Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Date delinking/Evidence

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Evidence presented by Locke Cole

I've made a few statements at the top of my section, and further down I've presented direct evidence (in the form of diffs) to support as many of my conclusions/opinions as possible. If any arbitrator feels they need additional evidence or clarifications, please feel free to contact me.

Mass delinking of dates has no consensus

Regrettably I have no diffs to provide to support this (proving a negative is impossible), but that's the truth of it. What does have consensus is deprecating dates linked soley for auto formatting. There is also consensus (I believe) that dates may "sometimes" be linked where the links are relevant. And this is the crux of the problem here: bots and semi-automated scripts cannot discern between a date linked only for auto formatting and a date linked because the author of the article thought the link was relevant. Worse, these scripts and bots are often ran over the same article multiple times, so if an editor restores some or all unlinked dates, that work is undone again.

• Support for deprecating dates linked solely for auto formatting
• Support for linking month-day articles "sometimes" (at best, at worst there's no consensus)
• Support for linking year articles "sometimes" (at best, at worst there's no consensus)

Reply to NuclearWarfare

That question isn't relevant IMHO. The issue here is that some date links (years or month-day) are "sometimes" allowed. A bot/script can't discern between a valuable date link and one made simply for auto formatting, and nothing so far supports the assumption that all date links are just links made for auto formatting.

Community consensus was not established

The consensus used to support mass date delinking was established in late August here. Of those participating there appears to be 11 people supporting deprecation of date linking and 3 people opposing. This is not sufficient, in my view, to justify mass editing of articles when the change is this drastic (intentionally linked dates are unlinked, signed in editors lose auto formatted dates in articles, etc).

Editors question need to delink, consensus

• 2008-09-28T16:45:42 - Petemyers (talk · contribs) questions why dates shouldn't be linked.
• 2008-09-28T17:25:23 - Petemyers states his case for linking dates in a response to another editor.
• 2008-09-28T20:57:23 - OwenBlacker (talk · contribs) agrees with Petemyers, finishing: At the moment, there seems (to me) to be very little in the way of consensus on this topic and it's far too soon for bots (or users) to be unlinking dates willy-nilly. I'm still not convinced I see a net advantage in unlinking dates, over the formatting and consistency benefits, personally.
• 2008-09-28T21:37:05 - Garion96 (talk · contribs) also objects to delinking dates for the case of auto formatting.

Editor opines over loss of metadata by delinking

• 2008-09-29T20:33:17 - RandomP (talk · contribs) makes the case for changing the code to remove date links rather than manually editing millions of articles.

more to come, if needed

More editors questioning consensus

• 2008-10-02T22:50:13 - LlywelynII (talk · contribs) questions consensus, noting Tony's cherry-picked talk page (in short, it strawmans his opposition; downplays the opposition clear on the subsection page and here; and blames date linking for errors caused by autoformatting, which are far more efficiently solved by removing preference autoformatting if it's a legitimate problem.)
• 2008-10-05T18:32:42 - Kendrick7 (talk · contribs) indicates he's argued with Lightbot's owner and agrees no automatic delinking should occur until consensus has been reached.

Editor questions lack of wide discussion/consensus

• 2008-10-21T22:23:49 - Derek.cashman (talk · contribs) notes the cabal like way unlinking dates is being pushed on the community. I mostly see several isolated discussions by very few editors that somehow someone seems to think represents the consensus of everyone.
• 2008-10-22T01:37:11 - Arthur Rubin (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) notes that the issue should have at least been posted to the Village Pump, and that only now is it being discussed at relevant WikiProjects.
• 2008-10-22T16:34:05 - Masem (talk · contribs) points out the lack of wide discussion, suggests a community RFC.
• 2008-10-23T08:52:29 - Itub (talk · contribs) says Given how recurrent the complaints about date unlinking are, it is obvious that there is no widespread consensus. I suggest running a wider RFC or poll, announced via the watchlist, community portal, etc. to try to get more people than the MOS regulars to voice their opinion.
• 2008-10-23T09:49:05 - Tony again disparaging editors, claiming only a tiny, loud minority of WPians who've probably been around for too long and are hard-wired against formatting improvements, because "they just don't like it". He further claims discussion was wide without elaborating.
• 2008-10-23T15:10:20 - Shereth (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) suggests an RFC is in order, adding when attempting to enforce something on a Wikipedia-wide level it requires Wikipedia-wide consensus.
• 2008-10-23T15:17:09 - Tony responds it's all very easy—specious, actually—to keep demanding more and more consensus just because you don't agree.

Tony1 has been incivil

Note to arbitrators, more evidence is in this section, these diffs are largely chronological where possible

• 2008-10-26T01:26:55 - Tony using the same mantra he uses even now to divert discussion: he sees no reason why the order of month-day should matter. Even after the RFC, two months later (showed support for it) he continues to disparage commentators and discussions in this manner.
• 2008-10-26T12:33:19 - Tony disparages editors disputing mass delinkings as being armchair critics and noisy complainers. Tony insists we're unwilling to lift a finger to improve Wikipedia's date formatting. He refers to auto formatting as a cancer and a toy, and insists we should be ashamed of [ourselves].

MediaWiki dev indicates fixing issues with formatting would not be difficult

One of the biggest reasons for delinking dates was that auto formatting doesn't work for those who aren't logged in, however a dev has indicated fixing it wouldn't be difficult

• 2008-10-28T06:32:02 - Werdna (talk · contribs) indicates that fixing one of the main issues with date auto formatting would not be difficult.
• 2008-10-31T23:00:38 - I announce the devs response on MOSNUM
• 2008-11-01T05:29:04 - Ohconfucius (talk · contribs) insisting it's one person (referring to me) that supports this (the later RFC would prove this to be false, and in fact a majority of the community supports auto formatting of some kind).
• 2008-11-03T15:23:09 - Tony again asks why [w]hy are people wasting time here[?], the pattern here being that if Tony doesn't like it, he disparages it, repeatedly, insisting it's resolved and a waste of time (when it's obviously not resolved, and clearly isn't a waste of time to those discussing it).
• 2008-11-04T05:19:27 - Dmadeo (talk · contribs) responds, apparently having been involved in MOSNUM a month prior, to opine on the civility issues and cabal like natures of regulars of MOSNUM.
• 2008-11-04T11:50:45 - Tony again referring to those trying to discuss the issue as people who are sitting in their armchairs dreaming up so-called solutions, insisting we engage in the activity we're trying to curb instead of sideline gazing.
• 2008-11-04T14:36:57 - Tony insists he's the only one doing work (undercurrent of that being that people trying to talk aren't helping).
• 2008-11-04T14:34:28 - Dmadeo notes that calling those who disagree with Tony complainers and contrasting them as people who dont work hard isn't helpful. He also notes the "fait accompli" decision from Episodes and characters 2.

Uninvolved editors are affected

See also Dmadeo diffs above.

• 2008-11-02T18:59:54 - Uninvolved editor Rumping (talk · contribs) comments about the lack of consensus for mass unlinking of dates.
• 2008-11-03T01:01:41 - Tony's first response calls the subject churning and a waste of time (note the pattern of responses so far), refuses to acknowledge potential damage being done.
• 2008-11-03T01:41:48 - Ohconfucius says all dates should be delinked.

Editor wishes to return to status quo

• 2008-11-04T19:41:06 - Jheald (talk · contribs) had started an RFC about the linking of birth and death years in article prose. As that RFC failed to gain consensus one way or the other, he requested Lightmouse cease delinkings as he believed a lack of consensus should return to the previous status quo (link all dates).
• 2008-11-05T03:05:50 - Tony denies lack of consensus, claims August consensus has wide support.

Community RFC development began

• 2008-11-13T17:44:28 - Shereth starts new discussion on a draft RFC. Agreement isn't reached over the questions and the RFC isn't opened for comment (discussion died down on this around the 16th, with two final comments on the 18th).
• 2008-11-19T13:27:25 - Masem starts discussion again on an RFC a few days later, Tony1, Greg L (talk · contribs), etc. all participate.
• 2008-11-19T19:26:21 - Masem creates a subpage of MOSNUM dedicated to the RFC.
• 2008-11-21T14:39:04 - Masem asks about listing the RFC in MediaWiki:Watchlist-details.

