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::Just thought I'd clarify something here in regard to ''"has given media interviews on the subject"''. It's not obvious to non-Polish speakers but when you look at one of the sources that some people want to include in the article, the "magazine" (a trashy tabloid) basically gets the guy to agree to the interview by pretending to be sympathetic to his problems, then basically ridiculing him (the magazine is known for stunts like that) - i.e. they're basically trolling him. That's as far as one interview goes. And BLP applies whether or not a person has agreed to an interview or not.<span style="color:Blue">[[User:Volunteer Marek|Volunteer ]]</span><span style="color:Orange">[[User talk:Volunteer Marek|Marek]]</span> 04:19, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
::Just thought I'd clarify something here in regard to ''"has given media interviews on the subject"''. It's not obvious to non-Polish speakers but when you look at one of the sources that some people want to include in the article, the "magazine" (a trashy tabloid) basically gets the guy to agree to the interview by pretending to be sympathetic to his problems, then basically ridiculing him (the magazine is known for stunts like that) - i.e. they're basically trolling him. That's as far as one interview goes. And BLP applies whether or not a person has agreed to an interview or not.<span style="color:Blue">[[User:Volunteer Marek|Volunteer ]]</span><span style="color:Orange">[[User talk:Volunteer Marek|Marek]]</span> 04:19, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
:::I was referring to the [http://www.tvn24.pl/wiadomosci-z-kraju,3/zrobili-z-niego-najwiekszego-prostaka-pyta-dlaczego-ja,269944.html television interview]. [[User:Risker|Risker]] ([[User talk:Risker#top|talk]]) 04:25, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
:::I was referring to the [http://www.tvn24.pl/wiadomosci-z-kraju,3/zrobili-z-niego-najwiekszego-prostaka-pyta-dlaczego-ja,269944.html television interview]. [[User:Risker|Risker]] ([[User talk:Risker#top|talk]]) 04:25, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
::::I'm not sure whether that's an actual interview or just him answering a couple questions asked by a reported. Anyway. Not that important.<span style="color:Blue">[[User:Volunteer Marek|Volunteer ]]</span><span style="color:Orange">[[User talk:Volunteer Marek|Marek]]</span> 04:32, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Revision as of 04:32, 30 March 2013


Beware! This user's talk page is monitored by talk page watchers. Some of them even talk back.


On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog
Stats for pending changes trial
Wikipedia:Arbitration/Index/Cases
Category:Wikipedia semi-protected pages


Useful things for me to remember or I will never find them again, plus archive links

Column-generating template families

The templates listed here are not interchangeable. For example, using {{col-float}} with {{col-end}} instead of {{col-float-end}} would leave a <div>...</div> open, potentially harming any subsequent formatting.

Column templates
Type Family
Handles wiki
table code?
Responsive/
mobile suited
Start template Column divider End template
Float "col-float" Yes Yes {{col-float}} {{col-float-break}} {{col-float-end}}
"columns-start" Yes Yes {{columns-start}} {{column}} {{columns-end}}
Columns "div col" Yes Yes {{div col}} {{div col end}}
"columns-list" No Yes {{columns-list}} (wraps div col)
Flexbox "flex columns" No Yes {{flex columns}}
Table "col" Yes No {{col-begin}},
{{col-begin-fixed}} or
{{col-begin-small}}
{{col-break}} or
{{col-2}} .. {{col-5}}
{{col-end}}

Can template handle the basic wiki markup {| | || |- |} used to create tables? If not, special templates that produce these elements (such as {{(!}}, {{!}}, {{!!}}, {{!-}}, {{!)}})—or HTML tags (<table>...</table>, <tr>...</tr>, etc.)—need to be used instead.

Notes

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]
{{subst:User:Alison/c}} {{subst:W-screen}} Wikipedia:SPI/CLERK
ArbCom election watchlist: [6]

Note to self: Research Laura Muntz Lyall (or persuade one of the Riggrs to do so), consider writing an article about the Forster Family Dollhouse in the Canadian Museum of Civilization. Some day.

Emergency desysops
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Other note to self re "emergency" desysops:

  • Spencer195, Marskell, Cool3 - Level 1
  • Hemanshu - committee motion, mischaracterized as "emergency desysop" on noticeboard, desysop occurred minutes before the motion passed.
  • Sade - to check "involuntary per arbcom", Feb 09
  • RickK/Zoe - July 08. Long dormant admin accounts, shared compromised password.
  • Eye of the Mind - Dec 07. Main page deletion.
  • Shreshth91 - done at request of single arbitrator, Aug 07.
  • Vancouverguy - Jun 07. Long dorman admin account, apparent compromise.
  • Yanksox - Mar 07 - Jimbo desysop, confirmed by Arbcom in full case (DB deletion wheel war)
  • Robdurbar - Apr 07 - mass blocking, self unblocking, deletion. Wonderfool.
  • Husnock - Dec 06. Admitted shared password, desysop confirmed by Arbcom in full case.

Notes for AFT: call to action stats, numeric conversion and newcomer quality - very technical quality assessment Nov-dec 12 q4 report

Messages below please

Desysops

I don't see the purpose in even considering a de-sysop of SchuminWeb without an actual case. He's not randomly deleting articles nor issuing blocks from an undisclosed location. We did desysop Henrygb while he was inactive but we'd nailed him for sockpuppetry and he refused to answer the case against him. We also banned him at the end of the case for all that, though I imagine he wandered back under a new name. I'm sad that it came to this; he and I have had our differences but he's doing an absolutely thankless job and I have some sympathy for what that does to a user. I gave FFD a look today and shuddered at the thought of implementing our policies there. De-sysopping without a case sends the wrong message and guarantees the eventual outcome. This case is at least as important as the yearly Christmas Civility Clusterf--- and there's actual encyclopedic content at stake, for once. Cheers, Mackensen (talk) 19:20, 19 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Merry Christmas!

Hello Risker! Wishing you a very Happy Merry Christmas :) TheGeneralUser (talk) 13:28, 25 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

..


Seasons greetings to you and yours
Dougweller (talk) 13:55, 25 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Happy holidays to all my Talk Page Watchers

Ping

I mentioned you here; certainly, after more than a year of this BS, I'm not happy about all of the sock enabling that has allowed the FA process to be disrupted for so long. We got no answers on Merridew, EotR forced me to shut up, we still got no answers, and I wonder if we'll get answers here. Why was this allowed to continue? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:23, 2 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Pong

Do you have anything constructive to add to "what we have here is an attitude problem"? Rich Farmbrough, 04:49, 4 January 2013 (UTC).[reply]

I am commanded...

Dear Madam,

I am commanded by my employer to point out to you a very distressing edit war which appears to have broken out [7]. Naturally, my employer, as the First lady of Wikipedia, is completely detatched and impartial. However, you may feel that it is greatly to be regretted that the nouveau riche, parvenu and other generally arriviste type people are permitted to edit Her Ladyship's encyclopedia. Are we next to have Mr Obama creating dukes from the White House and listing them in the Almanach?

