Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Badlydrawnjeff/Proposed decision

Arbitrators active on this case

• Blnguyen
• Charles Matthews
• FloNight
• Fred Bauder
• Jdforrester
• Jpgordon
• Kirill Lokshin
• Matthew Brown (Morven)
• SimonP
• UninvitedCompany

Recused

• Mackensen

Inactive/away

• Flcelloguy
• Neutrality
• Paul August
• Raul654

User comments on the proposed decision

Although I applaud much in the proposed decision that Kirill Lokshin has drafted, the editing restrictions proposed for badlydrawnjeff (which may be moot in any event if he does not return to editing) are draconian. If I am reading the proposed decision correctly, Jeff would not only be banned indefinitely from deletion debates concerning any BLP article (which in itself seems overbroad), but also from ever editing any mainspace article concerning any living person ("all articles covered by the [BLP] policy"). This ban would apply even if the subject was indisputably notable and even if there were nothing even slightly controversial about the edit (theoretically, Jeff could not correct a living person's middle initial). This remedy seems particularly unnecessary given the consensus in the Workshop that Jeff's own editing (as opposed to his position in deletion debates) has never raised any BLP-related issues. Remarkably, the scope of the ban actually exceeds even the most severe of the dozen or so varying remedies proposed against badlydrawnjeff in the otherwise compendious Workshop. I have been on opposite sides from badlydrawnjeff in several of the contested deletion debates that led up to this arbitration case but I am nonetheless extremely uncomfortable with this proposal. Newyorkbrad 04:32, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Agree with Newyorkbrad. In addition to obvious biographies (articles titled as a persons' name), there are plenty of un-obvious ones (articles titled as something else, but that include substantial biographical content). With the current remedy #1, we could talk in terms of percentage of Main space from which Badlydrawnjeff is banned. Combine these two factors with community feeling on this issue, and I fear it will quickly become unrealistic for Badlydrawnjeff to edit anything at all. If I may, I suggest the remedy be drastically reduced in scope to only cover POINT xFDs and DRVs (or POINT participation in such), as that was what led to this arbitration. — digitaleon • talk @ 09:26, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Jeff has made seemingly-reasonable edits to XfD/DRV as well as some obvious WP:POINT ones. Given that decided what is POINT may be as contentious as the issue itself, and a decision to that effect may only serve to anger him, I suggest that if any remedy is needed, Jeff be barred only from starting DRVs on living persons, which is easier to enforce - see my proposed remedy [1]. The way, the truth, and the light 10:25, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure where such a consensus in the workshop has come from; certainly badlydrawnjeff has made problematic edits in mainspace (e.g. this) as well as the ones in XfDs and such. And yes, the remedy I've proposed is draconian; but, quite honestly, I don't see any other option for a case of this nature. Jeff simply does not get BLP; until he shows some signs of doing so, it would be wildly irresponsible of us to allow him to continue screwing around with those articles. Kirill Lokshin 10:10, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

The dispute was never about BLP, as it was, but about the new policy being implemented by some administrators without previous discussion; this has been expressed in the new additions to WP:BLP and WP:NOT. I don't think it's reasonable to blame this on Jeff. The way, the truth, and the light 10:25, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Apparently, my crime for sanctioning is that someone can find one edit that's debatably problematic. Otherwise, this is simply a sanction that a) restricts me for holding an opinion contrary to the people in charge, and b) completly ignores what got us here to begin with. Not that I'm even considering bothering with this project anymore, but this would certainly mean it's not even worth my considering it if I do change my mind. Which, of course, was the point all along. --badlydrawnjeff talk 11:49, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I would have to say that the isssues regarding Badlydrawnjeff are far less about BLP than they are about general disruption of deletions and deletion reviews. I supported a temporary ban on him from deletions and deletion reviews. Wikipedia is not a battleground. The drama he creates with his extreme inclusionism only happens to spill over into BLP.--MONGO 10:31, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

• Like NYBrad, I think that the proposal to ban Jeff from BLPs is excessive and unjustified and strongly urge its rejection. Bucketsofg 11:51, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
• Not nearly justified by the evidence, and effectively causing serious damage to the encyclopedia. The edit you describe isn't even vandalism, but a good faith edit, that had been discussed and supported on the talk page of that article, hardly a reason for such penalties. Compare that to Bdj's excellent contributions throughout: without his intervention, for example, Chase Headley, a BLP article, would have been deleted months ago, and I'm sure that is true of tens if not hundreds of other articles. In the end, folks, the encyclopedia is not the DRV discussion and the other forums, it's the articles, and Bdj has been nothing but a boon to the articles. --AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 12:19, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
• MONGO is correct. Jeff is simply more trouble than he is worth, and he has no-one to blame but himself. Wikipedia cannot tolerate bulls in china shops, particularly when the china represents people's lives. The uncertainty over what he will do next, given his open opposition to BLP, is just as important, if not more so, than what diffs you can find over what he has done in the past. Wikipedia is one of very few organisations, and certainly the only organisation of its size and reputation, that tolerates people working within it that openly disagree with and actively attempt to subvert its fundamental principles in the name of openness and freedom. Even this decision won't reverse that, but it's a start. A strong signal such as this may encourage those seeking a career in amateur tabloid journalism to stop attempting to abuse Wikipedia's open-editing structure for that purpose, and go find a more suitable website with different ethical princples. 86.151.38.245 15:09, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
• I'm with MONGO and with the direction that the ArbCom seems to be taking. BLP has to be taken seriously; all of us have to "get it". I'm in favour of even more active and rigorous enforcement of it by admins. Metamagician3000 12:17, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
  • That makes adminship a big deal. There are some admins who I would trust to do regular clean-up tasks, but there are some that I would not trust to carry out BLP deletions. There are also editors that I would trust (including Tony Sidaway) to properly enforce BLP. I'm all for more rigorous enforcement of BLP, but why focus on admins and not allow the community as a whole to enforce BLP? This focus on admins being the ones to carry this out is an expansion of the roles of admins that many will not have foreseen. Many admins at their RfA were given the tools by community approval to carry out tasks such as speedy deletions, and determining consensus on AfD discussions. Making judgements on BLPs is a different mattter again. What you will end up with is a de facto group of self-appointed BLP admins, distinct from the rest of the admins (who will either on principle or in fear of getting it wrong, stay away from such actions). The basic questions are ones such as: (1) Are all admins suitable for BLP duty? (2) Should admins wanting to carry out BLP deletions go back through RfA? (3) Is a pool of BLP admins necessary or desirable? Carcharoth 12:28, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

To what degree is it appropriate to ban someone for the sole reason that they disagree with a policy (and note, please, that "all articles covered by the policy" covers any article that contains any mention of any living person)? More than a few editors believe that the BLP policy should not have or does not require a subjective ethical basis. Are they also to be banned? If failure to "get" a particular interpretation of a policy is to become the new standard for banning editors, then let's at least be consistent and not only target Jeff. -- Black Falcon ^(Talk) 15:47, 19 June 2007 (UTC) In case it wasn't clear, my call for consistency should be taken with a grain of salt. It's intended to be sarcastic because (a) a different response would either violate my ethical principles or would result in a (self-)block for incivility, and (b) sarcasm is really helpful, didn't you know.

If you don't agree with an organisation's fundamental policy, then it's ludicrous for you to join it, and more so to expect to stay in it. If you joined the RSPCA and spent the meetings breaking the legs off insects, how long would you expect to remain in? Yet this is exactly what some editors expect of Wikipedia simply because it says 'anyone can edit' - they confuse 'anyone can edit' with 'anyone may edit'. --86.151.38.245 17:56, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Comment by The way, the truth, and the light

This issue isn't about Jeff. It never was. The other side have tried to make it about Jeff to avoid talking about the real issues and intimidate those that disagree. By deliberating leaving deletion criteria vague and attacking anyone that disagrees, they are imposing a new kind of censorship on Wikipedia. Now the standard to not having articles based solely on a brief appearance in the news is reasonable, though one can honestly argue against it; but it is apparent that this new secret standard goes farther in imposing a higher standard of notability on controversial biographies than on normal ones. This means that we will have biographies on semi-notable people except when they are necessarily negative or arguably so, which creates a systemic bias in our coverage.

Specifically, #4 of this proposed decision, about BLP deletions, does not decide anything. It leaves essentially what we have now, which has created this conflict. If there were consensus to delete an article it can be gotten at AfD; doing so after it has been deleted will not be representative. It is therefor not reasonable to insist that out-of-process deletions require consensus to overturn, especially given the difficulty of determining such. Note also that all the articles we have had disputes over have been ones that existed a long time, and one can reasonably suspect that something is wrong if long-standing articles are speedily deleted. Newly created articles can be speedied as usual, but those that have long been a part of Wikipedia should almost always go through AfD. The way, the truth, and the light 10:50, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Request to Digitaleon for clarification

Without commenting on the proposed remedy, I'd like to pick out a sentence used by Digitaleon that puzzles me: I suggest the remedy be drastically reduced in scope to only cover POINT xFDs and DRVs (or POINT participation in such).

I like to think that I'm familiar with the guideline in question, whose full name is Wikipedia:Do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point, but I don't understand that context in which it's used here. "WP:POINT" is about breaching experiments--disruptive acts that the author carries out, knowing that the consequences will be bad for Wikipedia, but believing that the actions are necessary to show the absurdity of a line of reasoning or a policy.

That doesn't sound like what Jeff has been doing at all. He has certainly believed that his actions are the best thing for Wikipedia as the most direct step available to right a perceived wrong. Such acts are sometimes disruptive especially when pursued to the lengths he is prepared to go to, but I don't think this is in any way a breaching experiment. He wants those discussions and he wants those articles resurrected.

So could you explain what it is about these disruptive acts that makes you describe them as "POINT" acts? Do you just mean disruptive acts concerning the deletion process? --Tony Sidaway 10:35, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I think what he was referring to are comments that are based only on his extreme philosophy and not on the merits of the article. The way, the truth, and the light 10:51, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that sounds plausible I suppose. To clarify I don't think general philosophical opposition is necessarily bad, and in fact I and many other editors deploy such arguments regularly--not least in my own promotion of a certain view of the biographies of living persons policy in opposition to a more restrictive view. But there's a difference in the tone.

Comments of that type may be disruptive, but I think the reason is because of their vehemence, the assumptions of bad faith he brings with them (at several points in the workshop and in deletion discussions he accused people who disagreed with him of lying), and perhaps as Kirill suggests in his finding of fact and remedy, his irreconcilable opposition to the ethical component of Wikipedia policy. Denying the ethical dimension could perhaps be seen as disruptive if carried to extremes. --Tony Sidaway 11:02, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

My apologies for any confusion regarding my comments. The reasoning I went through to get to my statement was as follows:

Badlydrawnjeff has been pursuing the undeletion of an article, which contains substantial biographical content. There's actually no issue with this: he has used the correct forums (DRV and DR) and, at least initially, followed the correct process by moving to the next forum in line where he felt that the result was unacceptable. So far, so good.

These mechanisms are consensus-driven, and like anything that is consensus-driven, there is inevitably a proportion - whether a whole group of people or just one person - who won't be happy with the outcome. The process exists to ensure that those people have grounds to raise their concerns about consensus as established, but also to put a limit on how far this can go so that endless battles are not fought. Bringing the same dispute to the same forum again and again, to try and establish a different consensus, is defined as DISRUPTive behaviour for that reason.

The consensus established through these mechanisms (which, despite undeletion and re-deletion on several occasions) ended up with the article being deleted and remaining so. The grounds given for this consensus were based upon BLP; not just the black-letter verbiage of the policy, but the principles from which it exists. At this point, Badlydrawnjeff seemed to decide that either BLP - or the apparently widespread interpretation of it - was incorrect, and continued with the same campaign but with a new twist in trying to change how BLP was being interpreted.

This then extended into initiations of and comments on a number of other DRV and other DR requests (per evidence), where it seemed to become as much about a sea change in the application of BLP as it did about preserving biographies that were worth preserving (or if they weren't, resurrecting and fixing them). Such situations are covered by POINT, since Badlydrawnjeffs' views on these matters were, by that time, well known by regulars to those forums, and it would have been difficult for him to not know that pursuing this course would be disruptive.

My concern about the remedy #1 remains; the effect of it is to ban Badlydrawnjeff from swathes of the Main space, and in such a way that it is likely to make any editing by him at all impractical - even if the edits are not to biographies or articles with substantial biographical content. The reason I say this is that I find it likely his edits will be closely scrutinised by many other editors - based on what I have seen here and elsewhere - and any edit that has a possible BLP tangent is likely to be flagged for further attention. You can't edit productively if you have to constantly look over your back, and should this come to pass, it would not surprise me to see Badlydrawnjeff make a noisy, but entirely understandable, exit from the project altogether (if he hasn't already).

Thus, I believe remedy #1 needs to be drastically reduced in scope. Badlydrawnjeff should be able to edit productively on biographies and on articles with substantial biographical content, and be able to comment on them using the talk page; I have seen nothing to suggest he hasn't so far. Badlydrawnjeff should be able to get involved with the productive formation of the BLP policy; this is obviously an area of interest for him, and per Wikipedia Official Policy, "consensus, tradition and practice" are all used in the formation of policies. Badlydrawnjeff should even be able to initiate and participate in xFD and DRV processes surrounding biographies and articles with substantial biographical content; this is part of normal, productive editing and improving the encyclopaedia. The only thing he needs to be enjoined from is POINT abuse of these processes, being the reason (in my view) for this arbitration request; after all, if having exhausted the available process, Badlydrawnjeff had accepted the consensus and moved on, or else moved along to trying to re-form the policy, this arbitration request would likely never have occurred.

All of that said, I do have some sympathy for Jeff here; while he has been unCIVIL to others, many others have been uncivil back. Good-faith participation of his in other areas have been ignored or subject to derision because of this situation. He found himself blocked in very inappropriate circumstances, again with some apparent relation to this dispute. And, in spite of the way he ended up making them, Jeff does have some (what I believe to be) valid points regarding the application of BLP, which deserve further attention.

I will make a brief point only on that, since this isn't the correct forum for it: To my knowledge, we don't get into these kinds of situations with the application of our other policies (with the odd exceptions for NOT and NPOV). This is because the policies are straightforward to apply, and it becomes clear when one or more editors start operating outside the policy (indicating the issue is the editor(s) as opposed to the policy). Sadly, BLP seems to not be so straightforward to apply, and anecdotally, I have seen it lead to long arguments when invoked (where Jeff never had any involvement). It may be appropriate for a structured community review of the policy, to see if it can be made more straightforward to apply, and thus avoid future instances of this.

