since it is clear there is so little common ground between the two camps, they can’t even agree as to why we are supposed to sit down at the negotiating table. Greg L (talk) 22:46, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry you're confused about this, but unless the arbitrators say otherwise their original reasons for accepting this remain as Hex stated (the overall reason for this arbitration request stemmed from behavioral issues surrounding the dispute). Further, I disagree with your seven step plan, as I believe fixing the software is a far more effective use of our time, and UC Bill has done fine work towards that end (as you are well aware). It makes more sense to fix the software to resolve the areas of dispute than to set about unleashing scripts/bots to modify every single Wikipedia article to conform to some arbitrary standard that doesn't satisfy everyone. —Locke Cole • t • c 23:00, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Wow.&thinsp; The *community consensus* is not some arbitrary standard that doesn't satisfy everyone. It is a fundamental Wikipedia principle that apparently doesn’t satisfy you. Issues pertaining to poor editor behavior is certainly something the arbitrators can consider. But it is ludicrous beyond all recognition to assert that a proposal that addresses the issue of community consensus, and how to agree upon what exactly that is, and how to proceed from there, is somehow invalid because it doesn’t also propose “punishment” for editors. There are more than enough proposals above on this subject to shake a stick at without trying to duplicate it. We’ve got a perfectly sensible seven-step plan proposed above. It’s time for arbitrators to act since it is clear there is so little common ground between the two camps, they can’t even agree as to why we are supposed to sit down at the negotiating table. Greg L (talk) 23:19, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
 * "Wow"? That RFC is still open, and already has its critics. Calling anything there "consensus" is at best premature. -- Kendrick7talk 23:30, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
 * It's now obvious to all that the confusion rests with those obstreperous enough to refuse to move forward because "not everyone can be satisfied"-type arguments. The rest of us seem to have come to grips with the concept that it will never be possible to satisfy everyone at WP; hence the point of the above proposal in trying hard to reach a consensus. Regarding the work being done towards "fixing the software"—we are still all waiting for a specification that would allow the programmers to make some consensus-based progress.  HWV258  23:25, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Apart from the issue that the community now takes a rather conservative line on hi-tech "solutions". And we keep asking what problem it's chasing, to no avail. Tony   (talk)  23:33, 12 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Kendrick7: There are two closed RfCs that are quite illuminating as to the community consensus on broad principles. Arbiters can apply WP:SNOWBALL to the current one if they chose—or close it now. A lot of progress can be made. MOSNUM has been locked down because of this dispute and remains locked down until this is resolved; this is not an abstract dispute. There is now a workable, sensible proposal to consider now; it is time for action by the arbiters. Greg L (talk) 23:38, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
 * A good case could be made to reject your RfC as misleading, even if there is a strong apparent consensus in favor of (some of) your proposals. — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 23:53, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Rather than listen to you and Locke rant about what the previous RfCs did and didn’t say, I bypassed all that horseplay drilled down straight to the crux of the remaining issues so results were absolutely unambiguous. An outstanding case can be made that you simply don’t like the results. Greg L (talk) 00:00, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
 * No, what you actually did was rephrase the disagreement yet again, this time in a manner precisely designed to express your position in the issue over any others, and presenting a perfect pile-on target for the other members of your tag team. — Hex    (❝  ?!  ❞)   02:08, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Oh for pity's sake
Let's see. Over 442Kb of evidence, and over 816Kb of workshop. Hundreds upon hundreds of links. This little section above, addressed specifically to arbitrators, is so long that it is next to impossible to figure out exactly what the intended message is. Almost everyone posting on these two pages is usually a clear, concise communicator. What has come over you all?

Even for the most diligent amongst us, these pages have largely become unreadable; it would take at least 20 hours to move all the irrelevant commentary to the talk pages. Here's what I suggest: unless something absolutely brand new comes to light, don't add anything more to these pages. Instead, go through your own comments and strike out unnecessary ones or move them to the talk pages. Go back to your evidence and strike out anything that isn't actually evidence or move it to the talk page. This would actually be helpful in our reaching some conclusions. It strikes me as ironic that a group of people working diligently to develop standards for writing the encyclopedia have produced such a morass. Risker (talk) 22:02, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Will do. Dabomb87 (talk) 22:04, 15 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Indeed; keep it simple. The intended message of this section is completely embodied in the last sentence of the first paragraph: “I ask that the arbitrators weigh in above as to whether you view the above seven-step process as the proper framework around which editors should endeavor to craft a solution.” That seven-step process is completely expanded upon with a total of 1227 words. Greg L (talk) 22:22, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

I am pleased to see that many of the editors involved have taken my message to heart. Just to be clear, this is not an invitation to edit war, and in particular please do not edit war with the arbitration clerks. They're exempt on these pages, but others aren't. Risker (talk) 23:11, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I will take the blame for the initial unwarranted moving. I was reprimanded by Ryan and will not move any more discussions. Is there some way in which we can indicate threads to remove without actually moving them? Dabomb87 (talk) 23:14, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Indeed, you can ping me. Unfortunately, I've got a migraine coming on so I'm not going to be much use now until the morning. As soon as I wake up I'll get to the threads that concern people. You can either leave a note on my talk, or you can email me.  Ryan Postlethwaite See the mess I've created or let's have banter 23:18, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Segue to a highly specific guideline by Dabomb87
How about this? Dabomb87 (talk) 01:08, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Okay—good. That's a useful start.  HWV258  01:40, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately, it seems that Greg has started off a red herring in this particular debate, and so we're going around in circles again with the 'what date fragment shall we link to, if any' question. Let's get back to the protocol. Ohconfucius (talk) 01:32, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * (ignoring blatant baiting by Ohconfucius) — I think your proposal, Dabomb87, is a fabulous bit of work. Bravo. Tony??? Greg L (talk) 04:43, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I believe while this is an effort to show good faith, it is both missing the core issue and also flowery and extraneous. On the last part, bot operators already have to meet certain requirements in how they operate, and really to have such language specifically for only date linking bots is excessive and unnecessary.  But on the first point, I will argue that it is not those that have brought this to ArbCom that these bots are bad, but instead they were released "to the wild" much too early before their exact behavior based on consensus was determined.  The RFCs identified that date autoformatting was to be removed, and that all but a minority of bare dates were to be delinked.  However, what that minority was was not firmly established, and because it was based on the link being germane to the article, it should have been an issue left to individual page editors.  Now, there could have been followup discussion after the RFCs to determine the best way to delink dates, which may have resulted in consensus for exactly what happened: Lightbot et al stripping all date links from articles and editors manually reinserting them.  Alternatively, it could have been a different approach (my suggestion there was to implement a template that allowed editors to "protect" linked dates, and give them a few weeks to put it in place).  Neither of these options violates any policy or guideline, but because of the contentiousness of the issue, the path to be taken should have been decided by consensus before it was started, particularly based on Lightbot's rather vague bot approval.  It was not the actual actions or the intent that is the problem, it was the timing - that's the issue here.  We have no deadline, and linked dates aren't damaging the encyclopedia in the short term. There was no need to rush and delink them until a good strategy that would be amenable to most Wikipedians was developed (since pretty much every article would be affected).  If this required re-evaluating the minority of date links that should be made, that should have been done.  If determining how to respond to those that relink dates after they have been delinked in an appropriate manner was needed, that should have been done.  None of those steps were taken, even when presented before this ArbCom case started but after the RFC.  Sure, sometimes the best solution is cold turkey and get it over quickly, but I would think that the RFCs clearly showed that this was the worst possible approach.
 * Again, this is not about long-term bot behavior. This is about making sure that behavior of a bot is well understood, that the policies/guidelines it is helping to enforce are firmly established to have consensus, and that "opt-outs" for certain cases are in place by some means before the bot is let loose.  The above points are not addressing these problems at the most critical point, before the bot is run. --M ASEM  14:57, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Masem. Everything you write above is insightful and basically true. I agree with much of it. However, I think your idea of being able to tag articles with an “opt-out” option is like democracy: a splendid concept that works for many cultures, but which just falls on its face in other cultures where they are highly polarized factions with very different world-views and extreme, multi-way predjudices. Do you know what would have happened if a bot had been active in deprecating “mebibyte (MiB)” and replacing them with “megabyte (MB)” and an “opt-out” tag had been available to Tbird? Of course, he would have used it. Not only “used it,” but he would have been furiously active in using it in as many articles possible, as quickly as humanly possible. Absolutely positively this would have been the case. That isn’t a “personal attack” on Tbird, his arguments and editing behavior make it absolutely clear that would have been the outcome. There clearly needs to be a guideline that prevents editwarring via “opt-out” tags.  I would have hoped that something like this in MOSNUM would have sufficed on this issue of linking dates:




 * Note that Locke wrote above that he didn’t believe that the RfCs and all previous discussion had demonstrated something as basic as whether or not there is a community consensus that date links "devalue" other links. To this notion, he wrote I've [Locke] yet to see any concrete evidence of this. (*Sigh*)…


 * Fortunately, the binary prefixes issue was, well… rather binary—a black & white issue; you either used them or didn’t. Given that the issue of linking dates is a gray area where they may be linked under some circumstances, I see no choice but to seize upon Dabomb87’s very specific guideline in order to avoid continual conflict, bickering, and editwarring about what, for instance, “germane” means (or whether linking to dates that have nothing whatsoever to do with the topic of the article is even a problem).


 * Well, of course linking of dates, as it had been long done here, hasn’t added value to the articles. If I’m reading up on an article on Nikolai Tesla and how he wrote about field theory in 1925, I might be interested in following a link to Mach's principle. If the editors responsible for our current Nikolai Tesla article had elected to link “1925”, I could click on it and wade through a list of events that have nothing to do with each other, such as…




 * Links that are not germane shouldn’t be linked. There are millions of links like this and only bots can fix a problem of such magnitude.


 * Now the issue comes down to what gets re-linked. Dabomb87’s proposal is comprehensive and detailed, and was clearly the product of more effort and thought than I was willing to invest to solve this issue. I suggest that we work on tweaking his wording to obtain something that meets the spirit of the community consensus.


 * Note that “consensus” does not mean 100% of all editors in complete agreement—and it never did. I have little doubt that some editors here will see little or no common ground with Dabomb87’s proposal. But if we can get most everyone here from both camps on board as to when the linking of dates is appropriate in articles, then we can advance that solution to the arbitrators and can go our separate ways and edit in peace. Greg L (talk) 20:22, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Even with DaBomb's proposed list (which, I will say, seems to be a fair representation of what is considered appropriate and germane) a bot cannot determine a use that's on this list from another, save for uses that fall on the chronological pages (which we've stated it should just ignore). But this argument is not about when and when not to link, this is about choosing whether to let bots wipe the slate clean of any linked dates and have editors restore what's necessary, or allowing editors to prepare to opt-out specific dates (in the case of lightbot, this only needs the date wrapped in a template to protect it) and then let the bots wipe the slate clear.  You end up at the same point (even considering those strongly against delinking, they will either restore all date links after they've been stripped in the first method, or protect all dates prior to stripping in the second), so the questions to ask is which is more amenable to the community.  I personally believe you will get more goodwill on the second approach, but that's me personally.  Maybe the bulk of editors feel it's perfectly fine to have to restore germane dates by hand, so then we could let the bot run that way.  The problem this all stems from is that we never discussed this.  Or at least, brought to a larger consideration.  This really should have been a new task that Lightbot or any other bot operator that wanted to delink dates needed to approach BAG with and prompted discussion (I do have to say that Lightbot's current "task" for date issues is very vague).  Again, I'm not trying to argue the limiting of which dates are linked or prevent bots from delinking at some point in the near future.  My whole assessment of this mess (if you read my FOFs and the like) is that those regulars on MOSNUM, as soon as they affirmed that date autoformatting was dead, wanted to pull the trigger and sweep WP clear of it forever, but there were really several more issues to work out that are side effects of disposing of the corpse of date autoformatting, and enlisting the use of bots before these were fully resolved is why this ArbCom case exists.  (There are a lot of other side issues I believe to be red herrings, unfortunately).  --M ASEM  20:39, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Amen, Masem. Would there have been objections to delinking either way — absolutely. You're always going to have some editors who are intransigent. But if there had been way to have the delinking exercise reliably and automatically skip past certain types of articles or certain types of links, or for editors to tag certain links to protect them, I suspect there would have been a lot fewer objections from those who are more moderate on this issue. I know I'd certainly count myself among those.
 * Greg L, I also think DaBomb's list is a great jumping off point, and trying to get agreement on at least some parts of it is a worthwhile exercise. But Masem's right — it will be tough for bots and scripts to be coded to pass by many of those valid links. How is a bot going to know, for example, whether or not a link in a given article is one of those "very limited instances where linking to such an article would provide a global and historical context"? The only way you don't need a solution to tag or protect those links, whether it's before mass delinking or after, is if there is only ever going to be one pass through the article base to delink. But I suspect that won't be the case — there will be a desire for regular runs of the bot to ensure that articles remain compliant. Without a method for protection, you'll end up in an endless cycle of bot removal, editor relink, bot removal, editor relink, etc. that's just going to lead to more conflict and drama. Mlaffs (talk) 21:00, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