Yours faithfully Vera Corpus (Miss) (talk) 19:35, 9 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Two unrelated matters

Hi.

First, this was just brilliant. I've started a draft of an RFC at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Article feedback. Any help would be appreciated, of course.

Second, someone pointed me to this discussion on the German Wikipedia today. The number of page watchers is now available at ?action=info. E.g., <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page?action=info> (number of page watchers: 76,527). By default on Wikimedia wikis, the value is only displayed if you have the "unwatchedpages" user right (admins) or if the page has 30 or more (or perhaps just more than 30...) watchers. The Germans are apparently going to do away with this value (the vote is overwhelmingly supporting a value of 0). Strange how times change... perhaps The kohser will start editing there. ;-) --MZMcBride (talk) 04:05, 11 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi MZM. I periodically show up over there to, umm, express my opinions and concerns. A lot of time, energy and money has been invested into a tool that really hasn't produced: the last statistics I saw showed a near-zero rate of account creation and editing from those who leave feedback, and they aren't even attempting to measure whether or not the feedback is incorporated into the article or even discussed on its talk page for consideration of inclusion. Instead we have random IPs saying that a particular feedback comment is helpful, like this one on the Facebook page. (For casual readers of this page, the comment says "I think the graphs of age and popularity were the most useful." I don't understand how that comment is helpful; it's positive feedback, but it's not helpful. I'm pretty sure people are clicking "helpful" because it's the closest option to "like". This one is even less comprehensible as a "helpful" comment.) The fact that non-registered users are the ones determining whether or not something is helpful pretty well tells the story of the tool: it's become a game for people who don't actually edit the project. Meanwhile, the WMF continues to expend staff time and energy, and we keep hearing that it's going to be expanded to more and more articles. That's just an additional workflow for our already beleaguered editors to try to maintain.
As to the "unwatched pages" issue, the reason that the German Wikipedia can consider this is that all of their articles are managed under flagged revisions, and they have almost no vandalism to articles. (The Russians use flagged revisions everywhere too, and they have months-long backlogs. Not sure what the German Wikipedia backlog is for this; the last time I looked most were reviewed within a week, but that was a long time ago.) I'd be interested to see some stats about any variations in frequency of vandalism to "unwatched" pages on a large Wikipedia that does not have flagged revisions, should someone implement it; however, I think this is one example of a setting that shouldn't be tested on English Wikipedia first. And yes...my how times change. :) Risker (talk) 04:54, 11 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
German Wikipedia backlog is currently four weeks [8].--Ymblanter (talk) 06:58, 11 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Huh. When the Germans can't keep up with the backlogs, you know there's a problem. ;-)
I actually see a lot of similarities between FlaggedRevs and ArticleFeedbackv5. Maybe we'll see a name change in short order from ArticleFeedbackv5 to Valued Input, similar to the name change we saw prior to the FlaggedRevs (err, Pending Changes) deployment. :-) There seems to be a growing dichotomy between tools that help users reduce backlogs and tools that create new backlogs for users, though we can safely say that both kinds of tools often have simply awful names. --MZMcBride (talk) 08:17, 11 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Withdrawal

When Salvio commented that unless it was pretty blatant it would be unlikely for Arbcom to overturn a community decision. That was what I was looking for, and would not have even brought the appeal if that was clear. On the other hand, Rschen7754 has been working on a statement of why the issue should go before Arbcom. Plus as mentioned there are at least two suggestions that Arbcom should get involved. I would like that if it was for the purpose of eliminating the harassment that I have been subjected to for bringing up the topic. Basically I think it has to be one of the strangest topic bans ever. If the purpose of bringing it to Arbcom is to shut me or anyone else up, no. Apteva (talk) 05:40, 13 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

User rights automatically being assigned to education program participants?

Risker, this was a surprise for me when I just learned about it. Is Arbcom aware that rollback, autopatrolled, filemover, account creator, IP block exempt, and reviewer rights are apparently being assigned automatically through the Education Program Extension? If not, I think Arbcom may want to look into this situation. --Pine 07:31, 21 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

In fairness, my interest in this subject is personal rather than driven by being an arbitrator; I'm not entirely certain this is something that Arbcom would normally comment on as a committee. Having said that, there was an RFC before these permissions were approved by the community, but I'd have to go back and see what information was available to the community at the time of the discussion. I don't recall seeing anything about IPBE (which is something that usually has my antennae twitching), but I may simply not have noticed it before. Let's see if I can dig up the original RFC, which was discussed on the 'crat board during July, if I remember correctly. Risker (talk) 08:27, 21 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Article feedback RfC

Thanks for posting those questions - they're a good way of informing and guiding the discussion. Regards, Nick-D (talk) 11:05, 22 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

AFT5 newsletter

Hey all; another newsletter.

  • If you're not already aware, a Request for Comment on the future of the Article Feedback Tool on the English-language Wikipedia is open; any and all comments, regardless of opinion and perspective, are welcome.
  • Our final round of hand-coding is complete, and the results can be found here; thanks to everyone who took part!
  • We've made test deployments to the German and French-language projects; if you are aware of any other projects that might like to test out or use the tool, please let me know :).
  • Developers continue to work on the upgraded version of the feedback page that was discussed during our last office hours session, with a prototype ready for you to play around with in a few weeks.

That's all for now! Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 16:08, 23 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

that business yesterday

In case you were not aware there are a few users questioning your use of revdel on my talk page. See the thread titled "Do the WP:CIV and WP:NPA policies apply to administrators?" and the discussion it points to if you're interested. The section right above that one titled "on another matter" contains some further remarks from me that are probably more what you were looking for with your email request yesterday, that is, a more thorough explanation of why I did what I did and what might happen differently in the future. Not sure if it matters but I don't really have an opinion either way on the revdel, I get why you did it but it seems like the cat is out of the bag anyway. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:54, 23 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Request for review

