Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Great Irish Famine/Workshop

Mackensen thinking out-loud
This has gotten stale without resolution, and on the balance of things a prolonged arbitration might prove cumbersome and fail to deal with the underlying issues. If collaborative editing on Great Irish Famine can resume without it turning into some kind of nationalist war then we've served the encyclopedia. I would rather that than the usual disbursement of bans, reminders, and probation.

I haven't seen any evidence (yet) of truly heinous behavior unconnected with the usual article strife, so there's room to maneuver. Let's try something else; let's round up some of our content editors and have them police the article. Give them power to ban (temporarily) from the article editors who don't discuss changes; maybe leave the article protected and route all edits through those editors, so we'll need at least one or two administrators (and I think I've the fellows in mind, at that).

The mechanism for this would be a motion suspending the present case and empowering said body to oversee the article as they saw fit. If it all fell apart we'd re-open the case and do it the old-fashioned way. Mackensen (talk) 02:43, 23 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Sounds fine. --sony-youth pléigh 09:47, 23 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I think this article should be treated like any other article! Why should it be treated any different? Why can the current wiki policies not deal with these problems? Justify the continued lock on this article! This is not just thinking out loud, I'd like answers. Thanks--Domer48 11:27, 23 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Its fairly simple:
 * You were edit warring. The article was locked.
 * The article was unlocked and you immediately bagan edit warring again. The article was locked again.
 * You haven't made any attempt to resolve your dispute in the mean time. If it is unlocked, why would you not start edit warring once more?
 * --sony-youth pléigh 11:48, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Most articles don't themselves at the center of a dispute so intractable that the Arbitration Committee was asked to intervene. Mackensen (talk) 12:22, 23 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi Mackensen could you answer my above questions thanks, I should have stated that the questions were addressed to you. --Domer48 12:28, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Hello Mackensen, I have just gone through the recent posts, and would raise some points with you. I want to know why this article is locked! The contrived content dispute is over. Edit wars will be swiftly addressed no doubt, should they arise. Admin’s will deal with any disruptive behaviour. So why is it locked! This article like all articles on Wikipedia will be treated the same. I will not accept any ad hoc or al a carte form of policies, made up on the spur of the moment to address any particular problem. If editors want to create new policies they can do so if they wish through the proper channels. There are plenty of policies on Wikipedia; it’s the implementation that’s the problem. Irish related subjects are not going to have any policies applied to them as a particular category. As if they are some type of special case! That’s not going to happen! So could you explain to me why this article is locked? (Should any editor reply to this apart from Mackensen, could Mackensen respond on my talk page.) --Domer48 19:51, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
 * It is protected because of edit-warring. It is a long-established principle that articles at which collaborative editing has collapsed may be protected. It remains protected in part because there has been no formal request that it be unprotected, and also because no one's convinced that the edit-warring is actually over. Given the belligerent tone that I continue to see from most participants I would be quite wary of unprotecting at this stage. Mackensen (talk) 20:14, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for that Mackensen a stright answer at least. Now I know I do not have to, but I'm willing to give an undertaking that I will no revert one thing on that article for a week. As to collaborative editing that is just an excuse if you do not mind me saying. I will edit as normal, if I breach any wiki policy you will revert my edit. I will provide only referenced, sourced and Verifiable information as usual. I will edit from an NPOV. I will not use weasel word or peacock terms. Have I left anything out. There are editors who simply do not want me editing that article, and are being allowed to hold it to ransom. So I will request that it be unblocked and we see what reason they come up with. Thanks --Domer48 20:25, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

I attempted to try to resolve things under CEM, but one side will not sign up, for amongst other reasons, one editor has admitted to making edits under other accounts (no indication that they've used the accounts abusively, and the editor in question has provided the list of alternate accounts to an admin I consider neutral in the series of conflicts). Considering the bad faith being assumed between some editors even while the ArbCom has been active, I see no reason why the ArbCom should not proceed. SirFozzie 13:04, 24 July 2007 (UTC)