Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Kww and The Rambling Man/Proposed decision

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Case clerk: TBD Drafting arbitrator: TBD

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General comments

The Rambling Man

Any activity?

Considering this case is scheduled to close in four days, and considering Liz has stated that the delay to the closure of the workshop wouldn't affect the closure date of the case, are we likely to see any activity here? Some of us may find it difficult to contribute over the weekend should new or unexpected opinions/positions appear from the mysterious Arbcom folks, most of whom currently remain curiously silent. To say this is all a little bit odd is an understatement. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:01, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

I stated what I was told via the clerks list but see this diff from one of the drafters, Thryduulf, who states that the committee hopes to meet the deadline. The evidence and workshop phases are closed so no new information will be posted and there is inevitably a discussion after the Proposed Decision is posted.

I'm pinging the case drafters (Courcelles, DeltaQuad) to see if they can state whether any action will occur before Monday. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 21:46, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

I created a section for you, The Rambling Man, because on the Proposed Decision talk page, comments and responses go in an editor's section, rather than having threaded conversations (excepting clerks and arbitrators). Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 21:49, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

When we have a proposed decision (PD) ready for public consumption it will be posted here, which should happen on or before Monday unless something urgent occurs between now and then. There will be several days at least for parties and others to comment on the PD before it is finalised - that's why it's called proposed. Thryduulf (talk) 22:21, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

The PD is still on track to be on time. Courcelles (talk) 01:59, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

Apologies to all, but due to the final bits of the PD a proving trickier to resolve than I anticipated and real life intruding for at least two of us, the proposed decision is delayed. Thursday (UTC) is the most likely day we'll be posting. Thryduulf (talk) 19:06, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

Incredible. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:10, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

I hate to criticise, we're all volunteers and all that but ... to say all along that the proposed decision will be on time (including just the day before!) and then 19 hours into the 24 of "Monday" to say it'll be postponed is really unfair to the parties involved. That it's going to be postponed by so many days is actually difficult to understand. On Sunday, it was on schedule for Monday, but on Monday it's postponed for Thursday? --Dweller (talk) 20:38, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

I won't complain ... if the PD that I suspect was being written is being contested, that all the better.—Kww(talk) 21:36, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

Getting the PD right rather than getting the PD out on time is being fair to the parties. It didn't become clear that it wasn't going to be fixable in time to get it out today until a few minutes before I posted here - this is at least partly due to my inexperience writing PDs. This has not been helped by myself and another drafter having attacks of real life - I only had about a third of the time today I thought I would have and now expect to be offline all day tomorrow. Thryduulf (talk) 22:18, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

Oh, how our expectations have changed! I remember the days when RFAr could take 3+ months to make it to a proposed decision. The fact that arbitrators A) have a stated schedule and B) apparently try to meet it, is still a remarkable improvement over the old days. An extra few days / week won't kill anyone. Dragons flight (talk) 22:43, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

• Actually, I am planning to post a PD before I go to bed tonight, though it took a blitz of work. (It is still the 24th in US time). Courcelles (talk) 00:45, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
  • I'm guilty of delaying it slightly by coming up with last-minute questions and suggestions. Apologies to all involved, and thanks especially to Courcelles for their hard work in moving it along. -- Euryalus (talk) 02:01, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
    • Thanks, Euryalus. And two hours late, I've published a PD. Courcelles (talk) 02:07, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
      • Must be some kind of record. -- Euryalus (talk) 02:52, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Kww

The proposed decision continues with the somewhat absurd practice of treating WP:BLP as a one-sentence policy. It is not, and I once again focus the committee's attention on "All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be explicitly attributed to a reliable, published source, which is usually done with an inline citation", which is way up there in the policy. In fact, it precedes the statement about "Contentious material about living persons (or, in some cases, recently deceased) that is unsourced or poorly sourced – whether the material is negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable – should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion", which, if you take the time to read it, is not the list of material which cannot be added: it's the list of material types that must, without delay, be immediately removed.

Please read them. Think about them. "All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be explicitly attributed to a reliable, published source, which is usually done with an inline citation" is explicit: it proscribes the addition of challenged material to a BLP without a reliable source. It doesn't even hint at a waiting period, and it certainly doesn't suggest that after restoring unsourced material to one article, you should wander away to do the same thing to another one, as TRM did. The same sentence is in WP:V, and WP:V also makes no suggestion that we should tolerate editors that restore unsourced material and falsely claim that the sources they have provided support the material they have added.

Similarly, because the statement "All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be explicitly attributed to a reliable, published source, which is usually done with an inline citation", restoring material that has has already been challenged is a BLP violation as well, by plain English definition: TRM knew when he restored the material to Jackman that it had been challenged. No one is claiming that TRM was unaware the material had been challenged. He knew his edits were unacceptable. My evidence demonstrated that he apparently wasn't even carefully comparing the material to the sources, as he was edit-warring in material that wasn't even mentioned in the sources he was providing (and was, in fact erroneous).

The 3RR exemption applies to all BLP violations: it doesn't apply only to material that violates the fifth sentence while excluding all material which violates the fourth. It clearly applies to "removal of unsourced material ... that violates the policy on biographies of living persons", when challenged information has been restored without a reliable source.

Courcelle's proposed principle of "Restoring unsourced material that is uncontroversial and non-negative to a BLP article in one edit is not a violation of BLP as long as subsequent edits provide adequate sourcing. Those restoring should indicate that they will be providing sources and should add sources in a reasonably short period of time, such as the same day's editing session. Controversial or negative material should only be restored if it is sourced when reintroduced" is an effort to rewrite and expand policy by Arbcom fiat. WP:BLP simply doesn't say that and never has. Even if it did say that, try reading TRM's edit summaries and talk page contributions while pretending that he isn't a former bureaucrat: his tantrum provided no reassurance that he intended on providing complete sourcing for his edits.—Kww(talk) 02:54, 28 July 2015 (UTC)