Hi. I understand you recently blanked an edit summary that I feel should remain on the record. Are you able to reverse the action or otherwise explain why we should maintain the status quo? --Senra (talk) 18:01, 23 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Senra. I am not willing to reinstate that edit summary, as it is clearly and obviously a personal attack directed at a specific user. It is a perfect example of why revision deletion of edit summaries was enabled in 2009, in fact. Such edit summaries create an inhospitable editing environment for all users, particularly the target, and are unacceptable. Risker (talk) 18:21, 23 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Before I take the above response to the wider community (and yes I have seen your reply here) please let me know which specific part of the policy applies to your apparent unilateral redaction. Your edit-summary removal appears to be specifically excluded from item 2 of Wikipedia:Revision deletion#Criteria for redaction with the sentence "[Redaction] includes slurs, smears, and grossly offensive material of little or no encyclopedic value, but not mere factual statements, and not "ordinary" incivility, personal attacks or conduct accusations". I therefore repeat: [a]re you able to reverse the action? --Senra (talk) 18:52, 23 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The specific phrase used falls under "grossly offensive", at least in my book, and qualifies for revdel. In my opinion, it was moot as the phrase is all over ANI and VPP, but it is allowable under policy. --Rschen7754 18:55, 23 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
In that case, would you consider reversing the redaction on the grounds it sets an unhelpful precedent? I do not see a personal interpretation of policy being allowed to stand, particularly as such an interpretation is not applied across the whole of Wikipedia --Senra (talk) 19:03, 23 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
No, Senra, I am not willing to reverse the revision deletion. That not all administrators follow both the intent and the letter of the policy is an issue that is separate from whether or not this revision deletion is correct. I can't think of a single policy on Wikipedia that is consistently applied in all cases. I do not understand why you think it is a good thing that a user should be verbally abused in an edit summary and that that verbal abuse should be kept for all time, when you are giving the impression your request is motivated by your displeasure that the person who wrote the edit summary wasn't punished sufficiently for your liking. I had nothing to do with the blocking decisions; I would have felt it sufficient for an NPA block, but since the situation was being discussed on the noticeboards, I left it to the community to decide what to do in that respect. It is my considered opinion that no situation is ever resolved more effectively by saying "fuck off" to someone, and that it is even less likely to be effectively resolved by tacking on a highly inflammatory and personal insult to the end of the "fuck off". Risker (talk) 19:26, 23 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
You want my honest opinion? This is flat out wikilawyering. I see no reason to unredact the summary just to unredact it or just to overturn another admin's action. It falls under "I might not have done things that way, but it's perfectly within reasonable bounds" for me. Frankly, I wish all admins had that mentality. --Rschen7754 19:06, 23 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry this turned into such a mess, obviously my actions yesterday were completely unhelpful and made a mess which you have tried to clean up, only to be attacked for that. I am usually part of the team cleaning up the messes so I feel pretty stupid right now. This may sound weird, but I actually type in stuff like that all the time when I think someone is acting stupid or clueless. Usually, I chuckle at it and then rewrite it to something more appropriate. I don't know what impulse led me to just hit "enter" instead yesterday, I guess after two nearly-identical encounters with the same user I let it get to me a little bit more than I had realized. I just got done emailing something similar to AGK, I don't know if you saw the follow-up conversation we had by email but I feel kind of dumb about that too now. Don't expect to see any edit summaries like that from em in the future. Beeblebrox (talk) 23:42, 23 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Beeblebrox, and thank you for this message; it's exactly what I hoped to hear, in the sense of your recognizing that there were better alternatives than the action you took. I get that sometimes other editors can be mind-bogglingly annoying. I also get that it can sometimes be impossible to ignore that orange bar. I've found that a walk around the block does me a lot of good (although right now I have a feeling neither of us are enjoying weather that's conducive to that stress-breaker); just getting away from the keyboard when I'm frustrated does a lot of good. It doesn't mean one is "giving in" to someone else's bad behaviour. It means you are refusing to allow it to drive your actions. And yeah, it's hard. Risker (talk) 00:24, 24 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
If it makes any difference, I was the one he said it to, and I don't really mind if that edit summary comes back. KoshVorlon. We are all Kosh ...  20:41, 24 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Kosh, please try to indent correctly, your superindents are a pain to correct all the time and bugger up the normal formatting of talk pages. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:01, 24 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Stats re AFT

Risker, I'd like to know more about the statistical procedures you used for this [9]. For starters, for the "prior" period, what were you sampling? A sample of days from a 45-day period? Or 45 sample days from a longer period? Or what? You said the raw data was available via a link, but there everything is summarized by month so I'm at sea as to what you did. Thanks. EEng (talk) 22:51, 25 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi EEng, and thanks for your questions. I'll start off with a bit of background on the reality of Oversight.

  • Requests for oversight/suppression can be made directly to any oversighter via any means of communication, including email, IRC, gchat or in-person. We do not quantify the number or frequency of such requests, nor do we attempt to assess how many of them result in suppressions.
  • Requests for oversight/suppression can be made via email to an OTRS queue to which all English Wikipedia oversighters have access. We can quantify the number of requests received through this route. We are not able to quantify the number of requests where suppressions are declined, nor identify the number of suppressions that are done as a result of OTRS requests (either individual requests or a cumulative total).
    • We can identify the source of such emailed requests to OTRS. Those sent through the AFT5 interface are easily identified and can be quantified, regardless of whether or not they result in a suppression/oversight.
  • We can quantify the number of suppressions carried out, by time or by individual oversighter. We publish a publicly viewable statistical analysis that details the number of suppressions per month by oversighter, and in total.

So, in summary, the only two types of hard data that we can report: number of suppressions (sortable by a few variables) and number of suppression requests made to the OTRS queue (sortable by a few variables). The two data streams are independent of each other; not all requests are made to the OTRS queue, and not all requests made to the OTRS queue result in suppressions, while others may result in multiple suppressions.

With this in mind:

  • The 45-day statistics from before AFT5 had an interface that allowed direct submission of oversight requests to the OTRS queue was taken from requests submitted over 45 consecutive days in January/February 2012.
  • The link that was provided was to the statistics on how many suppressions occur over time; the history of that page will permit you to see statistics for earlier periods as well. (For example, the revision from June 2012 will show December 2011 to May 2012 data.)
  • The point I was making was that, overall, there was not a significant increase in the number of requests coming through the OTRS queue, despite the fact that during the most recent 45-day period 28% of them came from the AFT5 interface; and that despite the addition of AFT5 suppressions, the total number of suppressions being carried out over time has not significantly changed either. They're two separate factors, and neither reflects total workload, but we are able to determine from this that
    • Oversighters are not having to review more requests through the OTRS queue as a result of AFT5
      • There is no discussion on reviews of requests made through other means
    • The total number of suppressions that are being made has not significantly changed as a result of AFT5
      • There is no discussion about the number of suppressions per request, nor the number of requests that do not result in any suppressions

Does this clarify things a bit? Risker (talk) 19:46, 26 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes it does. So it sounds like you weren't sampling anything -- whatever data you had, it all went into your computations, correct? EEng (talk) 23:16, 26 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I think that would be a fair thing to say. The "sampling" was mainly in selecting the dates to review the OTRS input; it was roughly the 45 days before the AFT5 interface was activated, and not any other period. Risker (talk) 23:19, 26 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not trying to trap you or anything, but I think there may be an educational opportunity here, and since you're the man (or woman) on the spot for quantatative analysis for AFT and I suppose other stuff, it may be worth it. Please let me know if I've underestimated you and you know where this is going. So... when you said "no statistically significant difference" or whatever, is that from some null-hyptohesis z-score mumblefoo calculation you did? EEng (talk) 23:41, 26 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not the woman for quantitative analysis for AFT5; I'm the woman for quantitative analysis of Oversight/suppression. The overwhelming majority of suppression request come from individual editors involving the vast array of pages throughout the project, not through AFT5. As it happens, I have a personal interest in the AFT5 topic area, as can be seen by some of my comments and the series of questions I posed; as such, I thought it useful to the community to provide what information I have available about the effect of AFT5 on one specific, generally quite opaque, area of the project. Risker (talk) 04:29, 27 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
What I'm after is what's behind the statement of "no statistically significant change." EEng (talk) 17:57, 27 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Speaking strictly from my own observations, my concern was not that AFT reviewers were flooding us with requests, more that many of the requests we did get seem to show a poor understanding of the suppression policy, asking for it for simple vandalism such as "so and so is gay" or whatever. It's not as if oversight doesn't get a good amount of invalid requests anyway, but it is something I thought should just be in the mix when discussing expanding use of the tool. I suspect think that it is merely the result of how simple it is to request suppression with AFT by simply clicking a button. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:24, 27 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Checking if the time is OK