Anyway, that's my reasoning for using POINT. I am disheartened to see that the remedy #1 now has four support votes by arbitrators, but will hold out hope that this remedy will be altered prior to the motion to close. — digitaleon • talk @ 06:07, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Way too harsh

The way I read it, remedy #1 forbids Jeff from editing articles about people. First, this is way too harsh - why on earth would we want to forbid one of our more prolific editors from editing articles? Second, it misses the issue at hand, as I have not seen any evidence that Jeff's editing of articles is in any way problematic or disruptive. I hope the ArbCom would reconsider this. >Radiant< 11:54, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I have to agree here. This proposal, in my opinion, indicates that the arbitrator supporting it has totally failed to understand the problem and situation. The problem is the disagreement and wheel-edit warring over BLP deletion of articles. The evidence does not demonstrate that jeff is a problematic editor of articles, it demonstrates that he strongly disagrees with a small but vocal faction of admins that are themselves a problem because they act to prevent the formation of consensus. GRBerry 12:16, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Also strongly agree. Far far too harsh, and missing the point. Trebor 18:58, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Radiant as well. Seems Jeff is being made a scapegoat for BLP matters, when the real evidence of disruption is elsewhere. Arbcom needs to remember that Jeff is a prolific article starter and has fetaured level work as well, including areas that are in the scope of BLP. This BLP ban essentially is a Wikipedia ban for Jeff and that is unacceptable. Lets not run an otherwise excellent contributor out the door over a few comments about BLP, which are made only due to his efforts to prevent mass deletions of every single sourced negative aspect made in a biography. I definitely see Jeff as simply one who is very worried that we're going to sugar coat our bios to protect us from lawsuits, and what he is striving for seems to be the truth, even if that truth might be ugly to read about. Again, yes Jeff is disruptive but it is in deletions and deletion reviews, which only sometimes happen to be part of the BLP issue.--MONGO 19:29, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Let us see:

• "badlydrawnjeff is banned from all articles covered by the policy" (arbcom)
• "This policy applies equally to biographies of living persons and to biographical material about living persons in other articles." (WP:BLP)

I'm sorry but either that proposed remedy needs changing or you are asking for a site-wide ban. violet/riga (t) 19:36, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not censored

I'd like to repeat my call for a clarification of the real meaning of WP:NOT#Wikipedia is not censored, another editor at a DRV of a living person biography has made exactly the same comment as we have seen several times in respect of this case - see Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2007 June 17#Joel Hayward. There are two groups of editors with differing interpretations of how this relates to such cases (one group believing it allows the inclusion of tabloid-style articles on living individuals, the other believing it is designed to cover a much more specific situation, explicit content). Please do include a clarification one way or the other. Guy (Help!) 13:07, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

SPUI and I were involved in writing the earliest version of this in late 2004. This was to cement the result of a long debate that had decided that it was appropriate to display pictures of sexual organs in articles about them. It has (quite legitimately) mutated a bit since then, and acquired meanings I didn't foresee, and I'm okay with that because that's how these things work.

But it still doesn't mean that crap belongs anywhere on Wikipedia. --Tony Sidaway 13:14, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Tony. A number of editors seem to incorrectly interpret "Wikipedia is not censored" as meaning something akin to "Wikipedia is not edited." This is rather tragic. Nandesuka 18:43, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Tony. This case has nothing to do with censorship in the sense meant in the "Wikipedia is not censored" maxim. Maxims like that have to be read in the context of the mischief they are addressing. The issue of impacting negatively on the lives of living persons is of a completely different character from such issues as whether we might - shock, horror - illustrate on article called something like "Penis" with a picture of a penis. Metamagician3000 12:22, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

And I hope that this case will set the record straight on this point once and for all. Metamagician3000 04:13, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

How to sanction overzealous admins? Roadmap to BLP admins?

"Any administrator, acting on their own judgement, may delete an article that is substantially a biography of a living person if they believe that it (and every previous version of it) significantly violates any aspect of the relevant policy..." - I'm fine with this, with one question: what if an admin (now or in the future), takes the opposite position of Jeff, errs a long way towards caution, and deletes lots of articles based on their interpretation of the BLP policy? In this hypothetical case, a significant number of admins and editors that were opposed to Jeff's stance also oppose this admin's actions. What then? The same amount of disruption would occur, but in reverse. Will we need an arbcom case everytime someone veers too far from the middle ground? Is there a case for a proviso that any admin having, say, 3 BLP deletions overturned at DRV, has been shown to have poor judgement on BLP issue and should be restricted from carrying out BLP issues? Surely that way lies a superclass of "BLP admins", which would be disastrous for the functioning of the encyclopedia, in my opinion. In fact, I recall a user calling for BLP admins not so long ago. Were they right all along? (Can anyone dig out the relevant ANI thread?) Carcharoth 14:21, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Found it. Wikipedia:BLP Admin (the rejected proposal). The editor in question, User:CyberAnth is still active (though some may remember the deletion discussions spawned), so I'll tone down my comments above (apologies for any offence caused). Carcharoth 14:27, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Those deletion discussions included lots of laughs about removing the inflammatory information that Hank Aaron was in baseball's Hall of Fame. [2] Which was a preview of the endless fun we're going to have after this case unleashes the BLP deletionists. But Jimbo is tired of people pestering him about their WP bios – which I can sympathize with – so get ready for much hilarity. Casey Abell 19:22, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Charles Manson after the BLP deletionists get finished with it

Charles Manson was involved in a legal case in the late 1960s. He denied certain allegations.

Casey Abell 21:24, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

That's a remarkably poor example you chose there. That is a case where the article lists over 20 books and films and documentaries on the subject, expanding the sources beyond just newspapers. And this has continued for a period of over 30 years. It is clear that notability has been established there. Unlike cases where a single news story is picked up and repeated by different newspapers for a week, and then nothing is ever heard again. Carcharoth 22:00, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

And it takes one (1) admin to make such a finding on any BLP article, under the proposed policy. Of course, it's a ridiculous example, chosen for humorous exaggeration. But the logic will quickly be applied to examples that are far from ridiculous. For instance, I expect Essjay controversy will disappear sooner or later, which will set off an amusing round of wikidrama. After all, an admin nominated it for deletion here.

I think the above comments reveal a severe lack of perspective. There may well be grounds for deleting certain articles, but some are more likely to be deletion candidates than others. I haven't read Essjay controversy, but it's certainly conceivable that the article may be unbalanced and need to be edited somewhat--like any article about a living person. The same could apply to the Charles Manson article. The abundance of reliable sources on the latter, however, as well as the importance of the story, makes it easier to produce a well balanced article. What's the problem with regarding it as our duty to get articles about living people right? --Tony Sidaway 22:30, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

The problem is giving any single admin, out of more than one thousand, the power to unilaterally delete any BLP article, and then stacking the deck against the article's restoration. Look, I know the policy is going through. Jimbo and other WP insiders want it, so it's a done deal. But we will have plenty of high-larious wikidrama when editors start noticing red links cropping up because some admin on some distant planet in some distant galaxy thought BLP was infringed in some distant way. Casey Abell 22:37, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

My proposal for courtesy blanking, instead of deletion, might help. This also moves the wording away from making adminship a big deal, since such a blanking can be carried out by any editor. See Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Badlydrawnjeff/Proposed decision#BLP blanking. Carcharoth 22:49, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Blanking would be better, but that's not the policy that will be enacted here. Neither will your proposed checks and balances on deleting admins get anywhere. The articles are going to disappear from the sight of ordinary editors, with no appeal against the deleting admins except the incredibly cumbersome desysopping process. Which means you better get ready for lots of annoyed editors and downright wicked wikidrama. Casey Abell 23:02, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

What do you think of the work that TheBainer and Jimbo Wales did in the Polish school violence case? --Tony Sidaway 23:53, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm

I'm not overly impressed with this. This could easily be used as carte blanche for a small and vocal minority of sysops to carry out their particularly anal (no offence meant) interpretation of BLP. While I'd call myself a 'deletionist', should one choose to speak in those terms, there's been articles that've had all kinds of things done to them out of process and without consensus and without valid reasons under BLP as it stands.

I appreciate the existence of BLP, and as evidenced by my edits to "What wikipedia is not" agree that a certain amount of the news-coverage related material here is not relevant to an encyclopedia. I feel, though, that using BLP as an extension of IDONTLIKEIT can only be harmful to the project, let alone muting and suppressing the good-faith concerns of a great number of users (and admins).

I've been editing here for many years under many different names (as it says on my userpage, one at a time). I have never believed in a cabal. Sanctions like this, though, against a user who has spoken up against a group consisting partly of 'insiders' (a term that I'm sure not many will disagree too heavily with), will give the impression to some users of: 1) Censorship and 2) Oligarchy, and this case should be treated with particular care.

I'm sure the best and least divisive solution would be to generally warn everybody involved as to their civility, and suggest that debate should not be muted, provided it doesn't become disruptive for disruption's sake. We're trying to write an encyclopedia here, not rid ourselves of nuisances we 'don't like'.

DrumCarton 15:13, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Bear in mind

At no point has any article I undeleted been shown to violate BLP. There has been enough time for supporting statements to be given about any of the articles but nothing has been forthcoming. I carefully checked them and they did not fall under BLP guidance so it is my opinion that I was undoing deletions that went against policy. I would urge the arbcom to be very wary of any ruling that would encourage or condone an admin to delete an article without backing up their claim of BLP (note that the edit summaries of the deletions were not clear enough). violet/riga (t) 16:33, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm looking at the list of articles that you deleted and I would like to know how you could possibly believe that these articles were not covered by the biographies of living persons policy. Every single one was of a minor and every single one was in the name of the child. It is because of the kind of "I can't see any problem here" attitude that the onus must be on the challenger to prove that the article passes all Wikipedia policies. We can't afford to leave this policy at the mercy of "Jack the lad" any more. --Tony Sidaway 16:42, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Please quote the part that says that sourced, factual articles about minors must be deleted. Or the part that states that we must not have their names. It is because of your attitude of "We can just delete it and forget about it" that we have had all of this problem. Rather than delete things it's better to fix them. violet/riga (t) 16:52, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Every biography of a living person falls under BLP. The dispute here has always been between one faction that sees nothing important in WP:BLP except the need for reliable sources, and another faction that sees a requirement to do no harm, and to respect basic human dignity. (And some of the participants in this case, including Violetriga just above, have proven over and over again through their edits to the case itself that they continue to refuse to see any validity to the expansive view.) Perhaps the disputed deletions did not run afoul of the very narrow interpretation of BLP that only respects the source requirement. If passed, this decision will send a strong signal that ArbCom takes the more expansive view of BLP, and I suspect would also signal that they are willing to enforce that view in the future when necessary. I won't attempt to characterize either viewpoint as majority or minority, but the expansive viewpoint is clearly held by every member of ArbCom that has commented on the workshop, as well as by Jimbo (see for example his actions on 2006 Gdansk school suicide incident (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), or his recent logs). If passed, this decision will indeed send a strong signal that admins like Doc, who defend an expansive view, are encouraged, while admins like Violetriga, who defend the narrowest view, are in danger of future ArbCom action if they do not change their approach. Thatcher131 16:58, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I love it when people pigeon-hole my views. BLP did not allow for the deletions of those articles. This "expansive view" is a load of rubbish because it is simply not supported by the policy. The deletions were therefore incorrect and needed to be restored.

You say about my reading of BLP being the "narrow view" but you really don't have a clue what I think. I never campaigned for the articles to survive AfD or suchlike, and indeed believe that their removal has been the correct course of action. It's just that the way they were originally deleted was unacceptable and out of line with policy. Sure, arbcom can go ahead and suggest the "expansive view" will be the way forward but it cannot be retrospectively actionable and I fail to see how I have violated any policy or guideline. Tell me off for not discussing it first, sure, but I tried to do so after undoing an incorrect action and Doc glasgow refused. violet/riga (t) 17:11, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Try to forget about rules and guidelines, they're only there to help us. We are supposed to ignore them when they hinder us, remember? Think about the overall goal: how did you help the overall goal by, without discussion, undeleting articles, deleted by an admin in good standing, who clearly labelled them as having serious enough biographies of living persons problems to merit deletion? --Tony Sidaway 17:26, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

By restoring information that is useful and worthy of inclusion, as proven by various AfD results to merge. Further, the articles clearly didn't violate BLP and were in no way disparaging to those involved. Sorry but it just appears that IDONTLIKEIT is being accepted here under the guise of BLP. violet/riga (t) 17:31, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I get it now. I get to be the scapegoat so that the people who couldn't get their way via consensus can force it. No fucking wonder. Great play, guys, I commend the gamesmanship. --badlydrawnjeff talk 17:17, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

The section Presumption in favor of privacy has contained the phrase "do no harm" for at least a year, and the clarification from Jimbo ("Real people are involved, and they can be hurt by your words. We are not tabloid journalism,") has also been around for more than a year. Thatcher131 17:26, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Thus my being the scapegoat. At no point have I ever "done harm," at no point have I ever come close to violating that in any way shape or form, period. What I did do is disagree with people. That is apparently a crime in the eyes of ArbCom, which means that things are even worse than I thought. Disagree with the insiders, the cabal, whatever you want to call them, and they'll find a way to fuck you over. Reap what you sow, people - this simply can't end well. --badlydrawnjeff talk 18:16, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

What needs to stop (from my point of view) is the hounding of admins who delete sourced articles on the basis of "do no harm" and "Wikipedia is not a tabloid", the multiple passes at AfD and DRV, and the wheel warring. (See below where Violetriga insists that only articles that are unsourced and disparaging may be deleted per the BLP policy.) Maybe it would be sufficient for ArbCom to say, "This is our view of these principles, and we will rapidly ban and/or desysop to uphold them" but give a general amnesty for all prior actions and arguments. Thatcher131 18:26, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Bullshit. What needs to stop is the nonsensical point of views that certain administrators hold, the lack of accountability, and some actual building of consensus by people who actually contribute to this project as opposed to trolls and liars. Violetriga, per policy, is absolutely right. Want Violet to get on board with this new expansion of policy (and yes, it is new - at no point was the policy ever interpreted to mean what is being advanced here in regards to removal the way these articles have been removed) - then fucking change it. Don't allow incompetent people to throw the competent ones to the wolves to make a point. --badlydrawnjeff talk 18:29, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Again, I ask, as I did in the section above, what happens when someone with an extreme expansionist viewpoint comes along and deletes lots of borderline stuff that (after lots of DRVs) gets restored? The whole problem is that this is a continuum of viewpoints, not a yes-no problem. The battleground (for that is what it is, despite pleas for Wikipedia not to be a battleground) will shift to the new borderline, but if there are still people on either side of the divide unwilling to discuss things or compromise their principles (like in this case), then the battle will go on. I still think the ArbCom should send out a strong signal about how they expect the deleting admins to conduct themselves in cases like this during and after a Deletion Review. Where is the deleting admin left when they are overturned at DRV? They may still think they are right, in which case they will have no option but to wheel-war to uphold their interpretation of BLP policy. Chaos will ensue, and won't die down until an admin is desysopped for ultra-conservative deletion and wheel-warring over BLP policy to keep something deleted. Carcharoth 17:17, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Let me rephrase this. If there is no evidence provided that the deletions were acceptable under BLP policy rather than just citing that as a reason to delete then there cannot be evidence of my wrongdoing. Nobody at any point has shown where the articles are "unsourced and negative in tone, where there is no NPOV version to revert to". violet/riga (t) 18:07, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