Tony1 disruptively creates his own RFC

I still don't know what to make of this, but given his behavior up to this point it seems as if he was trying to do an end run around the publicly drafted/developed RFC

• 2008-11-23T13:50:29 - Tony starts his RFC, without warning and in the face of the developed RFC being ready to run (probably his most disruptive act during this dispute)
• 2008-11-23T14:19:33 - Masem objects to this unannounced RFC, rightly noting that the other RFC developed over many weeks of discussion was less than 24 hours from going live.
• 2008-11-23T14:51:56 - Tony claims that many users have pointed out the shambolic wording of that RfC, and its drafting has appeared to go nowhere; further I believe that they are rather too closely related to the one MASEM is still working on for a watchlist notice to be a workable arrangement now.

Attempted admin closure undone

• 2008-11-24T19:03:11 - Tznkai (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), having been alerted to the disruption and edit warring over Tony's RFC at AN/I, attempts to close the RFC.
• 2008-11-24T19:31:57 - Greg L reverts a half hour later, blaming another admin in his edit summary (Ckatz (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)).
• 2008-11-24T19:37:03 - Tznkai reverts again, wanting to make sure who Greg L is reverting.
• 2008-11-24T19:42:02 - Greg L reverts again.
• 2008-11-24T19:43:32 - Greg L being incivil, comparing the closure of Tony's RFC by Tznkai to that crap at black precincts in the South.
• 2008-11-25T07:42:17 - The RFC drafted by Masem and developed by all involved at WT:MOSNUM finally goes live.

Lazare Ponticelli, abuse of WP:FAR

This is an interesting case study of Tony's behavior, as well as the MOSNUM proponents behind the push for date delinking. Note that during this the article is a featured article and that neither RFC on date linking had yet been closed

• 2008-10-05T22:11:26 - Rjwilmsi (talk · contribs), an editor operating AWB, delinks the dates in the article, which is 2008-10-05T23:38:39 subsequently undone by Editorofthewiki (talk · contribs).
• 2008-10-29T23:14:30 - Gimmetrow (talk · contribs) again delinks the dates, and is 2008-10-30T03:30:47 partially undone by Ryoung122 (talk · contribs).
• 2008-11-09T02:29:42 - Dabomb87 (talk · contribs) again delinks the dates, and is 2008-11-09T02:29:42 reverted by Editorofthewiki.
• 2008-11-09T15:18:36 - Dabomb87 reverts, and is 2008-11-10T07:58:05 reverted again by Ryoung122.
• 2008-11-16T02:24:21 - Dabomb87 again delinks the dates which goes unreverted until 2008-12-02T15:26:34, when Pmanderson (talk · contribs) undoes the edits.
• 2008-12-02T13:58:24 - Dabomb87 solicits help from Tony1 on his talk page, 2008-12-02T15:45:14 Ohconfucius (talk · contribs) takes notice of the call for help.
• 2008-12-02T15:46:08 - Tony1 reverts the edits, and is 2008-12-02T15:49:28 undone again by Pmanderson.
• 2008-12-02T15:52:44 - Tony1 reverts again, stating Please do not disrupt compliance with MOSNUM, and is 2008-12-02T15:55:13 undone again by Pmanderson.
• 2008-12-02T16:24:00 - Lightmouse (talk · contribs) delinks the dates, and is 2008-12-02T18:55:02 undone by me.
• 2008-12-02T19:10:36 - John (talk · contribs) delinks the dates, and is 2008-12-02T20:50:35 undone by me.
• See edit history for slightly more
• 2008-12-07T11:36:39 - Tony1 puts the article up for Featured article review claiming MoS breaches, [...] the linked date at the opening, still not satisfactorily justified on the talk page amongst other reasons; note that the article was largely unchanged from the time it was promoted to FA.
• 2008-12-07T16:58:00 - Dabomb87 seems to also be involved in the listing.

This seems like an abuse of Wikipedia's Featured article system, making what is likely a bad faith review request due to editing disputes of date linking. It's worth noting that the article is still under review at WP:FARC. Arbitrators may also find the last two discussions in this old version of User talk:Tony1 worth reading (they seem to admit to coordinating efforts).

More abuse of FAC/FAR

Not going to go into incredible diff detail here, but the basic gist is there was a dispute between Tony and I about one sentence and two words in WP:MOSLINK, and he demanded the page be reverted back to it's original state. When I refused (and after a revert war involving myself, Tony and Dabomb87), he made this edit:

• 2009-01-11T16:49:46 - Tony1 says I now see MOSLINK as illegitimate, and will advise editors to disregard it at FAC and other forums.

Harassment by Ohconfucius

Also see the Workshop page for some examples of incivility bordering on harassment

• 2009-01-16T09:09:40 - Ohconfucius likely uses a browser with bookmarking, this merely serves as a way of "shaming" me on his userpage and is totally unnecessary. I've tried very hard to avoid ArbCom this time around precisely because of my prior experience here.

Evidence presented by NuclearWarfare

The following is an assessment of the two community RfCs that went on during December, which were supposed to be the be-all and end-all for this issue. I had summarized them earlier, but I have no issue with doing so again:

The two Requests for Comments showed a clear consensus in most cases for at most very limited linking.

• Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)/Three proposals for change to MOSNUM had a clear consensus to reject date linking and date autoformatting. It had a less clear, but still fairly strong consensus to allow automated and semi-automated edits to help delink dates.
• Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)/Date Linking RFC
  • Deprecating the current date autoformatting - Dates should not be linked (very clear consensus)
  • Is some method of date autoformatting desirable? - About 50/50, but this is not relevant to this RfAr, and is more a Developer issue.
  • When to link to Month-Day articles? - 2/49/49 support. Examples:
    • "John Fred was born on September 15 and invented the tricycle on October 29."
    • American independence was declared on July 4
    • American independence was declared on July 4.
  • When to link Year articles - 10/60/30
    • "John Fred was born on September 15 1789 and invented the tricycle on October 29 1810"
    • "In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue" but not "George Adams was born in 1977"
    • "In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue."
  • When to use Year-in-field links - murkier; no real consensus came about there.

Hope this helps. NuclearWarfare _(Talk) 23:55, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Reply to Point One by Locke Cole

• After a certain while, huge discussions essentially become votes with murky rates of establishing consensus. At one of the RfCs, a proposal was made to limit the use of semi-automated scripts or bots to delink articles. 96 people opposed this and 23 people supported it. I don't know, but 80% opposition to limitation of script-based removal is significant enough for me to call a consensus. NuclearWarfare _(Talk) 00:13, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Reply to reply: It seems to me that community feels differently. I see nothing that indicates that the community as a whole feels that bots shouldn't be allowed. And if a bot writes over a particular article over and over again (which it shouldn't; I was under the impression that Lightbot is doing a one time scan of the entire database), it should be easy to fix. Just use the {{Bots}} template to deny AWB-running bots and add back in the useful edit.
    • "Consensus": But that is in August. I honestly could care less what happened then. I understand that there are problems with the MoS, but as far as the date unlinking issue is concerned, the entire community has had their chance to speak up about it in the widely advertised RfCs in December. That's the consensus we should be talking about. NuclearWarfare _(Talk) 00:37, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Evidence presented by RexxS

There is a valid counter-argument concerning bots

I agree with Locke in that I also believe there is consensus that dates may be linked when the date article is relevant to the article containing the date. (See User talk:Dabomb87/Summary of the Date Linking RFCs.)

The counter-argument concerning the bots goes like this:

• The number of date links that are relevant is a tiny proportion (possibly less than 1%) of all date links. Presumably they are mistaken links of date fragments by editors believing that should be done to auto-format. (See for example the first few edits to WT:Manual of Style (dates_and_numbers)#Date linking template.)
• It is more efficient to remove the vast majority of irrelevant date links (millions?) with a bot, then re-add the (relatively) few relevant ones manually, than to work out which are irrelevant and remove them manually. (for an example of this debate, see WT:Manual of Style (dates_and_numbers)#Summary of the RfCs.)

I honestly believe that this represents a sincere, good faith (if long-running) difference of opinion between two groups of editors, and for what it's worth, an examination of the sections I linked above will show that these diferences can be debated in a generally civil and polite way. It is sad that there is no agreement yet on which of the two opinions should prevail, and as I respect ArbCom, I trust that they will not attempt to adjudicate a resolution of this particular difference of opinion without reflecting on the very large amount of debate that has already taken place. --RexxS (talk) 01:07, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Evidence presented by MBisanz

At the beginning of this conflict, I was asked to mediate between the various sides, but this was declined at [1]. Since then I have kept the page watchlisted and recorded some edits that seemed problematic

Edit warring

Prolonged edit warring that led to blocks on Locke Cole (talk · contribs), Tony1 (talk · contribs), and Kotniski (talk · contribs) after page protection failed to stop an edit war. Currently WP:MOSNUM has been protected since November 20th [2] because of the failure of the parties to resolve their differences. I had previously protected for a week because of this sequence of edit warring [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13], however the parties soon resumed after the protection lapsed, as shown below.