There is a major problem with this language: "Other rare instances that would be decided on an article-by-article basis and according to consensus gained on the article's talk page." The "other rare instances" language would allow the argument that an article consensus should be ignored or overturned if the consensus does not comply with someone's interpretation of "other rare instances". It would be far better to just recognize that the consensus reached by the editors for a particular article should prevail, regardless of anything else. Tennis expert (talk) 21:03, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Masem: Whether or not the let bots run loose was controversial because there was a huge gap in editors’ views of how many dates ought to be linked when the dust has settled—or whether any dates should be de-linked. If Dabomb87’s very specific proposed guideline appears to be something that passes your grin test, I suggest we ask Lightmouse whether he can make Lightbot produce a reasonably low proportion of false positives. If the answer is ‘yes’, then we give it a trial run and see if his assessment is correct. If the answer is ‘no’ we do our best to estimate the number of dates that would have to be re-linked by hand and compare that to those that would have to be de-linked by hand and go from there. As for the use of “opt-out” tags, I see a role for these only after we could agree upon MOSNUM guideline that is specific enough that any admin can quickly and decisively deal with a rogue editor who is editing against consensus without endlessly debating “what the meaning of the word ‘is’, is.”  Tennis expert: Doesn’t your point of view suggest that just a global principle on MOSNUM, like this:




 * …ought to be sufficient, and just leave the exact implementation of it to the editors on each article? Greg L (talk) 21:17, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Sure, Lightmouse can probably comment on how many he can identify or estimate what the false positive rate may be or the like. That's fine, but like 20/20 hindsight, that should have been done before Lightbot was let loose.  And I totally agree that a user that consistently works against the MOS and opt-outs everything despite it not being MOS should have some type of dispute resolution undergone.  Note that one of the nice features about using a template to opt-out dates is that you now have an implicit way of tracking their use, and thus it will become easy to find when they are overused (based on DaBomb's list, I'd estimate no article will likely ever have more than 2 or 3 dates linked) and thus problem cases can be dealt with.  But again, I stress: all this discuss should have been nailed before Lightbot and other bots were turned on to delink since the issue was highly contentious.  --M ASEM  21:46, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

GregL, the language is not tight enough to ensure that the editors for a particular article have the final say about whether dates will be linked in that article. The language provides too much room for an outsider to come in, say "regardless of what you guys believe, these dates do not fit the rare instances criterion", and then start an edit war about whether the dates will be linked. Tennis expert (talk) 21:52, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Ergo, ArbCom. Greg L (talk) 22:56, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Your response illustrates why so many people have a problem with your behavior, Greg L, and why you are a party to this case. Tennis expert (talk) 23:22, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Tennis expert, constructive feedback is welcome on the summary's talk page. I invite all parties to participate in such a discussion. After this case concludes, I intend to propose some form of these guidelines at WT:MOSNUM and invite as many parties to the table as possible. Dabomb87 (talk) 23:10, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * TE, you show concern about local consensus. There is no "local consensus" unless the there was specific discussion. I might remind you that consensus can change. The idea that in general, dates should be linked on a very limited basis should be trumps the idea that dates should be linked quite a bit. Dabomb87 (talk) 23:16, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Consensus can be arrived at through discussion or through editing. And now it should be clear to everyone that your proposal supports the idea that the outsider in my hypothetical could trump a local article consensus by simply citing the MOS.  Therefore, your proposal does little to avoid in the future the problems so graphically illustrated in this case.  Tennis expert (talk) 23:22, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * It is clear that TE would like to establish the principle that he can keep any form of linking he wants in the articles he owns. However, that cannot be. The policy WP:Consensus is very clear:
 * "Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale";
 * "'Consensus' among a small number of editors can never override the community consensus that is presented in Wikipedia's policies and guidelines";
 * "The focus of every dispute should be determining how best to comply with the relevant policies and guidelines"
 * "Consensus decisions in specific cases do not automatically override consensus on a wider scale - for instance, a local debate on a WikiProject does not override the larger consensus behind a policy or guideline. The WikiProject cannot decide that for the articles within its scope, some policy does not apply, unless they can convince the broader community that doing so is right".
 * When Tennis expert edit-wars to restore date-links to produce autoformatting, for example, he is editing against community consensus, and that cannot be overridden "locally". Whatever the outcome of this case, he will not be able to claim that his "local" consensus trumps the community consensus expressed in wikipedia's policies and guidelines. --RexxS (talk) 02:45, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes. And further, the issue of ownership is all too obvious. It is clear that TE took it upon himself to single-handedly speak on behalf of the WP tennis-article community. In fact, I believe we are still waiting for another editor from that community to support the reverts TE has made.  HWV258  03:10, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
 * TE: Please explain how in the world greater specificity in precisely how editors should interpret and apply the basic principle of “being topical and germane to the subject matter” can result in greater confusion?? If a proposed guideline on any other issue had been run up the flag pole on MOSNUM that was as lengthy and specific as Dabomb87’s proposed wording, it would have been shouted down Soviet-style by banging shoes at one’s desk at the UN. So it simply isn’t meeting my *grin test* here that wording that is far more explicit than anything we’ve had before on this topic can possibly be opening a door to some sort of objection that couldn’t have been made before. Your criticism that The language provides too much room for an outsider to come in, say "regardless of what you guys believe, these dates do not fit the rare instances criterion" is fallacious. If you have a problem with what Dabomb87’s guideline says, then please state as much—directly. I can not accept that my wording, which is…




 * …is unacceptably vague and that a possible remedy to this vagueness, Dabomb87’s proposal, somehow magically opens the door to new arguments by some hypothetical intransigent editor. It’s like Dabomb87 and I are playing pin the tail on the donkey and no matter which direction we turn here, someone from the “I wanna link” camp is saying “colder”… “colder”… “colder”. Lead, follow, or get out of the way; this battle isn’t going to go on forever and you might as well have a hand in crafting a solution. Greg L (talk) 02:59, 6 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I think I should mention that Tennis expert has held and repeated his belief—that consensus among an article's editors trumps that of the community—since Tony1 first encountered him when he started delinking dates in tennis articles and Tennis expert was the only one (among tennis article editors) to complain. I thank Greg L and other supporters of my proposal, and gratified that it should meet with this much positive feedback. However, this is not the place to discuss it. Arbcom is only concerned with behavioral issues; this is a content issue. Since I did not start this thread, I will not move it. However, I suggest to Greg, the original poster, to consider asking a clerk to move this discussion somewhere else, preferably the talk page of MOSNUM, the talk page of the proposal, or the talk page of this workshop page. Dabomb87 (talk) 03:22, 6 February 2009 (UTC)


 * If you are describing TE’s attitude correctly, then it amounts to a metric ton of weapons-grade “I wanna do it my way come hell or high water.” Style guides exist to ensure publications have a consistent, high-quality look and adhere to technical writing fundamentals that most volunteer amateur editors don’t know about. If we didn’t have guidelines on overlinking, I absolutely guarantee you that many of our articles would look like Sewer cover in front of Greg L’s house, where if it can be linked, it is linked. As for this ArbCom, I thought the purpose is to settle whether or not bots should be employed to delink dates. Someone please authoritatively correct me if I’m wrong on this. As for moving this thread, I propose that we wait until the issue of what the hell we’re all doing here is settled. If it is really about what I think it is: answering the question of what the true community consensus is on these matters as evidenced by past and ongoing RfCs and the discussions here, the value of links, how many links are supposed to exist project-wide when all is said and done, how accurate and selective a bot could be, and whether or not to let the bots loose, then your proposal, Dabomb87, and this discussion thread is highly relevant to the matter and should stay. It could be the key to being done with all of this and moving on to more peaceful waters.  In the mean time, Dabomb87, I suggest you contact Lightmouse on your own and see if he thinks he can make Lightbot produce a reasonably low false positive error rate as measured by your proposal. Not surprisingly, we have an abundance of opinions here and a dearth of facts. Greg L (talk) 03:43, 6 February 2009 (UTC)


 * As I have said many times in many different places, I couldn't care less whether dates or date fragments are linked. Therefore, I have no interest in writing my own version of a date linking section in the Manual of Style.  What I do care about is respecting applicable consensus and not editing based on the erroneous assumption that the MOS is mandatory and trumps everything else, including a local consensus clearly evidenced by thousands of edits by hundreds of editors.  I have suggested before that the mass date delinkers propose a change to the MOS so that it really is mandatory, analagous to making the MOS part of the Wikipedia constitution that cannot be overridden.  But knowing that they cannot get consensus for such a sensible change, many of them (including a trusted bureaucrat and administrator) have instead used bots, scripts, AWB, incivility, disruption, tag team edit warring, and other bullying tactics to impose their views on the community.  The still evolving evidence is overwhelmingly clear about that and while the date delinking activity itself has diminished because of this pending case, the incivility and bad faith continues unabated, as illustrated above Tennis expert (talk) 21:39, 6 February 2009 (UTC) and below.  Tennis expert (talk) 21:36, 7 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your post. You are complaining about how nearly the entire observable universe is conspiring against you… many of them (including a trusted bureaucrat and administrator) have instead used bots, scripts, AWB, incivility, disruption, tag team edit warring, and other bullying tactics to impose their views on the community and incivility and bad faith continues unabated. (*Phew*) Do the forces of evil who defy your will and oppose all that is good and holy in your book have tuberculosis and cooties too? I find your above post to be a fetching piece of prose. It certainly sheds some light on the reason why we are here at ArbCom. Greg L (talk) 04:35, 7 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Absurd mischaracterizations such as this do not contribute positively to your position. Your entire comment is unnecessary, inflammatory and incivil, and does not benefit this discussion. — Hex    (❝  ?!  ❞)   15:15, 7 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I think the defenders of Greg L would say that he didn't mean it personally, that he was just using colorful language, and that once you get to know him, he's a really good guy that everyone who sees wants to hug. Or something like that.  Tennis expert (talk) 21:36, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Something like that... ;-) but Greg's pretty capable of taking care of himself. Ohconfucius (talk) 10:36, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Tennis expert, I don't understand. You try to poke holes in my specific proposal, then you say that you don't even care about the subject matter covered by the proposal. No matter what you say, I am going to follow through and take to WT:MOSNUM after this Arb case. Sticking one foot in the water is not going to do it. Either jump in the lake and provide provide constructive feedback (with suggestions as necessary), or stand 10 feet away from the water and remain allow discussion and the proposal to progress without impediment (not saying you are doing that right now though). Pardon the bad analogy. Dabomb87 (talk) 04:45, 7 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I regret that you do not understand. Your suggested language was posted.  I took about 5 minutes to point out a problem.  You then assumed bad faith and accused me of not allowing discussion, imposing an impediment, and not jumping in the lake (a confusing set of allegories, I must say).  And now I'm villified for not spending hours to rewrite your whole proposal.  Sorry, I won't make that mistake again.  Carry on at WT:MOSNUM or wherever, and good luck when ambiguous language enables more Wikidrama instead of preventing it.  Tennis expert (talk) 21:36, 7 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Difficult to assume good faith in instances like this: methinks this is has the potential to be yet another 'retirement' type wikidrama from User:Tennis expert. His assertion that he "couldn't care less whether dates or date fragments are linked" does not appear to be borne out by the facts at all. Let us all be reminded that he is the one person who has executed the largest number of reverts or relinking dates, and has laid all his wares as 'evidence' against the others who have opposed him. I have found at least two examples of tennis articles which were delinked without complaint for in excess of two weeks, but which were then relinked by TE when he found out. In other instances where he reverted immediately, other editors such as HJensen and Olympian2000 who frequent tennis articles attempted to set him right, were set on by 'Tennis warrior'. Take no notice - rank hypocrisy is all it is. Ohconfucius (talk) 05:41, 7 February 2009 (UTC)


 * There was no consensus for mass delinking of dates, Tennis Expert was correct to revert those changes made based on a decision reached unilaterally on an obscure MOS page that few people frequent. Those of you forcing your changes through are the ones who are at fault. Long term revert warring was totally uncalled for, further discussion to reach an actual community consensus would have been far more appropriate. —Locke Cole • t • c 06:41, 7 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Perhaps assuming good faith, Ohconfucius, would be easier for you if you practiced at it. And before you go around misrepresenting my opinions again, I recommend that you do a little research to educate yourself about what I've actually said.  That might help you avoid assuming bad faith yet again.  The condensed version is that I was merely trying to preseve the preexisting consensus in tennis articles that dates be linked.  My own opinion about date linking was and still is irrelevant.  What's important is that consensus be respected until it is overturned properly.  You and certain others decided unilaterally that all dates be delinked because of the unfortunately ambiguous "deprecated" language in the Manual of Style guidelines and were prepared to edit war to achieve your objectives.  You and the others conspired, trash talked, and engaged in other incivil behavior as a tactic to support the edit warring.  You and the others denigrated, insulted, and harrassed the editors who disagreed with you, abused the featured article and good article review process to bludgeon editors into accepting date delinking, and used automated and semi-automated means to overwhelm the opposition.  And your incivility and disruption now continues unabated,  despite the fact that you are a party to this case and your past and present behavior is a front-and-center issue.  Adding bulletin board material isn't wise at this point.  Tennis expert (talk) 21:36, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Gosh, I just love it when you talk dirty ;-) I need "educating" like pigs need lipstick. Ohconfucius (talk) 05:20, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Pardon me—the third RfC at MOSNUM clearly showed that separate, any requirement for explicit permission to run bots to enable compliance with the style guides was overwhelmingly rejected by the community. TE's responses in all of the RfCs showed the hypocrisy that Ohconfucius has referred to. Tony  (talk)  13:51, 7 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Not just “bot activity requires no community approval (beyond the standard requirements).” Better yet, Greg L was extraordinarily careful to ensure the wording of the new RfC was unambiguously specific about bots that *un-link dates*. The community consensus on this is “no problem”. Greg L (talk) 17:06, 7 February 2009 (UTC)


