Wikipedia:General sanctions/Climate change probation/Requests for enforcement: Difference between revisions
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:::Well I totally disagree with that. the issue here ''is'' civility. Maybe if you global warming guys stopped labeling all the editors who dare to think differently as idiots, or as suffering from "lack of goodwill and lack of clue," then you might start to absorb that issue. --[[User:Sm8900|Steve, Sm8900]] ([[User talk:Sm8900|talk]]) 21:58, 2 March 2010 (UTC) |
:::Well I totally disagree with that. the issue here ''is'' civility. Maybe if you global warming guys stopped labeling all the editors who dare to think differently as idiots, or as suffering from "lack of goodwill and lack of clue," then you might start to absorb that issue. --[[User:Sm8900|Steve, Sm8900]] ([[User talk:Sm8900|talk]]) 21:58, 2 March 2010 (UTC) |
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::::Oh, not ''all'' of them are idiots. And only the better ones are honestly clueless. And if you think civility is more important than a decent encyclopedia, we have different views of the project. --[[User:Stephan Schulz|Stephan Schulz]] ([[User talk:Stephan Schulz|talk]]) 22:01, 2 March 2010 (UTC) |
Revision as of 22:01, 2 March 2010
This board is for users to request enforcement under the terms of the climate change article probation. Requests should take the following format:
{{subst:Climate Sanction enforcement request | User against whom enforcement is requested = <Username> | Sanction or remedy that this user violated = [[Wikipedia:General sanctions/Climate change probation]] | Diffs of edits that violate it, and an explanation how they do so <!-- When providing several diffs, please use a numbered list as in this example. --> =<p> # [<Diff>] <Explanation> # [<Diff>] <Explanation> # [<Diff>] <Explanation> # ... | Diffs of prior warnings =<p> # [<Diff>] Warning by {{user|<Username>}} # [<Diff>] Warning by {{admin|<Username>}} # ... | Enforcement action requested (block, topic ban or other sanction) = <Your text> | Additional comments = <Your text> }}
This will generate a structure for managing the request including a second level header. Please place requests underneath the following divider, with new requests at the bottom of the page. For instructions on generating diff links, see Help:Diff.
For Requests for refactoring of Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines violations only, comments by parties other than the requester, the other party involved, and the reviewing/actioning/archiving editor will be removed.
IP disruption
Something needs to be done about the disruption being created by the anonymous IP editor "142.x" who was previously discussed in this archive. The individual is currently using the following IP:
- 142.177.158.217 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
I'd like serious consideration to be given to a range block, since blocking this individual's IP addresses has been ineffective thus far. I have become a favored target, with vandalism of my user talk page and disgraceful personal attacks being the current problem. -- Scjessey (talk) 17:30, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
- I have blocked the current addy, but only for a short while - since they hop addresses, longer is pointless. I suggest you form up an SPI report, and let someone see if there can be an effective rangeblock. LessHeard vanU (talk) 17:35, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
- Either that or seek another CU to do the same sort of checks I did. With the assumption of Ombudsmanship, I no longer can run routine CUs so someone else will need to. However,n I stand by what I said before though, I don't think a short range block is that damaging. Yes it loses some IP editing that isn't part of this problem, but not shedfuls. ++Lar: t/c 14:44, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
- I tried to get some help at WP:SPI but received none, so I opened this ANI thread, which resulted in week-long range blocks being applied. -- Scjessey (talk) 15:21, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
- Either that or seek another CU to do the same sort of checks I did. With the assumption of Ombudsmanship, I no longer can run routine CUs so someone else will need to. However,n I stand by what I said before though, I don't think a short range block is that damaging. Yes it loses some IP editing that isn't part of this problem, but not shedfuls. ++Lar: t/c 14:44, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
Guettarda warned in regard to repeating allegations when refuted, outside of dispute resolution process. LessHeard vanU (talk) 18:40, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
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I'd asked Geni about whether this was actionable, who suggested I bring it to this page rather than ask him/her: User_talk:Geni#Is_this_actionable.3F. Over the past 1-2 days (and counting) Guettarda has made repeated allegations of a WP:Canvass violation (w.r.t. a vote in an RFC), and has continued to post more or less unmodified versions of this complaint on various pages despite explications of the policy and requests for diffs. This is disruptive, clutters talkpages, and generally instigates further comments designed to address the concerns raised only to be ignored (i.e., WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT), distracting discussion. Allegations [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] Answers [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] If I'm the one misinterpreting policy here I'd like to be informed. If not, I'd like a request that Guettarda desist in raising this contention outside his/her own talkpage with respect to this particular alleged violation. It's disrupting discussion across these various pages. Thank you. (Guettarda was notified of this request here)--Heyitspeter (talk) 19:56, 19 February 2010 (UTC) Discussion related to Guettarda
That is a lot of diffs. Shouldn't be tolerated. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 23:24, 19 February 2010 (UTC) I'm at a loss here. I strongly support the attempts to get agreement for a new name for the article, in the spirit of Ignore all rules, and I'm very impressed that GoRight, who I had initially imagined had been banished from the topic for several months, had reinvented himself as a peacemaker. At the same time. I don't think it's normally a good idea to try this kind of thing. It definitely needs to be justified, and rejustified. I could find myself swayed by Guettarda's arguments, despite my long and heartfelt support for "Ignore all rules." I think Guettarda's opinion that the user talk canvassing was intentionally aimed at swaying talk page discussion is tenable. There was certainly a strong bias to the canvassing, and the usual route of an RFC was avoided (though possibly for defensible reasons). So complaining about a prima facie abuse, even in the face of insistence by the participants that they did not conduct that abuse, is defensible, and we'd have to have strong evidence that Guettarda was trying to cause harm or was reckless in his use of his editing privileges. I don't see that here. I see a dispute about a laudable, but failed, attempt to handle the endless bickering about the article's name. Guettarda's complaints have merit in policy, even if they do not carry the day. In short, dispute resolution is not optional. Selecting a group of supporters, either on or off wiki, and then marshalling them to overwhelm opposition, isn't a very good way to behave. Guettarda is right to highlight the concerns he has here and he does deserve a proper response. --TS 23:42, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
The basic principle that underlies WP:CANVASS is that you shouldn't canvass votes for discussion. The norm is to let interested editors find there way there on their own. WP:CANVASS outlines some exceptions to this idea. One acceptable use, according to WP:CANVASS is to notify "editors who have substantively edited or discussed an article related to the discussion". Who among the "interested" editors weren't notified? Well, lots of people. A list that just so happens to include:
The "article related to the discussion" is the CRU hacking article, not the RFC. People make mistakes, of course. Oren0 may have meant well. But that's beside the point. By selectively leaving out a large number of interested editors, Oren0 created a poll that appeared tainted. And it goes matter of who you notify. Canvasses are also read by other editors. Although the RFC was not listed anywhere, within a couple hours it attracted input from several editors who have never edited either the CRU hacking page or its talk page. Like-minded people read each others talk pages. Favouring one "side" and neglecting the other reverberates beyond the actual pages you edit. Canvassing is never a zero-sum game, even when it's done properly. That's why it's never a good idea. It's not about Oren0's intent. Selective notification taints discussions, especially when (like this one) most of the canvassed editors simply vote and leave. Guettarda (talk) 02:31, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
One more thought in passing. It's telling that Heyitspeter bring, among the diffs of my "misbehaviour", my responses to Oren0 and Cla68 on my talk page. It's also telling that it's only when I stopped responding that they chose to escalate. So isn't that a classic "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation? Guettarda (talk) 02:59, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
I don't doubt that the editors in question made efforts to contact editors who had an opinion. But it really isn't at all wrong for Guettarda to point out, repeatedly and possibly annoyingly to you, that whoever did it didn't do a very good job of it. As for involvement in the RFC, the thing was so ridiculously vaguely worded that, after a quick glance to confirm that there was no consensus for any one name, my first edit was to close it, and my second was to move it--all 50k of pointless arguing--onto a separate page. How many other people with an opinion simply passed over the mess without comment? We will never know. I do think you all did a great job and I think you acted on good faith, but there are enough problems for me to be doubtful that are only multiplied by this misconceived attempt to sanction somebody who objects to the way you did it. --TS 03:40, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
Comment by ScjesseyI also have repeatedly complained about the canvassing problem, and I referred to the matter as "procedural shenanigans" from the very start. Canvassing should never be used to solicit votes, and RfCs are supposed to seek comments to promote discussion, not votes. I support Guettarda's statements completely about how the "vote" was tainted, so if Guettarda is to receive some sort of sanction for stating the obvious you had better clap me in irons as well. -- Scjessey (talk) 16:16, 20 February 2010 (UTC) Comment by slightly involved WikidemonI don't think we can separate the behavioral / procedural issues from the underlying fact that there is no clear consensus after many attempts to find conensus on what to call the article. My colleague Scjessey probably thinks I'm nuts for saying so, but I think we should just rename the article "Climategate" and be done with it. Nevertheless, we do have to respect that there is good faith disagreement, and underlying that, a lot of reasonable uncertainty, on what the article is about and how to name it. Going about it again and again, in different forums and with different methods, yields different results. I doubt that anyone is intentionally process gaming, that's just a fact of how consensus works. At some point, all the repeated proposals and attempts to discuss the matter become a huge distracting time sink, whether done in IAR fashion or completely according to the rules. Perhaps a brilliant mediator will come along and propose a solution involving sister articles, redirects, and wording in the lede that makes everyone happy. Failing that, I think we just need to accept that we have a provisional article name for now, put a lid on it, and revisit it later rather than in continuous serial fashion. - Wikidemon (talk) 20:35, 20 February 2010 (UTC) Comment by LessHeard vanUThis has expanded quite a bit since I last looked. I made a proposal at Guettarda's talkpage, upon which I am waiting a response. If the response is agreement, I would be looking to conclude the matter on that basis. I think that this is not about whether WP:CANVASS violations took place, and upon which I have no opinion, but whether it is proper to make those allegations without seeming intent to address the issue. Other editors with similar concerns, and those refuting those concerns, might also consider whether they are prepared to instigate some process to determine the matter, or to let it drop and move forward. LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:41, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
ResultGuettarda warned in regard to repeating allegations when refuted, outside of dispute resolution process. LessHeard vanU (talk) 18:40, 27 February 2010 (UTC) |
Mark Nutley (2)
Both editors blocked 24 hours; both editors subsequently unblocked by reviewing admin per Hipocrites appeal and various undertakings given.
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Attention: This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below. Request concerning Marknutley
The specific sanction that Mark is violating is this: Wikipedia:General_sanctions/Climate_change_probation/Requests_for_enforcement/Archive2#Result_concerning_TheGoodLocust.2C_MarkNutley.2C_WMC, he was informed about the sanctions here [25] I warned Mark here [26] as well as here [27].
Note: I will be off-line for most of the evening. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 16:12, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
Discussion concerning MarknutleyStatement by MarknutleySorry it`s taken so long to get to this, work has been mental. I was not edit warring, every edit i made was backed up with ever more ref`s each and every time. WMC says i am POV pushing, no i am not, the majority of the refs show the MWP was global, from europe to china to new zealand. Stephen also accuses me of synthesizing, this is untrue as two of the refs used actually state the MWP was a global event. This is not me making connections, it is written in the papers i used as ref`s. mark nutley (talk) 16:18, 21 February 2010 (UTC) Statement by WMC[This is wrong, 'cos I misread the parole. Rather than striking it all I'll just put this here - William M. Connolley (talk) 21:05, 20 February 2010 (UTC)]
Why isn't this an open-and-shut case? Three violations of the parole and an explicit rejection of warnings:
Doesn't look like MN is prepared to listen to "friendly warnings". William M. Connolley (talk) 20:36, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
A note on the substance: MN has been been engaging is tendentious discussion on the talk page, asserting that http://www.john-daly.com/hockey/hockey.htm is a RS. It blantantly is unreliable. Comments like Not according to the ref`s i just used to rewrite the lead, it was global the proof is there, it is pointless to deny it are unhelpful; MN is blantantly POV pushing William M. Connolley (talk) 20:42, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
OK, I agree: apologies. Only TGL and I are. So, given that this *is* clear participation on an edit war, the obvious santiocn is to put him onto 1RR, as per the parole, yes? William M. Connolley (talk) 21:05, 20 February 2010 (UTC) @LHVU: fine by me (not often you hear that, worth it for the novelty alone :-) though of course I'm not in charge here William M. Connolley (talk) 21:41, 20 February 2010 (UTC) Comments by others about the request concerning MarknutleyIf this is to result in any sanction, Steven Schulz will have to suffer the same fate since he is just as guilty of edit waring. 1st revert, 2nd revert, 3rd Revert Arzel (talk) 16:13, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
'Comment regarding Lar's "expand 1RR whenever someone clashes" proposal. Interesting..... So that means that instead of playing nice, and not edit-warring - i should keep my peace until at some point i can use edit-warring as a WMD, by engaging someone whom i do not like, and ensure that they will also be restricted. Hmmmm, seems to me to be a rather strange proposal. Please do check the facts: Mark was editwarring despite warnings, despite previous talk-page discussions, he still doesn't accept that he was edit-warring, since apparently he holds the WP:TRUTH. Mark is/was on 3RR - Stephan despite claims above is at 2RR (one revert per day btw.) --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 16:33, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
I could support 1RR for articles on probation (usual exceptions) but I would want to include an exception for someone new to the page. If they haven't edited since the page went on probation, it is unreasonable to assume they know different rules apply. As soon as they are warned, the rule can apply.--SPhilbrickT 19:59, 21 February 2010 (UTC) Comments Re. Lar's suggestionI find no more polite way to to say it, but "I think it's come to that, but failing that I think whenever we have a situation of someone ON 1RR engaged with someone who isn't and it's brought here, we ought to consider extending the 1RR to whoever it is that isn't (in the interests of leveling the field)" has to be the stupidest thing somebody has said in this discussion for a long time. I can hardly imagine a better way of reducing Wikipedia's quality than to "level the playing field" between uninformed and already sanction POV pushers and scientifically literate editors in good standing. If you hand out sanctions indiscriminately, the best possible outcome is that you loose all the more experienced editors and get left with socks and single-purpose accounts. "The Romans make a dessert and call it peace" - let's not forget the ultimate purpose here: To create a good encyclopedia that reflects the best published sources. Everything else is secondary. Civility is only important because it furthers that goal. Making new editors feel welcome is only important in so far as it furthers that goal. ---Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:40, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