We went over this on the workshop, I think, so not a good idea to rehash it here. --Tony Sidaway 18:19, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

And still no proof was forthcoming? Yeah that'll be my point proven then. violet/riga (t) 18:20, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

So three weeks after the deletions and still nobody has been able to give a single reason why BLP applies to any of the articles I undeleted. Sorry, but as far as I'm concerned that absolves me of any cautionable misdemeanour. violet/riga (t) 21:33, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I think it's clear that the Arbitration Committee has no patience with mindless wikilawyering and obstructionism on this issue. The BLP must be enforced. --Tony Sidaway 23:55, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

BLP should be enforced, of course. Just a shame that you clearly haven't got a clue what our policy says on the matter. violet/riga (t) 08:38, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

If I haven't a clue. it follows that the arbitration committee which supports my view also hasn't a clue, and the community which has entertained and generally supported broad views of the BLP also has no clue. Only you are right. Only you understand the BLP. --Tony Sidaway 21:32, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh your "view"? Did I mentioned "views"? No - I said "what our policy says". What is says is different to your "view". Now please point out where I have argued against your view? Please tell me anywhere that I've said that BLP isn't vital and that we should keep articles detailing the intricate lives of a non-notable three year old. Just because I'm saying that our BLP policy is very badly written and far too vague doesn't mean that I don't understand, and in the most part support, your views on BLP. Perhaps you got too busy arguing that you forgot to think about what I actually consider BLP to (need to) be. The simple fact that I restored some articles that should have been discussed before they were deleted does not mean that I am blind to what BLP is (supposed to be). violet/riga (t) 21:37, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Comment by CBM on "Summary deletion of BLPs"

The final sentence of this proposal is too strong – in practice, with the flexible nature of WP policy and consensus, no editor can show that something does agree with every policy. A lower burden of proof, but still high enough in my opinion, would be to obtain consensus that the article should be restored. Also, the proposal would be more useful if the final clause was reworded to say "can be made compliant with every aspect of policy." — Carl (CBM · talk) 17:03, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

The final clause does say that the article can't be restored (by undeletion or any other means) unless there is actual consensus to do so. The second part, where the onus is outlined in detail, is necessary to guard against the formation of an uninformed, obstructionist or contrary pseudo-consensus where those making the decision or determining the consensus ignore, either wilfully or through ignorance, the principles of the BLP. As an example of this I'd cite perhaps the first reversal of the QZ deletion. My impression at the time was that the closer reversed it on a technicality without due attention to the BLP concerns. --Tony Sidaway 00:05, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Let DRV decide whether BLP deletions need an article at all

A better way to do this, rather than have those arguing for restoration after a BLP deletion being required to show that the deleted article is compliant with BLP policy (difficult when you cannot see the article, or have to rely on unreliable caching), might be to say that those contesting BLP deletions should instead be asked make a case for any article about that person existing. Once the principle that there should be an article is established, then those who deleted the old version under the BLP would be asked to restore an edited version (probably a stub) that was acceptable to them, and those editing or defending the article would be allowed to continue editing, while being strongly reminded to adhere to the BLP policy. Also, a default question at a DRV should be whether the deleting admin looked through the article history to find a version that was acceptable. ie:

• Admin deletes an article on subject X citing BLP concerns.
• Any user can then open a DRV and argues that an article on subject X is required.
• The deleting admin confirms that they looked at the article history and were unable to find an acceptable version of the article to rollback to.
• Discussion ensues and a consensus position is reached (no consensus = no article) on both the existence of an article or redirect and an appropriate title name and the appropriateness of various redirects. The content of the deleted version is not discussed (this is the key point).
• If consensus is that an article or redirect should exist at that title, the deleting admin restores the article as a stub, or creates the redirect.
• Editing resumes with a general caution sounded to all editors of the article and, any article it redirects to, over BLP issues.

Would that work in practice? Carcharoth 17:37, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Possibly, but only assuming that the article meets BLP deletion rules. I would like to see a template used to replace the article similar to that used for copyvios. violet/riga (t) 17:43, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

You missed "the content of the deleted version is not discussed" bit. The first discussion is whether any article should exist at all, regardless of what the deleted version actually said (this is designed to focus discussion). Then, if consensus is to restore a stub/blank page, a second discussion ensues on the talk page (as it should have done all along) on how best to write an article on the subject. But with people now aware that there are BLP concerns. Carcharoth 17:47, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I didn't miss that bit. I'm saying that articles can only be speedy deleted citing BLP if they are unsourced and disparaging. If they are deleted on those grounds they should be then replaced with a template stating what has happened, at least for a few days. violet/riga (t) 18:04, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

This narrow view (only articles that are "unsourced and disparaging" may be deleted citing BLP) is the heart of the matter. I foresee a number of rapid desysoppings for whgeel-warring if proposed principles 2 and 3 pass. I do not favor this, and hope that editors and admins are flexible enough to adapt to the decision. Thatcher131 18:08, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

It is written very clearly in the policy. Sorry but this talk of "well we don't go by the letter" is rubbish and is really the cause of the problems. If people want to delete for other reasons then the policy must change to reflect that. violet/riga (t) 18:23, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I assume you are simply ignoring the written policy where the section Presumption in favor of privacy has contained the phrase "do no harm" for at least a year, and the clarification from Jimbo ("Real people are involved, and they can be hurt by your words. We are not tabloid journalism,") has also been around for more than a year. What I don't understand is why you choose to ignore this. Thatcher131 18:28, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Which applies to articles that are disparaging to people and I agree that they should be removed. Is it really hard for people to understand that I actually support the ethics behind BLP?! I just don't want people abusing it as a way of removing articles when it doesn't apply. violet/riga (t) 18:31, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I think that your statement lacks precision. You want people not to invoke the BLP where you do not agree that it applies. There's a subtle difference. --Tony Sidaway 21:35, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

No, I don't want people deleting articles based on flawed interpretations of policies that clearly don't allow for it. violet/riga (t) 21:42, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Of course, you could skip the deletion/discussion/restoration cycle, and just have "BLP blankings". But the intervening discussion and disruption should help shock the more entrenched editors out of their failure to understand BLP. Carcharoth 17:49, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I can summarise BLP in eight words: We're not in Kansas any more, Toto. --Tony Sidaway 17:54, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

If this passes, it won't take that many. How about Any admin can delete whatever he likes? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:20, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Yep, how can you ever prove that an article is compliant with every aspect of the policy. Does reporting on a scandal complies with "an ethical responsibility" or "when in doubt, do no harm" (at first only intended for non-public figures, and only on June 1st changed to include all BLP's [3], change by Tony Sidaway)? How can you prove that it does? Are we sure that it does no harm to mention the O. J. Simpson murder trial in the opening paragraph of his article, instead of focusing on his sporting and acting career? It was already in the very first version[4], so if I delete this article now, under the ArbCom proposition, it can't be recreated until you demonstrate that it does no harm. Or Robert Mugabe, who has been accused of corruption from the very first version[5] until the current one. Never mind that it is true: is it ethical, doesn't it harm him to be portrayed here in such a way, don't we even have the "legal responsibility" to leave out such allegations against a foreign head of state? So thanks to this proposed Arbcom decision, I can delete this article and it will be pretty hard to recreate it. This will make a mockery of Wikipedia, and will indeed give any admin the chance to delete whatever he likes. Please, I urge the arbitrators to reconsider this proposed principle and to either reject it or to completely rewrite it to make clear that it is only intended for e.g. people who have no active part in their notability (victims) or whose sole notability is based on one minor episode. The way it is written now is way too extreme and will lead to many new problems between admins, I fear. Fram 20:18, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Or perhaps, "Adminship is, as of now, a big deal?" MastCell ^Talk 20:18, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Comments from the audience - I hope this comes out okay

I’m not a contributor to Wikpedia, I’m an occasional user of the encyclopedia who’s managed to stumble into this section and get drawn in by the drama (yeah, I know exactly what you don’t want people to be drawn to Wikipedia for). But now I’m here I’d just like to add a couple of comments because I can’t believe what I’m seeing here.

Problem in a nut shell : Your policy doesn’t say what a bunch of you, including arbitrators, would like it to say.

Maybe you honestly can’t see how the policy could be read any way other way than to say what you apparently think it says. But you’ve got this wonderful “assume good faith” principle you’re all supposedly following and you’ve got apparently serious contributors (not just one) telling you that it really doesn’t read that way to them. It really isn’t that difficult to see where the problem is here.

All you have to so is 1. Change your policy to say what you actually think it should say (discuss the wording with the people who don’t think it does say that now) 2. enjoin BadlyDrawnJeff to follow the new policy or make it clear he’ll be on a fast track to <whatever> if he doesn’t. Maybe he’ll leave because he hates the newly explicit policy so much (or because he’s had enough of the process that’s led here) or maybe he’ll stick around and accept it or maybe he’ll break it and get banned but either way you’ll be acting constructively and reasonably and giving him a chance to do the same,

And whatever else you do don’t try to combine prescriptions like “The burden of proof is on those who wish to retain the article to demonstrate that it is compliant with every aspect of the policy” with vague “policy isn’t prescriptive” stuff that basically amounts to “you must prove it is compliant with the policies, but you can’t know what the policies are until later”. If you’re serious in wanting to apply ethical standards then one group you’re going to need to treat ethically are the people actually working on your project. That means fair-warning of what standards they'll be held to, for a start.

Yeah, I know, “Wikipedia isn’t an experiment in online legal systems” or something. How about adding “Wikipedia isn’t a novel by Kafka” to your list of stock phrases? Seriously, try to maintain some sort of balance or semblance of sanity or something.

Now if you’ll excuse me I’ll return to the audience.

Oh and I really should say thanks for the encyclopedia; I appreciate it. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 87.254.65.67 (talk • contribs) 19:26, 18 June 2007.

A lot of sense is spoken here - it's the sensible route to take. Thanks for that contribution. violet/riga (t) 19:32, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Some sense needs to be added around here. When the audience are moved to comment, everyone needs to step back and look at the larger picture. Everyone. Carcharoth 22:50, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I'll have to back this one up. While I take the "expansive" viewpoint, those who take the "literal" viewpoint have... well, a point. The policy should be more clear. However, I think the biggest problem is the word "harm." Some apparently believe that harm was being done by the mere existance of those articles, while others do not. We need to figure out a way to clarify that point, as I think it's the key to all this contention. -- Kesh 04:21, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

The most obvious criterion is 'In case of doubt, the rule of thumb should be "do no harm"' (from WP:BLP).

This implies, of course, "If in doubt, delete." A reversal of the rule of thumb in the deletion policy, when an article seems to be potentially harmful.

What do I mean by potentially harmful? Well, articles about otherwise unknown people largely compiled from newspaper reports would be a good indicator. --Tony Sidaway 04:34, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Remedy "Badlydrawnjeff banned from BLPs"

The remedy says, "badlydrawnjeff is banned from all articles covered by the policy". Every article is covered by this policy. Under WP:BLP, inappropriate statements about a living person can and should be removed from anywhere that they are found. The policy explicitly says all articles, project space, and talk space. So this remedy is effectively a ban from the project. I strongly encourage a rejection of the current language and that the language be revised to use the term "biographical articles and deletion discussions" and specifically state that he is permitted to suggest changes on talk pages. I further encourage that the ban be only for a predetermined period of time, rather than indefinite, or, at least, that it be explicitly stated that arbcom will entertain lifting the ban after some period of time, like six months or a year. --BigDT 20:33, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

It could be clearer, but bottom line, if he insists on adding negative information regarding a living person or engages in a dispute about it, he's breaking the ban. Fred Bauder 20:39, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I take it you mean unsourced and NPOV-violating negative information there. violet/riga (t) 20:46, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Regarding duration, what evidence do you have that he would change over a shorter period. His attitude is stable and unresponsive to feedback. Fred Bauder 20:41, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Because I've done nothing wrong, Fred. I'm very responsive to feedback when the feedback's legitimate. Do you think you're proving anything about me here? The point of all this was obviously to get me off the project, and it succeeded. --badlydrawnjeff talk 20:45, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

This is the key. By now, Jeff has had legitimate feedback from almost every single editor who routinely handles complaints from members of the public. In my experience he regards none of our comments as in any way legitimate, and he repeatedly refers to us as liars simply for disagreeing with his interpretation. Only his own reading of policy dictates what is and is not legitimate. That reading, to my knowledge, is held not by Jimbo, not by any arbitrator who has commented in this case, and not by any of us who have been vilified in the event leading to this case. --Tony Sidaway 20:56, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

The fact that they let you anywhere near OTRS is one of the reasons I'm gone, Tony. I have received no legitimate feedback regarding this issue, just a lot of disruption, condescension, and hatred. No one should have to put up with that, and no one should be penalized for daring to speak up. --badlydrawnjeff talk 21:03, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

The feedback has been extensive, you have just chosen to ignore it. How many different ways do you need to read it before you get it? However, you are right, I think a BLP ban on you is a bad idea. I see you as disruptive to deletions and deletion reviews, some of which just happen to be regarding BLP issues.--MONGO 21:13, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Feedback can be extensive and worthless, like much of the crap I put up with here, including your BS about my alleged disruptiveness. --badlydrawnjeff talk 21:23, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Sorry you feel that way. If I had been on arbcom, the remedy for you would have been to ban you from deletions and deletion reviews completely for one year. I definitely feel that would have enticed you to resume creating articles, lowered yours and others blood pressure levels and made deletions and DRV's less of a battleground. I do not concur with the BLP ban that is now likely to be passed. Best wishes.--MONGO 21:46, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

And you'd be just as wrong. --badlydrawnjeff talk 22:09, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

It needs to be a lot clearer. Right now, there are featured article's I've written that I can't edit because I might fall afoul of this absurdity. --badlydrawnjeff talk 20:45, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Fred, if that's what you think it means, then why don't you modify the language to say that. As it is now, he can't edit articles about people, which is a lot of what Jeff does.--Chaser - T 20:43, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't, actually. Most of my editing was in articles that were about things, but people are involved with things, and I'm not allowed anymore. --badlydrawnjeff talk 20:45, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Fred, thanks for replying so quickly. There are several issues here. First and foremost is that right now, the language says, "all articles covered by the policy". The policy explicitly says that means "all articles". If you mean that he is banned from "editing controversial information about living people", then that's what the ruling should say ... because right now it doesn't mean that. --BigDT 20:48, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