 * As usual, Greg and Tony are misinterpreting their own statements, not to mention the replies. I concur there is consensus that a (style) guideline which can be enforced by a bot may be enforced by a bot.  This guideline cannot be so enforced, absent advanced artificial intelligence, so should not.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 19:49, 7 February 2009 (UTC)


 * There is more to it than that. A bot may certainly go to work if the number of false positives pales in comparison to all the proper hits it de-links. The challenge here then, is to…
 * agree upon the types of dates that may properly de-linked,
 * identify how much error a bot would have in trying to adhere to the rule-set, and
 * come to an understanding as to whether the disadvantages of fixing the false-positives is overweighed by the advantages of not having to manually de-link millions of dates.
 * Anyway, we’re beating around the bush with such details. We still have the fundamental problem here that some editors want any date to be able to be linked and endlessly proclaim that the RfCs don’t really say that it should be a rare date that is linked. Further, we have Tennis expert using misdirection by arguing that Dabomb87’s proposed guideline leaves open some sort of loophole when he has really all along opposed to the whole thrust of it. After we have had the arbitrators settle fundamentals like this and get those editors out of our hair, then we can clearly identify the cost/benefit of bot activity. Greg L (talk) 00:27, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
 * We can't even agree on what should be linked, so there's no possible way to gauge the amount of false positives in this context. Arthur is correct in stating that so long as there's a possibility that bots can cause damage that they're inappropriate for this kind of work. Editor supervised scripts would seem more sensible (however the problem here, anyways, is that many of those running the scripts fail to see the value of any date links, so delink them all as the bots would). —Locke Cole • t • c 00:44, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
 * We can't even agree on what should be linked. Bingo. Greg L (talk) 02:19, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
 * So you agree then that bots (and to a lesser extent scripts) shouldn't be operating until those disputes are settled? —Locke Cole • t • c 03:03, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Yup. That’s easy enough to say, since it is the status quo, with which I take no issue. And, so no one can be confused about the order of the tasks ahead, I revised my above post by enumerating the steps. Now, we’ve been discussing Dabomb87’s proposed guideline on Lightmouse’s talk page here. The relevant question as it applies to Dabomb87’s proposal is “what would be Lightbot’s false-positive rate?” So we chose today’s date and looked at ‘What links here’. I examined the first and last ten articles and all instances of body-text linking to dates were clearly contrary to the current consensus. Based on that 20-sample analysis, it is reasonable to theorize that if the standard to which Lightbot must adhere to is per Dabomb87’s proposed guideline, then the false-positive rate (the number of links that would be improperly de-linked and then have to be manually re-linked), would be wildly offset by a much, much greater number of dates that will be properly de-linked. There are millions of these. So…  The first task to work on is point #1 above: is Dabomb87’s very detailed proposal a good one that editors can agree upon, and/or, is it compliant with the spirit and letter of the past and ongoing RfCs?  Greg L (talk) 04:42, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Proposed remedies
Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.

Locke Cole permanent ban
be banned from Wikipedia for being persistently disruptive and flouting Wikipedia rules. His block log shows a chronic, persistent problem with incivility towards others and refusal to abide by clear rules of conduct. This proclivity towards extreme persistence to win at all cost, no matter the consequences for other, innocent editors is evidenced in this RfA, which resulted in a month-long block for stalking another editor. In the real world, stalking is a serious enough of an issue that court orders are issued. Like some in the real world, it seems that Locke has simply managed to be more creative in the means by which he is disruptive while trying to win at any cost. His proclivity towards stating things that are not true has the effect of misleading others. Being continually bombarded by misinformation impedes others’ ability to improve Wikipedia—regardless of the venue (WT:MOSNUM or any of the various articles where he is editing). His record speaks for itself.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:
 * I propose this because Locke’s persistence at winning at any cost—even to the extent of continually violating rules of conduct so severely that he gets blocked again and again and again. And his block log is just the stuff he gets caught on, like any such block log, it is the tip of the iceberg. His tendentious nature is disruptive and he appears unwilling to conform to conduct expected. Greg L (talk) 03:31, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
 * (ec) Note that this proposal appears to be retaliation for my proposed civility injunction above. —Locke Cole • t • c 04:28, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Ya think?? The trouble is, every single spec of what I wrote there is the absolute truth. Your tendentious badgering and misleading and fighting everyone over everything in an absolutely uncompromising fashion is exceedingly disruptive to Wikipedia. And, like I wrote above, you haven’t been caught on 100% of the violations you’ve done on Wikipedia; your record is only the tip of the iceberg as regards the disruption you cause. Either that, or you are a misjudged angel and all the admins who blocked you were misguided. I doubt it is the latter option. Tell me I’m wrong. Greg L (talk) 05:49, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I would hardly call my position "uncompromising" considering the technical proposal on the table at WT:MOSNUM makes a number of concessions to concerns expressed by you, Tony and other MOSNUM regulars. These concessions are being rebuffed however in favor of continued incivility. Please explain how this helps resolve the dispute? —Locke Cole • t • c 06:12, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Arguing with you is clearly pointless. Fortunately, whatever you or I think, or whether we agree on anything (which we don’t) is utterly irrelevant. The only issue is: “what is the community consensus?” Ergo, my below proposal, which will put an end to this profound nonsense. Greg L (talk) 06:21, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Reject this and Cole's proposal. I thought that Rfarb was for settling disputes, not throwing successively harder punches at each other. We are not children. Dabomb87 (talk) 04:35, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Spot on, Dabomb87. As to your statement: We are not children. Greg L (talk) 05:49, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Stop it, both of you (Greg and Cole): no good comes from this kind of tit-for-tat, and you both realise that's the game here. We need to focus on measures to cool things off, please, not this mud-slinging at the personal level; might you both withdraw your slingshots? Tony   (talk)  07:55, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
 * How sad. This is a desperation move by a bully who's found himself in a corner. What's the matter, Greg, won't you be able to cope if the ArbCom takes away your precious ability to insult and belittle other editors? — Hex    (❝  ?!  ❞)   10:34, 26 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Comment by others:
 * I believe this is the only proposal for a permanent ban made (other than Lightbot itself, which is a different matter); that should in itself show it excessive. If GregL really regards wanting to win as grounds for a permanent ban, it would be straightforward (if arduous) to comb the pages of MOSNUM to demonstrate his own competitiveness. I would prefer not to do this; I hope this proposal will be withdrawn or ignored. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:58, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Looking only at one point, his removal of Greg's RfC was clearly for the good of Wikipedia. Greg would use consensus on that to support things it clearly doesn't say.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 19:09, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

ArbCom-crafted RfC to determine the true community consensus
The trouble here is we’ve had dueling RfC’s each crafted in a way that the likely outcome would be to support the proposer’s point of view. I think Tony’s was by far and wide, the most straightforward RfC, whereas the competing one is convoluted and contradictory at times. I would propose that the only important issue is this: “What is the true community consensus on the salient issues?”

I would propose that the arbitrators decide what questions need to be answered to resolve the dispute, and that they craft RfC wording that finally and once and for all settles the issue. For instance, complainants allege that there is a majority interest (not a clear consensus) for date autoformatting. I submit that many who held that view were under the mistaken belief that a technical means was in the offering that would allow I.P. users to see dates in a special way. Indeed not, there is no such technology. The only date autoformatting technology in the offering is simply something that would give any particular article either the Euro or American-style date format and that’s what 99.9% of our readership looks at. The only people who would benefit of all this autoformatting effort would be registered editors who’ve set their user preferences. All that effort so they don’t have to necessarily see at the date format everyone else sees???

I propose that the arbitration committee oversee the wording of a new RfC that clarifies these important issues and others, such as the extent to which bots can bring Wikipedia into compliance with various nuances of the community consensus on deprecation of linked dates. What is clear is that the community consensus is that it is a rare date indeed that should be linked. Blocking bots is just a practical roadblock to implementing the will of the community.

In summary, the only principle close to the heart of Jimbo is that the community consensus is always the right thing to do. To the extent that community consensus is not clear, we make it so and move on.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:
 * I wrote it so I like it. Greg L (talk) 06:12, 26 January 2009 (UTC) It is no longer necessary. A new RfC will shed light on what the true community consensus is on the crux of the matter. See below. Greg L (talk) 04:41, 29 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Comment by others:
 * The idea that the existing RfC's can possibly be consistent with any community consensus on linked dates (other than that there should be  fewer than there are, which may have consensus) is fantasy. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:58, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
 * The two previous RfC's show clear consensus on the following:
 * Opposition to "Years, months, days/months, and full dates should normally be linked" (RfC1 #1)
 * Opposition to "Dates (containing either day, month and year, or day and month) should normally be autoformatted" (RfC1 #2);
 * Support for "Dates should not be linked purely for the purpose of autoformatting" (RfC2 #1);
 * Support for "Links to month-day articles should be made no more than rarely and with good reason" (RfC2 #3);
 * Support for "Links to year articles should be made no more than rarely and with good reason" (RfC2 #4);
 * Opposition to "The use of an automatic or semi-automatic process to bring article text into compliance with any particular guideline in MOSNUM requires separate and prior consensus at the MOSNUM talk page" (RFC1 #3);
 * There is sufficient there to build on or to refine in another RfC. If you think my synthesis in 4 and 5 above is inaccurate, compare it with this analysis or this one. Otherwise, those statements could also be tested at the same time. --RexxS (talk) 03:14, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
 * No, actually I think #4 and #5 substantially correct, although they outline guidance a bot cannot implement. #1, #2, #3, and #6 are far more dubious. One of the flaws of Tony's RfC is that he failed to distinguish between opposition to the present autoformatting, and opposition to autoformatting in principle, under some other implementation. (As it happens, I join him in opposing both; but it is clear that there is at least a strong minority voice for some form of autoformatting, some of which will defend the present form. There is no consensus on either. See RfC #2, questions 1 and 2; I was surprised to see so much opinion on that side of the question.)  Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:54, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't know whether this or the talk page is best for discussing this level of detail, but debate here might at least give the ArbCom some idea of how much common ground there is, should they decide to pursue that route. Anyway a clerk can always move it.
 * I can see your criticism of RfC1 (Tony's), but to take an example: RfC2#1 (my third suggestion, Dates should not be linked purely for the purpose of autoformatting) gathered 247 Supports and 48 Opposes. I know it's not a vote, but the comments there showed what I feel is an overwhelming consensus for the principle that autoformatting of dates must not by done by linking. It may seem a trivial result, but there's another patch of common ground that now doesn't need to be gone over again. Perhaps by teasing out (probably not here) other likely principles that can carry consensus, we stand a chance of moving forward on resolving the underlying dispute. In any event the point I want to make to ArbCom is that it is possible to find areas of agreement that can be built upon, and that whatever decision they arrive at should help enable that process. --RexxS (talk) 01:47, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure if I'm reading you wrong, so maybe some clarification would help, but are you saying people who !voted in RFC2Q1 were against the link syntax being used for auto formatting, or against links being made simply because the auto formatting mechanism co-opted that syntax? My reading is the latter, which is why I think the fix being discussed at WT:MOSNUM (and being worked on by ) is a good way forward. It still uses the link syntax, but doesn't actually generate links (links can be forced using a simple prefix (, similar to image/file and category links) if desired).
 * Anyways, I think I get what you're saying, but I still think so long as the behavioral issues go unchecked we'll not see much in the way of forward movement (at least not without tons of disruption, incivility, bribery, threats, aggressiveness, etc). Once those are dealt with perhaps serious discussion can proceed... meanwhile, Greg has started yet another RFC (RFC3) with questions crafted entirely by him. —Locke Cole • t • c 02:19, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
 * That would be here. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:13, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
 * The real conclusion here is that there is no community consensus; some editors react to that by polling and polling and polling until they get one that goes their way. Then it becomes "consensus", and cannot be changed while the half-dozen editors who support it continue to oppose any alternative. This is not the Wikie way; but it is how MOS operates. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:13, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

New RfC on WT:MOSNUM

 * There is no need to fuss and bicker over who has the better read of the community consensus as evidenced by the past RfCs. One camp says that there is a majority of users who would like to have an autoformatting feature for dates. Another camp says that many (or most) of the users who expressed such a view were under the impression that “autoformatting” meant that it would somehow work for everyone (not just registered editors). This issue, as well as the extent to which any dates should be linked, and whether bots should have a hand in de-linking dates, are all being addressed in the new RfC. The only thing that matters when setting Wikipedia policies, rules, and guidelines is “community consensus.” Period. We’ll run this new RfC on WT:MOSNUM out for 30 days. Except for the most intransigent of editors, who might argue that RfCs are “just !votes” (as if there is a snowball’s chance in hell that insufficient discussion has transpired before and during this new RfC), this new one, which speaks straight to the heart of the disputed issues, should resolve what the true community consensus is as regards the three major points of contention. Locke Cole has already “expressed his concern” about the RfC (via this deletion of it) minutes after it was posted. This, uhm… *contribution* of his to making Wikipedia a better place for us all was ultimately resolved at this ANI, where he was advised by an administrator that he should not delete it again and Doing so is not only disruptive, but can land potential editors with additional blocks. So… there is a reasonable possibility that the RfC will go forward without further disruption. Accordingly…  I hereby retract my proposal that the ArbCom members craft an RfC; one is ongoing that will add more relevant information for the arbitrators to consider. Greg L (talk) 04:40, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
 * And you were advised by two administrators to withdraw your RFC.. so will you withdraw it per their request? —Locke Cole • t • c 04:54, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
 * The *advise* you are referring to are from involved admins at WT:MOSNUM. They are not only involved, by highly partisan. At the ANI, you were advised as follows by the only admin there, seicer:




 * And this one too from Seicer:




 * Seicer fairly warned you and  that you can't accept the fact that the community has voiced its opinion, that you are disrupt[ing] Wikipedia to make a point, and that persisting as you have could land you with additional blocks. Rather than heed his advise, you argued with him. So, I will certainly not withdraw an RfC that is enjoying plenty of community input; your demand is patently absurd. The community is speaking on this issue and will not be silenced because you wish it to be so. Greg L (talk) 05:12, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't consider Seicer to be uninvolved. His very first act when made aware of the ongoing dispute was to help editors re-delink dates (see    , and the entire log of Seicer engaging in date relinking). Ever since that time he's constantly displayed a bias towards your view. As noted at that ANI I take issue with his assertion that the matter "was ruled moot and dead". —Locke Cole • t • c 05:48, 29 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Oh. I see. Seicer is biased and bad. Locke is unbiased and good. I hadn’t thought of it that way. Thank you for clarifying that for me. Greg L (talk) 19:05, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I never said anything about myself. Please stop erecting straw men. —Locke Cole • t • c 19:46, 29 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Further evidence of Seicer's complete lack of objectivity on this matter: (1) his blind reversions (Margaret Osborne duPont, Jimmy Evert, Lawson Duncan, Fred Hagist, Gigi Fernandez, Pat DuPre, Brian Dunn, Herb Fitzgibbon, and Herbert Flam) of useful edits in his blind rush to relink dates and then his refusal to correct those mistakes; (2) his request to other editors to engage in edit warring for the purpose of relinking dates (this post by Seicer on Ohconfuscius's talk page and this post by Seicer on 2008Olympian's talk page). Whatever he says on date linking or date delinking must be considered in this context.  Tennis expert (talk) 08:33, 29 January 2009 (UTC)


 * The sheer gall of a combative, bullying and disruptive editor launching his own RfC with a battery of partisan proposals in a venue that virtually no-one, except the other partisan editors sharing his opinions that try to dominate discussions there, participates in, and claiming that it will fairly represent community consensus, is absolutely breathtaking. To imagine that ArbCom, or anyone else besides those partisan editors, would take the result seriously, is not only to grossly insult their intelligence, but an act of supreme self-delusion as well. — Hex    (❝  ?!  ❞)   12:23, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Can the focus be on ideas rather than their messengers, please? I'm sure arbitrators will be bored rigid reading these pot-shots. Tony   (talk)  14:01, 29 January 2009 (UTC)


 * So far this is a poll of the participants in this present discussion; ArbCom already knows what we think. If, like RFC 2, it attracts outside interest, it may contain some actual information; let's see what happens. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:32, 29 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Oh come now! Cease with the end-of-the-world / Greg L-carries-tuberculosis hyperbole (sheer gall of a combative, bullying and disruptive). It is childish. The previous RfCs started off primarily only with participation by the partisan editors who had been active in debate/thermonuclear war on WT:MOSNUM. But when we let the RfCs run their course over 30 days, they enjoyed w-i-d-e participation and we obtained a true measure of what the Wikipedian community believes. Unfortunately, some of the past questions proved to be flawed by being too general. One question was basically, “should there be an autoformatting feature.” Many editors reasonably believed what was under consideration was a tool that would produce a custom date format for everyone. Ergo, this more specific RfC to address the community’s desire for what is actually being offered. In this case, the RfC will determine the community consensus on all three of the latest specific points of contention; the ones we’re all here at ArbCom over. Wikipedia operates based entirely upon community consensus; not upon who shouts the loudest and edits most tendentiously. That sort of behavior must end. We’re going to finally determine what the true community consensus is on all these matters and move on.  Greg L (talk) 18:05, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Where do you get these assumptions about what the people !voting thought at RFC2? —Locke Cole • t • c 18:19, 29 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Hopefully, it will all come together in your mind when the latest RfC is over. Greg L (talk) 19:05, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Restore as my proposal, as I can't see Greg's RfC as other than disruptive, regardless of his intent. — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 19:13, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
 * There's nothing in your RFC that will move us forward. So I ask again, where do you get these assumptions about what the people !voting thought at RFC2? As an aside, I still strongly urge you to close your RFC and end the disruption. It's not helping, at all. —Locke Cole • t • c 19:43, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
 * You write There's nothing in your RFC that will move us forward. In the short time it has been up, over a dozen editors who feel that it will to move us forward have voiced their opinions on this matter that is so important to you and others. By the end of it all, there will likely be fifty—or more—editors who have voiced their opinion. While it is clear that you have sincerely held views as to what you think is best for Wikipedia (which essentially amounts to the argument that you have correctly interpreted the results of the previous RfCs and that all future activities on Wikipedia should conform itself to your views), many editors strongly disagree with you. These other editors disagree with your interpretations of previous RfCs, and they disagree with your assuming that their voices should be silenced. You clearly don’t like that very much. And even though you strongly urge that the RfC be closed, it will continue for the full 30 days and these many other editors’ voices will be heard. Just pardon me all over the place for beginning to wonder if it just could be that your opposition to the RfC is due to the fact that it is showing that the community consensus is 180° in the other direction of what you  desire. That makes me think your bias on these issues is blinding you to the fact that any RfC that drills down straight to the heart of disputes can only be a good thing when gauging community consensus. Stranger still, your deletion of the RfC only minutes after it began signals that you may have had a premonition about the general consensus on its three points before it had even been gauged.  Conduct on this new RfC has so far been exemplary. You disparage each editors’ participation in the RfC as a !vote, and yet, that term now redirects to Polling is not a substitute for discussion. That, and WP:Consensus makes it quite clear that the statements and debate that accompanies votes is a crucial component of determining community consensus. Apart from the occasional rant by a few editors in your camp, the vote statements have been illuminating, concise, and without rancor. That makes gauging the community consensus very easy.  Seicer fairly warned you  and  that you can't accept the fact that the community has voiced its opinion, that you are disrupt[ing] Wikipedia to make a point, and that persisting as you have could land you with additional blocks. I couldn’t agree with him more. Your railing against the RfC is clearly not going to make it go away, yet you strangely persist at this. I think you and I will just have to agree to disagree here as I unfortunately see zero common ground here. Arguing with your has once again proven circuitous and pointless. Goodbye. Greg L (talk) 21:25, 29 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Finding that there was no consensus on the question whether there should be date autoformatting of some kind was the most useful outcome of the last RfCs; it means several possible actions are rash.
 * I would hate to think that Greg's "true consensus" means one that agrees with him; any search for "true consensus" does seem to have the No true Scotsman problem. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:43, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Counter-proposal on links
A counter-proposal on almanac page linking is basically complete; these are my own thoughts with an attempt to incorporate feedback from the "pro-linking" editors involved in these discussions. -- Kendrick7talk 23:09, 15 February 2009 (UTC)


 * As I'm averse to editing another editor's userpages without invitation, may I ask a question here? Are you proposing the linking of birth and death years (as well as notable years for inventions, etc.), not because the year article adds to understanding the linking article, but because at some time in the future the year article will be relevant? or is there some other reason? --RexxS (talk) 04:09, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Putting aside the fact that I am opposed to linking birth/death years at all, wouldn't this contradict (in some cases) the provision that recent years shouldn't be linked? Dabomb87 (talk) 04:11, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes Dabomb, there is some deliberate tension here among the ideas presented. I'm aiming towards a "shades of gray" solution here so I hope you don't think the wording it too absolutist. -- Kendrick7talk 02:06, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I know, Rexx, I know. The quality of our articles, particularly our almanac article, varies (to be kind), and it has arguably been a neglected part of the project. Ideally, 287 BC would provide a wealth of information about what the world was like when Archimedes was born into it, and 212 BC would do the same for what the world was like when he left it. How can you understand an historical figure without understanding the times in which they lived? If half the effort had been applied to improving these articles as has been spend arguing about whether or not to link to them, we'd surely be halfway done by now. -- Kendrick7talk 02:06, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Amen to that. --RexxS (talk) 03:45, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I think that's surely something we can all agree on! — Hex    (❝  ?!  ❞)   15:13, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Of course, part of the problem is -- well, for example, I'm an armchair historian on comparative religion in medieval Europe. I know that a heretic was burned at the stake in 1310. But I'm no expert on 1310. It's hard to get a real brain trust going here, so how do we do it? -- Kendrick7talk 04:26, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

What the hell is happening?
Why is Greg's proposal being removed by the clerk? Tony  (talk)  02:42, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
 * While you were sleeping/working and I was away from the computer, there was another ridiculous episode of this saga: edit warring on the workshop page, so much so that it had to be protected ! I am appalled at the behavior of everyone involved. At the same time, I wonder if I had anything to do with this; I was the first to remove material, albeit at Risker's invitation, and perhaps started this chain of events. According to a clerk, the proposal that Greg made "isn't arbitration related - it was not about arbitration, it's merely developing a standard for (us) all to work to." Dabomb87 (talk) 02:55, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
 * This is correct. Arbitrators can not create or enact policy as a general rule. No legislating from the bench, as it were. -- Kendrick7talk
 * I want to know why this "Proposal"—"MoS a strong guideline"—is arbitration-related, but Greg's is not. It seems to have nothing to do with the distinction between policy and everything else. Tony   (talk)  03:15, 16 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Greg, who has been blocked, has emailed the following. I have to say that I believe there's an overwhelming case that his block should be reversed immediately:

"Ryan warned me on my first attempt that I couldn’t add it as a whole new proposal. Fine, so I replaced my old one with new contents that took up less room and he blocked me for that. Who would think a clerk would pull such a stunt; my own existing proposal can’t be touched?? Now I have no proposal; not even my original."

A full justification is required by the clerk involved, to re-assure us that the case is not being conducted in a biased way. Tony  (talk)  03:24, 16 February 2009 (UTC) Yes, it must be absolutely clear by now to anyone who is new to this entire arbitration process that it is quite legitimate (when dealing with the topic of date-delinking) to allow such "useful" proposals as:
 * "...is prohibited for six months from making any edit to pages relating to the Manual of Style, including talk pages and pages created that deal with the Manual of Style (deletion discussions, etc.), to be interpreted broadly. Should he violate this restriction, he may be blocked for the duration specified in the enforcement ruling below",

however, when a concrete proposal that attempts to forge ahead with a solution is introduced on the "workshop" page, it is ripped out. Sorry, but I can't help but feel I'm in a sort of twilight zone (which is a nicer way of saying that I actually feel I'm in a playground, surrounded by schoolkids holding a bush-trial—the outcome of which will be strongly influenced by the most vociferous bully). I once again call for a name change of this Request to something like "Requests for arbitration (behavioural issues arising out of the issues surrounding Date delinking)". That way, no one will be under the misapprehension that something worthwhile might emerge from this entire process (as far as date-delinking is concerned).  HWV258  03:39, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Was it Hamlet who first said "I thinks thou doth protest too much." Oh well, since historical context links are forbidden I guess we'll never know.... -- Kendrick7talk 03:42, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Shakespeare writing "I thinks"? "The lady doth protest too much, methinks" would be closer. (At least this one doesn't attempt to address issues and close arguments with a quick burst of Latin.)  HWV258  03:49, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Just like I find the current title violates WP:NPOV (but hey, who am I to argue against ARBCOM), the suggestion of "Requests for arbitration (behavioural issues arising out of the issues surrounding Date delinking)" also fails. "Requests for arbitration (behavioural issues arising out of the issues surrounding Date delinking and date relinking)" would be a more neutral title, IMHO. Ohconfucius (talk) 03:51, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
 * That's why they pay you the big money.  HWV258  04:04, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

What HWV258 said. When people as mild mannered and circumspect as HWV and Colonies Chris express dismay, the arbitrators would be well advised to listen. The case should never have been accepted in the first place, but once it was, care and attention should have been given to see to it that it was handled properly. This did not happen. At this point, I've all but given up hope in the good intentions and the skill of ARBCOM and clerks. I'm still open to having my mind changed.--Goodmorningworld (talk) 19:05, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Comment by Noetica (moved by clerk)
'''[I comment only here, specifically on the proposal against Tony, but also generally against abuses of this ArbCom process that threaten individual editors. –Noetica]'''
 * Preliminary observations
 * As the statistics show, Tony and I have been the most prolific contributors at WP:MOS, and I have therefore come to know intimately both his operating style and the substance of his work. I have had differences with him concerning each. How could it be otherwise – for independent, competent, and energetic editors working on the same project? But we have forged an excellent working relationship, and I am proud of the advances in MOS since he and I became seriously involved with it. It is fatally easy to dwell on small perceived flaws in substance and style, as many in their submissions here have done: as if imperfections were not inevitable in such major undertakings at Wikipedia generally. But let any independent observer review the remarkable progress at WP:MOS, and at WP:MOSNUM (where statistics show Tony as the most prolific contributor). Tony has also been extremely productive at WP:FAC; and that includes, as it should, seeing that candidates respect the explicit FAC requirement to respect MOS guidelines. The consequent improvement in these articles – the public face of Wikipedia, for interested onlookers – is beyond reasonable doubt.
 * I no longer intend to participate at WP:MOS and WP:MOSNUM, and I have given my reasons for that decision elsewhere. Briefly, I find that progress is impossible beyond a certain ceiling. Holding back from mention of individual editors, I diagnose flawed protocols, inadequately understood principles, and generally a lack of common purpose. If these matters are not addressed systematically, with participation from the wider WP community, ArbCom will have many more fruitless disputes on its hands than the present one. And untold hours and days of editors' time will also be wasted.