Tony1:[14], [15], [16], [17], [18], [19]

After the initiation of the RFAR: [20], [21], [22], [23]

Locke Cole: [24], [25], [26], [27]

Arthur Rubin: [28], [29], [30], [31], [32]

Threats

Arthur Rubin threatened to block Lightbot (talk · contribs) despite admitting he was an involved administrator to the dispute [33], [34]

Yes, administrators who don't like the changes you've made to the MOS without a clear consensus are threatening to block bots acting on an extension of the (changed) MOS. So? As for "involved" admins, if Lightbot edits a date article and removes links specifically mentioned in the appropriate WikiProject, (and I happen to notice it), I'll block it, even though I'm involved

Civility and Battle

Tony1

Rudeness comes naturally to me. When responding to a question over editing at FAC

...the strongest muscle we have is "name and shame"... When describing how to respond to disputes with administrators

This is typical of Anderson's deceptive tactics. No, metric conversions may not be removed from the inline text.

Gimmetrow: please inform us of any "edit skirmishes", because I'll be along there promptly to hose them down. The guidelines are quite clear as to which should be used, and editors who get some nationalistic kick out of arguing about them need to move on and do something useful. "Back off and raise the issue here" will be my advice, if they can't work it out locally. It's very simple in most cases.

Oran, don't be fooled by Anderson's "half dozen", first put about at VP. I think I counted double that above, and there are of course the scores who have voted with their feet in actively supporting removal, or in expressing favourable comments. Their comments are gathered here. I see no groundswell of opposition in the community, but sniping from a few disgruntled users who find themselves significantly outnumbered and, in particular, are short of good arguments.

Yes, Anderson, you oppose the whole idea of the MoS, and we're all heartily sick of it. Of course you oppose any strong moves to reform the project that might involve ... that c word ... compulsion... Calling out another editor's mental health state.

...Contributors should revile this attempt at sabotage. Some of the other changes may be OK, but the new text does little to improve what is now a straightforward, concise statement. We need to grow up. when addressing proposed changes to part of a guideline.

...You're trying to encourage people to repeat-link in an article, This is destructive.

Is this code for "If you don't submit to Katz'z views, go away"? That is what is sounds like. I'm not rude enough to suggest that you go away, so stop telling me to go away. It's insulting. You're stuck with me, I'm afraid, and over my dead body will you rule the roost here.

Quite a few of our most talented people have been working in the background, unsung, making headway in improving this mess. Some of this work has also involved the correction of spelling and typos, over time on a quite massive scale. Really, you people should be ashamed of yourselves. It's high time that you pitched in and did some work on something constructive for a change instead of squealing about some precious order of month and day, day and month. This would be the application of the "shame and name" comment above

And your sideline sniping at people who actively work to improve WP is not irresponsible? Let me think about that for a moment. You should be ashamed of yourself, calling for the blocking of those who shoulder the work (unlike you); your view of the situation appears to be based on utter ignorance of the long long debate that has gone on here and ended in consensus in August. You're a Johnny-come-lately, perhaps, who's upset at having missed the debate—sorry, but that's just too bad. Maybe you'd like to bone up on the four information and consensus pages linked to at the bottom of this page. More shaming and naming

Now, tell me, as a child were you thrashed regularly by your father for disobedience? I'm trying to work out exactly why you have such a bee in your bonnet about rules. Calling out another editor's mental health state

[35] Lengthy comparison of other editors' behavior to being an "analogy with state fascism".

WARNING: The addition of the partisan comments at the top of the RfC, and the continual reversion of attempts to remove them by a number of users, fits squarely into WP's definition of vandalism.

If you revert again, subverting my statement—clearly against the rules of talk pages—I will launch an ANI against you. Do NOT split my statement, falsify my date stamp, or change the opening of RfCs. Rather aggressive response to RFC edits.

Anderson, I don't have to acquire telepathy to know that you thirst to dilute any centralised authority as far as style goes, except when it comes to points you happen to agree with.

Kotniski: I will take you to ANI then. You have made a major move with the disagreement of at least two people here. I request again that you undo it, and return CONTEXT. and Dabomb, I now see MOSLINK as illegitimate, and will advise editors to disregard it at FAC and other forums.

Locke Cole, are you, seriously, making an admission that you abused admin privileges as an INVOLVED admin? That is a significant breach of WP:ADMIN. Whom did you block? Note: Locke Cole has never been an administrator.

Bot policy

Lightmouse has repeatedly misused Lightbot in violation of Bot policy and 3RR, despite being warned by several members of the bot approvals group to edit its own userpage and undisable its own stop button: [36], [37], [38], [39], [40], [41], [42], [43], [44], [45], [46], [47], [48], [49], [50], [51], [52], [53], [54], [55], [56], [57], [58], [59], [60], [61], [62], [63], [64], [65], [66], [67], [68], [69], blocked for disabling shutoff, discussion, User_talk:MBisanz/Archive_5#Lightbot.

The bot has continued subsequent to the warning, blocking, and discussion to edit its own usertalk page in violation of bot policy through January 3rd.

Socking

Pending permission to post.

See also

• bugzilla:4582
• Locke Cole block log
• Tennis expert block log
• Arthur Rubin blocking Jayvdb
• Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Tony1
• Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Greg L
• Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Lightbot 3
• Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approval/Cleanbot

Evidence presented by Lightmouse

I have no new evidence, it has all been said in various forums over months and years

I have no new evidence, it has all been said in various forums over months and years. There will always be some people upset when a policy has changed and other people may simply be curious about the changes that happen during a transitional period. The vast majority of editors see both date formats (13 January/January 13) and see both English spellings (color/colour). Spelling variation is a worse problem than date formats because spelling can be *wrong* but unambiguous date formats are not wrong. Autoformatting was a cure that is worse than the disease, with many defects, and it was mandatory mass medication even to healthy people. We don't need mass-medication. Spelling variation is just part of English on the web and so is the lesser issue of unambiguous date format on the web. I was impressed by what Colonies Chris said. It's ironic that many people on all sides of the debate support removal of autoformatting and many ordinary editors think Lightbot already removes autoformatting, but Lightbot doesn't. I didn't apply for Lightbot approval to remove links to autoformatted dates. If people here support Lightbot removal of autoformatting, just say so and I will apply for approval.

Evidence presented by Masem

There is a push to deprecate date autoformatting as presently supported in MediaWiki software

The method of date autoformatting, where one of several date formats is wrapped with double square brackets as to cause the Mediawiki software to reparse the date with links and in a style for logged-in users with date preferences set in their desired manner while leaving the written date format unchanged for all other users, has been argued by Tony and the others to be a bane for WP due to several issues (overlinking and date inconsistencies for the majority of readers). The effort to remove them has been happening for at least 5 months (since August 2008) if not even earlier.

The RFCs have both clear and unclear results.

NuclearWarfare above provides a clear summary of the results of the RFC. Most important is the strong support for the removal of autoformatted dates (which is important to note applied to a day/month/year combination, other ways of presenting dates, such as year alone or day-month alone, do not fall under this). As these RFCs were started to establish that community-wide consensus was there to remove date autoformatting, the use of bots specifically to remove these types of links should not be an issue.

What is not clear from the RFCs is what to do with links to day/month pages or year pages that otherwise don't interact with the date autoformatting system. It is clear that we do not want to link to every day/month or every year, but it is also clear that there are some times when day/month and years are linked. Some situations when these are appropriate are suggested by the RFC but there was never any significant iteration or discussion of them, instead leaving the language to link infrequently and when necessary to these.