It was my intent, at least, to use "all articles covered by the policy" to mean all articles containing BLP material, not all articles that could potentially contain BLP material. As far as I'm concerned, badlydrawnjeff is perfectly welcome to write about rocks, or butterflies, or ancient Romans; it's only the BLP stuff that he can't touch. Kirill Lokshin 21:22, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

So you mean any articles that contain anything related to a person? Thereby including the discovery of certain types of rock by John McJohn, the eponymously-named butterfly Butteri McJohneri, and the mention of Julius Caesar (who's ancestors may be offended). Yes I know I'm being flippant here, but I find it very difficult to see how this can be properly implemented. violet/riga (t) 21:36, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I think you mean descendants, not ancestors - I doubt Caesar's ancestors care one way or the other. Even if Jeff is editing an article on, say, George W Bush, I don't think there is an issue - this is a solution looking for a problem. Jeff has edited articles about plenty of living people and done a fine job. The problem isn't with an article on George W Bush - the problem is with the article about Alphonzo Bush, who is the nephew of the guy who makes Bush's Baked Beans (no, not really). Alphonzo is not a public person and we need to respect his privacy. I don't see any evidence that would suggest that a ban on Jeff editing George W Bush is warranted. I don't even know that a ban on Jeff editing Alphonzo Bush is warranted. What probably is warranted is a ban on deletion discussions pertaining to Alphonzo Bush - that is the only place that I can see that the evidence shows an issue to be resolved. --BigDT 21:51, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I... Yeah that'll be what I meant! Ta. violet/riga (t) 21:54, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

"So you mean any articles that contain anything related to a person?" — What? Where did you get that idea? BLP stands for biographies of living people. We don't have quite the same ethical issues with biographies of dead people, and this motion wouldn't prevent Jeff from editing those articles. --Cyde Weys 01:50, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Re-read the policy. The policy applies to all articles, even if the main topic is not about a living person. In other words, if the article is about Greek mythology, it is possible that the article might mention a book that a now-living person wrote on the subject. It might mention an archaeological dig that a now-living person performed. Whatever the topic is, articles about topics other than living people still mention living people. If an article on Greek mythology claims, for instance, that researcher John Doe falsified his study of Zeus and that claim is uncited, we would not hesitate to remove it. The BLP policy applies to every page on Wikipedia ... this really isn't in dispute. As the text of the remedy reads right now, it says "all articles covered by the policy" (bad), rather than "all articles about living people" (not as bad). --BigDT 05:19, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

That's exactly why I am saying that it should be renamed Wikipedia:Biographical content. violet/riga (t) 07:42, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

No, not every article is covered by that block. Freeze-dried ice cream comes to mind, as does Bluegill, and possibly Geography of Namibia. Plenty of articles for anyone falling under the block on this decision to still edit. But this is seriously one of the reasons that I try to stay the heck away from editing any mainspace article that has anything but a passing mention of a living person in it. And why WP has fallen a few notches in my mind to find information about living people. I can understand the importance of BLP, and why information about living persons needs to be treated somewhat delicately. But decisions like this may well have a chilling effect on persons trying to improve articles that have any living person mentioned in them. I hope that has been taken into consideration, and I hope that badlydrawnjeff may find other articles to edit (if he stays.) Edit to add signature: LaughingVulcan 05:47, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I feel the same way. I'd like to bring Greater Vancouver Gateway Program to Featured Article status, but I had to think twice about it because I might have to make the Minister of Transportation look bad. I'm not being facetious. This is how chilling effects work. Kla'quot (talk | contribs) 06:13, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

The "BDJ banned from the project" message might not come across so strongly if ArbCom passed the proposed principle that BLP does not apply to dead people. Kla'quot (talk | contribs) 07:09, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Leave it be, people

ArbCom wants me permanently banned, and I decided long before this complete absurdity that I wasn't going edit here anymore. Means to an end. The cabal wins. Good luck. --badlydrawnjeff talk 20:45, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I do not want you permanently banned. You are a good editor most of the time. You are spun up over this issue and need to rethink your approach to discussing BLP policy and deletion. Banning you from editing articles about living people should absolutely a last resort, I think. Hopefully you can calm down and reassure ArbCom that you will work collaboratively FloNight 21:06, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Jeff, I truly don't understand your attitude that Wikipedia isn't worth contributing to if we decide to take some reasonable steps to consider the impact of what we do on living people. We are arguing here about a tiny portion of our content, and even if you truly believed that it should be present here, it's absence doesn't invalidate everything else. If your boss at work doesn't buy a book you recommended for the collection, you don't quit your job, nor do you burn down the library.

I also wish that you wouldn't imply that everyone who approached these issues has done so as part of a cabal or in an antagonistic fashion. Some of us, who are slow to use harsh language or push our admin buttons, have been agonizing over these issues for a very long time.

But I'm not going to argue if you've really decided to leave. Be well. Newyorkbrad 21:11, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Reasonable steps are fine. This is not reasonable. Be well as well, NYB, you're one of the good ones. --badlydrawnjeff talk 21:22, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

FloNight, I need to do nothing of the sort. I've never had an issue once and I would never have an issue in the future, and those paying attention know this. This sort of nonsense was concocted from nothing, and ArbCom has appeared to have taken the bait. If it's a last resort as you say, then I expect to see changes here, if anything, to keep what's left of the reputation the most vile of the group has sullied. --badlydrawnjeff talk 21:22, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

If you're going to leave, please try to do it without spewing (more) insults on your way out the door. Thanks. Nandesuka 21:31, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Why? I'm not afforded the same courtesy, after all. --badlydrawnjeff talk 22:07, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Because it's the ethical thing to do. Hope that helps. Nandesuka 22:29, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Utterly laughable, as if you or anyone else in this charade has any moral standing. --badlydrawnjeff talk 22:30, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

(ec; to NYB) I understand Jeff; I'm tempted to join him. The proposed decision is an imposition of policy by ArbCom; a policy more extreme than the one Tony added to BLP in order to jusitify his actions. Its effect would be to permit arbitrary deletions of any article about the last half-century by solitary admins, reviewable only by admins - and by them with difficulty, given the language of the censures of VioletRiga. It would silence Jeff from making a case against applications of this policy, to the point of prohibiting him from editing the articles themselves.

Now, Jeff can be annoying; I've felt tempted to tell him "Shut up; you;ve made your point already." when I agreed with him. But the proposed decision is bad policy, imposed when there is no consensus, by people not authorized to do so. It will encourage the worst and most overbearing admins. I supported most of the present ArbCom; I will have to consider whether I regret doing so. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:31, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Does Jeff remind anyone of Karmafist? Just a little bit? --Cyde Weys 01:51, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

No. Newyorkbrad 01:55, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Nice try Cyde. I just moved here in April. Curious you'd bring that up... --badlydrawnjeff talk 01:57, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm not accusing you of being Karmafist, merely saying that your persistent claims that you are always right (and anyone who disagrees with you is wrong, vile, and evil) remind me of him. --Cyde Weys 02:01, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, certainly just some wild coincidence. --badlydrawnjeff talk 02:01, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

After all, no other editor on this page has claimed that he is always right, and anyone who disagrees with him is unethical, vile, and evil, have they? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:25, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Alternative remedy

I've proposed an alternative remedy to that proposed by Kirill. Because I'm not an arbitrator it's on the workshop page. Comment welcome on that page. --Tony Sidaway 21:42, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Badlydrawnjeff banned from BLPs

This is absolutely ridiculous. Consensus means that everybody has discussed it and most agreed upon a solution. If there's consensus for a policy, that does not mean we should ban people who disagree with that policy from going anywhere near it! It means we should note their concerns in discussions, preferably by having them comment themselves, and then, if most other people disagree with them, as should happen in most cases if the policy actually had consensus, the discussion is closed with a result that goes along with the policy. If necessary, ban BDJ from violating BLP, but don't ban him from articles that are covered by it if he's not going to break the policy, and don't ban him from discussions, because that completely goes against everything Wikipedia stands for regarding consensus. --Rory096 21:12, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Banning for arguing, not acting?

The justification for the ban is "Because of his rejection of the fundamental ethical principles that underlie the BLP policy". The evidence for that is the statement "We should discard ethics..." How is merely arguing that we should do something ban-worthy? If I argue an unpopular position, am I suddenly subject to being banned? Surely that takes action, not just argument.

Note that other people have made similar or more harsh arguments on this very issue. For example, User:Walton monarchist89 (recently made an admin) in Wikipedia_talk:Biographies_of_living_persons/Archive_8: "it's not our problem whether this person's life deteriorates as a result of their Wikipedia article, as long as they don't have grounds for legal action. Wikipedia isn't here to be nice to people." That seems to be at least an equal rejection, in fact it's a stronger one, Jeff is merely writing "we should...", Walton is writing in the present tense.

There isn't evidence showing that Jeff is an unrepentant edit warrior. He is merely a vocal proponent of how we should write articles. Same for Walton, by the way. Surely that isn't something either of them should be banned for. --AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 21:20, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

He's not just a vocal opponent. He has acted to sabotage the policy by personal attacks, assumptions of bad faith, and provocative article edits. --Tony Sidaway 21:44, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm, that sounds familiar for some reason Tony. --MichaelLinnear 21:59, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm not trying to defend him here but other people on the opposite side of the argument have done the same thing. I hope that they will feature on this page too. violet/riga (t) 21:47, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

If civility is the issue (which I agree it is an issue), how is banning him from editing articles addressing that issue? It seems to me that an article ban (as opposed to a deletion discussion ban) is strictly punative. --BigDT 21:53, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Bullshit, Tony. --badlydrawnjeff talk 22:08, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Summary deletion of BLPs

"This deletion may be contested via the usual means;" The usual means in this case would require you to prove that the admin is acting in bad faith since it would be the only situation where a deletion would not be legit under that type of policy. Aditionaly the second part of the sentance contradicts the first (waiting a few months then trying again is "usual means").Geni 22:02, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

No, you only have to show that an assessment of the article as irretrievably compromised would be incorrect. Some of the early principles on the workshop, many of them proposed by arbitrators, illustrate this, particularly the idea of there being "no rush to undelete". An admin may in this way of thinking use deletion as a precaution to avoid seemingly irretrievably damaging material being published on this top ten website. Alternatives can be discussed without publishing the material. --Tony Sidaway 22:40, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

nope read what is there "if they believe that it (and every previous version of it) significantly violates any aspect of the relevant policy" you would have to prove that the admin does not in fact belive that.Geni 22:43, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

You have misread the proposed principle. It says that the admin may perform the deletion under these conditions. It also explicitly states that the deletion may then be contested "via usual means". It also says "The burden of proof is on those who wish to retain the article to demonstrate that it is compliant with every aspect of the policy." Nothing about proving that the deleting administrator was being dishonest, just that his belief was incorrect. --Tony Sidaway 22:49, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

you are failing to think about how this meshes into other policy. "via usual means" is pretty much talking about DRV. DRV is about process not content and unless the admin is acting in bad faith they have followed process.Geni 22:56, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

An example of how imposing stuff from the top-down conflicts with organic policy grown from actual practice. Why not deal with BLP issues in exactly the same way as we deal with copyvios. See Template:Copyvio for a nice example of a template that will make editors sit up and take notice. Carcharoth 23:12, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Anybody who thinks deletion review is about piddling process hasn't been keeping up. It's about policy and product. --Tony Sidaway 23:22, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

anyone who thinks it should be about anything else has an irrational fear of xfd.Geni 23:25, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Re Geni's earlier comments: remember that DRV only requires one to demonstrate that the closer was mistaken in his belief that there was consensus in one direction, not that he closed it maliciously; similarly, this remedy would presumably only require one to show at DRV that the deleting admin was mistaken in his belief that the article was a BLP violation. David Mestel^(Talk) 15:54, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

um no. because arbcom's policy dopesn't require the admin to be right.Geni 23:06, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

DRV is also about whether all necessary facts were available at the time of the AfD. Sometimes AfD closures are overturned because all participants in the AfD were unaware of the presence of certain sources which didn't appear in Google, or the person's name was misspelled, etc. An overturned AfD closure is not necessarily a criticism of the closing admin. Kla'quot (talk | contribs) 16:48, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

So admin responds by deleting again.Geni 23:06, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

If that happens, take him to arbcom. Dispute resolution, you see. --Tony Sidaway 00:13, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

BLP blanking

Some of the discussion and suggestions here are getting lost in the noise. I am going to try and present another bullet-pointed step-by-step suggestion for a process that could avoid the chaos that may ensue if some admins feel they can delete anything based on their interpretation of policy (and there will be some admins that go too far, and arbcom will have to deal with the fall-out from that as well):

• Institute a process for courtesy blanking of article with BLP concerns. (This is similar to the courtesy blanking of certain AfD discussions.)
• Allow any editor (not just admins) to blank an article and put a BLP template on it the article (similar to how suspected copyvios are treated) and for the editor to request that the article be protected in that state.
• Start the normal discussion somewhere, where both admins and non-admins can participate (unlike when deletion occurs, which restricts meaningful participation to admins), with reference to versions in the page history.
• Once consensus is reached (or not), on whether an article should exist, and what the merits or not are of the blanked version, then proceed to either deletion or restoration and heavy pruning. If no consensus, then the default (unlike normal AfD discussions) should be deletion.
• Allow DRV as normal.

How does that sound? Please try and avoid dragging discussion off on a tangent and discussing your personal wiki-philosophy, as happened in the other section I posted here. This is a clear way to move forward on the issues. Please comment on the details I've provided above. Thanks. Carcharoth 22:35, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Discussion

Add discussion here. Carcharoth 22:35, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Blanking, or (my preference) quick editing by a small focused team, sometimes works, but some articles have to be taken out of circulation at once while we decide what to do with them. Both methods are useful. Blanking, less so. If you think the article is sick, mend it. --Tony Sidaway 22:52, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

So what happens when admins get lazy and delete articles instead of taking the time to mend them? Where do you draw the lines between immediate deletion, blanking, or mending? Oh faff. No wiki-philosophy I said. :-) Let's stick to technical details. (1) Why precisely is blanking more or less "taking it out of circulation" than deletion? For something that has made it to the mirrors, deletion is no more efficient at removing stuff from circulation. I've been following something on the mirrors that was deleted over two weeks ago. It is still there. Blanking at least extends the courtesy to non-admins that they are welcome to review the article's content and participate in the discussion. (2) For stuff that hasn't made it to the mirrors or caches yet, I believe blanking will ensure that only the blanked template warning will go up if the updates happen while discussion is in progress (and that will only lead people to a disucssion, that should equally be courtesy blanked when it is over, similar to how DRVs are hidden at the moment). (3) If you are worried about people linking to earlier versions in the page history, well, there is a clear notice warning people that they are looking at an archived version, which may differ significantly from the current version, and directing them to the current version. In any case, sites that link to archived versions will likely already have made their own copy of the article. (4) Really serious issues could obviously still be dealt with as speedies or via oversight. (5) This is exactly the same system that is used for copyvios. It works there. Why can't it work for BLP issues? Carcharoth 23:07, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Side discussion about mirrors and stuff

I think we're in basic agreement here, though obviously deletion is often best. As an example I'd give trash like the Crystal Gail Mangum article.