 * Opposing the proposed measure against Tony
 * I object in the strongest terms to this opportunistic abuse of ArbCom to censure or sanction particular editors: Tony, Greg L, or anyone else. As a fundamental principle in such proceedings as this, the issues have to be rationally distinguished and classified. At least this has been achieved, in the bizarre Bleak House complexity of the current case. But this process of distinction and classification is only a first procedural step, and not a justification for spurious additions to the case. Some proposals ought to be peremptorily ruled out as entirely alien to the case, no matter how neat the headings appear or how subtly they are grafted on to the true matter that is to be decided.
 * This opportunistic attack on Tony is one such proposal. So, I should add, are proposals concerning other editors; so are Locke Cole's proposed findings of fact that lead in solemn sophistic procession up to this attack; and so are very many proposals that with nefarious but transparent intent waste ArbCom's time to re-affirm the bleeding obvious. Why not add "Go placidly amid the noise and haste ...", while we're at it?
 * Tony is a true asset to Wikipedia, and I will not stand by and see him assailed on specious grounds by less constructive editors, in a case concerned with other matters. When those editors are as productive and progressive themselves, or have a tenth as much to their credit as Tony has, then they might have some credibility. Let them yap away, in their own forums; but let them waste no more of ArbCom's time on such captious nonsense as we see here. Any editor who seeks to make real changes and real improvements will attract censure from those who have not yet developed such vision and competence. I wish for some of Tony's detractors that they will eventually experience this themselves.
 * Meanwhile, the dogs bark, but the caravan moves on. I throw them this proposal to chew on, to counter the jungle of verbiage in which they have sought to entangle us: "... remember what peace there may be in silence".

– ⊥ ¡ɐɔıʇǝo  N  oetica! T– 02:52, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Dysfunctional arbitration system
All:

After Ryan moved Proposal to end all this to this talk page and off the workshop page, he warned me that I couldn’t add the group’s proposal as a whole new proposal. I quickly got responses on his talk page when I inquired. Fine, but thinking it can be advanced as my proposal rather than a whole new section that would add room, I contacted him again and got no response (because he had left his computer). Perceiving the silence as acquiescence, I replaced my old proposal (a bunch of petty stuff regarding banning Locke that had been permitted to stay but which had grown very long with endless comments by other editors) with the seven-point proposal that took up much less room and spoke straight to the heart of the issue. Ryan blocked me for that. Who would think a clerk would pull such a stunt? I should have been warned again that even modifying and shortening my own proposal wouldn’t be allowed either. Furthermore, now that I had moved my old proposal to this workshop talk page, replaced it with the seven-step proposal, and had that deleted by Ryan for being something arbitrators wouldn’t even consider (go figure), I now have no proposal at all on the workshop. This was a knee-jerk reaction from a frustrated clerk and is not in the least right. Now…

Ryan wrote on my talk page when I demanded an explanation that …“it's not a proposal which the arbitrators could use so shouldn't be on the workshop.“” [diff]. The hat statement at the very top of the workshop page says Proposals may include proposed general principles, findings of fact, remedies, and enforcement provisions—the same format as is used in Arbitration Committee decisions. I thought we are all at this workshop because a bot was delinking dates and there was disagreement amongst editors as to what were appropriate practices for date linking. Foolish me. There were no instructions anywhere on the page that the only proposals the clerk Ryan thought was germane to this subject and which arbitrators could consider as a “proposal” were milehigh rants about how everyone involved should be blocked and banned. On my computer, the workshop had grown so big, the scrolling length on my 17-inch monitor was  40 meters . We had all been here wasting our time with rants against each other for longer than one month. Further, a number of us had started asking “well, what is the purpose of our being here?” Deafening silence from the arbitrators.

The arbitration process on Wikipedia is clearly dysfunctional. We are all volunteering our efforts here. But if there are going to be processes on Wikipedia that is broken, it should be declared as broken and not used until it is fixed. I have no faith whatsoever in key individuals overseeing this arbitration. For Ryan to have written that a group proposal (Dabomb’s detailed analysis of the RfC results is clearly the product of a great deal of effort) “shouldn't be on the workshop” and the arbitrators “couldn’t use” it is beyond baffling.

Ryan suggested that I could put our proposal in my userspace and link to it if I wish. Apparently, all the arbitration committee can consider is rants pertaining to proposed blocks and bans, because Risker has said …“it just means [the seven-step proposal is] outside our scope of what we can and cannot do.”[dif] Really? If that is really and truly the limit to the scope of the workshop, why the didn’t the workshop hat statement at top say so? Seriously, I wouldn’t have wasted my time here if I had known the arbitration committee’s authority is so limited to “what we can and cannot do.” The hat statement said “findings of fact” could be posted as a proposal, but they can’t consider Dabomb’s analysis as a finding of fact? And I get blocked when I replace my silly proposal with a serious one that outlined a logical, seven-step approach to a solution? That is just so absurd.

I will no longer have anything whatsoever to do with this proceeding. I frankly have no respect whatsoever for the individuals who allowed all this to happen, no respect for Ryan, and can see that the *process* here is hopelessly broken. Goodbye. Greg L (talk) 13:36, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Hi Greg. While I'm relatively uninvolved here, I can understand, and sympathise with your frustration. However I would direct you to the second paragraph on WP:RFAR, as a suggestion as to why your proposals have found less traction than you might have hoped:
 * The committee accepts cases related to editors' conduct (including improper editing) where all other routes to agreement have failed, and makes rulings to address problems in the editorial community. However it will not make editorial statements or decisions about how articles should read ("content decisions"). Please do not ask the committee to make these kinds of decisions, as they will not do so.
 * The correct place for content discussions is on WT:MOSNUM. If you do not think that you are asking for a content decision, perhaps it would be best to write a clarification as to why this is not the case, as I suspect this is the reason why the Arbcom has been less than forthcoming. Regards, AKAF (talk) 14:25, 16 February 2009 (UTC)


 * OK. I can tell you are indeed uninvolved here. The dispute arose at WT:MOSNUM so it’s certainly not going back there. This is a disagreement over fact with regard to what is the community consensus as evidenced by three RfCs. Yes, there is no point getting continually bogged down with worrying about the details of authoring content in individual articles. But there is no reason in the world why an arbitration committee can not settle a dispute over the proper interpretation of RfCs. Once a true and proper reading of what is the community consensus is, as evidenced by the RfCs, everything else falls in place. There simply must be a way to settle it with this sort of approach since ‘community consensus’ is central to the dispute. It’s simple: each camp has their own personal desire as to whether dates should or should not be linked. And each therefore applies its own bias to interpreting the community consensus. This isn’t going to be settled by having a handful of arbitrators sitting around Monday-morning quarterbacking on who has been naughty and nice. I see no reason why arbitrators can’t (and shouldn’t, in this case) just look at the RfCs and produce a pointed finding of fact. That is not too much to ask. Greg L (talk) 14:42, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
 * You can see my comments on the evidence page if you'd like to see my opinion, but I just wanted to suggest to you that this part of the arbitration case appears to be a content dispute, so if you want to argue otherwise you probably need to specially contact the arbcom to make that argument. Perhaps by a note on their talk pages to a section on the evidence page detailing why you think it isn't a content dispute. AKAF (talk) 14:52, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
 * No. It is not a content dispute. Let’s also examine the absurdity of this if your assertion truly represented the status quo. We come to an arbitration workshop after months of vitriolic bickering at WT:MOSNUM, and here, we spend months of vitriolic bickering (it took ten ‘page-downs’ just to go through the index at one point), only to find out at the end of it all that the arbitration committee sees it as a “content dispute” and we’re supposed to go resolve it at WT:MOSNUM. Full circle and nothing was accomplished. The expectations of the parties and the scope-of-authority should have been clearly spelled out at the beginning. And in fact it was (and is). The hat statement says “Proposals may include proposed general principles, findings of fact, remedies, and enforcement provisions—the same format as is used in Arbitration Committee decisions.” Note “proposed general principles” and note also “findings of fact”. Rather broadly worded, yes? If the arbitration committee really takes the position that it can’t look at the RfCs (findings of fact) and declare precisely what is the true community consensus, then that would be an arbitrary, self-imposed limitation because we’re not asking for rulings on “how articles should read”; the problem is that the two camps felt the other was editing against consensus because there is disagreement as to what the community consensus is . This arbitration process should have been lead better and structured better to reach an agreement as to our fundamental objectives of arbitration at the outset so the expectations of all parties were aligned.  Finally, the arbitration committee must understand that interpreting RfCs had better be within the scope of its duties because RfCs are central to the Wikipedia process and there will always be editors who refuse to believe and accept the results. Greg L (talk) 15:09, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, that has to be the shortest duration for "I'm never coming back" that I've seen for a while.
 * Time and time again you've misrepresented this case in order to promote your own agenda. It's been clear from the outset that this is a case addressing editor conduct, especially when the arbitrators' acceptance statements are read. All the proposals in the workshop should relate to that purpose. You have only yourself to blame for misunderstanding that, as numerous other parties have clearly had no difficulty with it.
 * Now that the process is finally starting to really get moving, one of the Clerks is doing his job and keeping it to the purpose which it was finally intended; and because of that you're throwing your toys out of the pram. Cry me a river. — Hex    (❝  ?!  ❞)   15:14, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Goodbye to you. Greg L (talk) 15:37, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Greg, it was just a suggestion, no need to bite my head off. I just noted that this part appears (to me) to be a content dispute. AKAF (talk) 15:20, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Sorry. I have no dispute with you. I am quite upset with Ryan. I find his judgements and behavior in clerking to be outrageous. And there is no doubt that this arbitration hasn’t been well handled. Something as simple as “does an arbitration committee have the authority to decide what the community consensus is as evidenced by RfCs when there is a dispute by warring parties over the results of the RfCs” should have been settled years ago. Greg L (talk) 15:37, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
 * What might be needed in the future is that when a case is taken is for ArbCom to state what they believe the bounds of the case are to be; all we have to go on here is their comments in the original filing, which suggested it was only to be about the use of a bot to start date delinking with the consensus still not settled. All this incivility behavior, while a necessary fact of why there's this much dispute, is (IMO) a red herring that doesn't seem to be about the case ArbCom picked up.  But at the same time, ArbCom is not going to decide the RFC results for us; they're tracking behavior and process, not content. --M ASEM  15:57, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I completely agree, Masem. If arbitration committees labor under the misperception that the root cause of this is behavior, we’ll just have editors resorting to Wikiwords and phrases while we editwar and find new pleasant sounding ways to tell other editors to “go do something to yourself that isn’t considered to be physically possible.” The root of the dispute is a deep desire by both camps to have it their way with date linking. The trouble is, what the individual editor wants doesn’t matter ; Wikipedia’s core principle is that “community consensus” is always the right thing. There will always be editors who refuse to accept community consensus and this is the root of much editwarring. Tbird is one such editor, who—to this day—still is pushing for Wikipedia to start using “mebibyte (MiB)” instead of “megabyte (MB)”. In his case administrators have repeatedly made him toe the line simply by pointing to RfC results on binary prefixes in order to establish the community consensus and they told Tbird to accept the community consensus and to stop editing against it (or agitating against it). If an administrator can do it in one day, an arbitration committee can do it in one month. It is obvious that an arbitration committee on Wikipedia can do such a thing. This is just a leadership problem. Risker has to recuse himself; he was apparently directing Ryan. Short of that, I will absolutely not participate in the workshop as I have zero confidence in his leadership ability. Greg L (talk) 16:26, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I still don't understand what is ambiguous about these acceptance statements from the arbitrators. It was clear, from the outset, that this was about behavior in this dispute, not about the dispute itself (not saying the committee shouldn't address this where practical, but as often noted, content disputes are usually considered beyond their remit). Also worth noting is my statement when I requested this case; I noted "incivility and poor behavior" in the first sentences, with my other concern being the fait accompli presented by mass delinking. We've addressed the latter (via the temporary injunction which I hope will be made permanent pending community consensus on the matter), but the former still pervades discussions aimed at resolving this, and I hope the committee will address these problems in their final decision. —Locke Cole • t • c 16:15, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I read at least three of the arbcom comments to "focus on date delinking"; yes, there were some behavioral problems like edit warring, but this has slipped to include general incivility and the like. As best as I can tell, many of the incivility claims should not be here as that's a general user issue and should be an request for comment on a user, and only brought here if it can't be resolved.  Instead, people seem the venting (on both sides) and making this much harder on the Arbs to get involved.  Again, if the scope was clearer, we wouldn't even be question what arguments are appropriate or not. --M ASEM  16:47, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Call for Ryan Postlethwaite to stand aside as clerk
Here. I have lost confidence in his ability to perform the role as required. Tony  (talk)  15:56, 16 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I will absolutely not participate in the workshop as I have zero confidence in Risker’s leadership ability since Ryan apparently was acting as instructed by Risker. Greg L (talk) 16:27, 16 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Oh, the drama! See you in a few minutes at that rate then. — Hex    (❝  ?!  ❞)   16:36, 16 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Drama or not, I can understand why Greg gets a bit annoyed. It may be the case that his proposal is outside of what the ArbCom can and will decide on, but in that case they could just state it briefly in their ruling. Its just stirring up emotion to completely delete a proposal at this point (and leaving tautological "proposals" like "Wikipedia is not Survivor" untouched). There a lots of proposals remaining on the workshop page that has nothing to do with the "behavioral issues", which unfortunately seem to be all that will matter. Now that's drama. ---HJensen, talk 21:23, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Lightmouse - Lightbot