You'll remember that, back in Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Archive 13#Thinking about the mailing list, you asked me to hold off for a while, while more pressing matters were being dealt with. Have we gotten to a better time to raise it? Thanks. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:06, 28 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Your recusal in the 'Sexology' case

I'm curious what made you reach that decision. 188.26.163.111 (talk) 10:02, 31 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

So am I, given that severe off-wiki harassment against arbitrators and their families does not seem an unlikely outcome of this case. But I think that for a case of this nature the question is in bad taste and should not be answered as a matter of principle. Just giving my opinion here as a spectator. Hans Adler 11:18, 31 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Are you suggesting all arbitrators should recuse then? 188.26.163.111 (talk) 11:20, 31 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
No. It appears that there may be enough arbitrators who are sufficiently brave, and possibly anonymous and sufficiently confident that they will remain so. Nevertheless I think this case is too big to be handled just by a bunch of users of this website – which ultimately is still what Arbcom is. Hans Adler 12:23, 31 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your input about my pending application to appeal Continuation War infobox result special finding by AdminFutPerf

I really appreciate your remarks. This is all a learning experience for me, and the one big way I learn is from input. I've been told by a couple admins this is the wrong place to bring this complaint AND by another that my presentation is poor. (I've actually improved it a lot since beginning, so I shudder to think how it came across at first. You are aware, right, that my appeal is against a decision that the current infobox result *is* supported by a "consensus of sources"? And to out and discuss the supporting sources. Regards, Paavo273 (talk) 01:47, 12 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Merge request

Hi Risker, Are you able to merge Cape Coast Castle and Slave Castle of Cape Coast? It seems the talk pages agree they should be merged. My interest is that I have made a link to the former (which I consider to be the better article) from Entertainment, something that I am currently trying to get through to GA status. I don't know whether to edit the text before or after the merge. Either way, I think it would be better if these two were one. They are basically the same thing with a slightly different title. Is this the right place to ask? Thanks, Whiteghost.ink (talk) 08:53, 15 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Don't worry about this. I discovered that it is uncontroversial and learned that I could do it myself. Whiteghost.ink (talk) 09:43, 7 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

New Article Feedback version available for testing

Hey all.

As promised, we've built a set of improvements to the Article Feedback Tool, which can be tested through the links here. Please do take the opportunity to play around with it, let me know of any bugs, and see what you think :).

A final reminder that the Request for Comment on whether AFT5 should be turned on on Wikipedia (and how) is soon to close; for those of you who have not submitted an opinion or !voted, it can be found here.

Thanks! Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 19:23, 19 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Why on earth did you protect this page? He is charged with murdering an 18-year-old boy in London. The fact is WP:VERIFY and WP:RS. Look the latest details are here. What is the agenda that is preventing him and the other man, Paul Boadi , being mentioned in all of this?

You put the block on this article so what is the issue? They're all ovder Oscar Pistorius and it's not even reached the bail stage. So again I ask you, what is your agenda? 86.160.110.236 (talk) 15:35, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion now at WP:BLPN. GiantSnowman 15:51, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

TPM probation

The link you requested is here, as posted on the probation subpage of the TPM talk page:Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive219#Sanctions_on_Tea_Party_movement Mathsci (talk) 14:43, 25 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Mathsci. Risker (talk) 05:02, 26 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

WT:AC

I can't quite tell what you were getting at with this comment, but I suspect that you might've been suffering from TL;DR syndrome when you wrote it, as I've been in that same boat plenty of times myself. Feel free to erase my reply if you want to self-revert.   — C M B J   06:20, 2 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hey now

You're being a real spoilsport there bud. Someone should be able to drop a few small cultural references during a discussion to lighten the mood without people crowing about proper attribution.--The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 18:17, 3 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • I would not presume to speak for Risker, but this is the second time in a few days I have seen you address someone as "bud". Are you aware that not everyone you speak to on Wikipedia is a white male between the ages of fifteen and thirty and that people outside of that demographic may consider being addressed as "bud" by someone they don't really know to be quite rude? You might want to consider that in the future, assuming your goal was not to deliberately annoy people. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:00, 3 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Things that may seem very natural in a face-to-face conversation don't always work that way in a text-based medium, that's all. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:22, 3 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Given that one of the concerns expressed in the evidence of the case was unattributed close copying, the notion that unattributed "fair use" would be appropriate in a comment on the proposed decision page is off base, in my mind. I'm not sure we're very well acquainted, but I guess I've grown inured to the assumptions of familiarity that many Wikipedians have in relation to me; however, in my neck of the woods, "bud" is generally a fairly derisive term (not quite as bad as "jerk" but worse than "friend" when making a critical comment), something that you might want to consider when "conversing" with someone who is of a different cultural background than you. In this case, I've just taken it as being a continuation of an attempt to inject levity into what is (for the parties of the case) a rather serious situation, and I'm not taking it personally. Risker (talk) 05:31, 4 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Ottava

No worries about the talk page. It's just that if there is going to be a discussion about the return of Ottava, then the impetus should come from him. The third party discussions and ideas were making me uncomfortable. --regentspark (comment) 21:05, 4 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

No worries, RP - I assumed that it was done in good faith, and suspected this might be your reason. Risker (talk) 21:30, 4 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

COI questions

Hey Risker, I'm wondering if you think this draft request for comment would prove fair and useful? User:Ocaasi/coiquestions. Cheers, Ocaasi t | c 18:35, 8 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Oh my ...

seriously, I was literally LMAO. My dog was looking at me like I was totally nuts. (she's probably right). How could I possibly not like the heck out of ya Risker? — Ched :  ?  05:13, 11 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Secret Informers

Wikipedia should not be a Gestapo type state [10]. It should not operate on the word of secret informers and in-camera trials. Who was the informer on User:George Ponderevo or was s/he invented by the Arbcom) and please supply diffs for the supposed serious crimes. Then please tell the project how each Arb voted - or are the Arbs ashamed of their actions?  Giano  13:49, 14 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The initial email came from an editor in good standing who had had a well-documented prior dispute with Malleus. (That should be sufficient to anonymize the correspondent, as that describes at least 50 editors that I can think of.) And the votes of all arbitrators are recorded in the motion that is posted on the noticeboard. I supported this motion, which is factually accurate, after having opposed or refused to vote on at least 5 others. Risker (talk) 14:11, 14 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you' I saw the listed names saying who voted to support. I just don't believe it's quite that simple. Coren I not is recused - well that's hardly a surprise - is it? As for "email came from an editor in good standing who had had a well-documented prior dispute with Malleus." - I believe the Inquisition operated a similar ploicy before torturing people to death. Thank you for your time.  Giano  14:15, 14 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Need a quick Arb opinion

See Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Obdurate lack of cooperation from User:Abhidevananda. It has been suggested that this problem (and I suppose maybe the whole Sarkar issue) might be covered by WP:ARBIND, which I'm a bit dubious about myself: the problem here isn't India vs. Pakistan, but rather promotional editing by the followers of a guru-type who happened to be Indian. One way or another, we need a way forward with these articles. Thanks in advance. Mangoe (talk) 16:34, 14 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, I think WP:ARBIND would apply here; it's intended to be a very broad discretionary sanction (stuff breaks out in these areas in the most unexpected places) and the article does discuss information that is pretty much India-specific. I'm not sure what the best answer is in this case; I'd be concerned about not opening a case since that particular discretionary sanction was sort of an add-on to a very old case, but at least in the short term it might be a solution. Risker (talk) 02:03, 15 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
So what's our route here? Do we have to drag this through RFC/U, or should we go to Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests and ask for ARBIND, or do we need to start a new ARBCOM case? This guy isn't our only problem in these articles, BTW. Mangoe (talk) 13:10, 15 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Mangoe: Risker asked on the committee mailing list for attention to be paid to your question. I hope the following evaluation is helpful. The standard discretionary sanctions authorised by motion in India–Pakistan relate to "India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan", not "conflicts between India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan". Pages can relate solely to India (or to any of the other two states) and still meet the standard for applicability of discretionary sanctions. In this case, it seems to me that conduct at Progressive Utilization Theory falls within the scope of discretionary sanctions, and that you can reasonably bring an enforcement request against Abhidevananda if you think it is necessary to do so. AGK [•] 20:57, 15 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Courtesy notice to let you know that I've referenced this discussion in the above ANI thread. -Location (talk) 17:40, 16 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks to all for the comments. One of the main articles has just come off protection, and if there is further obstruction on it I shall appeal for ARBIND sanctions as suggested. Mangoe (talk) 19:47, 18 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Your comments are invited on four current FDC proposals

Hello! As you may know, we've opened the community review period for the current funding round in the Funds Dissemination Committee process. I noticed that in the past you expressed interest in the FDC, since you were a nominee for the ombudsperson. I'd like to invite you to review the 4 proposals (totaling $1.3 million USD) that were submitted to the FDC, and to ask questions and share comments about those proposals. You can help to ensure that they have high potential for impact regarding the movement's goals. The FDC especially values comments by community members and will take them into account when they prepare their recommendations. Let me know if you have any questions! --Katy Love, Senior Program Officer, Funds Dissemination Committee, Wikimedia Foundation, 22:55, 14 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

minimum number of arbs?

In light of recent events I was wondering if there is a minimum number of arbs we are supposed to have and if there are provisions for special elections should we get below that number. Not that I would want to see such a thing happen, but after looking over arbcom's procedures I did not see anything that seemed to directly address such a possibility. The noticeboard is such a zoo right now and you always seem to know the answers to such things so I thought I'd ask you directly instead of throwing it open to the peanut gallery for wild guesses and speculation. Beeblebrox (talk) 01:28, 15 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Beeblebrox. Bit of a mixed metaphor there, unless the zoo is full of squirrels, billy goats, monkeys and elephants. Anyway... The answer is "it depends". We can do fine with 13 arbitrators, generally speaking, even bearing in mind that 1-3 of them might be inactive or not fully available at any given time. We can be okay with 10 arbitrators, provided most people stay active, or it's later than August; however, we would have to be pretty disciplined to ensure we stay focused on core activities. Earlier arbcoms remained reasonably effective with only 6-8 active arbitrators and focused almost completely on cases. Realistically, we are about to start the AUSC appointment cycle, we have a very clear objective to clean up the discretionary sanctions area, and we will have a CU/OS appointment cycle some time after the WMF-wide Board/FDC elections. Those are the major non-case activities; I'd include clarifications/amendments as case work. There is also the ongoing work on BASC and AUSC; probably there will be a shift to really encourage the community members of AUSC to take the lead on cases. I am dearly hoping to do some very significant work on changes to the mailing list system/processes/etc - in fact, that was the main reason I ran for a second term - and that will probably be at least partly dependent on keeping everything else focused. Sorry, I'm rambling... Risker (talk) 01:42, 15 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
No, that's a great answer, ramble on. Hopefully things will stabilize here and nobody else will feel compelled to walk away. It's times like this I think not getting elected myself might not be such a bad thing. Beeblebrox (talk) 01:57, 15 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Risker, since you seem to be generous with the info, may I ask for a primer on ArbCom politics? What's this about politics? Are there factions? If so, who is fighting for what, and why have so many Arbs departed recently? Thank you for any light you can shed on this. One of the best ways to prevent drama and intrigue is to just lay things on the table. I always tell people that the truth is a good enough explanation. Jehochman Talk 04:11, 16 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your patience, Jehochman. I'd put forward that the Arbitration Committee is no more or less "political" than any other group on the project. After all, it's selected from the community, which some people see as being massively political and others see as completely apolitical. (My own take is that both extremes are wrong.) I do think, however, that there's a more significant challenge with reconciling the various philosophies within the Committee. From my perspective, I see three of them; as you read this, please keep in mind that there are fluid boundaries here, and individual arbitrators may follow one philosophy for certain matters and a different philosophy for other situations.

  • Arbcom action only after community action has not led to a resolution: Key tenet would be not accepting cases for Arbcom-level dispute resolution unless there is clearcut evidence of unsuccessful attempts by the community to resolve the issue. This is sometimes expanded to redirecting unblock requests to the community before being addressed by Arbcom (which is supported by more than just the key proponents of this philosophy) to rejecting proposed resolutions because the arbitrator feels that the resolution in question should come only from the community. This may also extend to not participating in processes or opposing proposals under the current remit of the Arbitration Committee that the individual arbitrator feels should not be within the committee's remit.
  • Activist Arbitration Committee: Key tenet would be that the Committee should address issues brought to it, even those at the edge of or outside the borders of Arbcom's remit, if it is likely to resolve a "problem" within the community or project.
  • Arbcom action strictly within remit: Key tenet would be accepting or declining cases and participating in other activities based on the remit formalized in various policies, including the community-approved arbitration policy and those handed down by the WMF.

Of course, the "best" Arbcom is one that has members within each of these groups, as long as everyone is willing to accept that there has to be some give and take. For example, the three philosophies blended well to bring community consultation formally into the CU/OS appointment process, and to create the AUSC with its community representation. We have from time to time actively sought to "crowd-source" relevant evidence for cases that are intended to have a more broad impact (Civility enforcement), or to actively involve the community in resolving certain key matters (Muhammed images, Capitalization, etc) and have tried to be innovative in finding sanctions that focus on permitting contribution without disruption (most recently, Doncram).