On mirrors, those are not our concern. We cannot call back what we have already published. --Tony Sidaway 23:19, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Practically, you are right about mirrors, but ethically, hmm, I wonder. As ethics is driving a lot of this, why not try and enforce, or propose to enforce, a more ethical stance with respects to mirrors? Legally, as we've released stuff to them, it may not be possible. But ethically, well, that is another matter. Surely restricting ethics to only Wikipedia content, and not downstream content, is, well, to put it bluntly, hypocritical? It seems very similar to the stance that if we ensure we only repeat what "reliable" newspapers say, we don't need to care about the effects on living people. It is the fault of the newspapers, not us. Similarly, you would be saying, it is for the mirrors to worry about, not us. Does that make sense? Essentially, the ethics of closing the barn door after the horse has bolted, rather than closing the barn door before the horse enters the stable. Carcharoth 23:28, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm not ruling out doing something about mirrors at some point, just saying that it isn't the problem before us. What may appear to you as hypocrisy , I see as maintaining focus on developing the ethical policy wiki-wide. We should not let worries about the mirrors stop us from doing the right thing on the wiki. --Tony Sidaway 23:37, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

OK. Cool. Forgive me if I close this with an exhortation for anyone who has read this far to not get distracted, but to comment on the courtesy blanking proposal this section should be about. :-) I noted Casey Abell's edit summary "Carcharoth's proposals are better but they won't get enacted", though of necessity I must take a more optimistic view than that! Carcharoth 23:46, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Some common sense from the audience

Also, please don't lose sight of what was said by a member of the audience here. Everyone needs to step back and look at the wider picture. Everyone. Carcharoth 22:53, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

The readers of the encyclopedia are not the most important part of this picture. There are living subjects. --Tony Sidaway 23:20, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree. The bit I was referring to is: "If you’re serious in wanting to apply ethical standards then one group you’re going to need to treat ethically are the people actually working on your project. That means fair-warning of what standards they'll be held to, for a start." - now, the fair-warning bit is off-beam, as the warnings have been around for at least a year. But I agree with the bit about how the right way to do this would have been to change policy properly, not through a battle involving numerous AfDs, DRVs and ArbCom cases. A sane, sensible discussion. Then moving forward. There will be many admins, unaware of all this, who will undelete articles and then unwittingly find themselves up for desysopping in front of ArbCom. At the very least, a widely advertised community notice is needed to make sure no reasonably active editor and admin remains unaware of this. Carcharoth 23:34, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Sane, sensible discussion has been difficult while reasonable, sensible moves have excited such controversy. That's really been because of a fundamental disagreement about what this project is for. Well, time to reassert the basic principles.

Above all, this is a working project. Things have to be taken out of sight sometimes, before any discussion is held, and sometimes it is even damaging to hold any discussion at all. This is the way it is. Wikipedia administrators are expected to keep themselves acquainted with policy and honest errors aren't penalized. No sanctions have been proposed (yet, at least) upon those administrators who really should have known better. --Tony Sidaway 00:04, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

One of the problems is that there is serious disagreement about what "reasonable sensible moves" are. Some people have changed policy in the last month to make it similar to what they feel is sensible and reasonable, and then try to impose this "policy" on all other editors and admins, as if such policy is written in stone and can not be changed. This is not the way to keep this a "working project" at all. We are here to cooperate, both in editing and administrating as in creating and adapting policy. No one disagrees (or so I hope) that the old version of the BLP policy (old meaning, up to May 2007) should be followed. Basically, articles about LPs should be sourced (all articles should be sourced, but for contentious material in a BLP, a "fact" tag is not sufficient, the material has to be deleted on sight and only replaced when sources are available), and articles about non-public figures, certainly those who have been the victim (be it of crimes or of youtube videos), should be handled extra carefully and can in many cases better be deleted or renamed so that the personal life of the person doesn't suffer. No problem there. However, they way this is implemented (with a lot of "we are the sensible, ethical people, and we know better" attitude), the way the policy has been rewritten recently (e.g. the move of "do no harm" from non-public figures to all persons, meaning that we can't technically write anything harmful about politicians or criminals either, even if sourced), and the way that ArbCom is proposing that deleters will get a free-for-all, while those wanting to keep or restore an article will have to jump through near-impossible hoops, is clearly not supported by a large group of editors and admins (no idea if it is a large minority or a majority, it is not a vote anyway). To imply that all these people are (in these cases) not "reasonable and sensible" and "should know better" is really not helping either the discussion or the project and only works to antagonise people, something which this whole BLP fiasco has already done more than enough.

Please, everyone, don't rush to make proposed principles, policies, ...: think about this, try to understand the position of the others, and don't ridicule the opinion of other editors. It is clear that opinions are divided and that there isn't one option that is clearly the better or the generally supported one. We need a BLP policy and we need to enforce it, but there are different ways to do so, and the one currently advocated by some people (including, apparently, the ArbCom) is unnecessary strict and harsh. Fram 07:39, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

The most important question still has not been answered...

Should the articles under dispute, such as QZ, stay deleted, or be undeleted? Maybe ArbCom could start a page where a discussion like AFD/DRV will take place, except that instead of an admin, ArbCom will close it. --Kaypoh 23:49, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Um. No. They stay deleted. A lot of articles will probably follow them. That's my guess of what will happen. I think using blanking will reduce the drama, but the ArbCom seem set on their course. Carcharoth 23:52, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

They're dead, Jim. --Tony Sidaway 23:57, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I mean, ArbCom should make a decision on whether the articles will be deleted or kept. If not, we may be back here again. --Kaypoh 23:59, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

The community decided. They're dead and buried. --Tony Sidaway 00:06, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, Tony, we know: what Tony Sidaway does is the action of the community; what Tony Sidaway thinks is consensus. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:08, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Is this what it's come to?

Did I read this correctly, or are my eyes deceiving me:

Because of his rejection of the fundamental ethical principles that underlie the BLP policy, badlydrawnjeff is banned from all articles covered by the policy, as well as any associated discussions. (emphasis mine)

Are we really suggesting banning someone from discussing articles? Even IP vandals don't get that kind of treatment!

And they wonder why people say there's a cabal... ATren 00:17, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia isnt and hasn't ever been a free speech zone. --Tony Sidaway 00:33, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Disruptive people have always been prevented from disrupting. This is nothing new. ^(H) 00:35, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I've seen IP vandals post disgusting, vile stuff on living persons articles - for which they get warnings and an occasional temporary block. After the block expires, they invariably resume the same destructive behavior, adding stuff that has the potential to be much more damaging than anything Jeff has done. I cannot reconcile how passionate, good-faith disagreement on non-article pages gets an indefinite ban, while repeated outright destructive behavior to the articles themselves rarely gets more than a slap on the wrist. ATren 01:33, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with your claim that repeatedly abusive anonymous users get a slap on the wrist. I'm always very harsh on them, much more so than established users. --Cyde Weys 01:47, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

That may be true in your case, but remember that by the time it's reported, users have already been warned several times (as per policy) - meaning that they've already done 3 or more things that are much more potentially damaging than anything Jeff did. And everything Jeff did was done in good faith (does anyone doubt that?) and as far as I can tell his worst crime was being argumentative (he may have been uncivil, but so were the others). I still say: we are treating a longtime productive contributor much worse than we would a persistent vandal who has never made a single good edit. ATren 18:11, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I think this remedy definitely needs a rewrite. The problem is Jeff's incivil comments during deletion discussions. Jeff has never, to my knowledge, abused his editing privileges in an article. I don't see any reason to ban him from all BLP articles and certainly not the current language - all articles where BLP applies, because that's every article. The remedy needs to address the issue. The issue is incivility in deletion discussions, so the remedy needs to relate to that. Banning him from all BLP articles is punative. --BigDT 02:08, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

• I note that several of the arbiters have admitted that the remedy is badly written. That strikes me as a good reason to change it. The issue at hand isn't BDJ's editing of articles; he has written way more featured articles than most of the other people involved here. The issue is deletion discussions. It is therefore rather odd to have a remedy about editing articles. >Radiant< 08:40, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I agree. Unfortunately, one of the voting arbitrators has gone on an indefinite wikibreak (Flonight), which is rather inconvenient (or convenient, whichever way you look at it). I would much prefer that arbitrators are available until the end of a case. Anyway, Morven has opposed the remedy against Jeff, so hopefully that might swing the tide of opinion. Carcharoth 10:28, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

General Protest

It looks as if ArbCom is about to pass this horrible set of decisions and the community may not be able to do much about it. So I guess this is a protest vote. Reading the proposed decision page is making me feel ill. How long will it be until an admin speedies Robert Pickton and others have to prove that the article (which they can no longer see) complies with BLP? How long will it be until Michael D. Brown is rewritten to be more favourable to its subject, in order to make it less likely to be deleted and its editors less likely to be banned? This is a sad day for the credibility of Wikipedia. Kla'quot (talk | contribs) 02:47, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

What do any of the proposed decisions change? An admin has the technical ability to speedy any article right now and the text is, for the moment, unavailable for review. In borderline cases (ie, not a blatant attack page), you can always get someone to restore the article text behind a SALT message or email you the text for review. I don't see what is changed here. I think there's a horrible problem with the remedy on Jeff, but the principles on BLPs look fine. --BigDT 02:55, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Proposed principle 4, "Summary deletion of BLPs," changes a lot of things. First, it shifts the consensus requirement from consensus required to delete to consensus required to keep. Furthermore, the "burden of proof" part essentially excuses the deleting admin from having to present any reason to delete other than "I think it violates BLP." Instead, people in favour of keeping will have to demonstrate that the deleted article meets BLP. I don't even know what this kind of demonstration would even look like, as BLP is essentially defined as a set of requirements for what an article should not contain. People trying to argue in favour of keeping will, of course, also have to do so under the Monty Python-esque handicap of not being able to repeat alleged BLP violations, even if necessary to make the argument that they are not BLP violations. The community has repeatedly rejected proposals to modify the deletion methods for biographies which were substantially similar to proposed principle 4, such as Wikipedia:BLP courtesy deletion. I read the principle to mean that undeleting means undeleting; if it's OK to undelete history behind a template:Delrev screen, then the proposed principle should be clarified. Kla'quot (talk | contribs) 07:00, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree. Instead of courtesy BLP deletion, I have proposed courtesy BLP blanking (see above). Instead of the article, people would see something similar to the DRV notice, directing them to the deletion discussion, but because the history is present, they would be able to review the disputed version of the article. I fail to see why this is not acceptable. Several people I have spoken to on talk pages, including one of the arbitrators, have pointed out problems with blanking, but some have agreed that it could work. Look at the process used for suspected copyvios, which use {{copyvio}}. The presumption that a disucssion is needed is still there, but the offending text is replaced by a notice until the discussion is concluded. Deletion sends a strong message and prejudices the discussion, in my opinion. Carcharoth 10:20, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I would like to join the "protest" not because I disagree with the intepretation of WP:BLP but because this outcome appears to completely ignore the fact that a) Jeff was heavily provoked by statements like fuck off and inappropriate blocks and b) it completely ignores the wheelwarring at deletion review and AfD. Yes, admins may speedy articles found to violate WP:BLP but at no point does WP:BLP allow the same admins to speedy close AfD's and deletion reviews. On the contrary, WP:BLP specifically states that such speedy deletions may be contested through the regular channels. This outcome is far more than simply a ban on editing BLP's and cations not to revert BLP deletions. It is an endorsement by ArbCom of the kind of behaviour that provoked Jeff to make uncivil remarks. If ArbCom is unable to realize this then the project is indeed in big big trouble. MartinDK 10:09, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

• OK folks, it was fun while it lasted. Take care and good luck. Stammer 10:29, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Much more effective than a protest vote would be to actually come up with an alternative process, such as BLP blanking using a template like {{copyvio}}, see which process the community supports and which generates less drama, and go with the better process. Also, the community could instigate an oversight process to list all articles deleted by "BLP deletion", and to keep track of how successful this turns out to be in practice, and which way the wind is blowing. One big problem will be people innocently recreating the articles, which may lead to a big rise in salted titles. There is a process to keep track of PRODs, a process to keep track of AfDs, but speedies are less easy to track. I suspect that if this works, BLP deletion will be added to the criteria for speedy deletion, and non-admins will be able to add speedy tags for admins to review. Is there any way to get a feed from the deletion log and analyse the edit summaries to see how many have "BLP" (or something similar) in the edit summaries? Carcharoth 10:37, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Use a similar system to copyvio process?