 * TE, you said on Tony's page that you were a lawyer? I always thought the noun for 'revoke' was 'revocation'. ;-) Ohconfucius (talk) 16:29, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Ladies and gentlemen, that is flat-out incivility right there. Is there anyone else here that Ohconfucius would like to suggest is a liar? — Hex    (❝  ?!  ❞)   16:46, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
 * He wrote "lawyer", not "liar", so are you being incivil? Note that the emoticon ";-)" shows that it was intended humerous.--HJensen, talk 17:34, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
 * You misunderstand. Ohconfucius is suggesting that Tennis expert is not, in fact, as he has stated, a lawyer, because he has made a spelling mistake. The smiley means nothing; he is fond of putting them after accusations he makes. — Hex    (❝  ?!  ❞)   19:45, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
 * No, he was asking for clarification in a lighthearted way. "I always thought" and the emoticon at the end show that Ohconfucius was not being serious. That is not in any way uncivil. Dabomb87 (talk) 22:24, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I think we've had enough "light-heartedness" of that kind; how does it contribute to the encyclopedia? I request that Arbcom put an end to it; per my FoF 5, this is an instance of abuse. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:58, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Hex, I know some people might be confused because both 'liar' and 'lawyer' start with an 'L', and end with an 'R'. While I am at it, let me utter a word which starts with an 'F', and end with an 'K' ;-) Anyway, I don't honestly give a toss whether TE's a lawyer or not. I would just point out that 'revocal' is nonsense, and the noun for 'revoke' is a word that even a first-year law student should be able to spell. Ohconfucius (talk) 02:44, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
 * PS, did anyone guess the word I uttered above was 'firetruck' ;-) Ohconfucius (talk) 04:21, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
 * No, I had a four letter word in mind (fork). And let me say that while I don't think your comment to TE was especially uncivil, I take great offense at your use of the phrase "even a first year law student". Sarcasticidealist (talk) 18:59, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Yeah, it's strange how we each have our own words beginning with F and ending in K. As for the other, are you perhaps suggesting I should have said Pre-law? ;-) Ohconfucius (talk) 03:34, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, ArbCom asked for it against some sage advice. I am amazed how it could imagine this being a way forward? This whole workshop page has been turned into a dog and pony show, with no end of recriminations flying. The only benefit I can see is that the rather unhealthy discussions have been drawn away from WP:MOSNUM. Ohconfucius (talk) 02:47, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Deprecation of WP:WEB guildeline discussion?
Can anyone point me to where it was discussed to get rid of the WP:WEB guideline? The content was supposed to have been merged, but I don't see where any of it actually remains at WP:MOSLINK. -- Kendrick7talk 04:06, 17 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I am also interested in reading this. I was not aware that it had happened, and was dismayed to learn it. — Hex    (❝  ?!  ❞)   04:59, 17 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Found it - old revisions of Wikipedia talk:Build the web - see this revision. The effort to remove it was been lead by - surprise! - Tony1. The whole discussion makes for fascinating reading:
 * Tony announces that there is "no sign [of] consensus" for build the web's guideline status, and that he is going to remove it. Rossami says:
 * Do not do so. This page has existed since long before we started making the artificial distinctions between "policy pages", "guidelines", et al. Consensus is demonstrated by the mere fact that it's been around so long and has no significant disputes in its history.
 * (Personal note: I certainly recall it from when I joined the project in 2002.) This is something you would think that Tony understands, given that last month, in this arbitration, he wrote "If people don't object, that means a lot."
 * Tony replies with this astonishing outburst. Later he adds to the page. Then, when it is pointed out that he may be using it wrongly, he manages to get Godwin's Law invoked and earns himself a Wikiquette alert to boot.
 * A bit later he describes the content of the page as "a laughing stock". I've rarely seen such an obvious case of one person forcing their opinion on others. (Until this arbitration, that is. Now I've seen everything.)
 * If I had been aware of this discussion, I would have strongly opposed the deprecation and merging of one of the very oldest parts of Wikipedia's philosophy. — Hex    (❝  ?!  ❞)   05:18, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
 * That was a year and a half ago. This guideline only disappeared last month. -- Kendrick7talk 05:23, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes. That is how long Tony has been pushing it. You can see Kotniski's proposal for a merged version at the bottom of the page; the discussion continues at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (links), where Tony comments "This has been a bug-bear for so long" - to whom? — Hex    (❝  ?!  ❞)   05:29, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Hmmmm... making a decision to remove one guideline on the talk page of another guideline looks like classic empire building to me. Even if the discussion was on the right page, it seems to have involved four or five editors and was decided in about 40 hours. Like you say, this guideline had been around forever basically, so that's a little swift. -- Kendrick7talk 05:44, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I've gone ahead and restored this guideline due to the odd way it was removed from the project. At worst, it should be deprecated to an essay, though I'm quite happy with its status. -- Kendrick7talk 06:42, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Good. — Hex    (❝  ?!  ❞)   12:35, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Abusive email
Some class act just sent me an abusive email offwiki. Did anyone else on the pro-date-links side get one, or was it just me?

I've already sent details to arbcom-l. — Hex    (❝  ?!  ❞)   18:13, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
 * If you've got the e-mail headers someone with checkuser access (which I think most/all of the arbitrators do?) might be able to tie it to the actual Wikipedian that sent it. And no, I haven't gotten anything like that, but I don't have my e-mail address accessible (except via Special:Emailuser). =) —Locke Cole • t • c 19:25, 18 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Have you tried simply deleting it? ;-) Ohconfucius (talk) 03:09, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Help needed
Hello everyone. I'm going to try and work on a proposal for an ArbCom sanctioned RfC regarding date linking in articles. Could someone summarize where the major problems lie? For instance, are there particular situations where everyone believes date linking is appropriate? Or where the pro date linking camp believes date linking is particularly important? Any other information along the same lines would be much appreciated.  Ryan Postlethwaite See the mess I've created or let's have banter 00:34, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
 * There's two issues: date auto formatting, and date linking. As you may or may not be aware, date auto formatting relies upon the date linking syntax (a date linked like this: August 7 1975 will respect whatever setting you choose under Dates in Special:Preferences). There is, however, some problems with how auto formatting works presently. The disconnect between the pro-linking and the anti-linking crowd seems to be whether a) it's worth fixing (it's really not that hard, but some on the other side seem to think it's a "waste of time" for such a "toy"), and b) whether certain bugs/issues with date auto formatting are must be fixed to allow it to be used on the project.
 * I think the questions can be broken down to: If auto formatting can be fixed to resolve many of the issues with it do you support a) fixing it, b) removing it anyways. There's still the matter of whether dates should be linked or not, and I defer that question to others. My primary concern has been with auto formatting, and I believe the situation there is integral to resolving this dispute. —Locke Cole • t • c 00:53, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Ah! I believe a good starting point, is the post by Greg L which you took great pains to remove two days ago. There, in Dabomb's analysis, you will find where the problems lie. As can be seen from Tony's evidence, the community wants neither linked dates, nor dates to be autoformatted. Autoformatting does not "solve", nor does it claim to solve the problem - it just sweeps editing inconsistencies under the carpet. Thus, date autoformatting is but a red herring to stymie delinking of dates, and must not be taken at face value. Ohconfucius (talk) 01:45, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
 * A majority of the community wanted some form of auto formatting at the last RFC. And I suspect it wouldn't have been quite as split had there not been two competing RFCs running at the same time delivering mixed messages as to the situation regarding a fix... hopefully an ArbCom sanctioned RFC wouldn't suffer from these same problems. —Locke Cole • t • c 06:15, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

I think a more general issue might be the degree to which a more complicated wiki syntax justifies the extra features that it enables. The replacement date autoformatting code that I'd been working on addresses all of the complaints that people have had about date linking and formats except one &mdash; the requirement that dates be marked up with some kind of syntax, in order for the system to identify which dates are even eligible for reformatting and/or auto-linking. Date autoformatting opponents argue that it's too much of a turn-off for novice editors to have to put a special syntax around dates (we'd been following the example of the current system and using  syntax, but any kind of markup would work) and while I disagree with that particular position, I do see how it's a reasonable position to take. Certainly the line must be drawn somewhere, and we can't just making our syntax more and more complicated. All that said, my own concerns with the situation were all about the behavioral issues. Those who had been participating in the mass-delinking that was going on before the injunction was put in place had on multiple times absolutely refused to put their actions on even a temporary hold, so that we could discuss things. They further continued to insult the developers (including me) both on Wikipedia and on other sites, and repeatedly accused me of having ulterior motives and wanting to stall their (in their mind justified) actions. I unfortunately lost my temper and called one of them some rather unflattering names on a different site &mdash; which that person then re-posted (including my personal email address and full name) on WP. That's when I all but dropped out of the discussion. I've gotten re-involved to a certain degree since this arbitration case was opened (mostly because the discussion is more restrained now and the injunction is in place to remove the threat of fait acompli) but the behavioral issues mostly still remain, in that opponents of date autoformatting continue to insult the developers by referring to software solutions as "toys" and other similar remarks. I don't think arbcom should (or perhaps even can) issue a ruling on date autoformatting, but it might be nice to see some guidelines created for how to deal with software change vs. content change issues, when it's appropriate to put a hold on large-scale changes for the sake of discussion or evaluation of alternative approaches, etc. --UC_Bill (talk) 01:55, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I believe it is a sincere, yet misguided way to solve the problem with a wonderful piece piece of software which "fulfills all our needs". No doubt a piece of functional code exists, built from what UCBill has in his mind, but we have yet to have a proper community-wide discussion on the scope and the specifications of such software. As everyone knows, implementing such a major piece of software requires careful scoping, planning, testing, which could take years. It is not something we should do on a plug and play basis based on something a developer knocked up over a few weekends. If an RfC is needed on this – and I have my doubts as to its necessity based on a totally split vote on the desirability of auto-formatting (even in a polluted RfC per Tony – is one on precise specifications. Specifications are certainly something which needs extensive editor/reader involvement, and not be strictly a techno-thang style pow-wow among developers. But such an RfC would already be too much of a fait accompli based on the lack of consensus already established. Ohconfucius (talk) 02:10, 19 February 2009 (UTC)


 * This is an excellent development from Ryan. Rather than try to obtain a sense of what are the key issues via some informal input here (in order to arrive at wording of your own, Ryan), I suggest a request for proposals—(RFP) where you formally solicit proposed questions from the parties on questions to go into the ArbCom-sponsored RfC. The details are here on Ryan’s talk page. Details on implementing the RFP are shown in my more expansive post below. Greg L (talk) 03:24, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

It is a fallacy to call a system autoformatting if it display dates to all non-logged-in readers in the same format, since the bulk of our readers are not logged-in. Such a system might be a date-format-coverup, but it isn't autoformatting. Any RfC that defines a future system that merely presents the same format to all non-logged-in users, and refers to that system as autoformatting (or that fails to specifically reject such a definition) is worthless and should be spurned by the community. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 02:53, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, I completely agree Gerry. We [the Wikipedia community] adhere to the fundamental principle that all editors should see the same article content as regular I.P. users. Issues like this can all come out in the RFP process so that Ryan completely understands the issues and has proposed wording to pick from. Greg L (talk) 03:11, 19 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, yes. This is good. No, this is outstanding. This, I believe, will settle what is the true nucleus of the dispute, from which all other discord arrises. I suggest that you, Ryan, issue a formal request-for-proposals (RFP) from the parties and others as to proposed questions to go into the ArbCom-sponsored RfC. I would propose that a new workshop be created for doing this (start with a clean slate) and that it have a preamble that clearly specifies the objective, the nature of proposals that are being solicited (questions for the RfC), and the nature of proposals that aren’t (‘shoot so-n-so at dawn’). I also suggest that the key to success in this process is for the proceedings to be closely monitored and moderated, and that we get through this RFP fairly quickly—maybe a flexible objective of concluding after around two weeks, subject to revision if needed. Greg L (talk) 03:24, 19 February 2009 (UTC)