There is more than one way to skin a cat

Tony, Greg L, and others that are strongly in favor of removing date links per the RFC are insistent on going ahead and getting various bots started on the task, with editors that want to restore dates doing so manually after the bots are done. I have attempted to point out several times that while this approach is perfectly fine and against no specific policy or guideline, there are methods that are more favorable to all WP editors and can gain better goodwill, making it less than a hassle for others, and the like. Specifically, I've recommended that templates can be used to grandfather in any existing year and date links that will be invisible to the existing bots (thus requiring no bot change), and that we give editors two weeks to a month to apply the template to dates they believe they should keep (given the current lack of the consensus of when such links should be made), announcing the methods to do this at the Pump and other places. Then after this period the bots can run to achieve the same result. I'm sure there's other ways this can be done to keep certain dates unchanged by bots, but the practical upshot is that in exchange for waiting a bit more to achieve their desired results of reducing the number of date links, they gain good faith from the community in their efforts.

There is no deadline

The primary concern of mine in this entire affair is the insistence of Tony and the others at MOSNUM that we have to achieve these results in the very short term. Date linking of any type is not hurting Wikipedia in any way beyond some usability issues; it is not like WP:BLP or copyright violations that need to dealt with quickly. The changes to MOSNUM regarding date linking are far reaching, likely to affect every WP article (since it will also affect reference lists). Thus, instead of trying to race to establish consensus and then immediately set off into action, it seems to make more sense to sit down and reach consensus on all factors relating to date linking (including exact cases when years and day-months should be linked, when to use year-in-field links and how to make date links overall more relevant to the pages of interest). There is also a likelihood of working with the various projects that maintain the targets of these date/month, year, and year-in-field pages to make sure they are relevant as well when they are linked.

This will be an automated task

More to confirm Ohconfucius' point below, there is no question that a bot needs to be let loose to run the tasks of (at bare minimal) removing date autoformatting, doing volumes more work that humans can in general editing to remove linked dates. Lightmouse's Lightbot seems best poised for this, as well as making sure that AWB users can do this as part of general cleanup, and so forth.

There is a poisonous atmosphere at MOSNUM that leads to unhealthy discussion

While I believe that ArbCom stated that this case would only focus on the issues of date delinking by bots, it is important to note that I strongly believe we would not be here if attitudes on both sides of the issue worked better on compromise and consensus building instead of what actually resulted. When I entered the debate around August 2008, I was amazed at the vitriol that was being thrown about by both sides. (Others have linked to such examples already, but the archives speak for themselves) Tony, Greg L, and others were taking their attitude of elitism that they seemed to know best for Wikipedia, and thus They Were Right, while others like Locke Cole were involved in trying to argue every nitpick of the arguments; neither approach is consensus building. Nothing that is enforceable, but neither is good to promote. When the RFCs closed, I thought everyone was going to put that all behind but then when there was negative feedback about the bots delinking bare years, the attitudes came right out again. Even with this ArbCom case started, I am amazed at how both sides are reacting to this, everyone trying to find the tiniest fault with the process or the person. When I go back over the past discussions, I realize that if the same thoughts were stated but without the negative connotations of the delivery of those thoughts, we likely would not be here at ArbCom now, and maybe have already settled the entire issue a month or more ago. While I don't believe that ArbCom should take any action regarding this, I do believe it is in ArbCom's best interest to recognize why this case got here to understand what aspects they should and should not take up.

Evidence presented by Ohconfucius

I will attempt to keep my evidence factual and to the point, without comments or spin. I am frankly appalled by some of other "evidence" here which are but essays, or which include irrelevancies and red herrings. It would not be surprising to note the occasional disinformation, and misrepresentation or five. I guess that much is to be expected, given the personalities of the parties involved and the sheer mistrust and acrimony this issue has created. I also strongly objected to attempts by certain individuals to impose a minority interpretation on "consensus", as well as to redefine the meaning of "controversy" - particularly regarding the use of Auto Wiki Browser.

The strength of the consensus has been getting greater and greater. Back in August, consensus existed, although Locke argued to the contrary. Perhaps the number of participants was too small to be representative, but it was a consensus well within the definition of WP nevertheless. Attempts to 'warn' fellow editors to stop edits in compliance with WP:MOSNUM and WP:CONTEXT were actually misplaced, and some of those warned considered it harassment or intimidation. As has always been the case on WP, consensus remains consensus until it is overturned by another consensus. I believe this difference in "interpretation" is a fundamental locus of this dispute. In any event, even if there was any doubt then, as was argued by Locke, there can be none whatsoever now what the consensus position is any more.

Irrespective of all that, the modus operandi here on WP is that things are always permitted except when expressly forbidden. WP:MOSNUM is a guideline which will never mandate correction of spelling mistakes, or the removal of sequentially repeated commas, full stops and 'the's for example. There is no suggestion that semi-automatic tools cannot be invoked to remove these occurrences. Case in point, AWB always checks spelling, and turns "the the" into "the". Needing special mandates to do this, as well as banning all semi-automatic tools from doing this would seem pretty ludicrously luddite retrograde to me. It's like asking/telling your fag to scrub out the toilets with a toothbrush. Sure, it gets the bog cleaner, but it also happens to be verging on torture.

The pace of delinking

It has been asked how many articles have been delinked. Whilst agreeing with User:Masem above, the task of delinking is gargantuan: assuming 1.5 million of the 2.8 million articles in en:WP with DA date links, and the rate of delinking (as I estimate at present 2,500/m) and including the full potential of lightbot @ 80,000/mth (based on 40,000 minor edits in January -full date delinking could slow it down) of approximately 82,500 per month, it will take almost 18 months to complete. Just as well we are not in a hurry!

Consensus to delink existed (late-August)

RfC Again calling for date linking to be deprecated

Consensus to delink existed (mid-September)

This article indicates consensus to delink using monobook script existed in mid-September 2008 -per User:Wizardman 20:39, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Consensus to delink existed (end-November)

Date delinker reported by Locke Cole (Result: Declined) -per User:CIreland 16:10, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Consensus to delink existed (end-December)

In addition to the number of 'never link' votes, per "Month-Day links should be made in certain cases" Of the 62 who replied here, a significant number (I counted at least 22) said "very very rarely link", and quite a few others said 'rarely. - I feel this quote from User:King of Hearts is fairly representative of the overall sentiment: "Rarely. There are always some times that you find the need to WP:IAR." I would also like to link in to Tony's comments below about "pollution" of the RfC results.

Attempt to 'load' questions of ongoing RfC

• User:Ckatz (Revision as of 17:19, 24 November 2008) posted this "note re: availability of patch", and then
• User:Locke Cole (12:51, 24 November 2008 (UTC)) "rv knock it off" attempted to move (against opposition) biased message by CKatz it into a prominent position in a green box at the top of Tony's RfC.

Incivility

• User:UC Bill (23:03, 4 November 2008 (UTC)) "Just ignore Tony" "I would recommend to you that you simply ignore him and his comments. Nobody takes him seriously, everybody knows he's full of it, and it does you no good to argue with him...." - disparaging remarks about Tony, and invitation to revert edits of "Lightmouse, GregL et al"
  • UC_Bill also posted a link to Bugzilla 4582 in the above posting, in which he publicly and openly (posts with real name and email address) says "Tony, you're an idiot who clearly doesn't understand the first thing about technology. You should just leave Wikipedia for good, and stop annoying people. At the very least you should drop yourself from replies on this ticket, since you've made it clear you have no interest whatsoever in a solution to the problem outlined here. Bypassing autoformatting is not the same as fixing it, so your asshole-ish actions of mass delinking aren't actually a "solution" at all. Go away... I recommend we just completely ignore the MOS-nuts who have some sort of vendetta against date links.. "
• User:Locke Cole (02:24, 17 November 2008 (UTC)) "rm message from troll" response to and removal of WP:3RR warning on his talk page.
• User:Tennis expert (Revision as of 05:23, 22 November 2008) "Remove crazy comments" in the edit summary removing third party comments about his abuse and false accusations.
• User:Locke Cole (Revision as of 05:19, 24 November 2008 (UTC)) "open threat? insanity! "TONY STARTED THIS RFC TODAY IN A CLEAR SHOWING OF BAD FAITH, KNOWING FULL WELL AN EXISTING RFC WAS ALREADY IN PROGRESS... How hard is it to understand that this is Tony merely being Tony and trying to be disruptive yet again? He KNEW an RFC was being worked on, and he chose to phrase the questions to his liking with no background information at all... This RFC is inherently illegitimate and your acknowledgment of it is only making the situation worse."

• User:Locke Cole (Revision as of 05:19, 25 November 2008) "rm trollery" response to and removal of WP:3RR warning and vandalism warning (for WP:MOSNUM) on his talk page.
• User:Locke Cole (08:52, 25 November 2008 (UTC)) "rm trolling" response to and removal of WP:3RR warning (for talk page of User:Tony1) on his talk page.