Have a look at {{copyvio}}, which would put most editors off edit-warring if that was placed on an article. It also says: Do not edit this page until an administrator has resolved this issue. Is this not a sensible way to deal with BLP issues rather than deletion? Carcharoth 10:22, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Another solution would be to use WP:OFFICE which sends a strong and clear message to both editors as well as admins that the article in question should not be touched until someone who actually knows what they are doing have looked into the issue and made a binding non-disputable decision. MartinDK 10:31, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Yep - that's what I've been saying for ages, but a certain section of admins simply refuse to even acknowledge the comments. violet/riga (t) 10:55, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Actually not all OTRS volunteers are part of the Office. I think there's nothing wrong per se with deleting apparent BLP violations and discussing them on DRV if contested. All admins can look at the deleted revisions at need, and if a deletion turns out to be spurious, it will be objected to. >Radiant< 10:55, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

How many active admins look at all DRVs? I feel that this makes adminship too big a deal. Blanking would allow non-admins to understand what was being discussed in cases where there was no Google cache or mirror copy yet. Otherwise you will get people writing stubs and pasting them into the DRV to ask admins to compare the stub to the deleted article. Carcharoth 11:03, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Then I would suggest that the community encourages Jimbo to grant a group of people/admins the right to make non-disputable decisions regarding BLP's. Wikipedia is not an experiment in online democracy and this case clearly shows why. As long as policy allows people to contest such deletions then naturally they will choose to do so in good faith. This outcome does not solve the issue at all since it doesn't deal with the bureaucracy and incivility that follows from it. MartinDK 11:12, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Why not just revive a revised version of: Wikipedia:BLP Admin? None of these ideas are new, not mine, not yours. But it seems that one option has been chosen, and this option is being implemented by fiat without sufficient discussion of the alternatives. Carcharoth 11:16, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

One of the things that Wikipedia does so well is discuss and analyze every aspect of the project. That is a good thing. However, what this dispute has shown is that at times process fails. Dispute resolution failed too. Excellent editors like Jeff and excellent admins are drawn into disputes with each other that cannot be solved through process. This hurts the peoiple involved as well as the project. To avoid this we need a way to end these disputes once and for all. Your idea could work too, especially if there was a limit to how many times a BLP could be sent to DRV. Whatever solution gains community support is not important, what matters is that the solution puts an end to the bureaucracy that caused all the incivility on both sides. MartinDK 11:42, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Another concern is there will often be relevant discussion on the article's talk page. Some will itself fall foul of BLP concerns, but some of it will be relevant deletion discussion. I have little hope that deleting admins will make the effort to preserve relevant discussion or copy it to the DRV. Again, blanking resolves all these concerns, and if the result is delete, then it all goes anyway. Blanking also avoids harm to the BLP subject. As far as I am concerned, it is a win-win situation, whereas deletion will drive a wedge between admins and the editors who don't understand why they can't see the article that is being discussed. Carcharoth 11:07, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I support the proposal. Sometimes I think that administrators forget what it's like to not be able to see deleted revisions. Kla'quot (talk | contribs) 17:15, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Completely, totally ridiculous

So far, the decision has realised all my worst fears. The arbitrators seem to have completely endorsed the idea of arbitrary out-of-process deletions, and are "cautioning" the admins who correctly reversed such inappropriate deletions. They're effectively putting a gag order on Jeff (pointless, since he's left anyway) - preventing him from even discussing BLP articles because he "rejects the ethical principles that underly the BLP policy". What??!! So ArbCom now has absolute power to decide what is ethical and what is not? Sadly, my faith in the ArbCom is destroyed. Saying "Wikipedia is not a democracy" ought not to be a mandate for authoritarianism. Like any other large community of human beings, Wikipedia needs to be governed by process and rules which allow everyone, regardless of their status, fair participation in the decision-making process. I think this is a sad day for Wikipedia. Walton^{alternate account} 11:13, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I could not agree more. This is persecution and a fucking disgrace. Evidence does not seem to matter in this case and the heretics with "wrong" ethical ideas must be burnt so that the "right" ideology can stay uncontested. So far, the ArbCom decision seems to aim at changing policy and supporting that when dealing with biographies of living persons, 1. abuse and misuse of admin tools and causing disruption is allowed, if it is done "per BLP", 2. obviously out-of-process deletions can not be quickly overturned in-process per the deletion policy, 3. any admin can claim ownership of an article by deleting it and then refusing to point out how it violates the relevant policy, 4. any admin can overturn a community decision such as the result of an AFD discussion, 5. consensus is not important, 6. reliable sources, notability and neutrality are not as important as "basic human dignity", 7. adminship is a big deal, 8. articles must be censored if the facts can be harmful to the subject ("victim"). This would be the end of a neutral encyclopedia and beginning of this project turning into a joke like the "trustworthy" Conservapedia. Prolog 14:27, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Amen. ATren 14:42, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Not sure why anyone's making comments or arguments anymore, I could see that seemed pretty much useless by the time I watched the Brandt deletion unfold. Because consensus matters, excpet when it doesn't, and remember it's not a vote! (but user Id's are checked for SPA status). What does matter here is that the *right outcome* was reached -Jeff is reprimanded and the principle that any 1 admin can unilaterily delete anything in the name of BLP with no discussion is upheld. Well we can discuss later. . .how does that work exactly? No info for the discussion, prove a negative for the whole deleted article, and all the while reach a consensus (but remember we're not voting, just checking accounts). Oh and during AFDs, first one to close wins! R. Baley 17:24, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Do no harm

Great - so it would seem that the red flag of WP:BLP is now a magic bullet in cases of dispute, which can be reinforced by the contentless mantra of "do no harm", and that disputed material has to be removed until "a decision to include it is reached" (by whom? how?). And, indeed, Violetriga is being "cautioned" for reverting deletions that are baldly claimed to be pursuant to WP:BLP without any supporting justification, because, we now find out, after the event, that the onus is on her to initiate such prior discussion.

Perhaps we need a page setting in more detail the ethical framework within which we are supposed to be operating. I'm sure it will not be too difficult to hammer out a shared system of ethical values among the billion or so people who speak English. -- ALoan (Talk) 11:57, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Interpreting this decision

This decision should be seen for what it is: a ringing endorsement of WP:BLP. ArbCom is making plain that WP:BLP is there for a reason, and will remain there for a reason. Those who persistently refuse to recognise the legal and ethical responsibilities that come with writing about living people will not be permitted to edit in relation to living people. Behind the grandiosity, the melodrama, the grandstanding and the martyrdom, badlydrawnjeff is simply a user who refuses to accept the letter or the spirit of WP:BLP. Wikipedia is an evolving project, and one of the directions in which it is evolving is toward greater awareness of the responsibilities that come with writing about living people. This decision does not at all change WP:BLP. What it does is make clear that the policy must be read carefully, taken seriously, and enforced. Those who cannot accept this would we well-advised to rethink their place in Wikipedia. BCST2001 12:17, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, the decision will give more strength to the arms of admins who take BLP seriously, and that's a good thing IMHO. Metamagician3000 12:29, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

This ignores those who take BLP seriously, but think there are less authoritarian ways of enforcing it. In a few months time, we will see how this turns out, I guess. Carcharoth 12:31, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps the Arbitration Committee will be so kind as to tell us whose ethics and moral systems we should be using to arbitrate BLPs. You know, so we don't get pagans blanking St. Patrick or Muslims blanking Mohammed for "undue weight" concerns. This decision is completely unbalanced and ill-considered, and I'm ashamed of the project's supposed Arbitrators for endorsing such a one-sided hatchet job. nae'blis 15:18, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Some years ago I was involved in many long policy discussions for non-profit groups. One comment which has stuck in my mind since then was, "Don't try to get everyone to agree on philosophy. Get consensus on policy. People who will never agree to the same philosophy will often find common ground on policy." We would be wise to take such a pragmatic approach here instead of trying to regulate how people think. Kla'quot (talk | contribs) 16:44, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

This is absurd. This is a wiki, not a junior fascist woodchuck club. Policies are subject to change. Suggesting that people leave if they have a dissenting view about policy is completely counter to the core policy of "anyone can edit." —M (talk • contribs) 17:34, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I never heard so much nonsense in my life. Nobody is trying to "regulate how people think." Wikipedia is not "fascist" because it puts limits on what can be written about living people. Such responses are simply repetitions of the grandiosity, melodrama, grandstanding and martyrdom of the user who is the subject of this decision. There are rules about what you can say about living people, just as there are rules about vandalism. The rules are enforced by the community, but the essence of these rules is not about to change. Vandals may not like the rules, and try to change them. They will fail, and such people are well-advised to rethink their place in Wikipedia. Nor is WP:BLP about to go away, and those who cannot accept its letter or its spirit are well-advised to rethink their place in Wikipedia. This decision is a good thing. BCST2001 22:24, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

The proposed remedy says:

"Because of his rejection of the fundamental ethical principles that underlie the BLP policy, badlydrawnjeff is banned from all policy-related discussions covered by it, as well as any associated discussions."

This is a penalty imposed on speech; Jeff has asserted a certain position, so he can be blocked for doing something the rest of us are free to do. As for the Godwin's Law violations here, I do not agree with them. (For those who would be tempted to use stronger language about BCST2001; this is a newbie. If I count correctly, this is his tenth edit.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:50, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

The portion of the proposed remedy you place in bold is an accurate description. The user has made plain his rejection of the ethical principles underlying WP:BLP. Where a user has made plain this rejection, and has made plain their intention to incessantly and disruptively pursue their opposition to WP:BLP, they are giving themselves an invitation to consequences. There is nothing vague or airy fairy about the principles or the dictates of WP:BLP. Those whose objections to this proposed remedy are based on the idea that "ethics" is unduly subjective are simply refusing to confront the concrete reality that WP:BLP is a legal and ethical necessity for WIkipedia. BCST2001 23:21, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Except that I've done nothing of the sort in theory, as the basis of that quote is completely out of context from the greater discussion, and even if I have done that in theory, I wouldn't do it in practice and have no evidence of doing it in practice - I don't make bad edits, I don't make out-of-policy edits, etc. So it's not only a thoughtcrime (a first offense thoughtcrime, at that), but it's a thoughtcrime that's not even based in reality. --badlydrawnjeff talk 23:55, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

New remedies are insufficient

Flonight has added two new remedies concerning Badlydrawnjeff to the proposed decision. In contrast to the original remedy (complete ban from BLP articles and discussion), these new remedies are significantly more lenient and (IMO) barely address the problematic behavior.

1.1) Badlydrawnjeff is cautioned to adhere to the letter and spirit of the Biographies of living persons policy.

Maybe I'm just cynical, but I don't think a caution is going to affect Jeff's behavior. Jeff believes that he is adhering to the BLP policy, which is why this ended up at ArbCom.

1.2) Badlydrawnjeff may not initiate or reopen any deletion review concerning an article deleted for BLP reasons for three months.

This remedy at least recognizes that the problem isn't the editing of BLP articles, but Jeff's behavior in discussions concerning deletion. However, this behavior will only be affected minimally by restricting him from initiating DRVs. There's nothing in this remedy to restrict the disruption in DRVs opened by another editor.

It seems like we've seen "too harsh" and "too lenient", so hopefully "just right" will be coming along soon. Chaz ^Beckett 16:46, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

When we reach too leinient, let me know. I'm still being held accountable for something with no supporting evidence and no record to support it. --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:50, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I think we're all well aware of your opinions on how accountable you are in this whole matter. I'm sure that you believe that any remedy placed on you would be unjustified. In fact, I think the core issue of this case is the disconnect between how you view things and how a majority of other editors view them. Chaz ^Beckett 16:56, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Simply not true - "a majority of other editors"? There's plenty of us who support Jeff in this. Anyway, the important issue here isn't what happens to individual editors - it's what happens to the policy, and the precedent established by this ArbCom case. And so far, I'm sory to say, the decision is sending Wikipedia in the direction of authoritarianism, arbitrary deletions, and "ethical values" which are forced down everyone's throats. Walton^talk 17:02, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

No, I think it's true to say that a majority of editors do not share Jeff's views, especially as they relate to extreme inclusionism. I don't think a majority support draconian restrictions on his editing of articles, but that doesn't mean they support his actions. Chaz ^Beckett 17:07, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

There's no support for this conclusion. Look how many editors have come out of the woodwork to protest this proposed ruling. Just because we're not as vocal as Jeff, don't assume that we are not sympathetic to his views on this case (and shocked at the extent of the proposed remedy for someone who did little more than argue his case). ATren 17:28, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Maybe we can put that myth to bed right now, too - my inclusionism began and ended with where our policies and guidelines sat. Myths are troublesome and cause situations like this one. --badlydrawnjeff talk 17:45, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Everyone should know it's a lot easier to re-interpret words/policies and claim consensus than it is to actuallly change them with consensus. R. Baley 18:50, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

They don't support his actions-Beckett (above). perhaps we should conduct a straw poll? :-) (Or is that disruptive?) R. Baley 18:50, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

You're right - any remedy placed on me would be unjustified, as there's no evidence of any wrongdoing on my part. The core issue is the disconnect between administrators and execution of deletion policy. ArbCom missed the boat, which is unfortunate. --badlydrawnjeff talk 17:04, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

No evidence of "wrongdoing" perhaps, maybe...but disruption, yes, plenty of evidence.--MONGO 17:16, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

There is also plently of evidence of Jeff being provoked by statements like fuck off among others. Is this pre-school? Do people get to bully others to the point where they get fed up and react like human beings? Then they run off to the adults to get what they wanted? Let the record show that I would disagree with Jeff on almost each and everyone of these deletions but this kind of crappy treatment is a disgrace. Has the possibility of more power and authority really consumed you people so much that you can't see how you are hurting Wikipedia as a project? For Christ sake grow up... or this project will be dead before you know it. MartinDK 17:33, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Action=reaction...maybe someone told Jeff to f*%@ off because he wouldn't stop incessantly and termangently badgering them about a deletion.--MONGO 17:38, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Chances are that's not the case. --badlydrawnjeff talk 17:45, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

He badgered someone so badly on his own talk page that they felt compelled to say that? --MichaelLinnear 17:54, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I think the rule is: "non-disrupters may say fuck off, but disrupters may not." ATren 18:03, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

This project is already dead. The very fact that they consider passionate debate on discussion pages disruption is compelling evidence that Wikipedia has sold out. At some point this project got too big, and now it is nothing but a corporate, beaurocratic nightmare. I am looking forward to seeing what replaces it - I'm betting it will be something initiated by Google, which knows the true meaning of "do no harm". ATren 17:41, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Wow, this is a riot. If the project is dead, go away. We don't need pessimistic hangers-on. Of course, you're not going to leave, because the project really isn't dead, you're just trying to make a stupid point. As for Google — please. It's a mega-corporation. "Do no evil" is a slogan to sell itself to nerds and make them think that the company is somehow different. But at the end of the day, it's a publicly owned company, and it can't make decisions that may be morally right but would lose it money. Just look at how it has bowed to censorship in China. --Cyde Weys 17:46, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

No, I won't go away, but the way things are going I suspect I will be shown the door for expressing these very words. Disagreement (aka "disruption") is not tolerated here. ATren 17:50, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

• Cyde is quite right on what Google is. So why do we want to imitate them? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:49, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I guess I see a big difference between censorship in China, where a pure uncensored feed would get them banned entirely so they made the pragmatic decision that something is better than nothing, and censorship here in the US, which Wikipedia seems to be advocating. ATren 20:18, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I have suggested a new remedy: If Jeff is being disruptive, warn him; if he continues to disrupt that discussion, block him. Why is this insufficient? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:02, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Vague wording

There is some confusion in the wording of some of the new remedies. Some refer to BLP in their titles, while referring to "living people" in the main text of the remedy. There is actually a subtle difference. Could the arbitrators clarify what they mean and make clear whether they are referring to "articles covered by Wikipedia:Biographies of living people" (which includes more than just articles on people) or just "articles on living people". Thanks. Carcharoth 20:03, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Thoughtcrime

This is a new one for me. I didn't think expressing an opinion was so wrong. --badlydrawnjeff talk 20:23, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Sadly, it looks like you're going to be gagged, simply for daring to dissent from the ArbCom's view on what constitute "fundamental ethical principles". Evidently NPOV is dead. Walton^talk 18:57, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

More Commentary from the Peanut Gallery

My apologies. This kind of goes on a bit. I got carried away, but I'm afraid I don't have time to take the red pen to it.