 * May I suggest that perhaps enlist the assistance of wikipedians skilled at conducting surveys and analysing results. We need to avoid all the problems of open-ended or loaded questions, and have only a very minimum of proposals which do not give a binary output. Ohconfucius (talk) 03:15, 19 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Ohconfucius, if you know such specialists, bring ’em on. I’ve taken the liberty to copy your post and this response from Arthur’s talk page to here. Greg L (talk) 03:31, 19 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Ryan, the major problem is you need to ask the question of "date" linking (e.g. 1 January) and year linking (e.g. 471 BC) separately. That's been most of the problem -- not everyone shares the same definition of "date" apparently. If you want to review my own proposed compromise, it is here, and you can try and reverse engineer it. However, I still view this as a WP:5P issue, per my workshop section. I don't know how historians, like myself, can compete in an RfC against !voting Pokemon editors who just think years, decades, and centuries, throughout history shouldn't be linked because too many articles link, due to WP:RECENTISM, to 2008. -- Kendrick7talk 04:12, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Kendrick7, may I ask you to respectfully strike/refactor your needlessly acidic generalization ("!voting Pokemon editors"). It doesn't enhance your argument and is unprofessional. Dabomb87 (talk) 04:17, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
 * No, I won't. I think that WP:RECENTISM is part of the problem. Recentism exists because most of our editors only read and edit articles related to recent or current events, such as Pokemon. And when you ask them generically about date linking, there's simply no there there. Call me an elitist if you want, I am not ashamed of being honest about what I consider to be reality. -- Kendrick7talk 04:40, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
 * OK, but it is unclear in your original post. Can you rephrase? Dabomb87 (talk) 05:09, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Indeed, agree that the Pokemon jibe is unconstructive. Also, although there has never been any ambiguity in the RfCs, "dates" here should read "chronological elements" to encompass dates and all date fragments. Ohconfucius (talk) 04:24, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Where does it stop, then? Do we forbid all links to the Cenozoic era? The plain matter is that it is wrong to lump all of this together, even if people who oppose all chronological links would like to do so. And they'll come for geographic links next I'm quite certain. -- Kendrick7talk 04:34, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
 * If by geographical links, you mean items such as "North America" and other continents, then yes, I am opposed to it in most cases. Dabomb87 (talk) 05:09, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

General note on original topic: If we are going to have a choice-based RfC, as in the "detailed" RfC, then please create more choices than "always", "sometimes", or "never". Perhaps split "sometimes" into "rarely" and "usually". Dabomb87 (talk) 05:14, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
 * It might be useful to have questions phrased as "do you agree or disagree with this; indicate with a number from 1 to 10 with 1 being strongly disagree and 10 being strongly agree". In this way we could average it out later and get a feel for where peoples opinions are. Note that I'm not discouraging discussion here, just suggesting something better than multiple sections using potentially biased phrasing. —Locke Cole • t • c 06:11, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Setting aside the question of date autoformatting (assuming it could be resolved so that linking markup of chronological items did not also trigger date autoformatting), the heart of the problem regarding setting a style policy on linking of chronological items appears to be related to the following sets of tensions between pairs of principles or objectives where both items of each pair are good, in and of themselves, although they may be held in opposition to each other: (Note- I credit Kendrick7 with bringing some of these ideas to the forefront in his section on the Workshop page.)
 * A tension between the nature of Wikipedia to be inclusive regarding topics of pages (per the first of the 5 pillars), (including almanac content) vs. a concern that some types of pages (for example almanac-style pages) may give a more amateur image to the encyclopedia.
 * A tension between the nature of Wikipedia as a work-in-progress, encouraging continued contribution, having some pages that may not yet be very good, vs. a desire for Wikipedia to present a finished, polished image that non-editing users will respect.
 * A tension between the desire for individual editors to have autonomy in decisions such as which chronological elements to link on an individual page vs. a desire for a more professional appearance of the encyclopedia as a whole by having consistency across the whole encyclopedia regarding which chronological items are linked.
 * A tension between the desire to use linking to "build the web", including reciprocity of links, vs. a concern for articles being overlinked.
 * A tension between a focus on polished appearance of the individual article (not too many links, not too many categories, etc.) vs. a focus on the encyclopedia as a whole, with navigability via links, index lists, categories, etc.

It seems to me that an RFC would have to attempt to obtain community consensus on the general questions of how to deal with some of the above-mentioned tensions first, before addressing specifics such as "should components of date of birth be linked never, always, or sometimes"? I would also think it important that an effective way be determined to publicize the RFC as widely as possible, and I'd ask that (perhaps this is already obvious), in addition to the crafting of the RFC being sanctioned by ArbCom as non-partisan, that ArbCom also sanction a neutral party to assist with the closure and interpretation of the RFC results. Thanks for the opportunity to have input, Lini (talk) 06:41, 19 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I emphatically support this summary of the situation and proposed route to a solution. This isn't really about date linking itself, but about the tension between more general principles, the lack of clearly accepted procedures for dealing with those tensions, and the resulting behavioral issues.  The date de-linking simply brought all this to a head because it has such a wide impact on WP as a whole (tens- or hundreds of thousands of articles, with millions of linked dates, as well as core software features and highly visible style considerations.)  --UC_Bill (talk) 16:32, 19 February 2009 (UTC)


 * It is worth noting that (in November 2008 alone) over 100,000 pages were addressed by the delinking script—with little or no residual problems. The real troubles started when the bots tripped over pages with ownership issues. The scale or what went before must be considered in terms of "behavioral issues".  HWV258  22:15, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Proposed formal process heading into RfC: a formal RFP

 * Ryan, Risker: as you can see from the above posts, I very much doubt it is a good idea to try to ascertain all the issues pertinent to writing an RfC by reading ad-hoc posts on this thread. I suggest that you issue a formal request-for-proposals (RFP) from the parties and others as to proposed questions to go into the ArbCom-sponsored RfC. I would propose that a new workshop be created for doing this (start with a clean slate) and that it have a preamble that clearly specifies the objective (determine what questions to pose in the RfC), the scope of what is being solicited (questions for the RfC, rationale behind it, and closely relevant debate), and what is not being solicited (‘shoot so-n-so at dawn’). There, all parties can propose RfC wording and explain the underlying issues behind the wording. I also suggest that the key to success in this process is for the proceedings to be closely monitored and moderated, and that we get through this RFP fairly quickly—maybe a flexible objective of concluding after around two weeks, subject to revision if needed. Greg L (talk) 08:26, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Seconded - Unless objectives and rules are clear, and the consultation well (perhaps even professionally) constructed, it will once again get bogged down and become a slanging match again. Ohconfucius (talk) 08:31, 19 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I did have a suggested format in my mind. For two weeks we could plan the RfC. For the next two weeks we could have a traditional request for comment where we ask for outside opinions. To make it simple, I was thinking we could have sections for different types of comments - e.g. Date linking, date delinking, auto formatting, year linking. Each section would have a brief introduction to the issues at hand which the parties could write (so we get a neutral account). We would then pause for a week whilst we construct a straw poll based on the issues that came out of the RfC. After the poll has been constructed, there will be two weeks of voting. The RFP could happen at the very start of the RfC planning to give every party chance to give their input.  Ryan Postlethwaite See the mess I've created or let's have banter 08:40, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

User:Ryan Postlethwaite/Date linking RfC
I've created the above page to gather information towards a possible RfC. Can I encourage everyone to take a look and add to it? I'd like to see both sides of the equation so they both can be put to the community. It's fairly self explanatory - just list the points under the appropriate heading. If you can think of more headings, then please do add them. We need all the main issues on the table before we start thinking about how the RfC will work. We can start discussion on the talk page of the above linked page.  Ryan Postlethwaite See the mess I've created or let's have banter 13:26, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

(*sigh*) (*pause again and think before typing…*). Ryan. Many of us are struck by how big a step backwards User:Ryan Postlethwaite/Date linking RfC represents. We’re also struck by how this “RfC” is in your userspace rather than WP:-space.

I note that we now, since January 10th, have all the following under our belt on this issue of date linking, delinking, and a bot’s role in that:

Requests for arbitration/Date delinking

Requests for arbitration/Date delinking/Evidence

Requests for arbitration/Date delinking/Workshop

We have this page, Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Date delinking/Workshop

Behind the scenes, we have Dabomb’s detailed effort to summarize two RfCs: User:Dabomb87/Summary of the Date Linking RFCs, which resulted in his proposed MOSNUM guideline, and which was the nucleus of our seven-step “Proposal to end this which was posted on the workshop page as a group proposal (moved here by you for not even being a “proposal” and taking up too much room), and which I then posted as my proposal, in place of a much lengthier ‘proposal’ which was nothing more than Locke-bashing—and for which I got blocked for “disruption.”

All of Dabomb’s work was based on lengthy, detailed RfCs that all went for one full month: Tony’s Manual of Style (dates and numbers)/Three proposals for change to MOSNUM…

As well as Locke’s Manual of Style (dates and numbers)/Date Linking RFC, which also ran for a full month.

And, after there was unresolved debate about what the two, closed RfCs, meant, I created yet another RfC to drill-down precisely into the disputed issues and settle what the community consensus is on some key issues via my ongoing Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)/RFC: Unresolved date delinking and autoformatting issues, which is scheduled to close in eight days.

Upon reflection, and upon looking at your User:Ryan Postlethwaite/Date linking RfC, this appears to be a giant leap backwards for Wikipedia-kind.

I can’t help but think of all the man-hours that went into generating what must not total over 70 meters (23-story building) of text scrolling on my 17-inch (43 cm) monitor. I also note the following:


 * 1) User:Ryan Postlethwaite/Date linking RfC is in your userspace and does not appear to be part of any *official* ArbCom business.
 * 2) It is unclear what, if any, role arbitrators have in any of this now
 * 3) There still doesn’t seem to be any clearly stated objective of precisely what it is ArbCom expects it will be ruling on (user conduct?… user conduct and {maybe} the root of the issue, which is community consensus?)

Thus, all parties’ expectations are not yet in alignment; far from it. That we would be in this state of confusion at this juncture leaves me thunderstruck at the magnitude of everyone’s wasted time. There are only a limited number of shoulders upon which the responsibility for this current state of affairs lies and it is all on the ArbCom committee’s shoulders—and yours. For me, this feels a bit like NASA, on it’s way to Mars, establishes a Moon base that receives a call from Earth saying “come on back; let’s discuss—really ‘what is Mars?’&thinsp;”.

Wikipedia is supposed to be a fun hobby. And it can’t if we all have to invest this much effort to resolve what actually boils down to some straightforward and easy-to-identify points of dispute.

These, are my concerns and—to one extent or another—are on the minds of others. I won’t pretend to speak further on where we go from here until our absolutely gob-smacked group huddles for further consultation. I can, however, conjecture that you can count on further discussions with others here that, before moving further, there needs to be an exceedingly clear understanding of who is involved so far as arbitrators goes, who is responsible for what, what the scope of the committee’s jurisdiction is in this matter, the scope of what will be considered, and what the target end point(s) will be.

And I, for one, will be seriously questioning the need to go back to square-one and ask—in your userspace no less—“What is date linking?” Really, I’m thinking we have had ample, ample community input on RfCs and there could well be no reason to not look towards those RfCs for guidance. Notwithstanding the criticisms that some parties have made about how ‘confusing’ the wording was in those RfCs and how ‘confused’ editors were as a result, if one actually reads the accompanying vote statements, it becomes quite clear about how the community feels on the subject of date linking and bot activity.

I suggest you seriously think about whether you feel you are truly up to this task ahead of you. Greg L (talk) 19:47, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Greg, I just want to get the basics of the dispute sorted first so the community is clear what is being asked of them before we even think about the RfC. The page I created in my userspace was merely to get all the information together - it's nothing like what the RfC will be like, which will be in Wikipedia space of course. It would be fantastic if all sides could come together to help create the RfC. I'm looking at the minute to find some Wikipedians who are good with surveys/stats to help create the actual RfC. I haven't even started to put together information about the format - to do that we need to be clear what the issues are and the only way to do that is to put them down as simply as possible in one place. So, to summarise - my userspace page is just a place to get everything together. In a few more days when we have all the information about the dispute, we can create a page to brainstorm ideas about how we're going to put it to the community (i.e. the actual format of the RfC), but that will be in wikispace.  Ryan Postlethwaite See the mess I've created or let's have banter 20:38, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
 * As you could probably guess, I disagree with almost all of Greg's statement above, except that your proposed RfC doesn't have space for the real issues. DaBomb's "summary" is biased, in that it notes absence of consensus for specific year linking, but fails to note absence of consensus against general year linking.  Tony's RfC indicates (but, because the statements are opposed by Tony, and because of editing (by both sides) of the premises section during the RfC, it doesn't demonstrate) consensus against the current autoformatting, and Greg's RfC is confused to the extent that I support some of the actual statements, while noting that they do not support any specific action, as the premises for action are objectively false.
 * As for what I'd like to see in the RfC, I see many appropriate sections:
 * Autoformatting...
 * When should dates be autoformatted?
 * Under the current system
 * Under the proposed system
 * What should the proposed system be?
 * How should autoformatted dates be tagged as linked/not linked (opposite to the default)
 * When should autoformatted dates be linked?
 * If dates are/are-not autoformatted according to the above rules, what tools (bots, semi-automated edits which are essentially bots, semi-automated edits which are not essentially bots, etc.) are allowed to correct the issue?
 * Date fragment links
 * When should date fragments be linked (DOW, DOY, month, year, decade, century, millennium, etc.)
 * To what extent can a project consensus override the general consensus for or against linking?
 * If date fragments are / are not linked properly according to the above rules, what tools (bots, etc.) are allowed to correct the issue?
 * In regard the tools, the question is whether a cursory glance (which is all that even a semi-automated edit can provide) or an algorithm (bot) can determine whether the date or date fragment should/should not be linked; and if not, should an error-prone tool be allowed. — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 21:00, 19 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Comments:
 * Once again Greg keeps saying "we" instead of "I" without even a faint attempt to qualify it. Nobody is fooled by this.
 * Once again he claims his disruptive fourth RfC "drill[s]-down precisely" into the issue, when it has been roundly criticized for everything from bias to timing to lack of publicity.
 * Curiously enough he manages to totally omit User_talk:Kendrick7/Summary of the Date Linking RFCs from his "summary", presumably because he disagrees with it. This alone is enough to demonstrate that he presents a biased view of the issue.
 * I concur with everything Arthur has said above. — Hex    (❝  ?!  ❞)