Abuse/misuse of Admin powers

• Arthur Rubin (08:16, 10 November 2008 (UTC)) "Concur with reverts" "I'd say the reverts should be exempt from 3RR, but it's not going to happen, so be careful. Feel free to E-mail me if you're blocked for this reason."
• User:Tznkai (19:03, 24 November 2008 (UTC)) A notice from your friendly neighborhood administrator - attempts to close the RFC saying "There was a request for comment that was removed because of the participants' inability to assume good faith, comment with civility, or act at all productively". Unwise Admin action. Something any admin ought to be aware of is that it's one thing to remove an inappropriate comment (as the alleged grounds cited), quite another to close an RfC within hours of it being posted. In fairness to User:Tznkai, xhe later said that xhe had received a fair complaint of his/her action.

Edit warring by Pmanderson

Lazare Ponticelli

It's amazing what you can do with the same information (minus the "commentary")- thanks to Cole for the diffs ;-)

actions	reverts by User:Pmanderson
"script-assisted date/terms audit", Dabomb87(10:24, 16 November 2008)	"undo MOScruft" (23:26, 2 December 2008)
"Rv disruptive edits by Manderson", User:Tony1 (23:46, 2 December 2008)	"Thanks, Tony; I see I missed two" (23:49, 2 December 2008)
"Please do not disrupt compliance with MOSNUM", User:Tony1 (23:52, 2 December 2008)	"revert misreading of MOSNUM" (23:55, 2 December 2008)

Edit warring by Locke Cole

USS Monitor

action	reverts by Locke Cole
"script-assisted date/terms audit" User:Lightmouse ( 21:17, 13 November 2008)	"rvt, no consensus for removing date links" (22:04, 13 November 2008)
"script-assisted date/terms audit" by User:Dabomb87 (11:06, 14 November 2008)	"rvt, no consensus for removing date links" ( 11:08, 14 November 2008)
"consistent date formats" by Dabomb87 (12:29, 14 November 2008)	"rvt, no consensus for removing date links" ( 15:37, 14 November 2008)
"script-assisted date/terms audit" by User:Dabomb87 (21:10, 14 November 2008)	"rvt, no consensus for removing date links" (04:48, 16 November 2008)
"Per MOSNUM:..." 3 successive edits by User:Dabomb87 (09:54, 16 November 2008)	"rvt, no consensus for removing date links" (06:39, 17 November 2008)
"no consensus for instituting inconsistent date formats and reverting wholly beneficial edits..." by User:Dabomb87 (06:55, 17 November 2008)	"you are purposefully making multiple edits to make undoing your disputed edits more difficult; I will no longer play that game with you" (07:01, 17 November 2008)
Reverted 1 edit by Locke Cole; See WP:UNLINKDATES by User:2008Olympian (09:19, 17 November 2008)	"rvt, no consensus for removing date links" (09:45, 17 November 2008)

Lazare Ponticelli

It's amazing what you can do with the same information (minus the "commentary")- thanks to Cole for the diffs ;-)

actions	reverts by User:Locke Cole
"Delink dates, fix hyphens, and overlinking of common countries" User:Lightmouse (00:24, 3 December 2008)	"eh, MOSNUM is a guideline" (02:55, 3 December 2008)
"script-assisted date/terms audit" User:John (03:10, 3 December 2008)	"rvt, clearly no consensus for these edits to this article" (04:50, 3 December 2008)
"remove year link in infobox only, it is already linked once", Dabomb87 (06:42, 3 December 2008)	"rvt per WP:MOSNUM/RFC" (06:38, 4 December 2008)

Edit warring by User:Tennis expert

Cédric Pioline

actions	reverts
Date audit, script-assisted; see mosnum, User:Dismas (17:08, 24 September 2008)	no edit summary, Tennis expert (14:57, 25 September 2008)
Date audit, script-assisted; see mosnum | Delink common terms. See: wp:overlink, Tony1 (18:40, 6 October 2008)	Undid revision 243399362 by Tony1, Tennis expert (20:00, 8 October 2008)
Reverted edits by Tennis expert to last version by Tony1, User:The Rambling Man (20:53, 8 October 2008)	no edit summary, Tennis expert (15:29, 9 October 2008)
Reverted edits by Tennis expert to last version by Tony1, The Rambling Man (15:44, 9 October 2008)	Undid revision 244084808 by The Rambling Man, Tennis expert (15:24, 16 October 2008)
Reverted edits by Tennis expert to last version by The Rambling Man, The Rambling Man (15:35, 16 October 2008)	Undid revision 245618981 by The Rambling Man "rv unconstructive/blind revert" Tennis expert (16:48, 16 October 2008)
"The changes are required by not one, but three style guides: MoS, MOSLINK and CONTEXT. Please discuss on talk page if you have an objection.", Tony1 (17:13, 16 October 2008)	Undid revision 245629980 by Tony1, Tennis expert (13:05, 18 October 2008)

Evidence presented by User:Kotniski

Two issues; don't let one cloud the other. First: what went on before the RfCs. No-one's in a position to cast the first stone about behaviour during that period; arguing about exactly who was out of order and how much is completely beside the point, and won't help reach an outcome. And the outcome can only be diagnostic here: what went wrong in the system and how such messes can be prevented in the future. That's a matter for wider debate, but maybe ArbCom will offer some wise guidance. That's all it can do, so any discussion of behaviour in the period in question must be looking in that direction, not towards scoring points in personal disputes which should be long forgotten.

Second: what to do about the date-delinking process post-RfC. This is a technical issue. I agree with Masem up to a point, but would point out: there is no deadline, but it's also harmful to obstruct good work without good reason. The fact that people are willing to spend their time and expertise on making a contribution to the project should be respected; we shouldn't tell them they have to wait in line because there's a couple of Spidermen on the Reichstag wall right now. And the idea about the template that says "leave this link alone" is a bit irrelevant - people can add such things before or (far more likely in practice) after a visit by the bot, it's not a reason why the bots should wait. Simply, the bots are doing what they've been doing for a long time, fully in line with consensus and very well established practice. No reason has been given for people to be told to stop making Wikipedia better in this way. Discussion is now totally exhausted; we know what people think, and we know that the vast majority of these links are not desired, and none of them are desired to any significant degree. Change for the better must not be allowed to be held back indefinitely just because a few people are making a noise about it.

Evidence presented by Karanacs

Clear consensus that approval at MOS page not required before running a date-linking/unlinking bot

There was quite clear consensus at Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers)/Three_proposals_for_change_to_MOSNUM#Proposal_3:_Automated.2Fsemi-automated_compliance_with_any_particular_guideline_requires_consensus that the following wording was rejected: The use of an automatic or semi-automatic process to bring article text into compliance with any particular guideline in the Manual of Style (dates and numbers) requires separate and prior consensus at the talk page.

Locke Cole has shown an unwillingness to acknowledge RFC results

• How hard is it to understand that this is Tony merely being Tony and trying to be disruptive yet again? ... This RFC is inherently illegitimate and your acknowledgment of it is only making the situation worse. —Locke Cole • t • c 02:45, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

at the time, the other RFC was still in draft

• Regardless, as this RFC is largely invalid due to the actions of one disruptive editor (Tony) this could run for two hours or two years and I wouldn't really have any concern with the result —Locke Cole • t • c 00:16, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
• Every single person who opposed above ... is largely "voting" blindly based on their own personal understanding. —Locke Cole • t • c 03:24, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

response to this was someone saying to stop putting words in voters mouths; as one of those opposers, I also took offense to this but didn't comment then

• That's just being stubborn, which is unfortunate. It's incomprehensible why someone would oppose something if they know there's a solution for their problems with it. —Locke Cole • t • c 21:41, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
• Bizarre, because I'm getting the impression there's no consensus on the issue of date linking and perhaps even some support for auto formatting. —Locke Cole • t • c 00:37, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
  • Cole, I where is this "no consensus" on date linking from? Are 91 supports against 3 opposes (on Question 1, give or take a couple on both stats) WRT linking not enough for you? . Dabomb87 (talk) 01:10, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Septentrionalis (Pmanderson)

No consensus on whether or not to link

The polls under #Evidence presented by NuclearWarfare show that this is a three-way debate; a small minority, including Locke Cole, want to routinely link all dates, and autoformat. The rest of us divided evenly between "link sometimes" and "never link"; actually reading the results will show that many editors, on either side of the line, actually said "link rarely". There is no consensus for never linking.

Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers)/Three_proposals_for_change_to_MOSNUM consists of three questions,posed and phrased by Tony1 (talk · contribs), solely, as extreme choices, so they would fail. Observe that he !voted against them himself, as he posted them. All they can show is that those three propositions do not have consensus; no effort was made there to form or judge consensus. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:39, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Lightbot's approval

Lightbot (talk · contribs) presently claims to be operating under Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Lightbot 3. The current phrasing of that approval is

• I would like to make it explicit that I will be editing dates in a variety of forms.
  • A 'date' is any sequence of characters that relates to time, chronology, or calendars. This includes but is not limited to seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, fortnights, months, years, decades, centuries, eras, and can be in any sequence or format.
  • Edits may add, remove or modify the sequence or format of dates.
  • Edits may add, remove or modify templates that involve dates.
  • Edits may add, remove or modify autoformatting. For example, where autoformatting is invalid, broken or itself breaks a date for readers. Struck text replaced with:
  • Edits may add or modify autoformatting. Edits may remove autoformatting where it is invalid, broken or itself breaks a date for readers.

• • Edits may add, remove or modify links to dates.

• I would like to make it explicit that I will be editing units of measure in a variety of forms.
  • A 'unit of measure' is any sequence of characters that relates to measurement of things. This includes but is not limited to units defined by the BIPM SI, the US NIST or any other weights and measures organisation or none at all. This includes but is not limited to time, length, area, volume, mass, speed, power.
  • Edits may add, remove or modify the metric or non-metric units.
  • Edits may add, remove or modify the sequence or format.
  • Edits may add, remove or modify templates that involve units.
  • Edits may add, remove or modify links to units.

• I would like to make it explicit that I will make other edits.
  • These will usually be minor improvements that are often done by other editors or are part of general MOS guidance.
  • These will usually be incidental to the main motivation for the bot which is units and dates.

Under this phrasing, Lightbot can do almost anything. This is contrary to the intent of bot approval; and was almost immediately criticized by MZMcBride (talk · contribs) as far too wide. It was also opposed by several users, not all of them parties to this controversy; and, after approval, several users (again, some but not all of them involved in the controversy over dates, Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approval/Lightbot_3#Reconsider appealled to reconsider Lightbot's permission. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:55, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

MOSNUM and consensus

MOSNUM has not been edited by consensus; it reflects the edit-warring of a small number of regulars. Rather than plow through the distressing evidence of its archives, I will simply point out that it has been protected for edit-warring four times in the past year. I could reconstruct the issues over which this silliness took place, if ArbCom likes; but only two of them were this; two of them were even more petty. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:53, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Tony is improving

By his standards, Tony1 (talk · contribs) seems to me to be being comparatively mild in these discussions, compared to these routine uses of insult and profanity as negotiating tools in past discussions.

• And PS, you might like me sometimes, as you imply, but I don't ever like you.
  • Retained through this copyedit, so it is a tactic, not a loss of temper
• poor, deluded fool
• sabotage
• dirty hands
• anarchist
• I treat your entries with contempt.

• After claiming that an opponent was inconsistent Is it only when it suits you?
  • Tony was asked to "Please examine your behaviour" and responded:
• Dear Finell, I do examine my behaviour, every day — as I do my stools. Both are fine, thanks for asking.
  • and, again, copyedited.
  • On further challenge, he asserted that precisely the right amount of information to get my point across
  • Despite a PLEASE be civil the conversation ended there.

I believe these were a set of negotiating tools which he uses when in a hurry or under stress; his user page says that his off-Wiki work load varies drastically. Other interactions suggest he intends these as form of humor, or as part of a Real Australian persona, rough and tough, mate, and all that. But all of these are approaching a year old; he may have learned better techniques for coping. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:11, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Use of FA as a club

Please consider Template talk:E#MOS breach: spacing of the × sign; this is the continuation of a discussion at WT:MOS, now archived at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Archive_97#Common_mathematical_symbols:_spacing. The minority, which insisted that scientific notation must be spaced exactly like ordinary multiplication because they both use ×, demanded that

• the squashy rubbish be done away with; I don't know why you think you had consensus to move back this template so that it breaches the Manual of Style, but your actions just suck. I think the proper spaced version should be reinstated and that you should argue it out at the MOS talk page, as anyone else with a scrap of decency would. (Note that the edit summary, as an additional civility, is "Utter arrogance by this Knowledge Seeker person".)

After that, the minority proceeded to threaten OK, if you're happy for all FA candidates to be knocked back for not following MOS in this respect, fine.... I'll ensure that until it's worked out properly at MOS, FA candidates wait. You're call. [sic] and declare that OK, so the template is no longer acceptable in FAs. The same editor then proceeded to speak to compromise as making him bow and declared that he would be endorsing an alternate template; if this were a matter of any significance, we would call this a POV fork.

This is precisely the problem with MOS. It permits editors of high self-importance to get their way in matters of utter triviality, which should not consume the encyclopedia's time. The idea of judging a scientific article by whether it spaces scientific notation, when many scientists don't, is... Well, what is it? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:55, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Mlaffs

Some of the date de-linking has been directly contrary to the MOS

Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(links)#Chronological_items in its current state reads as follows:

"Items such as days, years, decades and centuries should generally not be linked unless they are likely to deepen readers' understanding of the topic. Articles about other chronological items or related topics are an exception to this guideline.

Links to articles on a topic in a specific chronological period, such as 1441 in art, 1982 in film, and 18th century in the United States, may add significantly to readers' understanding of the current topic. One such link per article is enough to serve as a gateway for readers to access sibling articles for other years (1983 in film and so on); multiple links throughout an article are unnecessary. Year-in-X links should generally be kept explicit, so that readers can see where they lead, but they may be piped to look like plain year links – for example [[1997 in South African sport|1997]] – in some tables, infoboxes or lists where compact presentation and uniform display are important."

While the specific language of this section has been in flux during the time noted in this arbitration request, the exemption for tables, infoboxes, and lists has been a constant. However, on several occasions, Lightbot has removed piped "year-in-X" links from infoboxes, tables, and lists, in direct contravention of the MOS excerpt quoted above. The following are a few examples:

• This edit removed a "YYYY-in-radio" link from an infobox, leading to this discussion
• This edit removed a "YYYY-in-basketball" link from a table, leading to this brief discussion
• This edit removed a series of "YYYY-in-poetry" links from a list, leading to this discussion
• This edit removed a series of "YYYY-in-poetry" links from another list, leading to this discussion

Date-related de-linking has removed useful contextual information

The following is part of Lightbot's approval: "Edits may add or modify autoformatting. Edits may remove autoformatting where it is invalid, broken or itself breaks a date for readers." On numerous occasions, Lightbot has removed the valid contextual linked portion of a set of date links that may have originally been linked for autoformatting. As has been noted on these occasions, it would have made far more sense for the bot to delink the day-month pair and leave the piped link at the year. Examples include:

• This edit, one of a large series of them, removed a "YYYY-in-radio" link, ultimately resulting in this discussion at AN. The parties concerned about this series of edits agreed that the AN discussion was resolved based on Lightmouse's comment here, that Lightbot would "not fix these errors anymore"
• Contrary to the resolution of that issue, this edit, once again part of a large series of them, again removed a "YYYY-in-radio" link, ultimately resulting in this discussion at AN/I

General comments

Ultimately, I believe the problem here is that the zeal to achieve a project devoid of date links has led to de-linking that has not been as thoughtful as it ought to have been. Would a "See also" section providing a link to contextual information be better than a piped link that might look like a "useless" year link? Without a doubt, and if the bot's edits were inserting that "see also" link at the same time as the piped link was removed, I'd be fully supportive of the bot's activity and the whole idea of automated de-linking. Instead, the bot is only removing the valid contextual link, even when that link conforms to the MOS.

Is there logic in using an automated approach to remove the vast number of date links that aren't useful, and then leaving it to individual editors to restore the links that were actually useful — the 'collateral damage' resulting from automation? Yep, I can completely buy that argument. However, the bot isn't limited to a single pass through articles. There's been mention of developing a way, through some template or comment mechanism, for editors to 'warn off' bots and scripts from de-linking dates based on their reasoned judgment that the link is useful. This really should have been in place before any mass de-linking began and, regardless of the outcome of this arbitration, it should definitely be in place before the injunction against mass de-linking is lifted.