I think the biggest challenge we're facing is rooted in the fact that the community itself is sending very mixed messages about what it expects. There is a large and strong segment of the community that clearly wants the Arbitration Committee to stick strictly to its remit; there was solid support for the limitations put into place in the arbitration policy. This group will frequently intersect with another group that would see anything outside of cases removed from Arbcom's remit. On the other hand, the community consistently elects arbitrators whose personal history and candidate platform is activist; the questions put to Arbcom candidates from the community always include significant focus on how candidates would change policy and or about other matters that are completely outside of Arbcom's remit. (Examples: what do you do in your local chapter, is editor retention a problem, how would you have closed a specific deletion discussion, and the use of "four letter words".) So activist arbitrators come into the committee with a belief that the activist agenda has been supported by the community. From my perspective,any reading of our noticeboards, the case requests, and the cases themselves will reveal the wild split in the opinion of the community on the degree of activism that they expect from the Committee (ranging from anything we do being too much to our complete failure to rewrite major editing policies by fiat). The community has been completely unsuccessful in coming up with alternative, community-driven methods to accept responsibility for some of the tasks currently part of the Arbcom remit, despite some pretty solid efforts by the committee and/or community over the years to devolve these responsibilities to the community. (Examples: last resort for unblock/unban requests - many proposals, none of which has achieved anything close to consensus, dating back to 2007, and probably the task the committee itself would most like to divest; community appointment processes for checkuser and oversight - few proposals, none of which met basic criteria to comply with the global/WMF policy or received any serious support from the broader community.) As you know, the community is not regenerating itself, and there are simply fewer hands willing and qualified to take on some of these tasks.

As well, I think there is some issue with inflexibility. I don't honestly know what to do about that; I tend to be relatively hardline on sticking to the remit and expecting arbitrators to "walk the talk". At the same time, I try to be open-minded enough to support proposals that aren't worded precisely the way I'd do so, or that aren't exactly what I think is best, because there has to be some give and take and finding of middle ground. I admit I'm not always successful at this, especially when I feel something is out of remit. I don't think there are actually "politics" at play here, and I'm pretty darn sure nobody on the committee is angling for re-election. Maybe you and the community might want to give some thought as to why the last few years the successful candidates have almost all been from an incredibly small group of people consisting of former and current arbs, arbcom clerks, CU/OS/AUSC members, and AE admins (roughly 75-100 people). Only one candidate who did not fit into one of those categories was elected in the last two years, and has been an extremely good addition to the committee. (Not to criticize the rest of us who were elected or re-elected at the same time!) Different voices make a difference.

Hope this is a bit helpful. Risker (talk) 21:29, 16 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. My perspective on this is a bit unusual because I'm constantly involved in litigation as part of my profession (expert witness). I know of one lawyer on the Committee, Newyorkbrad, who usually advocates a light touch on matters. I generally agree with his approach. The Committee's position is always going to be a bit tenuous. You are just a few people with no army or police force. The only way you can enforce anything is if the community goes along with it. As such, you need to be extremely conservative about not doing more than necessary, not taking risks, not exceeding your competency, not making mistakes, because you are the final appeal. If you cock something up, it's really hard for the aggrevied party to get things made right.
Following my logic, it seems like I favor the approach of the first faction: don't get involved unless the community has already tried and failed. When everybody comes to you pleading for help, you have to ask, "Can we actually help?" If yes, accept the case. If not, reject it and say "Sorry, we recognize you would like us to help, but we cannot see any possible way to do so." You can't solve every problem, so pick and choose those you can, and put your energy there. Something like this Malleus case is a good example where your involvement probably made things worse, and consumed tons of energy that could have been better spent elsewhere.
It does make sense that ArbCom could receive requests for help and then redirect people to more appropriate resources: Checkusers, Oversight, OTRS, AE admins, admins who deal with lots of ethnic disputes, admins who deal with disruptive editors, etc. Such redirection is informal and simply a courtesy to help users find the most appropriate agency withing Wikipedia to resolve their situation.
I think ArbCom has been trying to do too much, and would be more successful if they were a lot more careful to avoid conflicts of interest, such as acting in the first instance in a matter, which eliminates the possibility of them reviewing the matter later as a neutral party. If I had to sum up my advice with one command it would be, "Preserve your neutrality." Don't wade into a dispute. Watch it and wait for the parties to bring the dispute to you when they are ready. Jehochman Talk 22:20, 16 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
With respect to "ArbCom trying to do too much": can you please cite examples besides the things from the last two weeks? IMO, those are too charged right now to comment on fairly as a pattern of anything at this time. NW (Talk) 23:34, 16 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I do not wish to use the highly stressful disputes of other editors (or my own) as fodder for an argument with you. Jehochman Talk 23:42, 16 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Jehochman, I did make my comment intending to start an argument with you. I have argued similarly in the past, both regards to specific cases we have taken up (the ongoing Tea Party movement for example) and with regards to situations of Wikipedia:Child protection. I would genuinely be interested in hearing specifics on areas where you think the Arbitration Committee has taken on more than it should. NW (Talk) 00:13, 17 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
"the community is not regenerating itself, and there are simply fewer hands willing and qualified to take on some of these tasks." This is because good users are constantly driven away at a rate far above the rate truly new users are brought in. Wiki has proven totally ineffective over the long term in dealing with its own problems. Risker also makes good points about the mixed signals it sends. PumpkinSky talk 00:22, 17 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
NW, I don't really care what you intentions are. I'm leaving my feedback. You can't argue with me at all because I have spent years interacting with the Arbitration system and have a long view of it. My opinion is that the Committee has been trying to expand its powers, and in the process has been losing power, because it's power is based on trust. People don't trust what they can't see and can't understand. If you would conduct business in the open, you'd have more trust. If you would dispose of cases more quickly, you'd have more trust. Arguing with me will never result in more trust. Jehochman Talk 00:34, 17 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
That will teach me to not proofread. There was supposed to be a not in the first sentence; "I did not make my comment intending to start an argument". NW (Talk) 00:55, 17 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You brought up a good example: Wikipedia:Child protection. If there is such criminal activity, it should be reported to the authorities immediately, not to an incompetent body of volunteers. (Not that you are incompetent people, but that the body is incompetent to investigate and deal with this situation.) ArbCom should not be receiving reports of paedophiles on Wikipedia. Not at all. That policy should say, "Go to the police."