Lar is wrong, obviously. Stephan is correct William M. Connolley (talk) 08:56, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
Stephan, I propose that all editors are treated equally, unless the issue at hand is a violation of Wikipedia's rules, such as revert warring and POV-pushing. As Mackan points out above, this is the encyclopedia that anyone can edit, and I believe the assumption is that everyone should have equal opportunity to do so unless they're breaking the rules. You seem to be saying that your contributions are more valuable than other editors who have been sanctioned under the AGW article probation, and therefore you don't deserve sanction even though you have been caught engaging in the same behavior for which the others were sanctioned. Is that what you're saying? Cla68 (talk) 12:00, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
Mark, you really don't seem to understand that synthesis requires you to reflect sources accurately, and not combine them to reach a novel conclusion. You were edit warring for the lead that "The Medieval Warm Period (MWP) or Medieval Climate Optimum was a time of Worldwide warm climate,"[38] yet your references say nothing so definite. The first and third are the same 1993 paper by Grove and Switsur, which "hypothesised" that "The results suggest that it was a global event". Your second reference, p. 134 of a 1994 book by Hughes and Diaz, describes the Grove and Switsur argument, but concludes on pages 136–7 that the evidence "does not constitute compelling evidence for a global 'Medieval Warm Period'" and the concept "is no longer supported by the available evidence." Classic synthesis, advancing a position not supported by the sources. I'm sure your edit was a mistake rather than intentional pov pushing
Question about contentPerhaps others see it differently, but it seems to me that if someone presented a clear analysis of how one or another editor was adding material that clearly misrepresented the source, or clearly went beyond the source, and kept inserting it despite this being explained clearly by other editors in a fully reasonable manner, that it would be grounds for sanctioning the offending editor without having to focus only on who reverted how many times. Basically, if it is quite easy to show that one editor's position is completely unreasonable based on the given sources, but they keep reverting, I think others here would respond to that. I believe it's under the presumption that there are reasonable views on both sides that we would generally say editors should not be reverting. Personally I don't respond to the idea that one person is an expert and the other isn't, for several reasons, but I would respond to clear evidence that someone is not doing an adequate job with the sources. Perhaps some feel that issues of content shouldn't be raised here, but I'd like to suggest that if done very clearly and succinctly, focusing on evidence that discussion was not working, it could be persuasive and useful. Mackan79 (talk) 18:43, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
Response to Lar's 1RR confusionThe sanction that both Mark and I are under is this: Wikipedia:General_sanctions/Climate_change_probation/Requests_for_enforcement/Archive2#Result_concerning_TheGoodLocust.2C_MarkNutley.2C_WMC, it should be clearly marked in my filing for enforcement - which i assume is being read in full? --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 08:36, 22 February 2010 (UTC) Comment to LHvU
Response(s) by LHvU (not part of "Result" consideration)To KDP; This seems part of the dichotomy of having two apparently sometimes conflicting policies - WP:BRD and WP:3RR. The latter should not need exist were the former strictly adhered to, but there seems to be this dispensation allowed for "editors in good standing" to edit war in good faith for a bit before trying to see if there can be a consensus. Reverting (either within BRD or 3RR) to the previous version because it "had consensus" is not always sufficient, references to policy or related discussion is preferable. It is the use of ones ability to revert under 3RR, when the other disputant is under restriction, without further explanation or rationale that gives the appearance of "gaming" the situation. In your case, thoughtful/nuanced edit summaries indicating why you are reverting someone again, regardless whether they are under a restriction or not, may preclude you from being restricted under the existing warning. As long as you can show you are not "warring", then you are permitted some reverts. LessHeard vanU (talk) 11:47, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
New problem: serious incivilityThe problems with this editor just jumped up an order of magnitude. Please note these edit summaries:
I recommend an immediate block. -- Scjessey (talk) 18:10, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
NOTICE: This notice provided as a service for those who may have missed my previous attempts to close this section. Please note that this section is off topic with respect to this enforcement request, as such it violates this request, and that Scjessey is willing to edit war over it. Please take this into account and take whatever actions you deem appropriate under these circumstances. --GoRight (talk) 20:28, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
Result concerning Marknutley
Hmm. There are a lot of mitigating circumstances (1) it was over a few days (2) he added more references each time and sought to address the arguments raised (3) he was on talk (4) one of the reinsertions appeared to follow agreement by the person on talk who had reverted him, since the reason given was only ambiguity. --BozMo talk 19:14, 20 February 2010 (UTC) Would it be sufficient to place him on the same 1RR limitation, as previously warned, as other editors are already under? WMC appears to think this would be appropriate, and I consider it fairer to keep those who are in dispute with editors already under restriction to the same prohibitions - without necessarily determining who is the more wronged. LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:35, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
Result concerning Marknultey and Hipocrite blog post dispute at Talk:Climatic Research Unit hacking incidentBoth editors blocked 24 hours. Hipocrite for part removing/replacing another editors talkpage comments, in violation of WP:TPOC, without permission, notice to the other editor, or discussion/consensus. Fuller rationale provided with block notice at editors talkpage. Marknutley for edit warring on the same issue, while aware they are imminently to be placed under 1RR restriction for the same issue. I consider my actions appropriate under the provisions of the Probation, but will not contest any other admin amending or reversing them - I only request that both parties be dealt with equally in this instance. LessHeard vanU (talk) 22:19, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
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William M. Connolley
Consensus appears to be that this particular comment is not actionable, debate has refocused on a potential course of more general action which is now raised separately. Guy (Help!) 22:57, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
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Reopening .. for additional diffs of "particular comments" related to this issue to be submitted. Will close after 24 hrs, if no additional diffs on WMC behavior are submitted. Zulu Papa 5 ☆ (talk) 02:11, 26 February 2010 (UTC) Attention: This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below. Request concerning William M. Connolley
WMC has been asked to strike the comment in question, but has refused. I listed all of the diffs in the "prior warnings" section above to show that William M. Connolley (WMC) has a problem with following the civility policy. Those warnings and requests above are only for the last two months. I expect that if I was to go further back in his talk page history, I would find a similar pattern repeating itself. Besides the recent PA by WMC that made me decide to bring this to admin attention, WMC has personalized other talk page discussions recently [53] and [54]. To state the obvious, personalizing talk page discussions and denigrating other editors is against our civility policy. The reason we have that policy is to facilitate collaboration, cooperation, and compromise, which is how a wiki is supposed to work. WMC's inability or unwillingness to follow this policy is unfortunate, as it causes uneccessary hostility in article talk page discussions and inhibits collaboration. I didn't react to his baiting on the Lawrence Solomon page, but I found that comment, and other similar personal comments that he makes about me and others, extremely counterproductive. Cla68 (talk) 09:16, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
Discussion concerning William M. ConnolleyStatement by William M. ConnolleyThis action is ill-conceived. The problem is ZP5; I think you should learn to make coherent valuable content edits is valuable advice, which he (and indeed other people watching here) should ponder. A glance at ZP5's contributions shows a *total* (and I really do mean total) absence of useful article-space Cl Ch contributions from ZP5, but an awful lot of barely coherent talk page chatter. In fact, even anyone can find even *one* unambiguously valuable climate-change related article space contribution by ZP5 (even something as trivial as reverting vandalism) I'll be happy to strike my comment. William M. Connolley (talk) 09:19, 24 February 2010 (UTC) Addendum: I've just noticed some more weirdness in Cla's statement: I didn't react is a link to... Cla reacting. Shurely Shome Mishtake? But that comment by Cla is instructive: it shows how a perfectly good-faith edit can be mistakenly inperreted as baiting. Look at the context: LS complains about his bean business being mentioned. AH says it is embarassing (why? don't know; never mind) and Cla says the only source for is is LS. I agree; the only source *is* LS. So what? Is LS not a RS about his own activities? Perhaps not. But for Cla to interpret my comment as "personalising" the issue is very odd indeed. Note also taht Cla is double-counting in an effort to get the "bad comment" count up; he has linked to that twice. Similar comments reply to his other "personalising" diff [55] William M. Connolley (talk) 09:59, 24 February 2010 (UTC) @ZP5: was there something about User:William M. Connolley/For me/RFC-ZP5 that you found offensive? William M. Connolley (talk) 15:30, 24 February 2010 (UTC) @World: if you're interested in gobbledegook, try User:ZuluPapa5/WMC-RFC Statement by ZP5*WMC has chosen to add further injury to insult. Normally, I would gladly accept a simple apology in suffice to avoid this specific PA enforcement request. (Even after many others have confirmed prior PA toward me
Comments by others about the request concerning William M. Connolley
Not that there isn't a problem with Dr. Connolley's civility, which is exemplified by the attack on Zulu Papa 5 on talk:Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the debate that provides the context was a very frustrating one. Some editors were convinced that the verifiability and neutral point of view criteria could be satisfied by any book published by a reputable publisher, and steadfastly rejected cogent arguments on undue weight and the documented unreliability of the author as a scholar of science (including a reprimand from the Press Complaints Commission on his reporting on exactly the issue of climate change), labelling this as "obstructionism." So I want this to be taken into account:
None of us come out of this looking good. I suggest that we look at the thread and try to work out how it came to be such a sick mess. --TS 10:29, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
Breaks parole again in reverting what is not vandalism by any measure w/ no talkpage discussion. Also, "accused of possibly being a sock puppet" =/= "sock puppet." I'm sick of this.--Heyitspeter (talk) 18:30, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
Yes, you're right, he's an advanced user, but when you are in the thick of making edits quickly or under stress the fact that English is not your native tongue comes into play. I for example consider myself fluent in one foreign language but that 'fluency' suffers if I am tired, angry or have had too much to drink. It's that principle. And added to the fact that AGW discussions contain numerous complex concepts and terminology, communication can become a problem. Jprw (talk) 13:29, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
This highlights a problem, as I suggested above, that is bigger than William M. Connolley. Discussions on some talk pages have become sick, and perhaps we need to impose stricter rules of discussion. The circular nature of that discussion, and the way it focussed on differences over matters of policy on which there should be, I would have thought, universal agreement, are very worrying, the introduction of the notion of the BLP as applied to well sourced problems with Booker's scholarship, also a little worrying. Perhaps this could be viewed as a case of genuine differences over unsettled policy, but I doubt it. The verification policy has long required sources to be reliable and emphasized fact-checking. A (writer) source that has been repeatedly reproved for major inaccuracies by authoritative bodies (Health and Safety Exec and Press Complaints Commission in this case), and further has admitted to being "misled by the internet" on a simple matter of quote attribution on page 1 of his most recent work, should not be cited as a reliable source on science. A (book) source that presents a novel minority synthesis--a fringe view--should not normally be considered for inclusion on an article about a scientific subject because this is not consistent with the neutral point of view. It seems to me that those going out of their way to construct new interpretations of policy to permit such an inclusion have a duty to defend them, but, further, a duty not to inflame a problem area by repeatedly insisting on the new interpretations against substantial opposition. --TS 14:01, 25 February 2010 (UTC) TS, you're right about the misuse of WP:BLP above, and it can be quickly cleared up here. My complaints should have centred around WP:NPV and WP:CIVIL. I'll make a change over there as well. I think the real point is that making progress in an argument becomes problematic if there are widespread vioaltions of WP:CIVIL Jprw (talk) 14:50, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
I am now beginning to see why Jehochman says that arbitration is required. This page has broken down and the administrators are edit warring. That can only make things worse. Meanwhile Lar's innovative suggestion of having an uninvolved admin strike out the offending words has been implemented and seems to have resolved the immediate problem. I'd still like to address the problem of tendentious editing at Talk:Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and elsewhere, but that should perhaps be left for the future. --TS 18:19, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
OK, I am going to be blunt here. Any admin on this page who feels that incivility is not enough for sanctions, needs to leave and never edit the remedies again. Everyone can see the pretty link at the top to the probation terms, I will leave it to each of you to count the number of times incivility shows up. I get it, and kinda sorta agree that in general incivility is no biggie, but this probation was setup for a reason, and agreed upon by many when it was implemented. This is not the time to try to rewrite what is ok and what is not ok. Arkon (talk) 22:25, 25 February 2010 (UTC) Result concerning William M. Connolley
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Comment refactoring
Based on the discussion above I propose the following extension to the general probationary arrangements for climate change articles:
- Comments made in discussion which appear, in the opinion of an uninvolved administrator or other uninvolved user in good standing, to violate the talk page guidelines, should be brought to the attention of the user making the comment with a polite note to the effect that refactoring or removal would be appreciated.
- If the user refuses, or does not respond within a reasonable time, an uninvolved administrator or other uninvolved user may tag the comments using {{Inappropriate comment}} or some other generally acceptable means.
- Deliberate reinsertion of refactored comments, by any party, will be regarded as disruption and may be sanctioned appropriately.
- Brief requests to review potentially inappropriate comments may be posted here. Debate regarding the degree of inappropriateness, results of review by uninvolved individuals or responses to those individuals on their talk pages, is strongly discouraged.
- This is not designed to deal with repeated or egregious violations.