 * (*responding to tedious nonsense*). Hex, as to…


 * Point #1, above, I never used the word “we” in the sense of “our side” in my above post—I used “we” consistently six times to mean “all involved parties” (in the same way Ryan used “we” four times in his response). Please take the time to read and comprehend what you criticize; that would save time in people having to respond to nonsense. I used the term “many of us” (once) when referring to our group, which is true: “Many of us are struck by how big a step backwards…” I perceive no need to disclose to you whom “many of us” might comprise—just as I assume you feel the same way about disclosing who you confidentially confide with.
 * As for your point #2: you claim that my RfC is “disruptive”, that is your point of view; I’m confident that few of the non-partisan editors who took the time to participate in the RfC felt they were taking part in something that was disruptive to Wikipedia. I also seriously doubt any of these participants feel that I somehow magically tricked them all into making vote statements that were the opposite of how they actually felt. Perhaps, it just might be that your dislike of the results has jaundiced you on it???
 * As to your point #3, Kendrick’s summary was a response by your group to to our hard work in producing a complete, and well-thought-out summary. Dabomb’s is quite defensible as being a true representation of the RfC results, and therefore, the community consensus. Your group soundly criticized that summary after it was first posted, and when it looked like it might actually be looked to for guidance, you quickly countered with Kendrick’s, which was blown out awfully fast, IMO. I haven’t studied it in detail but don’t have high expectations for it. Not surprisingly, I would expect your group to extoll the virtues of Kendrick’s summary. I don’t see you extolling the virtues of our work product, so please don’t try to sell some notion that you expect that of us. Nobody is fooled by this . Greg L (talk) 23:14, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Date linking request for comment/Call for participation
I've created the above page for parties to put forward their own ideas on how the RfC should work. The page in my userspace is dealing with introductory issues and whilst it will help to dig out information when creating the RfC, it doesn't deal with the content of the RfC or the format. The above page will do that so it would be good to have as many ideas as possible put forward. Regards,  Ryan Postlethwaite See the mess I've created or let's have banter 23:26, 19 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Has the ArbCom committee looked at the past RfCs as well as the one that will be concluding in eight days to see whether they teach anything about community consensus on these matters? We can save a lot of time and effort if an ArbCom-sponsored RfC addresses only nuances and points that are unclear coming out of an analysis of what we’ve already got. Rather than accept either Dabomb’s or Kendrick’s summary results of the RfCs, you can look at the RfCs themselves, draw conjectures about the ramifications, and invite comment from the parties here on points and nuances that you wish clarified in your mind. Greg L (talk) 00:17, 20 February 2009 (UTC)


 * (*sound of crickets chirping*)


 * My apologies for not reading Ryan's request carefully before commenting on that page. I'm not a party, but could the invitation to comment perhaps be extended to "interested editors", rather than parties, please? If not, please feel free to remove my contribution there. --RexxS (talk) 01:58, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

RfC
To get the RfC moving forward, I'm going to start working on a proposed format for the RfC in two days time (on 27 February) so it would be helpful if everyone could have their ideas down by then on the call for participation page (see the section directly above). By the end of the weekend we should have something firm to start moving forward with. Obviously whatever I create isn't final, but someone has to get the ball rolling.  Ryan Postlethwaite See the mess I've created or let's have banter 22:37, 24 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Ryan, can you please clarify, per RexxS's question/comment above, is your intention that only the parties to the ArbCom case add views to the participation page, or is any interested editor welcome to add? Thanks! Lini (talk) 04:27, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Absolutely anyone - the more views the betters and it will give the widest perspective for an RfC.  Ryan Postlethwaite See the mess I've created or let's have banter 08:57, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Shortcut
Is there some kind of shortcut that can be made to the main page of this case? I would make it myself, but I am not sure of the naming convention of such a shortcut. Dabomb87 (talk) 14:53, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
 * How about WP:DDA (for "date delinking arbitration")? I can't recall seeing shortcuts to transient pages before, so there's probably no particular precedent. — Hex    (❝  ?!  ❞)   15:05, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I have searched around, and shortcuts usually start with WP:ARB*** (asterisks stand for a germane abbreviation to the case). Perhaps WP:ARBDATE? Dabomb87 (talk) 15:13, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Somehow I'm not surprised that there is precedent. Sounds fine to me... why not be bold and see what happens? — Hex    (❝  ?!  ❞)   15:31, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Done. Dabomb87 (talk) 15:45, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Cool. I also set up WP:ARBDATE/E and WP:ARBDATE/W to simplify some of the cross-linking. — Hex    (❝  ?!  ❞)   15:47, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
 * To complete the package, I created WP:ARBDATE/PD for the proposed decision page (although it isn't very active right now, we need the arbs to actually propose something first). Dabomb87 (talk) 15:50, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
 * :) I was thinking about doing that, but didn't bother because the page is so under-used. Thanks for compensating for my laziness. — Hex    (❝  ?!  ❞)   16:12, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Just a note, I've done WP:RFAR/DDL as a link to the main page (this is, generally, the convention used; see Special:Prefixindex/WP:RFAR/). —Locke Cole • t • c 07:49, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Delinking extremely common terms
So can I use Lightmouse's script to edit extremely common terms (like United States) in articles where it is overlinked (e.g. every instance of United States is linked to the United States Wikipedia page), or would that violate the injunction? Rain bow Of Light  Talk  21:14, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
 * The injunction only addresses dates, so technically, yes, I would think that you would be safe. Wait for an Arb's opinion first though. Dabomb87 (talk) 21:19, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
 * It's not covered by the injunction, but it would be wise to seek some sort of community consensus before embarking on such a high number of mechanical edits. &mdash; Coren (talk) 23:38, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, see Linking on that, "items that would be familiar to most readers, such as the names of major geographic features and locations, religions, languages, common professions and common units of measurement (particularly if a conversion is provided)". If the United States in not an example of a major geographic location, then I don't know what to say. Dabomb87 (talk) 23:43, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I noticed the addition, and didn't object, but I don't think there's really consensus on that, either. — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 01:26, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
 * To clarify: I wasn't going to go massively delink any articles. I just meant if I come across an article here or there that is overlinked in terms. I come across them occasionally via Huggle. Rain bow Of Light   Talk  06:02, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Just a little interjection
I find it highly amusing that people are defending GregL's incivility by saying "Oh, well, he doesn't really mean it." This is irrelevant. If you cannot keep a polite tongue in your head, you will find yourself thrown out of many, many public venues and will generally be considered to be a distasteful and unpleasent person to hang around by others. I, for one, do not find such personality quirks to be amusing or endearing, and I suspect I am not alone in instead finding them belligerent and obnoxious.

Just because one performs useful work on the project does not give them a free pass to violate policy. Comparisons to Betacommand's conduct spring to mind. Jtrainor (talk) 11:07, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Date formatting and linking poll now open
The date linking and formatting poll is now open. All users are invited to participate.  Ryan Postlethwaite See the mess I've created or let's have banter 23:01, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Disavowing all my contributions to this workshop and the arbitration in general
Certain administrators have thwarted my effort to disavow and strike every contribution I have made to this workshop and the arbitration in general. It would be very regrettable for the arbitrators to use anything I have submitted. Tennis expert (talk) 23:19, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * What are you talking about? The time for submitting your "evidence" was long ago. Arbitration based on your "evidence" was made, and results based on your "evidence" are now being recorded. Why do you think you have the right to change the "evidence" that you submitted? It is important that everyone in the future has the ability to see exactly what sort of "evidence" you presented. Just leave it alone please.  HWV258 
 * A less partisan view, less given to scare quotes, would be to regard this effort as evidence of contrition. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:27, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
 * It has nothing to do with "contrition" (that's assumed at WP). What is also assumed is that everyone has the ability to read (forever) the sorts of "evidence" that served up—you know—the sort of stuff that helped get us into this mess in the first place. It's unconscionable that TE can submit all his "evidence"; let it fester in the sun for all to see for months; have decisions in the case already being made based on that "evidence" (this shows the state of the Proposed_decision page on the day when TE "found contrition"); and only then decide that "oops, I might have done a bad, bad thing". And that's if you chose to believe that "contrition" played any part in it (there are other reasons for believing why TE wanted his contributions struck form the record). Instead, TE should have used his brains in order to discern that 99% of what he entered as "evidence" was simply irrelevant (as it turned out to be). Sorry, TE is largely the reason why good editors (Tony1, John, yourself, etc.) are going to be restricted or banned from WP, and the reasons behind that must never be forgotten. "Lest we forget".  HWV258  00:07, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
 * No, the reason we will be restricted is that we misbehaved, and not we alone. (The chief flaw, indeed, recurs in this thread; I hope it is not an omen.) So did TE, but among his faults is verbosity and a tendency to harp on a point; it is this he is endeavoring to correct.


 * He is not proposing oversight; his edits would always be readable, whether he gets his way or not. But if he does, his disavowal will also be visible; it is tactless (at least) to object to that. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 13:49, 15 June 2009 (UTC)


 * "...but among his faults is verbosity...it is this he is endeavoring to correct. I don't agree with that interpretation. TE wanted everything removed, and not just some bits that an epiphany led him to believe shouldn't be there (read his words at the top of this section: "...strike every contribution..."). Note that TE only wanted his "evidence" removed when it became obvious to him what the outcome would be (and he certainly let his evidence fester for all to see for a very long time). It is important for both TE and everyone else who will give evidence in the future to be aware of the effect of their words, and that their words are public record. TE should have spent more time thinking in the first place—as opposed to trawling more and more pages for "evidence" (I'll never forget examples of TE's "evidence" such as Tony1 observing TE to be 'very eccentric'). TE knew how to play the game, and he tried to play the game—nothing more; nothing less. I stand by my observation that TE has shown no contrition in this matter.  HWV258  23:26, 15 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Tennis expert wanted to disavow his evidence, believing it would disrupt. He was wrong because he submitted his "evidence" under GFDL, so it is public domain. His bullying and disruptive tactics here were directly transplanted from the Tennisphere, where he well honed these skills over the years to the detriment of many a good faith editor. He always believes only his contributions to be legitimate, and everyone else is a vandal or edit warrior. His verbosity and his obsession with small detail are also equally legendary. I don't know why this thread is still going - Tenex can "take the ball away", along with his obsessions, for all I care. Ohconfucius (talk) 02:07, 16 June 2009 (UTC)


 * "The chief flaw..."—wishing that to be true does not make it so. A little reminder as to some of the "charming" behaviour displayed by TE in recent times:
 * Tennis_expert performed (at least) 750 reverts in tennis-related articles (the largest amount by any single user).
 * Tennis_expert received a block in November 2008—with a block comment of "(Edit warring: Mass reverts over countless pages)".
 * There is (unanswered) documented suspicion regarding the support claimed by Tennis_expert for his editing in tennis-related articles (see this and the preceding posts). (We're all still waiting for Tennis_expert to explain his relationship to User:My first is in ptarmigan—now removed).
 * There is compelling evidence that Tennis_expert violated WP policy by trying to inflate support (here) by editing anonymously (there is discussion about this here).
 * Could we please now resist the temptation to explain-away TE's actions as some sort of naughty boy who pushed the envelope just a little too hard with just a few too many bits of "evidence"? Sheez!
 * Exactly why both (with one revert-type edit) and  (with over 750 revert-type edits) ended up with the same "Placed on a 12 month editing restriction" punishment will go down as one of the greater mysteries of our ages.
 * To TE: regarding "It would be very regrettable for the arbitrators to use anything I have submitted". Yes it was, but what was far more regrettable is that you submitted any of it in the first place. Shame on you.
 *  HWV258  02:36, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) I think we need to all stop arguing now, and disengage. One reason we got into this mess is because the discussions degraded into incessant petty bickering. Dabomb87 (talk) 04:03, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
 * There's "arguing", and there's "arguing". Another way of looking at things is that PManderson and I were discussing an interesting point. Nothing wrong in that, and I didn't feel it was personal. Funny how other people always seem a lot more worried about things than the people involved. It all boils down to a major problem of written communication—no one can tell whether you're still smiling.  HWV258  04:19, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Dynamic Dates
I noticed WP:VPT that pointed out that June 162009 is being linked but not formatted. Has something been changed in the autoformatting function? —Ost (talk) 17:03, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
 * The arbitration case has closed. You may be better served by posting at the talk page of the Manual of Style (dates and numbers). Dabomb87 (talk) 17:06, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the advice. I knew the case had closed and I had noticed this was the most recently edited talk page.  I figured the issue was more closely tied to this case than MOSNUM, but I can try asking there. —Ost (talk) 18:11, 16 June 2009 (UTC)