If you want to ask me about other examples you can think of, I will be happy to provide feedback. Jehochman Talk 00:38, 17 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Well, let's look at what Arbcom has done so far this year:

  • Made an amendment to the Rich Farmbrough case [within remit]
  • Closed a case request involving use of admin tools by Hex with a motion [within remit]
  • Enacted a motion in relation to the Israel-Palestine case with respect to the Jerusalem article, with discussion to be moderated and closed by identified community members [within remit, and with overall dispute resolution devolved to non-arbitrators]
  • Withdrew project-specific access to CU/OS tools by WMF staff developers; responsibility for their tool use now rests with WMF [divesting project and committee from having to monitor use of tools, redirecting responsibility to WMF]
  • Unblock of Asgardian [within remit]
  • Enacted a motion relating to the Waldorf Education case to change sanction regime to standard discretionary sanctions [within remit, makes it easier for AE admins to handle]
  • Standardized the process for handling withdrawn case requests [within remit, done with community consultation]
  • Level II desysop of Kevin [within remit]
  • Enacted a motion relating to the Armenia-Azerbaijan 2 case to change sanction regime to standard discretionary sanctions [within remit, makes it easier for AE admins to handle]
  • Unblock of Russavia [within remit - block was an AE block]
  • Motion with respect to oversighter blocks [oversighters and privacy matters are within remit, community input sought, but this remains contentious]
  • Series of motions related to functionaries [within remit, 2 passed and 2 did not, significant community input]
  • Closed the Doncram case [within remit]
  • Unblock of Fae [within remit - lifting of Arbcom ban]
  • Return of Kevin's sysop by motion in lieu of full case [within remit]
  • Closed the RAN case [within remit]
  • Statement regarding MF and GP [whether or not this is within remit is hotly debated right now]
  • Initiated AUSC appointment process [within remit]

So, we have 18 actions reported on the Arbcom noticeboard, in the first 12 weeks of the year; there are also two open cases where arbitrators remain active, and additional amendment/clarification matters being reviewed. I think there may have been a few unblocks by BASC that were blocks by individual administrators rather than community sanctions or Arbcom sanctions. The AUSC, which includes 3 arbitrators and 3 community members, is reviewing several requests. I believe we have had one "child protection" complaint, which was alluded to on one of the committee-related talk pages. In the background some arbitrators (led by Timotheus Canens) have started the process of reviewing discretionary and other sanctions from earlier cases to ensure that there is standardization, and that sanctions that are no longer needed can be lifted. This will be a lengthy process, since there are so many "old" cases and sanctions; we hope to bring something to the community in June. There is also some work on reviewing mailing lists, and preparing a statement on how mail is handled and is normally redistributed; and creating guidelines for oversighters and the use of the "oversighter block", which should be extremely rare. Almost everything that the committee has worked on is easily within its remit, the ongoing work is focused on its longstanding responsibilities without trying to expand its remit at all (if anything, there is some work to clarify what it defers to others), and until the community comes to a consensus on alternatives to handle some of the current tasks, this is what is in the portfolio.

I agree with anyone who says it that "child protection" blocks would best be done by the WMF; in fact, I'm pretty sure every member of Arbcom would agree with that statement too. As it stands, though, there are exactly two community liaison staff to cover the hundreds of WMF projects, and they have made it clear that they do not have the time to investigate such reports; obvious cases of paedophile activism result in blocks from the community level anyway, which is true. On more than one occasion, Philippe (WMF) has encouraged this community to help make the case for the need for more community liaisons to help address issues such as this. I don't have any influence on the WMF budget, nor does Arbcom as an entity, but I'm sure any reader here already knows where that issue might better be addressed.

Could we have handled some things differently? Well, of course; and most of the things I think we could have handled differently involve one or more actions that were taken very quickly rather than in a well-considered manner. It's my personal opinion that precipitate action at an early juncture tends to take much longer to resolve completely and satisfactorily; however, I know that opinion is not shared universally, and there have been times where prompt action was the best course, as well. I think it is very difficult for anyone in our community to select the best course of action when there are competing priorities or different policies disagree on the preferred course of action, and arbitrators (and editors/admins who are also arbitrators but are acting in their personal capacity) can get caught in the same policy traps as any other member of the community. Risker (talk) 03:24, 17 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It would be a great thing if minutes or a digest were provided from time to time explaining what ArbCom has been doing. This will increase trust and help calm people who might otherwise get unhappy. Your post above is quite useful. The ArbCom is supervised by the community. We need occasional reports of what's going on. Perhaps ArbCom will appoint a secretary to take such notes and post them, perhaps weekly or fortnightly. It would be good to include a general summary of matters being discussed on the mailing list, with anything confidential redacted or names withheld. Jehochman Talk 03:32, 17 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Well you could always look at the Arbcom noticeboard, where all of these actions is publicly announced, and all the messages are archived. The mailing list is the least of the activity. We actually work on this committee, and it's poor use of an arbitrator's time to analyse mailing list nonsense. We get 10 spam emails for every real one in the moderation queue; do you want a deal on apartments in Ulan Bator? To meet new people (wink wink)? To purchase an entire pharmacopia of drugs for just about every ailment that afflicts mankind? I'd be happy to forward those ones to your mailbox if you like... :-) Risker (talk) 03:47, 17 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
(talk page stalker) comment. I had started an idea while talking to Worm a couple days ago, but haven't gotten back to it yet to flesh out all my thoughts on it. I think an A OR B (agenda OR arbs page) is more doable than both. I'm not even sure Worm actually looked at it with all the ... ummmm ... activity(?) recently. I wouldn't mind expanding on my thoughts if there was any interest, but I don't want to put a inordinate amount of time into something that's going to get scoffed at either. @Johathan: I'm honestly not stalking or following you around these days - more of a "have similar thoughts and concerns" type of thing. — Ched :  ?  06:35, 17 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hi Risker, I've just seen this and I want to thank you for being so open with your thoughts. Openness like this is one of the things that I think can help narrow that chasm that Worm has mentioned. I think highlighting that ArbCom has been lumbered with lots of stuff simply because nobody else wants it will help with understanding. For example, there seems to be some dissatisfaction with the way ArbCom appoints CU, OS, and AUSC, but your pointing out that the community has been unable to come up with a successful alternative helps to counter suggestions of corruption and power-mongery. My thoughts are that in these cases, a community election (of candidates who have been vetted for any legal issues etc) would be a better alternative than appointment - but I see from here that that's been tried in the past and was not successful. If people think power structures here have become moribund, well, so has the community - with size and diversity comes impotence. As for your three approaches to arb, I'd say I'm a "strictly within remit" person. Perhaps simply leaving extra-remit things undone might stimulate some action - WMF are less likely to act to rectify structural problems if they always have some convenient unpaid muggins who'll step in and try to clean up the political shit. Anyway, thanks again. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 09:23, 17 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    PS: I also think that a lot of the problems come from what Worm calls a reactionary approach to issues. While it's inevitable that sometimes a "rapid reaction force" response will be needed, it usually isn't, and it can sometimes be hard to distinguish necessary quick response from the jerking of knees - Ms Streisand's lesson can be a hard one to learn. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 09:35, 17 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

In a Work to hire Contract like Elance is not copyright owned by the individual or the company for whom they work.It appears so as per this Elance service agreement and this . If so how are they posting on site without WP:ORTS permission from the copyright owner ie individual or the company who paid them.I am not sure the copyright owner has agreed to licensing under licenses it under CC-BY-SA and the GFDL. Will there any legal issue if there is dispute over it. I would greatly obliged if you clarify on this. I have also posted in our project now renamed from Paidwatch to Integrity here.Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 08:01, 19 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