Discussion
ProposedDistilled from commentary above. Guy (Help!) 21:52, 25 February 2010 (UTC)- Absolutely LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:55, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
- Well, technically I proposed it first, :) so yes, absolutely. See the talk for a sketch of a process to implement this, it's in a reply to Dave souza I think. ++Lar: t/c 22:12, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
- Honour satisfied now? ;-) Guy (Help!) 22:52, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
- Quite. Except you spell funny :) ++Lar: t/c 23:48, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
- Ah, humour. So different from humor... :o) Guy (Help!) 09:01, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
- Good idea but needs to be worded more specifically. For example, does it apply to all pages, article talk only, article and user talk, process-oriented pages, (etc)? Does it apply to all editors, or only those who have been notified of the sanctions applying to this topic area? Does it apply to (gulp) admins as well as ordinary editors? Granted all this is a bit nit-picky but we've seen that some are willing to exploit any real or imagined ambiguity. My preference is that it would apply to everyone, everywhere, always, but you guys are in charge. The only bits I find really troublesome are the mentions of "other uninvolved user" -- that's too open to deliberate or accidental misinterpretation. Best leave it to the admins. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 02:00, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
- Good clarifications. Since you asked for views here are mine... I'd favor this applying to everyone who participates in any of the articles covered by this general sanctions area, admin or no, and the coverage area where it applies is any talk page of any of the articles (are there any projects that should be included? I don't think so...) User talk?? hmmm. My own talk page is a pretty lax area, if you're snarky you just get snark back rather than asked to redact. At first I would say no. I could see expanding it to include the user talks of anyone who is under a warning or more (any post by anyone there, to cut down on the "let's bait this guy into doing something stupid") or posts to any user talk at all by any one already on warning or more. But I'm leery of user talk. I'd rather try to see if we could keep it narrow. As for the process steps I think anyone in good standing can ask (step 1) but only uninvolved admins should "redact by force" (step 2), so I think a tweak is needed there. Which is why I favor using a quick and dirty template or boilerplate for this as I outlined to Dave souza somewhere or another. ++Lar: t/c 03:07, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
- @Lar, As you proposed, I've (at last!) moved the info to a new section at WT:GS/CC/RE#Proposed procedure for dealing with uncivil comments. . . dave souza, talk 06:26, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
- Thanks for that! ++Lar: t/c 14:20, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
- @Lar, As you proposed, I've (at last!) moved the info to a new section at WT:GS/CC/RE#Proposed procedure for dealing with uncivil comments. . . dave souza, talk 06:26, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
- Hi Boris, I'm mainly concerned that we don't build a false perception of hierarchy and bureaucracy. Admins are just folks, any user in good standing who is not involved in the dispute can surely help out here - no tools are required to do the work and I would rather we were inclusive rather than exclusive. Let's separate issues requiring tools (which enforcement usually will at some point) from issues requiring sound knowledge of Wikipedia and a willingness to help with a difficult situation. Guy (Help!) 12:35, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
- Can't support in this form. Sanctions already exist. If there have been strikeable comments the editor making that is like 'strike 1', a violation of the article sanctions. Maybe not yet enough to get them banned or anything, but that is what the reminder is for. Once they have been alerted to the sanctions and their behaviour they have an opportunity to come back into line and refactor those comments. If they refuse to do so it is now 'strike 2' - refusing to abide by article sanctions having been alerted to those sanctions and their transgression. These are articles under probation - two strikes should be enough for someone to enact those sanctions. Refactoring other peoples comments shows that the comments were out of line and the commentor refused to abide by sanctions even when given the chance and this is too much leeway on articles already in a bad enough shape to need probation. Weakopedia (talk) 06:30, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
- Weakopedia has already commented once [68] in a section labeled "This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators". AFAICT Weakopedia is not an admin. I assume good faith and note that the thread was rather long and the notice a long way up from that comment and have left it as the section is collapsed. This discussion however was taken from that section; could we have rapid agreement on whether this is for uninvolved admins or anyone with an opinion? I don't care but we should try to be clear. --BozMo talk 09:58, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
- Phew, thought you meant me for a minute! My impression was that this section is for uninvolved administrators, and my edits were carefully confined to providing a link to information being discussed. Weakopedia's comment being here is rather confusing, and it would be useful to explicitly state who can edit this section. These other comments could be moved to the talk page or into a new discussion section here. . . dave souza, talk 10:30, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
- As my comment to Boris above, uninvolved is more important than admin. Weakopedia definitely fails the test of uninvolvement. It is reasonable to use a similar rule in such cases: an uninvolved admin or other uninvolved user in good standing should first request and, if declined, perform a move of comments from "uninvolved outsider" sections to other parts of the debate. The idea of this process is, to my mind, to facilitate independent review of conduct around these articles, yes? Guy (Help!) 12:38, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
- If you number sections (and you should) Section 4.3 was labeled for uninvolved admins. This is not part of that subsection, or even section, it is an entirely new section 5. If it is to be limited to uninvolved admins, it needs to be explicitly noted. (As an aside, I mistyped "univolved" and my spelling checker suggested "unevolved". What was it trying to tell me? :) )--SPhilbrickT 12:46, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
- Good point. The "admin only" section is currently hidden in the collapsed box above. This is a separate section, started outside of usual procedure, which probably needs to have its rules put in writing if it was intended to have any. Cla68 (talk) 12:50, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
- Fine. So can we delete (or if you prefer, move to talk) everything here from Weako's comment downwards, including this? William M. Connolley (talk) 12:54, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
- If we are going to be picky about admin/non-admin status you shouldn't forget to take note of [69], and now me of course. Also, WMC, please refer to other editors by their full chosen names or their approved abbreviation unless you are willing to grant others the same privilege of taking liberties with yours. I think that might help to incrementally improve the way we all interact. Thanks for understanding. --GoRight (talk) 17:11, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
- Please don't waste space here with chatter - take it to the talk page. As for abbrv - no; if people object, they'll let you know I'm suire. I do, as you know, but Certain Editors ignore that. Looks to me as though Weako chose his name deliberately William M. Connolley (talk) 17:35, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
- I was responding to your call to delete non-admin material and noted one that you missed. As to the other point, your lack of willingness to play nice with others even when requested to do so is duly noted. Thanks for your consideration. --GoRight (talk) 17:48, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
- If W wants to complain, I'm sure he will. I don't think you complaining for him is very constructive William M. Connolley (talk) 18:37, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
- That's ok Willy, I don't mind abbreviated names if you don't. Weakopedia (talk) 03:57, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
- If W wants to complain, I'm sure he will. I don't think you complaining for him is very constructive William M. Connolley (talk) 18:37, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
- I was responding to your call to delete non-admin material and noted one that you missed. As to the other point, your lack of willingness to play nice with others even when requested to do so is duly noted. Thanks for your consideration. --GoRight (talk) 17:48, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
- Please don't waste space here with chatter - take it to the talk page. As for abbrv - no; if people object, they'll let you know I'm suire. I do, as you know, but Certain Editors ignore that. Looks to me as though Weako chose his name deliberately William M. Connolley (talk) 17:35, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
- If we are going to be picky about admin/non-admin status you shouldn't forget to take note of [69], and now me of course. Also, WMC, please refer to other editors by their full chosen names or their approved abbreviation unless you are willing to grant others the same privilege of taking liberties with yours. I think that might help to incrementally improve the way we all interact. Thanks for understanding. --GoRight (talk) 17:11, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
- Fine. So can we delete (or if you prefer, move to talk) everything here from Weako's comment downwards, including this? William M. Connolley (talk) 12:54, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
- Good point. The "admin only" section is currently hidden in the collapsed box above. This is a separate section, started outside of usual procedure, which probably needs to have its rules put in writing if it was intended to have any. Cla68 (talk) 12:50, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
- If you number sections (and you should) Section 4.3 was labeled for uninvolved admins. This is not part of that subsection, or even section, it is an entirely new section 5. If it is to be limited to uninvolved admins, it needs to be explicitly noted. (As an aside, I mistyped "univolved" and my spelling checker suggested "unevolved". What was it trying to tell me? :) )--SPhilbrickT 12:46, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
- Weakopedia has already commented once [68] in a section labeled "This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators". AFAICT Weakopedia is not an admin. I assume good faith and note that the thread was rather long and the notice a long way up from that comment and have left it as the section is collapsed. This discussion however was taken from that section; could we have rapid agreement on whether this is for uninvolved admins or anyone with an opinion? I don't care but we should try to be clear. --BozMo talk 09:58, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
- My response to this begins with "F" and ends with "uck process". Anyone who is not obviously one of the warring parties should feel free to separate out the two threads of debate and move one to talk or to another section, whichever seems more appropriate. I don't think that's contentious, there is no intent here to do anything other than fix the identified issue with problematic comments. Guy (Help!) 13:04, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
This is a proposal for a new process, to be (if my variant is accepted) done by admins. I don't care where we talk about it, here or in the section Dave just carved out. We can all talk about it here. We can move the whole thing to the talk page too. Whatever works. To be clear, this is a new section, separated from the WMC enforcement request, now closed, just preceding it and I don't see it as restricted to admins only.I think all stakeholders should be able to comment on this process and help shape it, admins or no, involved or not. But it's up to the uninvolved admins to carry it out once it's agreed on (I was about to type it's up to just the uninvolved admins to decide what the final form of it is, as that's my view... but it may be a bit of an overreach, so I didn't). ++Lar: t/c 14:20, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
- OK, I support the wording as proposed, but suggest adding a final bullet saying, "Editors who repeatedly make comments which require 'inappropriate' tagging by administrators may be subject to sanction, namely, topic bans of increasing duration." Cla68 (talk) 23:02, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
- This is not designed to deal with repeated or egregious violations. would appear to be the answer to that William M. Connolley (talk) 17:57, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
First test of the glorious new policy
Bickering cannot conceivably resolve disputes
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Comment [70]. Request for removal [71]. Refusal [72] William M. Connolley. Notification of this report [73] (talk) 20:12, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
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Nigelj
Attention: This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.
Request concerning Nigelj
- User requesting enforcement
- A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 22:51, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
- User against whom enforcement is requested
- Nigelj (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- Sanction or remedy that this user violated
- Wikipedia:General sanctions/Climate change probation The Climatic Research Unit hacking incident article is under a 1RR restriction:[76]
- Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it
- Diffs of notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required)
- [79] Warning by A_Quest_For_Knowledge (talk · contribs)
- Enforcement action requested (block, topic ban or other sanction)
- I'll leave it to the admins to decide what is appropriate.
- Additional comments by editor filing complaint
- Pretty self-explanatory. Nigelj reverted the same content twice in a manner of hours. I asked Nigelj to self-revert but he hasn't.[80]
- Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested
- [81]
Discussion concerning Nigelj
Statement by Nigelj
Comments by others about the request concerning Nigelj
I suggest that the content involved here is much too new to be discussed in an encyclopedia. There are various attempts at reading crystal balls, but all that can and should be said, with respect to the BLP, is that several investigations are ongoing. We're not a gossip factory, and we should explicitly recognize that this article in question has become little more than a funnel for press gossip. There is no deadline and we will look a lot less silly if we wait for the independent investigations to deliver their conclusions. --TS 00:26, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
- You appear to be making a content argument here which is unrelated to the determination of an outcome in this RfC. This discussion would be more properly addressed to the talk page in question. Please consider collapsing this comment and any replies to it to avoid further disruption of this discussion. --GoRight (talk) 01:03, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
- "[W]e will look a lot less silly..."? Sidaway, it would be hard for our GW-related articles to look any more "silly" than they already do. The content AQFK was adding was well-sourced, and not gossipy at all. These attempts to whitewash articles need to stop. And, while I doubt it will happen, Nigelj should have sanctions levied against him. Scottaka UnitAnode 00:32, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
- You can call me Tony. Do you think you could try to stop bringing POV-pushing of the most extreme kind to this page? Our science articles have been compared to Britannica's and fared well, and the global warming article has been singled out for praise by experts. Please give a good reason for sanctioning this editor, and in doing so try not to express extreme points of view. --TS 00:44, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
- I call my friends by their first name. You're not that. You're about as far from that as I could imagine an on-Wiki person being. And I'm wholly unperturbed by your accusations that my contributions here are POV-pushing. Nigelj is removing sourced material multiple times. He should be sanctioned. It really is as simple as that, Sidaway. Scottaka UnitAnode 00:53, 28
- Hi, Scott. If you cannot address me as Tony then you cannot at address me at all without giving offence. But that's okay. I'll swallow it. --TS 01:13, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
- Seriously? Calling you by your surname is not uncivil in any way. You're offended by it? You must have some very thin skin, then, good sir. Scottaka UnitAnode 01:15, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
- Unitanode: Please call people by either their entire username or by whatever abbreviation or short form they themselves specify is acceptable. "TS", and "Tony" are, I believe, acceptable short forms (TS because it's how Tony Sidaway signs, and Tony because he said it was OK to use) for "Tony Sidaway" but "Sidaway" is not. Because he said so... that is a good enough reason. This is just giving people basic respect under the forms and norms we use here. You don't have to actually respect them personally if you do not want to, but polite discourse requires that readers can't tell that, at least not at first glance. We are none of us perfect in this regard but let's do better if we can. ++Lar: t/c 23:09, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
- Seriously? Calling you by your surname is not uncivil in any way. You're offended by it? You must have some very thin skin, then, good sir. Scottaka UnitAnode 01:15, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
- Hi, Scott. If you cannot address me as Tony then you cannot at address me at all without giving offence. But that's okay. I'll swallow it. --TS 01:13, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
- I call my friends by their first name. You're not that. You're about as far from that as I could imagine an on-Wiki person being. And I'm wholly unperturbed by your accusations that my contributions here are POV-pushing. Nigelj is removing sourced material multiple times. He should be sanctioned. It really is as simple as that, Sidaway. Scottaka UnitAnode 00:53, 28
- You can call me Tony. Do you think you could try to stop bringing POV-pushing of the most extreme kind to this page? Our science articles have been compared to Britannica's and fared well, and the global warming article has been singled out for praise by experts. Please give a good reason for sanctioning this editor, and in doing so try not to express extreme points of view. --TS 00:44, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
- "The content AQFK was adding was well-sourced" Actually, I did not add that content. But that doesn't give Nigelj the right to violate the article's 1RR restriction. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 01:09, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
- The first diff listed does not seem to be a reversion. It removes material, but it does not return the article to a previous state. Therefore, I can see no violation of 1RR. Recommend reporting editor withdraws this report with an appropriate apology to Nigelj. -- Scjessey (talk) 00:47, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
- The first edit reverted Rumping's edit[82]. He deleted the same paragraph twice in a matter of hours. Clearly a 1RR violation. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 00:54, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
- I'm not seeing that. I'm seeing Nigelj's edit as far more complex - a process that included rewriting the previous paragraph. Re-editing is not the same as reverting. Seems like a frivolous complaint to me. -- Scjessey (talk) 01:05, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
- From WP:3RR which provides the controlling langauge related to revert counting:
- A "page" is any page on Wikipedia, including talk and project space. A revert is any action, including administrative actions, that reverses the actions of other editors, in whole or in part. A series of consecutive saved revert edits by one user with no intervening edits by another user counts as one revert. (This differs from the definition of "revert" used elsewhere in the project.)
- --GoRight (talk) 01:40, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
- Virtually any edit that makes changes to an article "reverses actions of other editors". Nigelj rewrote the section, and it is unreasonable to classify that action as a reversion. -- Scjessey (talk) 01:47, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
- It is true he did not make a bald revert but that is not the standard applied to counting reverts. If you don't like the standard arguing here or with me will be futile in effecting any sort of change. Propose your change on the talk page of the policy itself. --GoRight (talk) 01:52, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
- That's a ridiculous argument. Nigelj's actions didn't violate anything. Heyitspeter's revert is a far worse crime, since he is obviously aware of some sort of edit war and yet chose to perpetuate it. -- Scjessey (talk) 01:57, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
- It is true he did not make a bald revert but that is not the standard applied to counting reverts. If you don't like the standard arguing here or with me will be futile in effecting any sort of change. Propose your change on the talk page of the policy itself. --GoRight (talk) 01:52, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
- Virtually any edit that makes changes to an article "reverses actions of other editors". Nigelj rewrote the section, and it is unreasonable to classify that action as a reversion. -- Scjessey (talk) 01:47, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
- From WP:3RR which provides the controlling langauge related to revert counting:
- I'm not seeing that. I'm seeing Nigelj's edit as far more complex - a process that included rewriting the previous paragraph. Re-editing is not the same as reverting. Seems like a frivolous complaint to me. -- Scjessey (talk) 01:05, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
- What 1RR restriction? Is there a specific one for Climatic Research Unit hacking incident, or one which Nigelj is under? The Marknultey request, where a general 1RR warning was promoted, was closed without such an agreement, and anyhoo without a prior case and notice Nigelj would not be under restriction. LessHeard vanU (talk) 00:52, 28 February 2010 (UTC) ps. My comments should not indicate that there isn't a 1RR restriction in place, just that I need to be guided to it.
- Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's my understanding that Climatic Research Unit hacking incident is under a 1RR restriction. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 00:56, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
- See the second listing under [83]. The article is under 1RR. --GoRight (talk) 00:57, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
- Thanks. Any chance of noting it on the article talkpage? LessHeard vanU (talk) 01:00, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
- I can take care of that. I just looked it up in response to your query. I am surprised it is not there already. --GoRight (talk) 01:04, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
- I have made a crude textual attempt to note it after the probation template on both CRU and IPCC talk pages. If there is a more proper way to do it let me know. Otherwise I will look into making a proper template tomorrow. --GoRight (talk) 01:31, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
- I can take care of that. I just looked it up in response to your query. I am surprised it is not there already. --GoRight (talk) 01:04, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
- Thanks. Any chance of noting it on the article talkpage? LessHeard vanU (talk) 01:00, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
- See the second listing under [83]. The article is under 1RR. --GoRight (talk) 00:57, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
- Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's my understanding that Climatic Research Unit hacking incident is under a 1RR restriction. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 00:56, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
It's not so much that the 1RR wasn't noted, I assume we're all aware of it. It's the whole "let's go after the Dalai Lama" thing that makes this so weird. It isn't as if NigelJ had any history of naughtiness. --TS 01:17, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
- Well, I for one was not aware of it. This game of "gotcha" is why I've quit editing these articles altogether. It's too easy to accidentally run afoul of sanctions. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 01:23, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
- It's largely academic, since 1RR hasn't actually been violated (as I point out above). -- Scjessey (talk) 01:24, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
- [84] Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 01:26, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
- I think that block is entirely inappropriate. I do not see a violation. A troubling development. -- Scjessey (talk) 01:31, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
- [84] Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 01:26, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
- It's largely academic, since 1RR hasn't actually been violated (as I point out above). -- Scjessey (talk) 01:24, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
- It's moot since I notified him that he had violated 1RR here[85] and he still would not revert his edit. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 01:30, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
- If no violation was made, then I cannot see how he would be required to revert. I think you've misrepresented what has happened and gone and got him blocked. Not good, AQFK, not good. -- Scjessey (talk) 01:33, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
- It's moot since I notified him that he had violated 1RR here[85] and he still would not revert his edit. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 01:30, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
Moved from section below reserved for uninvolved admins.
- See Nigelj, you got off with only a slap on the wrist. You can continue to be as disruptive as you want to be so long as it you're civil. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 02:50, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
Comment tagged inappropriate under talk page guidelines.
Result concerning Nigelj
- This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the section above.
- Nigelj blocked for 24 hours for violating the 1RR restriction, per request. I note the argument that this was not a "technical" revert, but the probation is in place to stop edit warring and Nigelj did not use the option of requesting the second editor to self revert.
Unitanode is warned to use any of the formal, common and agreed forms of address when interacting with other editors, when requested. Both actions logged as required. As ever, review invited and amendments may be made without further reference to me. LessHeard vanU (talk) 01:46, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
Heyitspeter
Attention: This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.
Request concerning Heyitspeter
- User requesting enforcement
- Scjessey (talk) 02:15, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
- User against whom enforcement is requested
- Heyitspeter (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- Sanction or remedy that this user violated
- Wikipedia:General sanctions/Climate change probation
- Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it
- [86] - Perpetuates an existing edit war.