I don't do this (meaning Wikipedia) so much. I ended up here because there were links peppered across various and sundry noticeboards that led me into the discussion, and because I find this sort of internecine debate to be interesting. I'm not a major contributor (mostly vandalism cleanup, and even then I deeply suspect that I'm not taking the eighty-seven various and sundry steps for proper execution of removing the scatological reference from the article), so don't think that I'm trying to speak from expertise here.

However, I must say that this entire process, from Evidence to Decision, has been something of a farce. Somehow, some way, we've managed to miss the problem that led to this entire situation (people acting unilaterally on a subjective ethical basis to enact states that require administrator access), and are now considering enshrining it in the precedent of an arbitration decision. I think that before we do that, it might be good to try and understand both sides of this debate, as I've seen woefully little effort expended from BOTH the expansive and the constrictive (for simplicity's sake, let's just call the the Jeffs and the Tonys).

The merit of the constrictive view is obvious - the claim is that it is wrong for us to catalog information that might conceivably become inconvenient for people at a later date that might not be considered of encyclopedic merit at that later date, whether or not it passes the hard policies and guidelines establishing normal inclusion criteria (i.e. notability). These people obviously have their hearts in the right place - they want to protect individuals that might be injured. That's commendable, and just as it might be commendable to pull back a child about to wander into a street a couple of feet before he reaches imminent danger, it might be commendable to do that in this case. I understand that.

However, as a policy matter, it doesn't make much sense. Policies, by their nature, need to be largely black and white things. When you've got over a thousand people trying to administer these things, they need to know what goes and what doesn't, because if this entire disaster has taught us nothing else, it has taught us that arbitrary subjective exercise of administrative judgment leads to arguments. While the idea that information that might harm ought to be limited to stricter notability standards might be VIRTUOUS, it begs for subjective evaluation of articles.

My initial reaction to the policy upon reading it is much akin to the Jeffs' - the policy operates as a shield against libel. The reason that I think this way is because it's relatively easy to determine what's libelous and eliminate it. There are stacks of case law and statutes and various other legal phrases that tell us what is and what is not permitted under the law of the United States and the State of Florida. It's enforcible. What is and is not wrong, however, varies from individual to individual (and I DO think I have some expertise on the subjectivity of ethics and virtue, as I spent some time as an Objectivist). Agent A may not have a problem with an article on some random fat guy in China, or he may think that the article is relevant because he's deeply involved in the study of Chinese Obesity or Internet Memes or God only knows what, but Agent C might disagree. This is not a situation which is objectively enforcible. That's bad in policy terms.

The policy as characterized by the current stated principle is arguably the worst possible interpretation one could form. It's already been admitted that once the article has been put up in the first place (which is where all the action takes place - the proposed principle does not, in my view, discourage the generation of new content, but only addresses what to do when "bad" content shows up), the cat is pretty well out of the bag. Mirrors can take the data and run with it at any time, web archives can grab copies of it that exist from now until whenever they have to clear their storage - you're done at that point. Anything that you do to remove the material from this site only makes the theoretical ethical damage (hurt feelings, personal strife, etc.) slightly less severe. Mention has been made of having some random event chronicled in a Wikipedia page come up as the first hit when a person's name is entered into Google. Well, unfortunately, this remedy (and any remedy, for that matter) doesn't do much to change that. The only difference is that instead of a Wikipedia page, it'll be one of the other myriad places the information could reside.

Immediately, summarily removing the articles, then, just seems to me to be the best way to piss people off you could possibly think of. Given that we're discussing material that puts the Foundation in no legal danger, there's no impact to letting the information stay, go, or otherwise. I haven't even heard a case yet where the individual in question actually complained to this large, purportedly visible monolith of information, with its tremendous life destroying capacities. All the action we're talking about here is proactive, and when you're being proactive, you have time to relax a little and take things slow. If we just take a step back and think about what we're doing here, implementing this effective policy change (as this is by no means the consistent way in which things are done, as the fact that an arbitration case is ongoing should suggest) will just lead to more argument and more good contributors leaving the project.

Courtesy blanking, as I understand it (which may be entirely wrong), seems like a reasonable compromise. Personally, I don't think that even that would be necessary unless the Foundation receives a request (after all, who are you being courteous to if nobody has claimed to have been harmed?), and that the discussion should be had with an honest eye to what the decision is really about. The Tonys are, by and large, applying BLP disingenuously, though I have no doubt that they do so in good faith. Their real beef is not that any person is being hurt, or would be hurt, because I'm sure they're smart enough to realize that they can't erase the words that they're arguing about. Their problem is that the content is NOT ENCYCLOPEDIC, and BLP is just the clause that they're exercising to excise the material as quickly as possible.

In that regard, I'd have to agree with them. A lot of material being discussed here isn't particularly encyclopedic. The young pole vaulter over whom much invective was hurled may certainly be "hawt," but her relevance to the broader universe is perhaps only slightly more significant than mine, and I have thus far managed to write on this for over half an hour at work without being noticed, if that's any indication of how important I am. I would recommend that said content be removed from the encyclopedia for that reason. The only reason anybody would characterize it as a BLP violation is the fact that the hawt girl has apparently had an extremely mild adverse reaction to her newfound and brief fame. That label, however, carries with it no remedy. People didn't find out about her through Wikipedia. They found out about her through a sports blog, and then through a number of other news services. Wikipedia is not the first informer, and removing the information from Wikipedia doesn't remove the problem from her life. We, as a group, have no remedy to take to help her. If BLP states that we should do things that don't help anybody but get a lot of potentially valuable contributors really, really pissed off, there's something wrong with BLP.

I've been batting around several ideas for what would resolve situations like this. What I figure is the best (and I am sure is wrong) would be to change the sourcing requirements. Two reliable sources published not within <insert arbitrary number of> months of one another. Puts a time delay on reporting brand new current events, discoveries, and research (good anyway, because peer review doesn't magically happen as soon as something is published and needs a little bit of time to cook) and neatly excludes almost everything being discussed here. This very neatly enforces the principle that if something isn't important for at least <arbitrary number of months>, it's not notable enough for inclusion.

Honestly, I think there's a better solution out there than what's proposed here, which is acting preemptively to solve problems that may never exist and potentially causing problems that wouldn't happen otherwise. I sincerely hope Jeff reconsiders and sticks around. I sincerely hope that certain other individuals whom I will not name but I suspect know who they are learn to moderate themselves better (here's a tip I've learned from my internet forum days - pretend you're a robot, and not Bender).Cool moe dee 345 20:59, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

It might be a lengthy commentary but it's well worth a read - very good points there, thanks. violet/riga (t) 21:45, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Seconding Violet's sentiments here. I'm thinking that in general, two months, in separate media not held by the same corp. or person, not affiliated with each other, and the author(s)/producer(s) have no connection, could be a good guideline. A caveat (of course) for events that are so widely covered by so many sources, it is considered *extremely likely* to be encyclopedic. R. Baley 22:02, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

And the general point, that government by (self-perceived) Virtue is likely to be disastrous, is worth repeating.

Also worth noting is the idea of an enforced delay of some months in writing Wikipedia, as opposed to Wikinews articles. (The mechanism needs work. We should have election articles, for example, within days, not months; otherwise we let down the people who want to know what is the current government in Fooland.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:40, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

The articles I restored

"Yes, basically Doc and I [Tony] went through Wikipedia identifying named infants, and took steps to deal with them all." [6]

I would like clarification of where this is acceptable per the BLP policy. It applies to all the articles that I restored. violet/riga (t) 21:44, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

It's always acceptable to take action to improve Wikipedia. --Tony Sidaway 22:43, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

That's laughable. Your defintion of "improving" is clearly wrong. You are not allowed to delete things based on a whim and you have not proved yet that BLP applies. Sorry Tony but your case of "because BLP says I can" is predicated on a misinterpretation of that policy. People could so easily start looking at such actions as bad faith and vandalism. violet/riga (t) 08:36, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Are we to assume that all of the entries remaining in Category:2000 births and other similar categories have been vetted (by Tony, Doc and friends) and that they are thus acceptable under the expansive interpretation of WP:BLP that is being thrust upon us? Why hasn't Leo Blair, for example, been deleted? Do no harm. -- ALoan (Talk) 22:06, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia doesn't work that way. There is no adjudication panel. --Tony Sidaway 22:44, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

the role is in effect taken by AFD.Geni 23:00, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Up to a point. Only a very, very small proportion of all deletions take place as a result of xFd. --Tony Sidaway 23:02, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

By the way. do you think it would be possible for you to hold back on the personal attacks, on an arbitration page? --Tony Sidaway 22:56, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Personal attack, Tony? Could you explain? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:14, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

To clarify: denigration. Removing harmful trash from Wikipedia absolutely isn't anything to be ashamed of, but the wording of the above suggests that there is. --Tony Sidaway 05:03, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Was that last reply directed at me, Tony? (Your indenting suggests it is directed at violet/riga). If it was directed at me, I am not sure which of my comments above you consider to be personal attacks. I do try very hard to be courteous and to avoid making personal attacks at all times, although I am sure that sometimes I fall short of my own standards. I am sorry if I have unwittingly caused offence.

But anyway, you said that you and Doc had gone through all of the articles on minors, and had 'dealt' with them (whatever that means). You seem strangely reluctant to clarify the test that you have been applyng to these articles. Surely it is not unreasonable to enquire whether the content in the articles that remain after your review have passed whatever test you were applying? -- ALoan (Talk) 01:28, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, we went through them and dealt with them. This doesn't mean they've all been satisfactorily dealt with any more than my last edit to an article was the last word that Wikipedia could say on that article.

You say "You seem strangely reluctant to clarify the test that you have been applyng to these articles." I'm sorry, I thought it was obvious that the test I applied was whether the article seemed to be doing unnecessary harm.

You say "Surely it is not unreasonable to enquire whether the content in the articles that remain after your review have passed whatever test you were applying?" Well I think it would be naive to assume that either Doc or I are perfect. --Tony Sidaway 04:29, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh, none of us are perfect :) So some of the articles that you have 'dealt with' still contain BLP violations, in your view? Perhaps you would also accept that you may have incorrectly deleted some content that should be reinstated?

Your reply ("the test I applied was whether the article seemed to be doing unnecessary harm") does not really answer the question because it brings us neatly back to the question that has been raised many times before - what 'harm' does a Wikipedia article cause - and then adding the question of when any such harm is 'unnecessary'. Clearly there is some disagreement about when an article will be 'harmful' and/or whether any such harm is 'necessary'. It seems that the test for 'harm' is currently 'I don't like it'; then, after waving the red BLP flag, 'I get my own way' until there is "actual consensus" to the contrary (and then it may be difficult to achive "actual consensus" where an article has been deleted, because only admins will be able to view the deleted content). -- ALoan (Talk) 10:47, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I absolutely and unconditionally believe that any action I may take on Wikipedia is subject to review and may be incorrect and reversed. We all accept that. "I don't like it" doesn't enter into the equation when deciding whether an article is likely to do harm. A particularly strong alarm bell rings in an article when it is about an event of very small significance (such as a premature birth) but is written as a biography of the infant in question. That has obvious potential for harm. --Tony Sidaway 21:41, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

It has potential for harm? Harm whom - the deceased child? No, but maybe the parents. However, since all the same information is easily available elsewhere and it is in no way disparaging it is not appropriate to delete it outright. AfD it sure, then you can apply non-notability too. violet/riga (t) 21:46, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

There's something missing

This, or something like it, is missing. Jeff has been an exemplary contributor of content, and he should be recognised as such. He is welcome to resume at his leisure. --Tony Sidaway 00:59, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't know whether the arbitrators will formally adopt this proposal, but it is certainly a true statement. Newyorkbrad 01:26, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, definitely. You've already gotten on your moral high-horse to lecture him on ethics and morality, now you just need a patronizing finding like this to put him in his place. 75.116.33.246 01:29, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

The ethics are just as important. I do not apologise for holding steadfastly and with considerable success to that. --Tony Sidaway 05:04, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't know how Jeff feels about this, but to me it would be akin to getting laid off by my long term employer and receiving a cheap wristwatch as severance. ATren 12:48, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Jeff feels badly about this, and says so, however, that is unfortunate. I believe it is a nice proposal on Tony's part, meant in the best of faith, and truly needed. It is important that two users can disagree on some issues, even strongly disagree, yet still recognize the positive contributions of "the other side". That's what lets Sunni and Shia, Protestants and Catholics, Liberals and Conservatives argue fiercely about some things, yet, in general, edit this Wikipedia together constructively. Thanks, Tony. --AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 12:56, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I apologise to Jeff for the clear offense that my proposal, however well intended, has caused. --Tony Sidaway 17:45, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

It was not my intent to criticise you for suggesting it; just that I would probably find it quite insulting if the committee approved this "thank you for your service" motion while showing me the door for discussing too hard. ATren 20:33, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

No ban of Jeff from Wikipedia has been discussed. --Tony Sidaway 20:37, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh, right. He can stay as long as he never says another word in any article or discussion that involves humans. My mistake. ATren 23:05, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Harm

Regardless of the outcome of this ArbCom, I think one issue needs to be looked at seriously: the definition of "harm" with regards to BLP.

The main contention here seems to be those who believe that the articles inherently did harm, while others felt they did not. I would be so bold as to say this is the factor the entire mess hinges on. Some felt that BLP meant we should not have articles that exist only to reference one unpleasant/violent/etc. moment in a person's life, regardless of how much they were splashed across the news and documented. Others felt that BLP only applied to unsourced material of that nature, as the facts already exist and documenting them does not cause harm to the individual.

This dichotomy appears to be what's tearing at the the whole process. Regardless of how this turns out, I think the community as a whole needs to seriously evaluate WP:BLP and find a more explicit way of stating the purpose of this policy before the next explosion of drama. -- Kesh 04:42, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

The "dichotomy" is not between two definitions of harm. It is between those who accept that an encyclopedia entry contains the potential to harm, and those who refuse to accept this, or else who refuse to accept that this is their business. The notion that an encyclopedia entry about you, which anybody in the world can edit and which anybody in the world can read, contains the potential to cause harm, is fairly straightforward, if not indeed commonsensical. Those who refuse to grasp this, or who refuse to think it is their business, do not need further policy definitions and explanations. What they need is an improved grasp of real life and its moral consequences. BCST2001 04:51, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Kesh says "Some felt that BLP meant we should not have articles that exist only to reference one unpleasant/violent/etc. moment in a person's life, regardless of how much they were splashed across the news and documented."