In this Elance Ad someone wants a Wikipedia page to be created do not think it has been created.But a line states in the Ad When placing a bid, please advise of your experience in Wikipedia and web2.0.All content will remain copyright of myself. Integrity is a key focus on this job as well. If you successful undertaken this role, there are more pages to upload after this one.One may need to sign into Elance to view the last 2 lines Job ID: 39154940.Sent the ad by email. Most Elance ads ask for wiki pages to be created and the paid editors will be clicking the Save button and not the copyright owner and thus have not agreed to licensing under CC-BY-SA and the GFDL.Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 09:41, 19 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, Risker. :) Just FYI, Pharaoh popped by my page to note this, as this subject is under discussion at my talk page, too. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:09, 19 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks folks. First off, we all know that an article titled The Arthritis Solution is going to last about 12 seconds on Wikipedia, so much of this is moot; not even the greenest new page patroller is going to mistake that for anything other than spam. I also think people sometimes confuse copyright (which belongs to the creator of the content or, if they have entered into a contract, the person/organization they have contracted with) and licensing. So if I write an article, I still hold the copyright, but by hitting "save" on Wikipedia, I license it to be used under the CC_BY_SA 3.0 and GFDL. I would also not be surprised to find that this is a troll on Elance (since it's such an obviously commercial title name); I've heard that a few people have done that in an effort to "out" editors writing for financial gain, although I've not had any names directly linked to this "rumour". The main The Arthritis Solution I can find online is a pseudoscientific supplement for dogs that clearly wouldn't pass our criteria. Risker (talk) 13:15, 19 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
As I said on MRG's talk page, I notice that the prospective client is explicitly proposing sockpuppetry which involves him disclosing his password to the editor he hires, who then disguises himself as the client when posting the article on Wikipedia:
I'd like a provider to use my existing account on Wikipedia (details will be provided to the successful applicant) to submit a page titled "The Arthritis Solution."
That strikes me as a huge no-no. Though, it's possible the whole thing is a bit of trolling. Voceditenore (talk) 13:39, 19 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
As per the client information he appears to be genuine having done 81 jobs and spending nearly 34K.The question was about the larger issue of Copyright in work to hire contracts .Thanks for your response.Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 15:40, 19 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
No, he has hired people to do 81 jobs, only one of which has anything to do with Wikipedia. I think copyright isn't even on the radar when it comes to concerns about this. Risker (talk) 16:11, 19 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you very much for your prompt response and clarification and also Moonriddengirl's reply here on the legal potions clarifies the issue.Just FYI it is being discussed Here in Integrity Project and and here as another editor has raised a few more issues.My profuse apologies to you that the discussion spilled over talk pages.Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 04:49, 20 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
No worries, Pharaoh; taking it to Moonriddengirl's page was an excellent idea. Risker (talk) 04:56, 20 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"Wikipedia as database" essay

Could you please create a copy, in my userspace, of the "Wikipedia as database" essay, previously at User:Riggr Mortis? Thanks. --Surturz (talk) 02:59, 25 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

WP:AN discussion

A discussion which relates to actions or comments made by you can be found at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Peter Damian socks. Fram (talk) 15:55, 25 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Please see this

Please take a look at this. Thank you very much. --Lecen (talk) 21:06, 25 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You said: "[I] encourage all parties to try the mediation route once again" Today I did exactly what you suggested. This[11] and this[12] is what happened. You should have noticed by now that I was the only party who went through all stages of dispute resolution while they played with the time. The Arbitrators need to step in and do something about it. --Lecen (talk) 13:46, 26 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I've reviewed further developments and have now changed my vote to accepting. Risker (talk) 23:55, 26 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Dear Risker, I write to you the same thing I wrote on Kirill's talk space:
"I consider my explanation at the mediation talk page valid. For example, take a look at the Blood tables article that Lecen lists in the Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/Argentine history on Wikipedia. When did Lecen edit the "Blood tables" article (or its talk page)? What exactly is wrong with this article that Lecen wishes to improve? Has Lecen's improvement to this article been unjustly denied for there to be a mediation?
And it's not just that article. Lecen also lists Sociedad Popular Restauradora, a stub article. The same questions apply.
Moreover, as I mentioned in my "decline" explanation, plenty of third opinions were heard (with regards to Juan Manuel de Rosas) that favored my position. Lecen refuses to acknowledge these opinions.
Lecen comes to ArbComm with a clear intent at WP:GAMING, skipping the WP:BRD process, blatantly avoiding any consensus, and seeking to avoid collaboration in Wikipedia with those who have a distinct point of view from his own (see [13], [14], and [15]).
Best of wishes."
With regards to you as well.--MarshalN20 | Talk 21:39, 27 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Resurgence of Eastern European fiascos:

Could you keep an eye on this page Advice Polack - not exactly a rivetting subject, but if you check it's history and spurious nomination for deletion [16], I think you will see some unfortunate shenanigans are going on. If you take my advice (not that the Arbcom ever does) you will see this is nipped in the bud before it spreads to other pages - as it surely will. I have already reverted it, to it's fully referenced version; it may need protecting. Giano  14:05, 29 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Trouble has started already [17] Volunteer Marek edit warring to retain a gutted version of User:John Vandenberg's original version, so that it's so hopeless it will be deleted. Perhpaps you would revert to John's version and protect. Odd how Sandstein is never around when he's wanted.  Giano  19:03, 29 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
What-in-the-heck is going on here? This looks like Brian Peppers all over again. Mangoe (talk) 19:04, 29 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Gimme a break. This is a BLP issue. I have no idea what "Resurgence of Eastern European fiascos" is supposed to mean or imply. It's a weak article on a stupid non notable internet meme which has already messed up the subject's professional and personal life. And Giano, you're reverting and edit warring too. The difference is that I have BLP policy on my side.Volunteer Marek 19:10, 29 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Oh dear [18] Houston - we have a problem. I'll wait a few hours for this to be rectified.  Giano  20:06, 29 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
That is a bit of a mess up, since there's an AfD for it, but really, it's not surprising given the nature of the article.Volunteer Marek 20:12, 29 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
What a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to [19]....  Giano  20:24, 29 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm afraid I'm not terribly supportive of the article being kept. If this was a significant Polish internet meme, it would have an article on the Polish Wikipedia, which it does not have. I don't think this is a BLP violation: the person who was discussed in a previous version of the article as having been a victim of this meme has given media interviews on the subject, although one might argue that he is creating his own little Streisand effect and that English Wikipedia shouldn't help him with that. Mind you, I've always had low regard for articles about "internet memes" because they don't really have the level of durable notability that one expects in order to comply with our policies. Risker (talk) 03:03, 30 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Just thought I'd clarify something here in regard to "has given media interviews on the subject". It's not obvious to non-Polish speakers but when you look at one of the sources that some people want to include in the article, the "magazine" (a trashy tabloid) basically gets the guy to agree to the interview by pretending to be sympathetic to his problems, then basically ridiculing him (the magazine is known for stunts like that) - i.e. they're basically trolling him. That's as far as one interview goes. And BLP applies whether or not a person has agreed to an interview or not.Volunteer Marek 04:19, 30 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I was referring to the television interview. Risker (talk) 04:25, 30 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure whether that's an actual interview or just him answering a couple questions asked by a reported. Anyway. Not that important.Volunteer Marek 04:32, 30 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]