- Diffs of notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required)
- Not applicable.
- Enforcement action requested (block, topic ban or other sanction)
- 24-hour block, per 1RR rules on the article in question and/or clarification of 1RR and edit warring in general.
- Additional comments by editor filing complaint
- With the edit summary of "reverted 1RR violation", Heyitspeter is clearly aware that an edit war is taking place (or has taken place). While not a technical violation of 1RR, it certainly violates its spirit. -- Scjessey (talk) 02:15, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
- Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested
- Notification
Discussion concerning Heyitspeter
Statement by Heyitspeter
Scjessey and I discussed this here: User_talk:Heyitspeter#February_2010. I think we may have been talking past each other but you get the gist. I asked that he file this request or get input from an administrator so that I could hear more definitive feedback (e.g.). My edit seemed perfectly alright to me, but I'm not an expert on wikipedia policy. I'd be happy to defer to the input given here (i.e., self-revert or stick with it as needed).
Finally, I probably won't be able to edit here until late tomorrow as I'm off visiting friends. If before that time an administrator decides my edit was in the wrong he or she has my best wishes to revert it before I have a chance to do so myself, and can count on my explicit endorsement (see previous paragraph).--Heyitspeter (talk) 02:42, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
Comments by others about the request concerning Heyitspeter
- There is no 1RR violation on this page by Heyitspeter. The edit provided was made at 01:50, 28 February 2010. His next most recent edit was made at 01:15, 27 February 2010. As far as 1RR is concerned case closed. --GoRight (talk) 02:28, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
- As I said above, we are not talking about a technical violation here. The reversion in question is a violation of the spirit of the rule in that it perpetuates the existing edit war. Consider the firestorm that would result if someone were to revert Heyitspeter's edit right now. I haven't edited the article for two weeks, but I certainly wouldn't dream of reverting Heyitspeter even if I think the current version is wrong. -- Scjessey (talk) 03:22, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
This request appears to be in retaliation for the request above against Nigelj as far as I can tell. --GoRight (talk) 02:28, 28 February 2010 (UTC)- Absolute nonsense. I discussed this matter with LHvU and Heyitspeter and I was encouraged to file the RfE. Please consider withdrawing your accusation. -- Scjessey (talk) 03:22, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
- Per this which I was unaware of and Heyitspeter's comment below I withdraw this erroneous conclusion and apologize for having jumped to it. --GoRight (talk) 05:57, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
- Absolute nonsense. I discussed this matter with LHvU and Heyitspeter and I was encouraged to file the RfE. Please consider withdrawing your accusation. -- Scjessey (talk) 03:22, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
I assume this was a reversion related to the previous request. In the circumstances, page protection might be merited. Further edit warring like this obviously doesn't help and Heyitspeter should be told off for being a silly sausage. --TS 02:40, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
- This is little more than a tit-for-tat request. It should be speedily closed, with the only action being warning the editor who called his colleague a "silly sausage" that such insults aren't acceptable. Scottaka UnitAnode 02:43, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
- WP:3RR states 3RR is a bright line where action now becomes almost certain if not already taken. It is not an "entitlement" to revert a page a specific number of times. Yes, the bolding is in the original, so this appears to be an important qualifier. The question then becomes whether 1RR is meant to be applied in the same spirit as 3RR. If so 1RR is "not an 'entitlement'" and restarting the revert cycle at 24 hours + ε (where ε = 35 minutes in the present instance) would be looked upon no more favorably than doing the same under 3RR. I have no opinion on whether 1RR in this probation is a rule unto itself or is meant to be in parallel to 3RR, and leave that decision to the admins who have taken on the easy and pleasant job of enforcing these sanctions. But I think it would be helpful to clarify the intent. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 02:44, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
- I agree with SBHB that this would be an important clarification. Even so, however, I don't believe that HiP's previous edit was a simple reversion of that same content, so I don't think it probably matters to this specific case. Scottaka UnitAnode 02:47, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
- For the record, I certainly hope this page isn't fully protected, especially given the "scale" of the issue at hand.
- That said I suppose I'm generally against full protection as antithetical to Wikipedia's principles and advantages so my opinion isn't likely to change even if the scale were to increase. Do they have userpage infoboxes for that philosophy, like they do for "inclusionist"/"exclusionist" editors? Maybe I'll make that my first.--Heyitspeter (talk) 02:49, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
- I withdraw, and have struck out, a thoughtless and unhelpful characterization. My thanks go to Unit Anode for pointing out my error. --TS 02:53, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
I would be rather freaked out by any suggestion that protection would be a bad idea, If there is edit warring even in the presence of a probation and a 1RR, then the only way to go is an edit restriction--full protection--until there is consensus. --TS 03:03, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
- The present tense is what I take issue with. Nsaa reverted, Nigelj broke his 1RR, I restored to the version prior to the violation. I viewed myself as reverting vandalism in that sense. Content wasn't at issue for me at all, you're not talking to a loose cannon that has to be restrained. I asked that this request be filed so I could figure out whether the kind of action I made was appropriate. I just want to make that clear.--Heyitspeter (talk) 04:01, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
- I am dismayed at the continued reverting found here; while Nigelj was found to be in violation of 1RR it does not hold that the edit was otherwise incorrect. I haven't reviewed, but it would not have been inappropriate for someone else to take ownership of Nigelj's second edit as their own. Of course, this would have made this an multi user edit war which is as bad or worse than 1RR violation. I am sure that Heyitspeter acted in good faith, but so did Nigelj. My view is that the 1RR restriction is in place in relation to this article as a means to stop edit warring. Reflex reverting even of a 1RR violation appears contrary to the spirit of the placing of the 1RR restriction. LessHeard vanU (talk) 11:13, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
- Where someone's refusal to self-revert led to sanctions it seemed appropriate to make the revert manually. I'm still not clear as to your opinion on that - obviously a series of reverts isn't inherently warring.
- It seems to me this 'edit war' consisted of Nsaa's revert followed by bureaucracy. Perhaps you disagree but I can't tell whether or why yet. Reexplicate?--Heyitspeter (talk) 11:40, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
- Upon review of the talkpage, I cannot see the consensus for the inclusion of the text twice removed by Nigelj. The reverting of Nigelj's 1RR violating edit brings the disputed text back into the article - where the correct application of policy is to allow the basis of the edit and continue trying to achieve consensus. It might be argued that the 1RR violation was otherwise made correctly, and should not have been a matter of a sanction request had it been made by anyone other than Nigelj (outside of a general edit warring complaint). LessHeard vanU (talk) 12:55, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
- I see what you're saying. I'll open a discussion on the talkpage now to make sure people are okay with its inclusion. Seeing as no one has done so yet I doubt there will be an issue, but who knows.--Heyitspeter (talk) 03:15, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
- [87]--Heyitspeter (talk) 03:28, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
- Upon review of the talkpage, I cannot see the consensus for the inclusion of the text twice removed by Nigelj. The reverting of Nigelj's 1RR violating edit brings the disputed text back into the article - where the correct application of policy is to allow the basis of the edit and continue trying to achieve consensus. It might be argued that the 1RR violation was otherwise made correctly, and should not have been a matter of a sanction request had it been made by anyone other than Nigelj (outside of a general edit warring complaint). LessHeard vanU (talk) 12:55, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
If Heyitspeter is guilty of "Perpetuat[ing] an existing edit war" as Scjessey claims, then so are the following editors:
A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 14:18, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
- That's a nonsensical assertion. You added a paragraph on an issue totally unrelated to the article in this diff. I removed that paragraph two diffs later.[91] As far as I know you hadn't added it before and I don't think anyone's restored it since. How is that evidence of an "edit war"? I don't think you're making that claim in good faith. -- ChrisO (talk) 22:18, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
- Sorry, I thought you had deleted the same paragraph as the others. After taking a second look at the diff, I see that it was a different paragraph that you deleted. I've struck through your name above. My comment regarding WMC and Nigelj stands. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 22:26, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
- I have been trying to find who WMC previously reverted. It seems to me he just edited the same paragraph as Nigelj did, but Nigelj did a different edit than WMC had done and Nigelj has been sanctioned for the edit war. So I don't see where is the edit warring of WMC and Nigelj's edits have already been brought up and sanctioned.83.86.0.74 (talk) 00:42, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
- Sorry, I thought you had deleted the same paragraph as the others. After taking a second look at the diff, I see that it was a different paragraph that you deleted. I've struck through your name above. My comment regarding WMC and Nigelj stands. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 22:26, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
- Both Nigelj and WMC edit-warred. But you are correct, neither have been sanctioned in this particular instance. Whatever action against Heyitspeter should also be taken against the other editors who did the same thing. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 01:00, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
- Nigelj has been sanctioned in the request above. Blocked for 24 hours? About WMC here is how I read the history, WMC makes an edit to UK government, Rumping adds a paragraph, Nigelj deletes it and rewrites the one above it and the edit war has started. WMC's edit is not a revert as far as I have seen.83.86.0.74 (talk) 01:36, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
- Where did this idea start that edits were per paragraph? If I had known then I would have split my contribution into two paragraphs so that the diff viewer would make it look like I had edited both of the existing paragraphs, not edited one and deleted the other: that was never my intention. The way it happened was this: there was a paragraph that some said was a biassed account of one submission to the UK gov committee, Rumping added another and commented that it was 'for balance'. I removed both and added a new paragraph about submissions to the committee in general, saying that we can't discuss all 55, so let's not start with one. HiP took us back to the original charges/counter-charges about the one submission. I don't suppose anybody cares, but I think the standard of debate here should be higher --Nigelj (talk) 14:18, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
Result concerning Heyitspeter
- This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the section above.
My 2¢: without commenting on Nigelj (I am willing to trust LHvU that the material was inserted recently enough and the rewrite was not substantial enough that the first diff up there counts as a revert for 1RR purposes), I think that Heyitspeter acted appropriately here. His revert noted that he was restoring the pre mini-edit war version, and was performed after the block. I would agree with Scjessey in most other circumstances - perpetuating an edit war is a Bad Thing, and could be sanctionable under the probation. I would even venture that this should not count as a revert at all for the 1RR for that page, though following SBHB above, any time we get into counting reverts something has probably gone wrong already. - 2/0 (cont.) 06:24, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
- I concur with this view. ++Lar: t/c 04:32, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
Scjessey
Attention: This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.
Request concerning Scjessey
- User requesting enforcement
- A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 19:03, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
- User against whom enforcement is requested
- Scjessey (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- Sanction or remedy that this user violated
- Wikipedia:General sanctions/Climate change probation
- Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it
- [92] Uncivil, assumes bad faith, addresses editor personally
- [93] Personal attack, accuses me of "becoming quite adept at spin."
- [94] Uncivil, assumes bad faith, addresses editor personally.
- [95] Launches another personal attack against me.
- Diffs of notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required)
- Enforcement action requested (block, topic ban or other sanction)
- I leave it to the admins to decide what action is appropriate. However, I do ask that Scjessey's history of misconduct be taken into account and the fact that Scjessey refused to remove his comments even when asked politely.
- Additional comments by editor filing complaint
- Scjessey's edits show repeated assumptions of bad faith, lack of civility and personal attacks. I twice asked him politely that he remove his comments[98][99] and he refused both times. [100][101] In fact, rather than removing or refactoring his comments, he launched another personal attack against me.
- Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested
- [102]
Discussion concerning Scjessey
Statement by Scjessey
Hardly worth the effort. AQFK continues to misrepresent my comments, and now tops off the disgraceful behavior with wikilawyering after baiting me at every conceivable opportunity. Recommend AQFK receives a 24-hour block per WP:PLAXICO for filing yet another frivolous RfE. -- Scjessey (talk) 19:27, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
- In response to comments by administrators, I feel that the accusations of "bad faith" are totally unwarranted. Examine the diffs in context, and you will see that what AQFK describes as "bad faith" comments are appropriate responses to unequivocal trolling by an SPA. -- Scjessey (talk) 13:51, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
Statement by WMC
These edits, supposedly showing Bad Faith, don't. #1 is in response to a very unhelpful comment by Oiler99 (which begins Nonsense. You must be joking... By AQFK's standards this should represent an attack, but AQFK doesn't bother report it; this is evidence of partisanship). Oiler99 is arguing GW science, very badly, in a inappropriate page; Scj's response, whilst a little heated, correctly recognises the (null) value of Oiler99's post. #2 is in response to an attack by AQFK. #3 is again in response to trolling by Oiler99; #4 asks AQFK to do something useufl instead of baiting; that seems quite fair.
The Bad Faith is on AQFK's side. I ask the admins here to look at Oiler99, with a view to a block from these pages - he appears to be nothing but a troll William M. Connolley (talk) 19:31, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
- Just to expand on WMC's train of thought here, how should I be expected to respond to this disguised accusation that I am a racist by Oiler99? -- Scjessey (talk) 14:37, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
- I wouldn't characterize the accusation as "disguised." Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 14:51, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
- Nor would i boris, i have asked Oiler to remove that post. My advice to Scjessey is to ignore this. mark nutley (talk) 14:57, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
- I wouldn't characterize the accusation as "disguised." Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 14:51, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
Additional Statement by A Quest For Knowledge
It should be noted that the conditions of this article's probation state "Any editor may be sanctioned by an uninvolved administrator for disruptive edits, including, but not limited to, edit warring, personal attacks, incivility and assumptions of bad faith. " Even according to LessHeard vanU and BozMo's assessment (which I don't agree with), Scjessey violated assumptions of bad faith and uncivil commentary. It seems to me that we have a disconnect between the article's probation and its enforcement. If the article's enforcement is correct, then Scjessey should be sanctioned. If these violations are acceptable, then I request that the article's probation be amended to state that disruptive edits, including including incivility and assumptions of bad faith are now allowed. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 01:12, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
- My only statement was that the diffs were not actionable. Your assumption that I agree he violated anything is only an assumption. While you felt you needed to put this assumption on my talk page as well as here is also unclear to me. --BozMo talk 06:47, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
Comments by others about the request concerning Scjessey
This is the second request by AQFK in 24 hours. Some of the diffs he provides do not look like personal attacks, as the term is normally applied on wikipedia. Mathsci (talk) 19:28, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
Are these on topic comments? Scjessey comments would seem to be more appropriate for a user talk page than the article talk page. I fail to see how they are productive with regards to article content value. It would seem they may inflame an already off topic discussion. Zulu Papa 5 ☆ (talk) 01:14, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
- The comments are completely appropriate when viewed in the proper context. -- Scjessey (talk) 13:47, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
- No, repeated uncivil comments, assumptions of bad faith and personal attacks are not "completely appropriate". The probation rules specifically state that this is not acceptable. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 13:54, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
- Once again, you misrepresent my comments. Your claims of bad faith, personal attacks and incivility are bogus. And now that you have been caught trying to influence one of the presiding uninvolved administrators inappropriately, it is becoming clear that you are more interested in seeking sanctions against me than actually improving the atmosphere. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:02, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
- No, repeated uncivil comments, assumptions of bad faith and personal attacks are not "completely appropriate". The probation rules specifically state that this is not acceptable. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 13:54, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
- I politely asked you to remove the comments twice. All you had to do was to remove them. You have no one to blame but yourself. BTW, false accusations aren't going to help your case. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 14:17, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
- When I got up this morning, I decided to review my comments with an open mind as a "sanity check" on myself. Maybe they were a little acerbic or terse, but in context they seem perfectly acceptable. "Simon of Today" agrees that "Simon of Yesterday" was right to refuse to comply with your inappropriate demand. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:25, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
- I politely asked you to remove the comments twice. All you had to do was to remove them. You have no one to blame but yourself. BTW, false accusations aren't going to help your case. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 14:17, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
Result concerning Scjessey
- This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the section above.