Reply to Ohconfucius

I'm a bit confused by the statement in your second paragraph above — "assuming 1.5 million of the 2.8 million articles in en:WP with DA date links, and the rate of delinking (as I estimate at present) of approximately 2,500 per month, it will take almost two years to complete.". The math isn't working for me — at 2500 de-links per month, it would take 50 years, not two — so I'm guessing that perhaps the rate you've estimated was a typo.

Regardless, the rate of delinking is significantly faster than that. The five-day period from November 9 to November 13 represents the lead-up to the AN discussion I reference above and the period while that discussion was taking place. During that five-day period, Lightbot alone made approximately 65,500 edits to articles to remove linked dates. That's one bot, five days. I use Lightbot as an example only because it's what most often pops up on my watchlist, but there are other editors using scripts, AWB, etc. — some named in this case and some not — who are making similar edits. I would suggest that we're well into the 1.5 million articles you've suggested had date links; in fact, it wouldn't surprise me if we were already a quarter of the way there, or more. Mlaffs (talk) 20:16, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Apoc2400

We cannot wait for non-link date auto-formatting

Locke Cole said that it will be possible to autoformat dates without linking them. However, this would require developer action. The request for that feature has been open for just over three years with no result. Two years ago Tony1 presented a petition of 70 editors at English Wikipedia requesting the feature, but the developers refused to implement it. When Tony1 again raised it in October last year, a developer just replied with insults: Tony, you're an idiot who clearly doesn't understand the first thing about technology. You should just leave Wikipedia for good, and stop annoying people. Tony1 is fully right in not wanting to wait for a possible future method of date auto-formatting that does not use linking. If we ever get that feature, we can discuss it then. --Apoc2400 (talk) 19:45, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Evidence presented by llywrch (talk)

Note: I consider myself tangentially involved. I am against the assertion that all links to dates & years ought to be removed, but believe that overlinking is a style problem on Wikipedia, which needs some form of remedy.

Is the Manual of Style equivalent to policy, or is more of a guideline or statement of best practices?

Many of the participants here seem to think that the Manual of Style (MoS) is policy; if so, it can be enforced without exception with automated edits. Hence the heat & emotions over the language of this one section. If it is instead (as I believe) equivalent to a guideline or statement of best practices, then running a bot to enforce it makes about as much sense as running a bot to enforce, say, Wikipedia:Don't draw misleading graphs. Defining the MoS less than policy doesn't reduce its importance -- editting in the face of an established best practice is both foolish, & may lead to one being blocked -- but at the same time if a vocal minority objects to opinions in the MoS, then they can not only ignore it, but write their own essay defending their practice, instead of engaging in an edit-war over the MoS.

I believe that the reason that some Wikipedians are defending their changes to the MoS so passionately, as Septentrionalis pointed out above. From my experience, I am convinced they have found a back-door to admitting their favored policies: edit some statement of how to do something that is not necessarily binding (e.g., edit, resolve conflicts) then defend the change as "established consensus" & enforce their desires over the rest of the Wikipedia community, who then acquiesce under the assumption that the matter was rationally decided on. I was involved in an edit war with another user over this practice, & asked at the talk page for an interpretation, & had the current version of the MoS cut-n-pasted at me as if were the very words of Jimmy Wales himself! This unsatisfactory response -- & later learning that this style choice was not truly a consensus -- was one of the reasons I took a long WikiBreak recently: I couldn't make useful contributions & debate every possible binding rule concerning what & how I contribute to Wikipedia.

Edits to meta-pages like the MoS is supposed to minimize conflict & disputes, not fan them. This conflict has been slowly escalating over the last several months over this admittedly trivial matter, but no one likes to be treated like a child & told without an explanation that she/he can't link dates & years at all. -- llywrch (talk) 20:39, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Earle Martin

Examples of Greg L being incivil to other editors at WT:MOSNUM

• please present your “I am really, REALLY *Special*” license for inspection.
• What is wrong with you that would compel you to write such a stupid thing?
• you have a profound tendency to spout nonsense on issues you know absolutely nothing about. - includes aggressive external image links
• hammered dog shit
• help us to accept that you actually like the puke you expect our articles should be linking to. But just because you can prove you can stomach through reading that shit will only prove that you like reading mindless shit - edit summary: "Readers come to Wikipedia to learn, not to be faced with trivia-based shit"
• you seem so intent on playing childish games... turning yet more main body text into a giant blue turd. - bowdlerized repost of previous edit
• I’m not about to let one Mr. Locke Cole (who resides who-knows-where on this pale blue dot), dictate how I might enjoy my hobby here on Wikipedia or control my life in anyway whatsoever—particularly over such a whiny-ass, sore-looser stunt. - also includes agressive and inappropriate external image links

Note: I have not investigated the history of the discussion further back in time when I was not present for it. If further diffs exist, please contribute them to this page. -- Earle Martin [^t/_c] 20:51, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

See also the user conduct RfC regarding Greg L that contains many more examples. -- Earle Martin [^t/_c] 22:31, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Examples of Ohconfucius being incivil

• Accusing me of "forum shopping" after I dared to raise the date linking issue at WT:MOSNUM
• labelling of editors he disagrees with as "same old gang of five"
• "I am usually heavily sarcastic"
• Admitting incivility along with Greg L
• Accusing me of "canvassing" back at the article where I originally encountered the date linking issue(!)
• Accusing Locke Cole of having "cohorts" and deliberately making disruptive edits
• Accusing Locke Cole of "strategically planning seizing this committee"
• Accusing Locke Cole of having a "clique"

Evidence presented by Goodmorningworld

By now, I'm sure, the arbitrators are heartily sorry that they ever agreed to taking this case. Of course, they had no inkling then of the tsunami of trouble heading their way - real, serious controversies that require immediate attention and their full commitment. The silliness from Locke Cole could go on endlessly, he can keep this up forever. Case in point, most recently, his tendentious presentation of Lazare Ponticelli. Conveniently he omits his own edit warring on that article but the History of the Article shows the facts. Incivility: if I had limitless amounts of time I could easily find double the number of incivil edits, edit summaries and Talk posts that LC has made compared to what he cites for Tony1. It would take me many hours, though, and please understand that I do not have the time nor inclination, for I have reason to fear that LC has another wall of text already prepared to retake the initiative.

Lazare Ponticelli, as one of the few actual examples where an Article's regular editors objected to delinking of dates, is in fact an example of editors talking mostly reasonably and leaving the article in better shape than it was before. user:Editorofthewiki initially insisted that years of birth and death in the lead stay blue-linked, arguing that linking these dates gave readers context. I replied that "If people need to click a link to find out what 2008 is like, they have been living in a cave or the past few years and most likely they do not have access to the Internet anyway" (see Talk:Lazare Ponticelli). Editorofthewiki then relented, acceding to the unlinking of the year 2008.

Unfortunately Editorofthewiki did not agree to also unlinking of the year of birth, citing policy of WikiProject:World's Oldest People. I pointed out that another prominently featured article on a supercentenarian within that project did not link date of birth and death in the lead; unfortunately Editorofthewiki never replied to explain himself. At that point I decided to let it go.

Similar for the comments by user:Tony1 on that Talk page. While there was some abrasiveness in his tone, he provided good advice on improving the Article, and in fact much of his helpful commentary was accepted with little fuss.

Nothing to see there, just a typical discussion between editors, occasionally a bit rough around the edges, with the normal give and take. Nobody got their way entirely but everyone went home feeling that progress had been made. Everyone, that is, except Locke Cole. (Septentrionalis, an editor who allied with him in the past, is trying to keep it up but his heart isn't in it anymore. Arthur Rubin, another ally, has seen the light and conceded.)

Time to end this

Although this has been largely a big waste of time, it is not too late for ArbCom to reverse itself. This war is mostly over, what you are seeing are a few skirmishes by the diehard. Editors have spoken, overwhelmingly they want most (nearly all) date links gone from articles.

Allow nature to take its course. A few determined stragglers are still fighting a rearguard action. Let them. They are not doing much harm.