I do not see personal attacks by Scjessey in the diffs; I do see assumptions of bad faith, with regard to both the motives of the other parties and their contribution toward the subject - it is not "wrong" to hold a contrary opinion, and nor to wish to edit an article to reflect that opinion, because it is the distillation of differing pov's referenced to good sources that create NPOV. It is my view that personal attacks might be subject to sanction, but that bad faith does not unless it is particularly egregious - and they are not to that level. I would invite comment from other admins whether there should be a request made to not repeat ones opinion of another parties' stance and concentrate solely upon the issues raised. LessHeard vanU (talk) 22:05, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
- I agree that the diffs presented are not actionable/. --BozMo talk 23:11, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
- I have been reminded that the wording of the probation does mention accusations of bad faith as being prohibited, so I am inclined to "up" the remedy to a formal warning to Scjessey to desist, and a general reminder to all parties about the need to AGF. Whether this warning should be a notification of the result here, or whether it should be listed in the warnings section of the enforcement log, is something I would request further comment upon. LessHeard vanU (talk) 13:40, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
- I am a bit confused here about whether we mean assumptions of bad faith or accusations of bad faith and exactly which diff contains these. --BozMo talk 14:05, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
- As I read the above diffs [103] contains nothing about faith, it seems to be about flawed methodology, and in answer to a comment of similar tone ("nonsense") and [104] may or may not be a personal attack or a reasonable comment depending on the substance of the edits which preceded it [105] looks like a de-escalation to more provocative comments by Oiler99 and [106] does not look to me any worse in content than the actions of Quest for Knowledge in bringing these accusations. All in all these edits do not look like nice tea-room banter but they are not clearly differentiable from the rest of the conversation and do not look worse than the sharp comments some of them are answering. --BozMo talk 14:14, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
- I would support either a warning as LHvU outlines, or no action. More than a warning doesn't seem justified at this time unless I an missing something. ++Lar: t/c 16:33, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
More violations of sanctions by User:William M. Connolley
Attention: This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.
Request concerning More violations of sanctions by User:William M. Connolley
- User requesting enforcement
- ATren (talk) 17:17, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
- User against whom enforcement is requested
- William M. Connolley (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- Sanction or remedy that this user violated
- Wikipedia:General sanctions/Climate change probation
- Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it
- [107] - PA; edit summary "clueless", directed at Mark Nutley. Text: "Face it, you really don't know what is going on here but are determined to push your POV anyway"
- [108] - incivility, directed at MN: "you should find an arera to edit that you understand"
- [109] - removal of MN's comment on enforcement page. MN was actually supporting WMC in a thread. Full text of removed comment: "Nor would i boris, i have asked Oiler to remove that post. My advice to Scjessey is to ignore this." (agreeing with Boris' condemnation of Oiler)
- Diffs of notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required)
From the sanctions log page:
- "User:William M. Connolley is required to refrain until 2010-07-27 from editing others' talkpage posts in pages subject to this probation even in cases where the talk page guidelines would otherwise indicate that it could or should be done. Exceptions are made for archiving discussions that have received no comments for at least one week, and for whole removal of comments from his own talkpage. - 2/0 (cont.) 21:38, 27 January 2010 (UTC)" - violated in third diff (see my rationale below)
- "User:William M. Connolley warned to refrain from using septic and similar derogatory terms, and to promptly refactor any unintentional typos." - violated in first diff ("clueless")
- Enforcement action requested (block, topic ban or other sanction)
- I suggest a month-long topic ban for repeated refusal to adhere to this probation.
- Additional comments by editor filing complaint
- This is, what, the ninth request against WMC? I'm at least the 6th to raise a request (CoM, HiP, MN, AQFK, Cla68 have all filed before me - all editors in good standing). The three diffs I supplied are from today, so this is continuing behavior.
@WMC: WMC has claimed below that the RFE page is not a talk page, therefore the sanction was not violated when he removed MN's comment there. But this RFE is a discussion venue, so WMC certainly violated the spirit, if not the letter, of the sanction. In addition, there was nothing whatsoever offensive or abusive in MN's comment, which was part of a larger thread involving 2 other editors. Such a comment removal would be suspect in any context, let alone on a probation enforcement page, let alone from an editor who has already been sanctioned for similar removals. ATren (talk) 17:50, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
@WMC: what about the "clueless" diff? Perhaps you can claim a technicality on the the comment removal (dubious, IMO), but you still haven't said a word on calling another editor clueless. Do you concede that violation? ATren (talk) 18:27, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
@Jehochman, do you have evidence of which member of this so called "viscous campaign by right wing bloggers" hijacked WMC's account and posted those offending diffs? We all put up with unfounded accusations (both on and off wiki), but that's no excuse to lash out at others. If editors can't be held responsible for their own actions, they shouldn't be editing. If an editor can't participate in a debate without insulting other editors, he should be banned. An example: my contribution history and motives have been repeatedly attacked on this page. The accusations are completely unsupported (and unsupportable). Does that make me a victim of a "vicious campaign", and by virtue of that, can I start calling people clueless and removing their comments? Where does it end? Do my "victims" then get a free pass, ad infinitum? It has to stop. Mark Nutley may not agree with WMC, he may even be wrong, but once WMC starts belittling him and hurling insults, it becomes WMC's problem regardless what disagreement started it. WMC must learn to be less disruptive even in the face of what he believes are hostile elements. It's his responsibility alone to control his behavior. ATren (talk) 04:34, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested
- [110]
Discussion concerning More violations of sanctions by User:William M. Connolley
Statement by User:William M. Connolley
I'm baffled by #3. But apparently retrospective re-interpretation of the rules forbids this, so I've restored it William M. Connolley (talk) 21:44, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
As to 1, 2: there is a distressing lack of connection to reality about all this. No-one, it seems, cares that MN has got this completely wrong; that his timeline is simply incorrect; that he has been indulging in blatant OR and SYN. Face it, MN isn't listening to rational argument. But then again, neither are the admins here, sigh.
So, lets go through it. MN wanted to say Pachauri defended the prediction of the IPCC that glaciers would disappear from the Himalayas by 2035 based on [111]. Well, you can read that for yourself - it says no such thing. Moreover, it *can't* say any such thing, because of the timeline.
- 2009/11/09. RKP calls an Indian glacio report junk [112]
- At the start of December 2009. J. Graham Cogley notices that there is a problem with the 2035 date in AR4 WG II Criticism of the IPCC AR4#Projected date of melting of Himalayan glaciers.
So there you are. MN is well aware of the Dec '09 date, as he has spent plenty of time edit warring over that bit. Which is why I suggested he was clueless. Because he didn't even know the dates of events he himself has been edit warring over.
MN is *still* refusing to learn, and obsinacy at this level really is clueless: as his latest "evidence" says itself [113] Dr Pachauri had previously dismissed a report by the Indian Government which said that glaciers might not be melting as much as had been feared. He described the report, which did not mention the 2035 error, as “voodoo science”. The Indian "voodoo" report has *nothing at all* to do with the 2035 claim; MN is so blinded by his POV that he is unable to recognise this William M. Connolley (talk) 23:33, 1 March 2010 (UTC) William M. Connolley (talk) 22:10, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
Statement by ZP5
This diff history showing a disruptive pattern is here. Zulu Papa 5 ☆ (talk) 21:34, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
WMC Request for Enforcement History showing disruptive and egregious behavior.
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This must demonstrate a pattern of disruptive and egregious behavior in the Enforcement Project for WMC.
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Comments by others about the request concerning More violations of sanctions by User:William M. Connolley
This idea of ATren (talk · contribs) [126] was much more reasonable than the current request. This is needless escalation. That ATren is trying to precipitate a month long topic-ban is not particularly surprising. Mathsci (talk) 17:47, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
- "That ATren is trying to precipitate a month long topic-ban is not particularly surprising." - I am unclear on your meaning here. Could you please clarify what you mean by this statement? Specifically, why do you feel it is not particularly surprising? Thanks. --GoRight (talk) 18:32, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
- I had specifically requested that MathSci explain his comment above to make his meaning plain. It was a simple and polite request. This was his response. I can only assume that if his meaning was constructive that he would have been more than willing to come and make it more clear here. His bald dismissal of my request suggests, IMHO of course, the opposite. If I am wrong on that point I welcome MathSci to come and correct the record. --GoRight (talk) 01:52, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- It was lucky that I was asleep so that I could ignore what appears to have been WP:BAITing and your own extraordinarily rude interpretation of my sleeping. Your message in a headline on my talk page, with its split infinitive, did not seem "simple and polite". Are you contesting my right to remove that message or are you claiming that my edit summary contravened certain wikipedia rules? At present you seem to be repeating the disruptive behaviour which resulted in an indefinite block before, lifted subject to assurances from you. Have you ever thought of trying to improve your article edit count, GoRight? That would be more helpful for this encyclopedia. Thanks, Mathsci (talk) 07:49, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- I have provided a reference to my request above for others to conveniently judge for themselves. If my request offended you in some way, I apologize. I choose to ignore this most current attack but if you (MathSci) would take this opportunity to clarify your meaning it would be most helpful in clearing this matter up. If my analysis above is incorrect I will gladly retract it once you have clarified your actual meaning. I don't believe that simply asking for clarification on what you meant by "not particularly surprising" is uncivil or baiting or even assuming bad faith. I would simply like to understand what you had in mind when you wrote that statement specifically so that I DON'T make any assumptions either way. Clear communications is important to avoiding misunderstandings and unwarranted animus, and reducing either of these should help to improve the editing environment here which is, of course, my goal. --GoRight (talk) 16:16, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- It was lucky that I was asleep so that I could ignore what appears to have been WP:BAITing and your own extraordinarily rude interpretation of my sleeping. Your message in a headline on my talk page, with its split infinitive, did not seem "simple and polite". Are you contesting my right to remove that message or are you claiming that my edit summary contravened certain wikipedia rules? At present you seem to be repeating the disruptive behaviour which resulted in an indefinite block before, lifted subject to assurances from you. Have you ever thought of trying to improve your article edit count, GoRight? That would be more helpful for this encyclopedia. Thanks, Mathsci (talk) 07:49, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- I had specifically requested that MathSci explain his comment above to make his meaning plain. It was a simple and polite request. This was his response. I can only assume that if his meaning was constructive that he would have been more than willing to come and make it more clear here. His bald dismissal of my request suggests, IMHO of course, the opposite. If I am wrong on that point I welcome MathSci to come and correct the record. --GoRight (talk) 01:52, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- Comment I did in fact ask WMC to self revert after he removed my comment, as he obviously did not then i believe he has in fact broken his parole mark nutley (talk) 18:14, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
- Comment Given the fact that WMC has a long history of misconduct dating back at least five years.[127], a one month topic ban seems too lenient to me. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 18:32, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
- I vote we chain him to a fence and throw rotten cabbages at him. That's no less an absurd suggestion. -- Scjessey (talk) 19:10, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
- Again, might I suggest a remedy here? I propose topic bans of increasing duration. If LHVU wants to start out at 72 hours or whatever, that's fine. I suggest, however, that the lengths of any future bans for this editor, if they occur, increase drastically in duration, from 3 days to one week, followed by one month, followed by two months, and so on until the behavior in question has been corrected. Obviously, the behavior is in need of correction. Note the vindictive motion by WMC in response below for an indication of his desire to self-correct. Cla68 (talk) 22:56, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
- Comment from clueless over here, WMC is once again wrong, please note the following Climate chief was told of false glacier claims before Copenhagen, and was asked about it in november He already knew the 2035 date was rubbish but stuck with it. mark nutley (talk) 23:21, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
- Sigh, you are playing word games WMC, Again please note the following, Ramesh recalled how IPCC chief R K Pachauri had scornfully dismissed doubts raised by a government agency about the veracity of the UN body's sensational projection about melting of glaciers. "In fact, we had issued a report by scientist V K Raina that the glaciers have not retreated abnormally. At the time, we were dismissed, saying it was based on voodoo science. But the new report has clearly vindicated our position I want a personal apology from the IPCC chairperson R.K. Pachauri who had described my research as voodoo science,” Mr. Raina told The Hindu over phone from Panchkula. “Forget IPCC, Dr. Pachauri has not even expressed regret over what he said after my report -- Himalayan Glaciers: a state-of-art review of glacial studies, glacial retreat and climate change -- was released in November last year So he knew in november the ipcc had cocked up, and still he called this guys work voodoo science, were exactly is this wrong in your eyes? mark nutley (talk) 23:52, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
@Jehochman, how do you manage to post a paragraph in a remedy section about WMC, and only mention the diffs provided of his behavior as "a mountain out of a molehill". You consistently fail to apply the probation as it exists, which has served only to enable this to continue. After your previous GBCW [128] to this page, I doubt your impartiality. If you have complaints about other editors on those pages, open a request like everyone else. Arkon (talk) 03:55, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
Result concerning More violations of sanctions by User:William M. Connolley
- This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the section above.
I am certainly minded to add "clueless" and similar to the banned expressions list for WMC, including in edit summaries. It is hard to see how this can lead to constructive dialogue. As for what's a talk page etc someone involved in the last lot is going have to answer that. And is it time for a "come off it and behave like and ordinary mortal" type action... hmm. Probably not from this diff list. --BozMo talk 20:20, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
- I feel we cannot allow the refactoring of another editors talkpage comments to pass unsanctioned, since it was not under one of the exceptions noted in WMC's restriction - and the argument that Enforcement pages do not fall under the ambit of the probation is simple Wikilawyering; personal attacks, and the like, would not be permitted either. However, I am not minded to remove WMC from editing for any extended period because I believe that such silencing of one of the major contributors would become (more) of the intended purpose of requests on the page than trying to return to a collegiate editing environment. My suggestion would be, following the 24 hour sanction previously, of a tariff of not less than 48 hours and not more than 96. It must be made clear to WMC and all those who are not willing to work within the terms of the probation toward a good working environment that they are the architects of their own sanctions - and thus they should be incremental but not punitive. There needs to be the probability of a return to editing within the near future. Frankly, 1 month blocks would be counter productive since some accounts may decide that they will attempt to destroy what little co-operation currently exists if they cannot be part of the editing team. Everyone should be, and is, welcome to edit here in good faith. LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:18, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
- Calling a person clueless makes an assessment of their mental state and should not be done, especially in edit summaries which cannot be retracted. Describing on-wiki behaviour as lacking in WP:CLUE is different, but if you are involved in the dispute you shouldn't need to do it anyway, other editors who do have clue will be able to spot clueless behaviour without you having to put it on a banner for them. The usage in this case seems to be aimed at the person, so yeah, add "clueless" and whatever variants to the no-type list.
- Suggesting that an editor find a different topic area where they are more knowledgable can be OK at times, but needs to be done with care. For one thing, it's like saying you're the toughest guy in the bar - you never know who will come in the door next. For another, a currently banned editor made a habit of telling other people they didn't know enough to edit "his" areas and this became part of the evidence. In this case, the suggestion seems not unreasonable. MN always has the option to acquire the requisite knowledge.
- Removing someone else's post from a discussion page, whatever the prefix, when you are in a dispute should not be done unless it's something egregious. Uninvolved observers are perfectly capable of evaluating and if necessary removing posts. Since WMC is currently under a restriction on removing posts at all, let's just clarify that it applies to all discussion-style pages (generally anywhere where you end your post with tildes) and move on.
Does that about cover it? Franamax (talk) 21:28, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
- Does that about cover it>> I think so. I think maximum clarity is lowest stress for us and whether what LHVU says was deliberate wikilawyer was in fact congenital pedantry is perhaps a benefit of doubt thing --BozMo talk 21:41, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
- Sorry, could you run that last bit past me again? :~) LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:47, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
- I think it means that if there's a choice between deliberate rules-lawyering on whether the page starts with Talk: or not, or confusion on exactly what the sanction meant, then we go with confusion and make things more clear. Some words may have got lost in the inter-tubes there, or actually just the "ing" is missing from "wikilawyer". As a congenital pedant myself, I always like to get the benefit of the doubt. ;) Franamax (talk) 22:42, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
- If folk are saying, "Let's make things clear" then I agree. If folk are saying, "Let's make things clear only" then I demur. WMC removed a comment by someone they are in dispute with, generally, over CC - and they are under notice that they may not do so. Comment removal, and the chosen adjectives, appear to violate the restriction placed upon WMC the last time he indulged in such practices. Let us make things clear, and enact a sanction under the restrictions noted for the reasons given. 48 hours only, since there might have been some confusion. LessHeard vanU (talk) 23:44, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
- To the extent that WMC is relying on the "but I'm right" defence, which everyone knows is not wikpedish at all even if you are right, and also know is not well-expressed with "you're an idiot"-style edit summaries, I'm forced to agree with you. The regime also seems to be designed with escalating sanctions in mind. I would easily accept a 24-hours-plus-one-minute or 31 on this, though I quail at a double-up given the ambiguities involved. Franamax (talk) 02:40, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- Mostly I agree with you, (your summary, above, was very helpful and spot on) but if the last block was 24 hours, I think 24 hours plus 1 minute, or even 31, sends the wrong message. Either it is sanctionable, or it isn't, and if it is, escalation is appropriate, because there have been a fair number of warnings. ++Lar: t/c 04:17, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- How would you feel about an RFC/U instead? Rather than nipping at the edges of a problem, why not deal with it completely? Jehochman Brrr 04:23, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- I don't think they work. I've seen a fair number that blunder on for a month or so, during which much heat is generated, and at the end the user blithely ignores the findings (the fact that some dissenting views are generated appears to enable them to ignore the larger consensus that they have a problem that needs addressing) and continues with the disruptive pattern of behavior. For example, this one. I suspect that an RfC/U on WMC would be worse. We have an enforcement regime here and I think it is actually doing some good. Slowly, but it is. ++Lar: t/c 11:20, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- How would you feel about an RFC/U instead? Rather than nipping at the edges of a problem, why not deal with it completely? Jehochman Brrr 04:23, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- Mostly I agree with you, (your summary, above, was very helpful and spot on) but if the last block was 24 hours, I think 24 hours plus 1 minute, or even 31, sends the wrong message. Either it is sanctionable, or it isn't, and if it is, escalation is appropriate, because there have been a fair number of warnings. ++Lar: t/c 04:17, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- To the extent that WMC is relying on the "but I'm right" defence, which everyone knows is not wikpedish at all even if you are right, and also know is not well-expressed with "you're an idiot"-style edit summaries, I'm forced to agree with you. The regime also seems to be designed with escalating sanctions in mind. I would easily accept a 24-hours-plus-one-minute or 31 on this, though I quail at a double-up given the ambiguities involved. Franamax (talk) 02:40, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- If folk are saying, "Let's make things clear" then I agree. If folk are saying, "Let's make things clear only" then I demur. WMC removed a comment by someone they are in dispute with, generally, over CC - and they are under notice that they may not do so. Comment removal, and the chosen adjectives, appear to violate the restriction placed upon WMC the last time he indulged in such practices. Let us make things clear, and enact a sanction under the restrictions noted for the reasons given. 48 hours only, since there might have been some confusion. LessHeard vanU (talk) 23:44, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
- I think it means that if there's a choice between deliberate rules-lawyering on whether the page starts with Talk: or not, or confusion on exactly what the sanction meant, then we go with confusion and make things more clear. Some words may have got lost in the inter-tubes there, or actually just the "ing" is missing from "wikilawyer". As a congenital pedant myself, I always like to get the benefit of the doubt. ;) Franamax (talk) 22:42, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
- Sorry, could you run that last bit past me again? :~) LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:47, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
- The account filing this request does not appear to have engaged in any worthwhile article building in the area. Their contributions appear to be more properly characterized as disruptive. The request itself is overblown--making a mountain out of a molehill. Therefore, I oppose any sanction, as this would encourage further rules lawyering, and baiting. WMC's contributions in the area, while not perfect have been substantial and serious. Wikipedia:Content matters. Please discuss rather than imposing a sanction that is not supported by a consensus. Jehochman Brrr 02:25, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- Wouldn't that comprise a separate request then? (Like the one just below?) This system seems designed to consider individuals and individual articles, one-by-one, to get the mess sorted. WMC is a big boy, he can withstand a sanction or two in the process of getting his stuff together to the point where he's not crossing lines in dealing with what he deals with. Correct me if I'm wrong here. Franamax (talk) 02:56, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- The one below is being rejected. It does not make sense to sanction the one expert who knows the most about the subject while giving a variety of tendentious accounts a free pass, and encouraging them to further their attacks against WMC. He's the target of a viscous campaign by right wing bloggers. We should not condone that. A warning should suffice here, then we need to turn to the primary sources of disruption and drop the hammer. Jehochman Brrr 03:36, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- The lone expert is smart enough to be capable of cleaning up his act. Given that, targeting the gunsights becomes much easier. Consider that it takes some serious skiing to even get to where you can aim the rifle. (Sorry for the biathlon analogy, I could see one of the venues from my front door - what I mean is that it takes a whole lot of reading to get a handle on all this. :) No-one gets a free pass, this is just the first request where I chose to weigh in. My assessment was a warning result too, but if LHvU sees need for a sanction, I'll defer as noted above. One miscreant at a time. I've observed the serial provocation and I'm not unaware of the possibility of off-site exhortations, though when you say it's "viscous" I do have to ask what the Reynolds number is. :) Franamax (talk) 04:23, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- Clarify that the little riff on "viscous" was much more a comment on my own obession with detail and interest in opportunities for wry, dark, or downright sick humour than it was with Jehochman's single typo/grammo. Franamax (talk) 06:34, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- Okay, I really WP:DGAF. You guys do what you must. I personally dislike using short blocks on established contributors. People should be treated as adults. An RFC would be more likely to change WMC's behavior for the better. A short block is unlikely to do much except stir up drama. As I said, do what you must. Jehochman Brrr 04:25, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- Franamax: Yes. WMC needs to tone down the abrasiveness. I know he can do it if he wants to. So far I don't think he's been motivated enough to want to.
- Jehochman: Escalating blocks will eventually get through. Or they will be escalated to the point that the disruption will cease. ++Lar: t/c 04:28, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- The best way to get out of a death spiral is not to go into one. Escalating blocks often lead to a self-reinforcing trend that is bad for Wikipedia. Jehochman Brrr 14:12, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- Usually. but sometimes it's best for the project and the editor that there is a parting of the ways if the editor cannot edit within our norms. What else do you suggest, given that there seems to be a persistent problem here? Please make a concrete and implementable suggestion for improvement of WMC's behavior. ++Lar: t/c 16:31, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- The best way to get out of a death spiral is not to go into one. Escalating blocks often lead to a self-reinforcing trend that is bad for Wikipedia. Jehochman Brrr 14:12, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- The lone expert is smart enough to be capable of cleaning up his act. Given that, targeting the gunsights becomes much easier. Consider that it takes some serious skiing to even get to where you can aim the rifle. (Sorry for the biathlon analogy, I could see one of the venues from my front door - what I mean is that it takes a whole lot of reading to get a handle on all this. :) No-one gets a free pass, this is just the first request where I chose to weigh in. My assessment was a warning result too, but if LHvU sees need for a sanction, I'll defer as noted above. One miscreant at a time. I've observed the serial provocation and I'm not unaware of the possibility of off-site exhortations, though when you say it's "viscous" I do have to ask what the Reynolds number is. :) Franamax (talk) 04:23, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- The one below is being rejected. It does not make sense to sanction the one expert who knows the most about the subject while giving a variety of tendentious accounts a free pass, and encouraging them to further their attacks against WMC. He's the target of a viscous campaign by right wing bloggers. We should not condone that. A warning should suffice here, then we need to turn to the primary sources of disruption and drop the hammer. Jehochman Brrr 03:36, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- Wouldn't that comprise a separate request then? (Like the one just below?) This system seems designed to consider individuals and individual articles, one-by-one, to get the mess sorted. WMC is a big boy, he can withstand a sanction or two in the process of getting his stuff together to the point where he's not crossing lines in dealing with what he deals with. Correct me if I'm wrong here. Franamax (talk) 02:56, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- I have enacted a 48 hour block on WMC's account, with regard to this request, per the above discussion. As ever, I welcome review and I will not oppose any admins good faith variance or lifting of the sanction. LessHeard vanU (talk) 13:52, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- Personally I do not see the above discussion supporting this action. As far as I can see B, F & J were against the sanction and L and L in favour of it. Could someone recount for me? --BozMo talk 15:09, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- I don't see Franamax as opposed to a block entirely, my read was that Franamax was advocating 24h+1min or 31h rather than 48. That shifts things. Also, you didn't opine clearly, so I don't think I knew where you stood until just now. But I'll reiterate, I think we should propose the sanction and seek consensus, not just implement it first. ++Lar: t/c 16:31, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- Agreed that next time LHvU please seek consensus if we are going to bother having discussion, including amongst people who may be in bed at different times of day to you. I think there was not very good listening between uninvolved admins on this one, and am concerned per J that all we have done is made a major move toward worsening things. On F, like J and I, I read F as saying "am prepared to defer to consensus"> but it gets a bit odd if three people prepared to "defer" to consensus have consensus declared against them by a smaller number. Not that I could not have been talked around but there are certainly other things to fix at the same time. Also we did not even get to topic ban versus editing ban. I am not proud of our performance here.--BozMo talk 19:39, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- Well, I obviously was under the impression that we were discussing whether WMC had violated his restriction regarding refactoring other peoples comments and also his use of intemperate discriptions of others and their agenda's. I read that there was consensus that he had. On that basis I moved to enact the agreed sanctions, those that were detailed in those restrictions, after first requesting what sort of time scale we should impose. Having read the discussion I went to 48 hours since it seemed a sufficient increase upon the previous block, not as short as the last block + 1 hour suggested, and not the 96 which I had suggested as the upper end (I considered all the "requests" for 1 week/1 month to be punative, and did not factor them in my considerations). If anyone did have reservations about the potential block, I wish that they had clarified that and the basis of the reservations. As I said previously, I am not wedded to my sanctions and will not "refuse" a variation or lifting of the block - but I would be concerned how we are supposed to police these articles if we impose restrictions which we then apply to some editors and not others, sometimes, depending on the prevailing opinion. LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:26, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- I share your concern. I just think we may possibly need to get crisper on "I propose this enforcement action" "I concur" "I disagree because" kind of phrasing so we can avoid this sort of confusion going forward. ++Lar: t/c 21:02, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- Without imposing yet another layer of bullrocracy (my invention, please note when using in future) on these processes, the case of Mark nutley was closed with a proposed wording not enacted because there were too few responses to indicate consensus. We - me included - do need to sharpen up our act to be both transparent and clear in our opinions. And prompt. LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:09, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- I am certainly not minded to lift the block (although I would if enough people turned up and said so). In this particular case I think that we are in danger both of making ourselves look foolish and of escalating things. There is also a general problem of trolling on these articles lately: WMC has rightly pointed out the presence of a number of editors who have never made an original contribution to a single article in the topic except perhaps a revert, who are filling up talk pages with low quality comment. If we are to avoid looking stupid we need to show we are capable of addressing that issue rather than shooting the messenger when this is (undoubtedly uncivilly) pointed out. In general though my view on violations is that we should be probably more decisive and live with the knowledge we will make bad calls. If we are trying to work with consensus here though we should, as Lar said, be explicit. In this case LHvU you were not making a consensus block based on the discussion here, you were forming your own judgement and acting on it. I can live with that (especially for dismissing frivolous complaints which I personally think should be single uninvolved admin with one seconder). I can also live with the idea that no one admin should be involved in every decision here, and I don't like reopening things. But I have a problem with agreeing one process and living by another. --BozMo talk 21:21, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- I share your concern. I just think we may possibly need to get crisper on "I propose this enforcement action" "I concur" "I disagree because" kind of phrasing so we can avoid this sort of confusion going forward. ++Lar: t/c 21:02, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- Well, I obviously was under the impression that we were discussing whether WMC had violated his restriction regarding refactoring other peoples comments and also his use of intemperate discriptions of others and their agenda's. I read that there was consensus that he had. On that basis I moved to enact the agreed sanctions, those that were detailed in those restrictions, after first requesting what sort of time scale we should impose. Having read the discussion I went to 48 hours since it seemed a sufficient increase upon the previous block, not as short as the last block + 1 hour suggested, and not the 96 which I had suggested as the upper end (I considered all the "requests" for 1 week/1 month to be punative, and did not factor them in my considerations). If anyone did have reservations about the potential block, I wish that they had clarified that and the basis of the reservations. As I said previously, I am not wedded to my sanctions and will not "refuse" a variation or lifting of the block - but I would be concerned how we are supposed to police these articles if we impose restrictions which we then apply to some editors and not others, sometimes, depending on the prevailing opinion. LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:26, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- Agreed that next time LHvU please seek consensus if we are going to bother having discussion, including amongst people who may be in bed at different times of day to you. I think there was not very good listening between uninvolved admins on this one, and am concerned per J that all we have done is made a major move toward worsening things. On F, like J and I, I read F as saying "am prepared to defer to consensus"> but it gets a bit odd if three people prepared to "defer" to consensus have consensus declared against them by a smaller number. Not that I could not have been talked around but there are certainly other things to fix at the same time. Also we did not even get to topic ban versus editing ban. I am not proud of our performance here.--BozMo talk 19:39, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- I don't see Franamax as opposed to a block entirely, my read was that Franamax was advocating 24h+1min or 31h rather than 48. That shifts things. Also, you didn't opine clearly, so I don't think I knew where you stood until just now. But I'll reiterate, I think we should propose the sanction and seek consensus, not just implement it first. ++Lar: t/c 16:31, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
ZP5, AQFK, ATren
Attention: This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.
Request concerning ZP5, AQFK, ATren
- User requesting enforcement
- William M. Connolley (talk) 21:53, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
- User against whom enforcement is requested
- ZuluPapa5 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), A Quest For Knowledge (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), ATren (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- Sanction or remedy that this user violated
- Wikipedia:General sanctions/Climate change probation
- Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it
- [129] ZP5 contrib history: no contributions of any value to articlespace on climate change
- [130] ATren contribution history: ditto
- [131] A_Quest_For_Knowledge contribution history: ditto
- Another one: [132] Spoonkymonkey contrib history: ditto
- Diffs of notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required)
See complaint above etc etc.
- Enforcement action requested (block, topic ban or other sanction)
- Ban from climate change articles under probabtion until they are prepared to actually improve wikipedia.
- Additional comments by editor filing complaint
Climate change is fraught enough without kibitzers circling like flies around a corpse.
@ATren: I have no defense, because, frankly, I have no idea what I'm defending - err yes: that is indeed the point: you have no contributions of any value to defend.
@Cla68, Arzel: the silence of your inability to demonstrate valuable contributions from these editors is deafening.
- Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested
- The requesting user is asked to notify the user against whom this request is directed of it, and then to replace this text with a diff of that notification. The request will normally not be processed otherwise.