ArbCom should end this proceeding, lift its temporary injunction, and deal with more pressing matters. I will not be back to this page to make further comments. It's in the hands of you arbitrators now.--Goodmorningworld (talk) 21:22, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Dabomb87

There is consensus to delink autoformatted dates *and* other chronological items

Perhaps one of the few things that has been agreed on in this debate is that the current system of autoformatting dates through wikilinks is inadequate and needs to be changed/removed (see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)/Date Linking RFC#Deprecating the current date autoformatting; even Locke Cole believes this to be the case, see this comment and his evidence section above). Since the discussion of this issue culminated in the initial deprecation in late August, the scope of the debate expanded to include linking all chronological items, even those that are independent of autoformatting (1942, 17th century, etc.). Part of what has fueled this dispute is the ambiguous wording of the style guidelines. MOSNUM refers to WP:MOSLINK, which states that "days, years, decades and centuries should generally not be linked unless they are likely to deepen readers' understanding of the topic." Now, "likely to deepen readers' understanding" is a subjective phrase, doubtless every editor has a slightly different view on what would aid understanding. The second issue is that certain editors felt that the gauge of consensus was not completely clear. I believe that it was more than definitive. For one, our Featured Articles/Lists implemented the change in date-linking guidelines with not much complaint (see User:Tony1/Support for the removal of date autoformatting). Also, considering that tens of thousands of delinking edits have been made, there has been relatively little complaint from people besides the usual editors. One editor even asked me for the date autoformatting script here. If anything is needed, I believe that their needs to be clearer wording in our style guide with regards to date linking; I have drafted some guidelines here.

Evidence presented by Sarcasticidealist

Lightmouse has a history of being unresponsive to users' concerns when using bots and semi-automated tools

I've gone back and forth over whether or not to add this evidence, since it admittedly has nothing to do with date de-linking. However, based on the workshop page the effective scope of this case seems to have reached the point that this may be useful; if it isn't, the Arbs will I'm sure feel free to disregard it.

• On March 13, 2008, Lightmouse used AWB to insert a {{convert}} template into Edmonton municipal election, 1963:¹ [70]
• Since the template was in a direct quotation, where I didn't think the template was useful, I reverted it, with an explanation: [71]
• Lightmouse used AWB to repeat this edit on April 10 ([72]) and May 5 ([73]). Each time, I reverted it: [74], [75]
• After the third reversion, I raised the issue with Lightmouse on his talk page: [76]. He responded by saying that he would try to make sure that it didn't happen again: [77]
• On June 14, Lightbot performed the same edit again: [78]. Again I reverted ([79]) and again I raised the issue on Lightmouse's talk page: [80]. Lightmouse was again very polite ([81]), and took it upon himself to raise the issue at the MOS talk page to see how a repeat performance could be prevented. There, a variety of helpful users engaged in discussion that was mostly beyond me: [82] The upshot of this was that User:Jimp made some changes to the article ([83]) and Lightmouse expressed optimism that said changes would prevent a recurrence: [84]
• The next occurrence was on October 19, once again by Lightmouse using AWB: [85] Once again, I reverted: ([86]).
• Lightmouse repeated the edit December 5, again using AWB: [87] I raised the issue again on his talk page: [88]
• Having raised an issue about Lightmouse's use of AWB on his talk page, I was immediately set upon by the date delinking crowd (pro- and anti-), with User:Tennis expert suggesting that Lightmouse was edit-warring [89] (which he only was under the broadest imaginable interpretation of the term), User:Tony1 calling the edit "something so trivial in such a trivial article" ([90]), and User:Ohconfucius making a totally unfounded accusation of ownership against me ([91]).
• The experience having been extremely unpleasant so far, I decided not to pursue the matter (since and solution needed to be less effort than a single revert once every few months).
• While looking up the diffs for this section, I noticed that I wasn't the first to raise the issue of use of the {{convert}} template within direct quotes; Sceptre did so February 8, 2008: [92] Lightmouse on that occasion apologized for "a rare case of [a quote] that slipped through": [93]

I haven't paid enough attention to this entire episode to have any well-developed thought on what Arb Comm's findings should be, but I wholeheartedly endorse the notion that Lightmouse's use of scripts and bots has, over the long-term, been suboptimal. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 00:13, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Addendum:

• Though I missed it due to being on Wikibreak at the time, Lightmouse apparently made the same edit again December 22: [94] Sarcasticidealist (talk) 20:24, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

¹Whenever I bring this incident up, somebody suggests that this article, which I created, doesn't meet WP:N. This is obviously a legitimate view, and I'd welcome an AFD (though I'd also !vote keep), but has nothing to do with the complaints I'm raising.

Evidence presented by User:Tony1

"Detailed" RfCs were POV and present significantly contaminated results

Meta-comment. I find it hard to engage here with:

1. the mud-slinging and smearing campaign that has developed in what is supposed to be a judicial process;
2. the voluminous and mostly irrelevant amount of text;
3. a process that appears to have no rules of evidence; and
4. a case in which the purpose was quite unclear from the beginning and which, unsurprisingly, lacks focus.

Support for my assertion. Several users here have been making much of a set of "detailed" RfCs that are purported to provide evidence of some kind of partial or substantial consensus for the use of date-autoformatting and/or linking. Major claims have been made on this basis. I'm linking you to analyses of the first two of these RfCs, which show significant contamination in the way information was presented to participating users, and which strongly suggest that they do not, in fact, offer useful evidence of anything except the need to apply skill and care to the framing of NPOV RfCs if their results are to be used as evidence. I believe the same is true of the other "detailed" RfCs, and will present analyses of them over the next day or two. The statistics provided by Colonies Chris at the application page on the vanishingly low rate of objection to date-delinking over a considerable period and many thousands of aritlces, together with the results of what I believe are RfCs of much more straightforward design, and many other pieces of evidence too numerous to cite here, point to the broad consensus in the community for what is now known as "smart linking" (a more selective approach to linking on the basis of link-value). Tony (talk) 13:24, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Tennis expert

Tony1 repeatedly has been incivil in violation of several important Wikipedia policies

His accusations of my having a major depressive disorder can be found here, among other places. Here are some examples of disparaging names Tony1 has called me: "Tennis pest", "Tennis fanatic", "pig", "very eccentric". Tennis expert (talk) 22:46, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Ohconfucius repeatedly has been incivil, disruptive, and unconstructive in violation of several important Wikipedia policies

(1) Ohconfucius says I'm stupid.
(2) Ohconfucius says that certain administrators are communists and Stalinists.
(3) Ohconfucius says that certain people he disagrees with are terrorists.
(4) Ohconfucius denegrates a contributor with "BIG YAWN".
(5) Ohconfucius denegrates a contributor with "ZZZZzzzz".
(6) Ohconfucius accuses me of being a drama queen and a princess.
(7) Ohconfucius accuses a contributor of being defensive-aggressive.
(8) List of some of Ohconfucius's disruptive and unconstructive behavior.
Tennis expert (talk) 22:55, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

(9) Accusing me of being part of a clique.
Tennis expert (talk) 16:17, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Colonies Chris repeatedly has edit warred to delink dates

Here are some examples:
Anna Kournikova (1), (2) (repeatedly unlinking "November 20, 2000")
Stan Smith (1), (2) (repeatedly unlinking "December 14, 1946"
Judy Tegart Dalton [95], (2) (repeatedly unlinking "December 12, 1937")
Alexandra Fusai (1), (2) (repeatedly unlinking "November 22, 1973")
Kelly Liggan (1), (2), (3) (repeatedly unlinking "February 5, 1979")
Roscoe Tanner (1), (2) (repeatedly unlinking "October 15, 1951")
Lesley Turner Bowrey (1), (2) (repeatedly unlinking "August 16, 1942")
Jill Craybas (1), [96] (repeatedly unlinking "July 4, 1974")
Stephanie Rottier (1), (2)(repeatedly unlinking "January 22, 1974")
Tatiana Panova (1), (2) (repeatedly unlinking "August 13, 1976")
Wilmer Allison (1), (2) (repeatedly unlinking "December 8, 1904")
Jelena Dokic (1), (2) (repeatedly unlinking "August 19, 2002.")
Debbie Graham (1), (1) (repeatedly unlinking "August 25, 1970")
Flavia Pennetta (1), (2) (repeatedly unlinking "25 February 1982")
Anna Smith (tennis) (1), (2), (3) (repeatedly unlinking "25 August 2008")
Casey Dellacqua (1), (2) (repeatedly unlinking "July 28, 2008" and "September 29, 2008")
Christine Truman (1), (2) (repeatedly unlinking "January 16, 1941")
Tennis expert (talk) 10:37, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Evidence presented by {your user name}

before using the last evidence template, please make a copy for the next person

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