Discussion concerning ZP5, AQFK, ATren
Statement by ZP5, AQFK, ATren
I have no defense, because, frankly, I have no idea what I'm defending. ATren (talk) 21:56, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
Me too, defenseless where there is no offense. If you would like to contribute to something more valuable, I invite you here: User:ZuluPapa5/CAUC in exile as I ... while we patiently wait for peaceful times in these articles to avoid disruptive warriors. Zulu Papa 5 ☆ (talk) 02:46, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
Statement by A Quest For Knowledge
The claimed violation is not listed at Wikipedia:General sanctions/Climate change probation. Therefore, it should be immediately dismissed. Further, this request appears to be in retaliation for the above requests. I recommend that WMC be sanctioned for disruptively filing frivolous complaints and abusing the system. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 00:09, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
Second Statement by A Quest for Knowledge
As the admins consider what warning/sanction is appropriate for filing this request, please consider the following question: Has WMC demonstrated anything to show that he's willing to reform his behavior? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 13:06, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
Comments by others about the request concerning ZP5, AQFK, ATren
- This motion appears to be of a retaliatory nature. Cla68 (talk) 23:05, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
- Clearly a retaliation. Arzel (talk) 23:10, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
- It seems simple to disprove the request: just find some edits to climate change articles that you have made that are indisputably constructive. Ignignot (talk) 23:27, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
- Well here`s some for ZP5 [133] [134] [135] some for AQFK [136] [137] I`ll look up some others if the guys are not online by tommorow but i`m tired and away to bed mark nutley (talk) 23:41, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
- Let me amend my statement to include that the edits should be more than a typo fix, unless there are a whole lot of typo fixes. I don't think this is unreasonable - I think 2 of ZP5's qualify. Ignignot (talk) 23:46, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
- ATren helped fix Fred Singer's BLP, to which WMC, among others, had tried to make negative. ATren deserves a thank you for doing that, especially since, perhaps as a result, he has been subjected to retaliation by one of the editors who opposed him on that article. Cla68 (talk) 23:48, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
- We are volunteers. We volunteer what we wish, when we can. Should I begin to find an area of Wikipedia that I think you don't contribute enough to, then ask you to be banned from it? This is a dangerous road. Arkon (talk) 23:49, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
- I'm not saying that you (or anyone on this list) are or are not a "good editor". I'm just saying that it would be easy to disprove with a few diffs, which would lay this to rest quickly and quietly, although it looks like this might not be within probation scope, pending admin consensus. In any case - I don't think you can dispute that we all spend an inordinate amount of time arguing about climate change articles, and that not all of it is necessary. I have long been of the opinion that stopping the endless arguments is impossible, but keeping it to a dull roar is within reach. However, every day I believe that it might require some extreme measures to make that a reality. But as you said, I'm just a volunteer - some guy on the internet - and the only weight that my opinion carries is how much people assign to it themselves. I like to think that I am reasonable. Ignignot (talk) 23:58, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
- 2 other things came to mind. First: I think that one possible (although perhaps not correct or fair) solution is to ban some problem editors to reduce arguments, and then hopefully experience an increase in time spent actually editing articles instead of talk pages. Second: That I end too many comments with the word reasonable. Ignignot (talk) 00:02, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- I'm not saying that you (or anyone on this list) are or are not a "good editor". I'm just saying that it would be easy to disprove with a few diffs, which would lay this to rest quickly and quietly, although it looks like this might not be within probation scope, pending admin consensus. In any case - I don't think you can dispute that we all spend an inordinate amount of time arguing about climate change articles, and that not all of it is necessary. I have long been of the opinion that stopping the endless arguments is impossible, but keeping it to a dull roar is within reach. However, every day I believe that it might require some extreme measures to make that a reality. But as you said, I'm just a volunteer - some guy on the internet - and the only weight that my opinion carries is how much people assign to it themselves. I like to think that I am reasonable. Ignignot (talk) 23:58, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
- Let me amend my statement to include that the edits should be more than a typo fix, unless there are a whole lot of typo fixes. I don't think this is unreasonable - I think 2 of ZP5's qualify. Ignignot (talk) 23:46, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
- My contributions can be found here:
- Editors have been blocked for disruptive enforcement requests such as this. Arkon (talk) 23:30, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
- Agreed. Like many other RfE's, this is bollocks. WMC should be whacked with the proverbial wet fish and the request should be dismissed. -- Scjessey (talk) 00:33, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- What violation of the probation is being alleged here? I can't discern any from the request. Lacking any discernible claim of a violation of the probation there seems little need to waste valuable time looking through the contribution histories WMC has pointed us to. Perhaps a simple warning concerning the filing of frivolous requests and wasting the community's time is in order. I leave it to the administrators to determine if this is the case. --GoRight (talk) 01:36, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- @ Lar and LHvU: Regarding the number of frivolous requests required to receive a warning. At the risk of dredging up old problems, I direct your attention to the following, [142]. This was my second request (the first was closed as being brought to the wrong venue) so this was the first request that was judged to be frivolous on my part and it garnered a warning on the first such request. It is somewhat instructive to review that particular request because in hind sight it was particularly on topic with respect to the probation and also quite even handed if I must say so myself. Anyway, if you are looking for a precedent to follow this would have been the first such warning issued under the probation. I leave it to you to decide if the standards should be "relaxed" from what they were then. :) --GoRight (talk) 21:47, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
These sanctions appear to be serving the purpose of 'levelling the playing field', as was discussed at some point when they were being proposed. So, now those who by their own admission know very little about the subject have equal control over the articles as those who are life-long, world-class and career experts in it. And they have far more control over this RfE page, where they appear to thrive. --Nigelj (talk) 13:25, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- Comment As WMC just got blocked for 48 hours i think any further sanctions a step to far, Im with what LHVU says below, just tell the guy not to file silly requests again mark nutley (talk) 14:07, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
Result concerning ZP5, AQFK, ATren
- This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the section above.
- I do not believe this to be a legitimate request, within the scope of the probation. LessHeard vanU (talk) 23:46, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
- I don't either. ++Lar: t/c 02:11, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- This board is not capable of reviewing an editor's entire contribution history. If you want to make a case that they are politely disruptive by engaging in circular discussion, please point out specific threads using permanent links. Please also consider whether it would be useful to start an RFC on each editor. Before you do that, find a second party to review each editor's contribution history, and if necessary approach each editor and try to coax them towards productive contributions. Jehochman Brrr 02:20, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- Suggest that WMC be warned not to file frivolous requests or requests that give the appearance of revenge, and that WMC be further warned that the next such may result in sanctions, such as, for example, disallowance of further filings, as we have done to other editors when adjudged to have been filing requests unreasonably. ++Lar: t/c 04:30, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- I should think there needs to be a recent history of filing poor faith requests before we warn editors, let alone sanction. LessHeard vanU (talk) 14:00, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- Perhaps... How many poor faith requests before the first warning, in your thinking? ++Lar: t/c 16:25, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- Three? Seems sufficient for anyone to understand what constitutes a poor faith request. Fourth time draws a sanction. As I inferred in an above section, I feel that once there is a warning then any clear violation draws a sanction. The only proviso would be that if there were intervening good faith requests; then the clock is set back a bit - we are attempting to stop serial poor faith requests only. LessHeard vanU (talk)
- We did sanction with less than 3 last time IIRC but I could be confused. ++Lar: t/c 21:37, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- How would you know, given that more than 90% of the so-called "sceptic" editors are socks? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:45, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- How would Lar (who has only recently put aside his CU tools) know? I think the clue is in the reference to CU - unless of course you are asking how he knows he is confused (although the later comment about socks then confuses me); good question, if you are confused how are you supposed to know? Deeeeeeeeep, man! LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:50, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- As any good self-help book will tell you, it's not the size of your tool that matters, but what you do with it. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:55, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
Global Warming talk-page discussion shutdown
There's been an arbitrary shut-down of a discussion regarding the British Institute of Physics and the Information Commission discussion of the CRU's science. It may well be that the discussion for on another page, but Tony Sidaway's decision to archive an ongoing discussion without any attempt at consensus seems true to pattern and high-handed. I believe Global Warming is as good a place as any for this discussion, and, if there is a better place, the people engaged in the discussion should be notified and the discussion moved to a more appropriate page. Spoonkymonkey (talk) 00:47, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- I collapsed two recent discussions that appeared to relate to an ongoing Commons Select Committee Inquiry, and seemed to have little or no direct relevance to the article Global warming. In the hatnote for the collapse I directed further discussion to a more appropriate talk page, the intention being not to close discussion but to prevent duplication, and to keep discussion on talk pages focussed on improving the article in question. In my opinion this was the correct thing to do.
- I have asked the above user to explain what relevance the matter has to the article Global warming, and his response suggests to me that he genuinely believes that this matter relates to the entire subject and affects many articles; I think this view is unlikely to win consensus and suggest that he set more modest objectives and continue to make his case until there is adequate support for his ambitious premise. There are more appropriate pages on which to do this--arguing for the item to be discussed in the article to which I directed him, or a related article, should be easy and should quickly gain support. On that he may build.
- It isn't unusual for articles on general subjects to attract off-topic discussion. It's extremely common on this article, and I think this is the correct way to deal with it: gently but firmly direct discussion to the talk page of a more appropriate article. --TS 01:55, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- My understanding of the sanctions regime is that we are not supposed to interfere in any way with discussion by others, no matter how inappropriate or off-topic. Someone can correct me if that's wrong. (Personally I find the best thing to do with unconstructive discussion is simply to ignore it; responding in any way only encourages such things.) Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 04:16, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- I don't think that's a correct understanding. There are some folk who are enjoined from interfering because of prior interferences that were inappropriate but it's not a blanket prohibition, although I invite correction. I agree that ignoring unconstructive digression is often the best approach. ++Lar: t/c 11:35, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- My understanding of the sanctions regime is that we are not supposed to interfere in any way with discussion by others, no matter how inappropriate or off-topic. Someone can correct me if that's wrong. (Personally I find the best thing to do with unconstructive discussion is simply to ignore it; responding in any way only encourages such things.) Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 04:16, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- This epitomises the problems with this large array of articles, persistent pov pushing on the basis of emerging news. Uncorrected Evidence 39 from the Institute of Physics states –
1. The Institute is concerned that, unless the disclosed e-mails are proved to be forgeries or adaptations, worrying implications arise for the integrity of scientific research in this field and for the credibility of the scientific method as practised in this context.
2. The CRU e-mails as published on the internet provide prima facie evidence of determined and co-ordinated refusals to comply with honourable scientific traditions and freedom of information law. The principle that scientists should be willing to expose their ideas and results to independent testing and replication by others, which requires the open exchange of data, procedures and materials, is vital. The lack of compliance has been confirmed by the findings of the Information Commissioner.
This sounds damning, and in good faith, editors feel that this new information is so important that it must be put in main articles about global warming. One problem – the Information Commissioner (ICO) has issued no finding, it made an (as yet undisclosed) statement to one persistent reporter that there was strong evidence sufficient to make a case that the university had failed to respond properly to a request to release private emails, but the ICO would not pursue that case as it was time-barred. The reporter misrepresented it as "hiding data", and the IOP seems to have fallen for that misrepresentation.
There's a vocal lobby claiming that climate change science is an international conspiracy and fraud, and it's not widely appreciated that by "American standards, all British newspapers are tabloids because they don’t distinguish between what is true and what they make up."[143][144] There's an understandable lack of critical analysis about such news claims, particularly when WP:V is interpreted to mean that if something appears in a reliable source like a newspaper, we should add it without any further research or cross-checking, These sanctions by focussing on etiquette enable such pov pushing. Enforcement of content policies isn't on the agenda, should it be? . .dave souza, talk 07:35, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- Perhaps it should be, but I suspect it will be harder to get to clear cut resolution of matters brought. Especially when sources are subject to a litmus test as you seem to be suggesting be done. I'm not sure I agree with that view. If a widely read newspaper reports something and doing so is significant to the overall perception of the issue, it is not our place to denigrate the paper as being too tabloid.
- I'm not opposed to trying to enforce content policies, properly interpreted, but that may just be because I'm "domineering", "tend to dismiss reasoned argument" and my "judgement appears to be poor" who shows "little evidence that he's really there to contribute to building an encyclopaedia" rather than because it's actually a good idea. If you can't win on strength of argument, attack the folk doing the enforcement in whatever venue offers itself. Right, Dave? ++Lar: t/c 11:29, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
Discussion re editor role
- Sounds like you have a conflict of interest, Lar, I take you as I find you. Enforcing content policies is harder than enforcing civility, a point examined in the essay WP:Civil POV pushing. . . dave souza, talk 11:36, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- No, I think you form preconceived notions, (or worse, ascribe characteristics to your aversaries that you yourself possess) and then try to make things fit your desired narrative. Far more likely you have a conflict than I, actually. My point stands, but thanks for reminding others of that essay. If you'd care to continue disparaging me, I suggest you take it to my talk, I'm not going to let your attempts to shift focus deter me from impartially commenting here. ++Lar: t/c 12:29, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- Sounds like you have a conflict of interest, Lar, I take you as I find you. Enforcing content policies is harder than enforcing civility, a point examined in the essay WP:Civil POV pushing. . . dave souza, talk 11:36, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- The "civil POV pushing" essay is part of the problem, not the solution. See this for an opposing view. ATren (talk) 13:01, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- @ Lar, I have the preconceived notion that articles should reflect majority expert views, and pages devoted to minority views should refer to the majority view and not present issues from the minority viewpoint. I also think we need good and unbiased research, based upon the best and most reputable authoritative sources available. When a journalist writes about "How the global warming industry is based on one MASSIVE lie",[145] we should research the mainstream view,[146] and give it due weight. I've no wish to disparage you, nor be pushed off the subject by you.
@ Atren, I see that essay as complementary, and good advice. The civil pov pushing essay is something for uninvolved admins to be aware of when dealing with such content disputes. . . dave souza, talk 13:25, 2 March 2010 (UTC)- I don't see how people behaving civilly can be considered worse than people behaving uncivilly. You jerks. Ignignot (talk) 13:38, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- Lar's comments above suggest that he is sufficiently embittered toward at least one of the parties in this dispute that he should withdraw from enforcement in this topic area. He brought in comments from his Steward review -- an issue unrelated to the present topic -- and is shoving them in Dave's face. Carrying a grudge into an enforcement page is wholly inappropriate. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 13:46, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- Sorry, I do not see any evidence that Lar should withdraw.SPhilbrickT 16:05, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- Thanks Sphilbrick, agreed. The comments are relevant because they show Dave souza (and others) holding grudges against an uninvolved administrator about matters relatd to this page. Which will be taken into account, I would hope, in appropriate circumstances. Those who don't want to be reminded of casting aspersions should consider not casting them in the first place. ++Lar: t/c 16:24, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- Lar, you raised comments from the steward !vote, and seem to have a grudge against me for expressing an opinion based on your actions. I've no grudge against you, and will be delighted if we can both put this behind us, and focus on aricle improvement. . . dave souza, talk 18:09, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- Those comments you made directly relate to this topic area and enforcement page, we have little or no interaction elsewhere. If you seriously think there is an issue with any of my actions here on en:wp, there are myriad avenues open to you to pursue the matter, and you should do so. But raising them there (when they have nothing to do with my stewardry work), and then disavowing their applicability just won't fly. Pointing that out to you is not "having a grudge", it's keeping you intellectually honest. Take this matter to my talk, or better, drop any further accusations going forward, unless in the proper venue. Clear? ++Lar: t/c 20:20, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- Lar, you raised comments from the steward !vote, and seem to have a grudge against me for expressing an opinion based on your actions. I've no grudge against you, and will be delighted if we can both put this behind us, and focus on aricle improvement. . . dave souza, talk 18:09, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- Thanks Sphilbrick, agreed. The comments are relevant because they show Dave souza (and others) holding grudges against an uninvolved administrator about matters relatd to this page. Which will be taken into account, I would hope, in appropriate circumstances. Those who don't want to be reminded of casting aspersions should consider not casting them in the first place. ++Lar: t/c 16:24, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- Ignignot: But civil POV-pushing is still POV pushing. The core problem remains. And AFAIK, there is no appropriate venue to settle this dispute. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 13:48, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- Well, personally, I think that essay on Civil POV pushing should be deleted as being inherently uncivil. It is written from a biased perspective from the outset. It is written in such a way what it specifically excludes certain editors who clearly have a POV which they aggressively push and yet they wish to consider themselves as NOT being POV pushers themselves. The type of thinking embodied by that essay is distinctly flawed and it contributes significantly to the toxic nature of the current editing environment on these pages. --GoRight (talk) 16:41, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- Sorry, I do not see any evidence that Lar should withdraw.SPhilbrickT 16:05, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- Lar's comments above suggest that he is sufficiently embittered toward at least one of the parties in this dispute that he should withdraw from enforcement in this topic area. He brought in comments from his Steward review -- an issue unrelated to the present topic -- and is shoving them in Dave's face. Carrying a grudge into an enforcement page is wholly inappropriate. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 13:46, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- I don't see how people behaving civilly can be considered worse than people behaving uncivilly. You jerks. Ignignot (talk) 13:38, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- @ Lar, I have the preconceived notion that articles should reflect majority expert views, and pages devoted to minority views should refer to the majority view and not present issues from the minority viewpoint. I also think we need good and unbiased research, based upon the best and most reputable authoritative sources available. When a journalist writes about "How the global warming industry is based on one MASSIVE lie",[145] we should research the mainstream view,[146] and give it due weight. I've no wish to disparage you, nor be pushed off the subject by you.
- The "civil POV pushing" essay is part of the problem, not the solution. See this for an opposing view. ATren (talk) 13:01, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
Point re sources
(outdent) It is my understanding that Talk pages are the place to resolve POV differences. Tendacious editing is a different animal entirely though. When people never resolve the POV differences we have a problem. Obviously if everyone agreed on NPOV there would be little if any uncivil behavior, but in the absence of convergence at least there won't be lots of internet rage. Ignignot (talk) 14:13, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- @Dave, responding to “articles should reflect majority expert views”. I don’t believe this position is supported by policy. My apologies for being slightly off-topic, but only slightly. Some of the content disputes are rooted in the belief that if an article makes mention of science, material can be excluded, even though from a RS, if it does not meet the invented hurdle of “majority expert view”. This is contrary to the spirit and intent of Wikipedia. I’ve stated before that I have no problem with a rule that, in the case of conflicting reports, that expert (e.g peer-reviewed) sources trump non-expert, but I do not agree with the decision to exclude information because it does not meet your criterion. I think some of the passion in the edit warring arises from your belief that your view is policy, and pushback from editors who have a correct understanding of policy. I could be wrong about policy; it wouldn’t be the first time, but if WP really has a policy allowing the exclusion of material from newspapers because the reporters don’t meet your definition of expert, I’d like to see the policy.SPhilbrickT 15:59, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- Agreed. A very novel interpretation of policy at best. ++Lar: t/c 16:24, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- @Sphilbrick - Agreed and very well said. --GoRight (talk) 16:44, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- I also agree. i have never seen such wholesale violations of WP:AGF as at global warming. It is usually totally acceptable everywhere else for editors to add material from newspapers and periodicals. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 21:53, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- @Dave, responding to “articles should reflect majority expert views”. I don’t believe this position is supported by policy. My apologies for being slightly off-topic, but only slightly. Some of the content disputes are rooted in the belief that if an article makes mention of science, material can be excluded, even though from a RS, if it does not meet the invented hurdle of “majority expert view”. This is contrary to the spirit and intent of Wikipedia. I’ve stated before that I have no problem with a rule that, in the case of conflicting reports, that expert (e.g peer-reviewed) sources trump non-expert, but I do not agree with the decision to exclude information because it does not meet your criterion. I think some of the passion in the edit warring arises from your belief that your view is policy, and pushback from editors who have a correct understanding of policy. I could be wrong about policy; it wouldn’t be the first time, but if WP really has a policy allowing the exclusion of material from newspapers because the reporters don’t meet your definition of expert, I’d like to see the policy.SPhilbrickT 15:59, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
Policy and civility
Ok, so you didn't like my quick paraphrase of "Neutrality requires that the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, and should do so in proportion to the prominence of each. Now an important qualification: In general, articles should not give minority views as much or as detailed a description as more widely held views, and the views of tiny minorities should not be included at all." Note I didn't say "should only reflect majority expert view", minority views should be shown fairly and proportionately, while articles giving more attention to minority views "should make appropriate reference to the majority viewpoint wherever relevant, and must not reflect an attempt to rewrite content strictly from the perspective of the minority view." Was trying to keep it short, sorry if there were any misunderstandings. My understanding is that when describing the science, the clear majority scientific consensus has most weight. When describing "controversy" about the science, that still applies. When describing political and social aspects, other majority reliable sources can be appropriate, preferably academic analysis rather than reflecting directly campaigning material from any "side". Of course, if you hold other views I'll be interested to hear them. . . dave souza, talk 18:24, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
Ignignot, I've only been involved in this topic space for a few months. As far as I can gather, this POV dispute has been going on for years. Clearly, the community has failed to resolve this problem. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 17:29, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- (e/c)I guess I just feel that all editors have POV issues, and that there is no way to make them go away without getting rid of everyone. I see Wikipedia as more of a process than a result - the disagreement results in articles going back and forth on minor details, which is fine. I doubt there are many articles without POV arguments - and the ones that don't have them are not interesting. So I think resolving POV issues for good in this topic is impossible, but that constructive work has been, is being, and will be done despite (and often because of!) the disagreements. Incivility has a tendency to divert people from working on articles and spend more time yelling at each other, on admin issues, and in general not thinking of the topic, and instead thinking about the other editors. I don't particularly like the essay on Civil POV issues because it is so easy to point the finger at people who are in honest civil disagreement with you and then ignore them, breaking the BRT process down. To actually punish someone for that kind of behavior defies belief because inevitably there was a person arguing on both sides. That a "Civil POV" editor would be punished when compared to the other "Civil NPOV" is simply a matter of if he or she holds a minority view, something that is supposed to be in the article anyway. And after the POV editor is gone, inevitably another will come to replace him or her, after the article is slowly changed into the "NPOV" viewpoint. Somewhere along the way both sides of the climate change debate fell into the habit of goading and borderline PA and repeated admin action - and what has it resulted in? A tale I tell to you now, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. A few are banned for crossing the line, but others always replace them. My own personal feeling is that any incivility in climate change should be punished very harshly, and that if you are in a grey area then you get punished just as hard. Currently we have a back and forth reminiscent of kids fighting in the back seat of the car - and if a verbal reprimand doesn't work, then we'll just have to turn this damn car around! Ignignot (talk) 18:01, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- There obviously is a long term problem with POV pushing in the global warming articles. We devote far too much attention to a very small number of scientists who express dissent from the climate change consensus, for instance, and we've spent a lot of time discussing issues that are, for the most part, only being discussed because they're on various "climate skeptic" blogs run by non-scientists. We're faced with pushes, continually, to relax our sourcing standards--Delingpole's opinion pieces, for instance, have been described as "reliable sources" simply by virtue of being published by the Telegraph, and similarly Booker's recently published book is being described as reliable because it's printed by a reputable publisher. Over time, this kind of pushing does damage our coverage, and it ought to be possible to identify such activities and clamp down on them. --TS 18:10, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- For the repeated pushes - to rename articles, to allow non RS, to delete articles - people keep bringing them up, sure. If no one responded to them after the first in depth discussion, it might put quite the damper on arguments and talk pages with 100 archives. My ideal is that if something that has been brought up before is brought up again, it gets one response: see faq # blah, and if people want to argue about faq # blah, then take it to RfA - perhaps a specialized set of admins that are familiar with the usual arguments and can therefore close repeated requests quickly, and if the same user keeps bringing up the same thing, sanction? - and have this process in BIG BOLD LETTERS at the top of the talk. And that everyone gets along in a field of magical unicorns farting love on each other. Ignignot (talk) 18:29, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- There obviously is a long term problem with POV pushing in the global warming articles. We devote far too much attention to a very small number of scientists who express dissent from the climate change consensus, for instance, and we've spent a lot of time discussing issues that are, for the most part, only being discussed because they're on various "climate skeptic" blogs run by non-scientists. We're faced with pushes, continually, to relax our sourcing standards--Delingpole's opinion pieces, for instance, have been described as "reliable sources" simply by virtue of being published by the Telegraph, and similarly Booker's recently published book is being described as reliable because it's printed by a reputable publisher. Over time, this kind of pushing does damage our coverage, and it ought to be possible to identify such activities and clamp down on them. --TS 18:10, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- The problem with the FAQ approach (which does work quite well, I find) is that POV pushers will simply claim that the FAQ is out of date, and then the debate goes off again. It's well nigh impossible to convince a determined POV pusher who is sure that right is on his side that the reason he failed to prevail the last 18 times is the same reason he'll fail the 19th time, because things haven't changed and he still lacks consensus. --TS 18:34, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- Then just throwing an idea out there - maybe a single, centralized climate change FAQ, with a segment for each topic, with the FAQ on the topic mirrored on the appropriate talk pages. You can't change the FAQ without discussion on the FAQ page, which would be a good single place for a knowledgeable admin to keep an eye on to nip any repeated arguments in the bud? I'm sure my sweeping solution to all of our problems will work. Ignignot (talk) 18:46, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- I've helped to write two FAQs: one for global warming and the other for the Climatic Research Unit hacking incident. Although ostensibly about related subjects there isn't any significant overlap, and I think the approach of keeping specialist FAQs for talk pages that encounter a lot of repeated discussion works well enough. I'm not, by-and-large, in love with the idea of any individual--admin or not--sitting watch over a talk page and associated FAQ, although I don't see a reasonable alternative on especially repetition-prone pages such as those two. Where I would draw the line is somebody squatting over all the main articles and imposing a single monolithic FAQ, because I think it would be easy for things to get out of sync, and rather than just updating the FAQ as one does you'd end up with a kind of bureaucracy, which is not a good idea. My approach is that we keep the FAQ as up-to-date and accurate as possible by normal editing, and that's enough to see off most POV-pushing expeditions. Quite thrillingly so, which is the joy of FAQs. --TS 18:59, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- Yeah the off the cuff idea obviously wasn't a good solution to anything - Jim Crow-ing the way to actually make edits is not exactly fair. When the FAQs address a specific issue that someone re-raises they work great, because they cut off future discussion quickly. As someone above pointed out though, a lot of the edit-warring and vitriol is essentially about news. There is of course WP:NOTNEWS but that just gets thrown out the window in the political articles. However bringing up current events something I am at least somewhat sympathetic to, because where do you draw the line? But the rhythm of the arguments is so predictable that you can almost waltz to it: "Hey this new development completely changes the article" -> "No it does not matter at all" -> "yes it does and it is a WP:RS" -> "no they are a blog/shill/don't get it/are self serving/not secondary/things are different now" -> "why don't you WP:AGF you smelly person" -> "stop with the WP:PA already you imbecile." -> arbitrary other wiki policy linking (BLP is a favorite), eventually spilling to talk pages, diff mining, Rfe... I guess the question is, can you be tendacious without repeating yourself? I still favor strict, harsh enforcement, punishing even borderline cases, but I was raised that way. I've seen first hand that if someone can give you enough pain, and is arbitrary enough on enforcement, that even a mess of poorly socialized nerds with too much time on their hands can be brought into line. Kind of. Ignignot (talk) 21:03, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- One thing I do notice with talk:global warming is that the pointless repetition dies down a lot when it's semi-protected. I'm not sure whether this is wholly due to scibaby being locked out, or just general lack of non-logged-in editors coming in with material from a blog or newspaper article. I do wonder if it would be worth implementing talk page semi on other articles for that reason. It isn't really an onerous requirement that somebody register a username, make three or four edits anywhere on the wiki, then wait three or four days, and it isn't as if the articles in question were crying out for more talk page participants. --TS 21:18, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- Yeah the off the cuff idea obviously wasn't a good solution to anything - Jim Crow-ing the way to actually make edits is not exactly fair. When the FAQs address a specific issue that someone re-raises they work great, because they cut off future discussion quickly. As someone above pointed out though, a lot of the edit-warring and vitriol is essentially about news. There is of course WP:NOTNEWS but that just gets thrown out the window in the political articles. However bringing up current events something I am at least somewhat sympathetic to, because where do you draw the line? But the rhythm of the arguments is so predictable that you can almost waltz to it: "Hey this new development completely changes the article" -> "No it does not matter at all" -> "yes it does and it is a WP:RS" -> "no they are a blog/shill/don't get it/are self serving/not secondary/things are different now" -> "why don't you WP:AGF you smelly person" -> "stop with the WP:PA already you imbecile." -> arbitrary other wiki policy linking (BLP is a favorite), eventually spilling to talk pages, diff mining, Rfe... I guess the question is, can you be tendacious without repeating yourself? I still favor strict, harsh enforcement, punishing even borderline cases, but I was raised that way. I've seen first hand that if someone can give you enough pain, and is arbitrary enough on enforcement, that even a mess of poorly socialized nerds with too much time on their hands can be brought into line. Kind of. Ignignot (talk) 21:03, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- I've helped to write two FAQs: one for global warming and the other for the Climatic Research Unit hacking incident. Although ostensibly about related subjects there isn't any significant overlap, and I think the approach of keeping specialist FAQs for talk pages that encounter a lot of repeated discussion works well enough. I'm not, by-and-large, in love with the idea of any individual--admin or not--sitting watch over a talk page and associated FAQ, although I don't see a reasonable alternative on especially repetition-prone pages such as those two. Where I would draw the line is somebody squatting over all the main articles and imposing a single monolithic FAQ, because I think it would be easy for things to get out of sync, and rather than just updating the FAQ as one does you'd end up with a kind of bureaucracy, which is not a good idea. My approach is that we keep the FAQ as up-to-date and accurate as possible by normal editing, and that's enough to see off most POV-pushing expeditions. Quite thrillingly so, which is the joy of FAQs. --TS 18:59, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- Then just throwing an idea out there - maybe a single, centralized climate change FAQ, with a segment for each topic, with the FAQ on the topic mirrored on the appropriate talk pages. You can't change the FAQ without discussion on the FAQ page, which would be a good single place for a knowledgeable admin to keep an eye on to nip any repeated arguments in the bud? I'm sure my sweeping solution to all of our problems will work. Ignignot (talk) 18:46, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- The problem with the FAQ approach (which does work quite well, I find) is that POV pushers will simply claim that the FAQ is out of date, and then the debate goes off again. It's well nigh impossible to convince a determined POV pusher who is sure that right is on his side that the reason he failed to prevail the last 18 times is the same reason he'll fail the 19th time, because things haven't changed and he still lacks consensus. --TS 18:34, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
This discussion seems to have veered far from the topic.
I don't think there's any actionable problem here. I tried to redirect discussion to a more appropriate venue and the originating editor rejected the move. There's certainly room for differences of opinion here, as long as the editor is willing to attempt to make a case in good faith for inclusion in the global warming article (he is.) I note also that the talk page was recently semi-protected and so there is a lot less of the usual clutter originating from banned editors, so this discussion, while not ideally placed in this editor's opinion, is not likely to cause problems. --TS 17:42, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- SBHB, I can see where you would get that impression (my fault, at least in part), but I do not think that it is really the intention of the probation to supersede WP:NOTFORUM. Without further comment on the mess above, I also note that Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Environment/Climate change task force has not received much attention of late. Perhaps that would be a good target for discussion of all the sources that get raised at Talk:Global warming but are not really suited to that page. We should not expect every new editor to know the hierarchy of articles, but Talk:Global warming should not become the AN/I of climate change content discussion. Would an edit notice including the FAQ and some advice for finding a more specific article be a good idea? - 2/0 (cont.) 18:34, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- No. The problem is not lack of information, the problem is, mostly, lack of goodwill and lack of clue. Unless you can force-feed certain people (including certain admins) an extra-strength clue supplement, or unless you (plural, including certain admins) start to look beyond surface civility and whining, nothing useful will happen. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:35, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- Well I totally disagree with that. the issue here is civility. Maybe if you global warming guys stopped labeling all the editors who dare to think differently as idiots, or as suffering from "lack of goodwill and lack of clue," then you might start to absorb that issue. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 21:58, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- Oh, not all of them are idiots. And only the better ones are honestly clueless. And if you think civility is more important than a decent encyclopedia, we have different views of the project. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:01, 2 March 2010 (UTC)