Indeed, actually this is implied very strongly by Jimmy Wales' recent alteration t What Wikipedia is not. It goes hand-in-hand with the BLP in allowing us to rid Wikipedia of a lot of rather trivial rubbish.

That doesn't really have any bearing on the people who advanced the extremely restrictive version of the BLP (exemplified by BCST2001 above) who were and always have been simply wrong. A year or so of divergence between written policy and policy in the field has resulted in many, many misconceptions about Wikipedia policy.

Real life is indeed hard. Wikipedia isn't here to make it harder for fat kids and talented pole vaulters. --Tony Sidaway 05:10, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Hi Tony. Just curious to know what it is you think I am "simply wrong" about. Thanks. BCST2001 05:16, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I misread your statement. I'm sorry, that must have been very puzzling (not to mention annoying) for everybody, particularly you. What a silly sausge. --Tony Sidaway 05:22, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Well that's a relief. I'd been following your edits on various policy pages and agreed with everything you were doing, so was crestfallen to find out you thought I'd always been wrong! Thanks for the clarification. BCST2001 05:24, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I was hoping to avoid more argument here, not start it. You've both made your points explicitly known. Can we leave it there? -- Kesh 05:20, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

As did I, on first blush. Sorry about that. My comment below, however, stands. -- Kesh 05:25, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

• Unfortunately, both of these comments emphasise my point. Each group feels that they are right in their interpretation of the policy. Each believes it is straightforward. There seems to be a very large gap between the two camps, and nothing is left but sniping across it. Aside from clarifying BLP, I'm at a loss for what would help bring this to an end. I'm not naive enough to believe everyone would be satisfied, but I think it would at least help prevent future issues. -- Kesh 05:20, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, for what it is worth, Jimbo's addition to WP:NOT is much more nuanced than some of the views that have appeared hear and on related pages. To quote, under the heading "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information", Jimbo added:

Newspaper articles - and especially Tabloid Newspaper articles. Wikipedia properly considers the longterm historical notability of persons and events with a eye towards care for the harm our work might cause. The bare fact that someone or something has been in the news for a brief period of time does not imply that they should be memorialized forever with an encyclopedia entry. While Wikipedia properly strives to be comprehensive, WP:BLP and WP:NPOV should push us to appropriately contextualize events, and in many cases this will mean not having a biography about someone who is, in fact, not encyclopedic, despite having made a brief appearance in the news

I entirely agree with this.

• Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of newspaper articles, or, a fortiori, tabloid newspaper articles.
• We should have an eye to longterm historical notability of current events and the people in them (although guessing what will or won't have "longterm historical notability" is not an easy exercise).
• Perhaps the key elements here are that:
  • people in the news for a brief period of time do not have to be "memorialized forever with an encyclopedia entry" - unless there is a good reason for doing so, for example, they are encyclopedic or notable for some other reason
  • articles should be "appropriately contextualize[d]".

Yes, articles that deal with a person who is in the news only briefly - particularly when the subject of sensationalised coverage - are unlikely to be encyclopedic. But how does this turn into a policy under which all articles containing any biographical information (which are otherwise NPOV, and well cited and sourced - indeed, in the terms of WP:WIAFA, "well written, comprehensive, factually accurate, neutral and stable") can be deleted on sight, or that the names of minors must be redacted, by appealing to some vague concept of "harm", and that the deleted content must not be restored without a demonstrable consensus?

Evan accepting that we must delete when there is the tiniest element doubt, there seems to be some inconsistency in the way it is being implemented. For example, what is notable about Leo Blair, or Kathryn Blair, or Nicky Blair, or Euan Blair? We have exact birth dates, details of education, minor infractions that any young person could be involved in; they are sourced almost entirely to news reports; for Leo, rather intrucive details of his birth; for Kathryn, intrusive speculation on the talk page about an alleged suicide attempt. Perhaps these should all be deleted too. If not, why not? -- ALoan (Talk) 10:04, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

They should, according to the logic used here. So too should everything in Category:Kidnapped children (and subpages), and indeed many articles in the subpages of Category:Children. violet/riga (t) 11:02, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

As a simple proposition, I don't see why we shouldn't delete articles about the younger Blairs. They probably don't belong in an encyclopedia, so it may be worth listing them for deletion. In fact I find it a little distasteful that we have such articles in the first place. --Tony Sidaway 16:12, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough. But there is no need to list them for deletion if BLP is a concern - we can just delete them immediately and require a consensus to reinstate them.

How about Carol Thatcher? Or Prince Christian of Denmark and his unnamed younger sister? Or Johnson Beharry or Lisa Potts? -- ALoan (Talk) 16:39, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Carol Thatcher is very famous in her own right. Prince Christian is second in line to the throne of Denmark and his sister is third. Beharry is a VC, one of very few in modern times for this high decoration which is rarely awarded to a living person. Lisa Potts is marginal. It might be better to merge it to a list of recipients of the George. Moreover I see no biographies of living persons issues with the articles about the adults. The articles about the two infants could be written with more sensitivity to the subject matter. There is perhaps too much personal detail there: minor illnesses, where Christian has been sent to nursery school, and so on, which would arguably be of interest only to stalkers. --Tony Sidaway 17:39, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

On "consensus to keep" BLPs, a resounding "yes". I strongly espouse the principle that at AfD (as well as in the case of speedy deletions under review) we should require a consensus to keep an article which is substantially a biography of a living person or persons. --Tony Sidaway 17:43, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

You see no BLP issues with Carol Thatcher's article? It says, without citation, that "She is known to have had an unsuccessful relationship in 1974 with Jonathan Aitken" ... "It is assumed that being Margaret Thatcher's daughter caused her problems" ... "Many newspapers refused to publish work with Carol Thatcher's byline", and spends most of its time discussing TV programmes of marginal notability on which she has appeared. No problem?

Beeharry is known only for his conduct during a couple of months in 2004. And the article says, without citation, that he is "currently estranged from his wife Lynthia Beharry".

In what sense is Potts marginal? On BLP grounds, or for another reason? Potts is one of c.2,000 recipients of the George Medal, about double the number of recipients of the VC; and the GM is "only" the second highest civilian bravery decoration in the UK, well down the list of Commonwealth Realms orders and decorations. Would you think differently if she had been awarded the George Cross? It is much more exclusive, with only 158 awards (including Malta and the RUC). What about the most recent living recipients of that honour, Peter Allen Norton and Christopher Finney?

As you say, both articles on the children could be considered to be excessively intrusive. As I have said before, we have relatively well populated categories of births up to an including Category:2007 births. Perhaps they should all be filleted or deleted? -- ALoan (Talk) 18:21, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, the Thatcher article is poorly written and the few sources are poorly deployed. There is too much emphasis on trivia (the DNA test result, and so on). Many other articles including Beharry have problems with unsourced or irrelevant statements.

Potts is marginal because of the nature of the subject matter. Yes, a George Cross would make a big difference. I hope you don't think I'm a definitive source on these matters (you seem to be treating me as if I were, which is worrying).

I do strongly agree that we should regularly patrol and "fillet" or delete articles about infants, amongst other categories. The results of this case will make such essential work far, far easier to do. --Tony Sidaway 18:34, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Choices

I don't envy the clerk who closes this out.

When multiple remedies pass, but are dependent on choices, are both implemented? What if on two different proposals like half the supports are first/second choices and the rest are last-ish choice votes? Ugly. Milto LOL pia 07:40, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Usually by the time the voting closes, the arbitrators have clarified which proposals supersede the others for final approval. If it's still unclear, the case clerk asks the arbitrators to clarify before doing the closing. The "implementation notes" section at the bottom of the decision page is used to make sure the arbitrators and clerks have the same understanding of what has finally passed. You are right about this one getting complicated, though; I don't think I've ever seen "sixth choice" before. Newyorkbrad 10:14, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, before I added the implementation notes section the closes could be quite chaotic, because the busy arbitrators received no feedback about the final effect of their individual decisions and often did not have the time to figure out whether the overall remedy made sense. Now before they vote on the motion to close they can see at a glance which proposals will make it into the final decision. It also helps to reduce clerical error. --Tony Sidaway 17:56, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

The core matter: interpretation and application of BLP

The core matter of this entire dispute resolution is the interpretation and application of BLP. ArbCom can try and sanction people for their actions but these actions have to be looked upon bearing in mind that the policy is being read differently by different parties. This is the key issue and we need to be spending time resolving that. I believe my interpretation of the policy is correct. Tony believes his is, but I think he is reading more into it than it says at the moment. The policy is very much flawed when we can't even agree if it applies to the deceased or not and if it gives people the right to delete articles on minors just based on their age and not on the content of the article. So far none of this is being considered and ArbCom appear to be focussing on slapping wrists rather than helping to sort the situation out. violet/riga (t) 08:59, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

violet/riga, read the proposed principles. ArbCom is interpreting and reinforcing specific aspects of the BLP policy that some users have ignored in the past. We do not write policy. Instead we reinforce and interpret it. FloNight 10:57, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

People cannot be sanctioned based on BLP if you go by the perceived ethical principal rather than what is really says. You haven't really addressed what I said: that the policy is what needs to be fixed rather than the people involved here. violet/riga (t) 11:24, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Given that ArbCom still seems unable to figure out what the real underlying issue is I think you will find yourself very unpleasently surprised with the consequenses and quite honestly disrespect for ArbCom that this ruling will have unless you deal with the real issues as outlined above and look at this matter from both sides. No editors = no content = nothing to rule over or administer. MartinDK 11:25, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

As a part-time observer of this case, well said violet/riga. Absolutely correct. The first proposed finding of fact encapsulates it pretty well and supports this view. On that basis, and as V/R correctly states, this is substantively about interpretation and application of policy. Therefore, quite why none of the original article deleters and discussion supressors feature in the proposed findings of fact or remedies is rather unfathomable. Even now, there are radical alterations being made to policy pages, supporting unilateral deletions, without actual consensus for such change. Let's take some time to consider this whole saga properly, without some distinctly unbalanced, knee-jerk, punitive measures. As Tony Sidaway is rather fond of espousing, there have been many "silly sausages" in this whole sorry case. --Cactus.man ✍ 11:38, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

If this is a matter of arbcom interpreting a vaguely specified policy, how can you punish (yes, punish) users who violated that interpretation before it was written? ATren 13:02, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

The arbitration committee has produced an authoritative interpretation of our policy (which is part of its remit). It is warning some administrators that what they did is unacceptable. It is considering other possible sanctions on an editor who, while an excellent editor, acted very disruptively. Those sanctions are also part of its remit. --Tony Sidaway 16:17, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, if the interpretation had gone the other way - if the arbcom had decided that these were cases of overzealous enforcement of BLP - would it be appropriate to ban those admins for their "disruption"? ATren 16:36, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Of course any user that is disruptive risks being sanctioned by ArbCom. The issue here (regarding Jeff) is different than you framed it. The concern it that he will be disruptive in the future based on some of his recent actions and statements. Personally, I do not want to ban him from BLP discussions because I feel that he will follow our caution and interpretation of BLP policy, and will not be disruptive in the future. Other ArbCom members disagree and feel his current statements and actions warrant a ban from the topic. FloNight 16:55, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Which means that ArbCom is positioning itself to be completely incapable of examining my history in matters that I disagree with. Now this is even more puzzling than it already is - with no evidence of disruption in these discussions ever, and no evidence that I have a tendency to continue after these issues, and plenty of evidence that I stay well within policy and guidelines even when I disagree with it, and even evidence that I've followed what's listed in the principles (I don't edit with harm in mind, I contest relevant deletions via the usual means as opposed to just reinstating them as is, etc), what's the point of this, exactly? The only evidence cited regarding the findings is an out-of-context quotation, and the only supplemental evidence provided on this talk page was an article edit supported by numerous people on the talk page after not-insignificant discussion. So, again, what is the point here? It's impossible for me to believe I'm anything else than the scapegoat here - a head needs to be put on the pike, and it may as well be mine. Because if it's anything else, the evidence certainly hasn't been forthcoming. Hell, ban me from the project forever if I'm incapable of following the rules, I don't disagree with that - but ban me from the project for interpreting the rules in a way many people agree with, and doing so in a mostly civilized manner while attempting to gain consensus and make my case? --badlydrawnjeff talk 17:06, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

(ec) FloNight, his current statements and actions were based on an unclarified policy. It's not clear to me that Jeff violated any policy, at least not knowingly. The disruption charge is especially puzzling, since I'm still waiting to see which article was compromised by this supposed disruption. How can a debate about the interpretation of policy, especially a policy as vague as this one, be considered a disruptive act worthy of a ban? What has Jeff done in the past to deserve such an assumption of bad faith? (This is not really directed at you, FloNight - you seem to be the only one on the committee who isn't willing to punish Jeff for what you think he might do). ATren 17:15, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

ATren's question deserves a forthright answer: Yes, if the arbitration committee had decided that only a more restrictive interpretation of the biographies of living persons policy (BLP) was valid, I would expect sanctions, at least of the level now proposed for Violetriga and NightGyr and possibly somewhat stronger, for those who were involved in summary deletion of articles. Desysopping might have been merited owing to the scale of the deletions.

The administrators did not act in isolation, however. Their actions were part of an ongoing dialog in the community, and in general those actions were supported by the community where they were reviewed. The fact that some editors and administrators vehemently opposed them has tended to obscure this. The arbitration committe, Jimmy Wales, and all the OTRS volunteers who have expressed an opinion are also agreed with the broad interpretation. --Tony Sidaway 17:19, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

OK, but desysopping would be mild compared to what is proposed for Jeff - a discussion ban. Would those admins be subject to such a discussion ban? Would you support such a penalty for an admin who was acting in good faith and who believed (s)he was following the policies as they existed? ATren 17:39, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

The proposed bans are pretty draconian. They are arguably commensurate with the problem, but it's hard for me to see whether they'll work satisfactorily if passed, and I'm happy to leave such considerations to the arbitrators.

I do support, and have supported in the past, sanctions made a result of actions taken at a time when policy was unclear or unformed. --Tony Sidaway 18:52, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflicts, responding to BDJ) IMHO, no ban is necessary. I think that in time, reasonable people, hopefully including badlydrawnjeff, will understand that the decision in this case will not be abused and that summary deletion will be limited to a relatively small number of genuinely problematic articles. I haven't seen any estimates, but perhaps a couple of hundred out of 1,800,000+ articles are within the intended purview of this case. There is no reason to cut him off from editing biography articles (as the committee seems to be agreeing), nor from salvaging a borderline-notable article about someone by coming up with sources for it on AfD, nor from placing a badge on him that he alone has part of the encyclopedia off-limits. Of course if he were to disregard the consensus behind this decision, then further measures might be needed, but in such a case, they could be taken quickly. And I do take Jeff's continued interest in this page as a sign that hopefully he is reconsidering his position that if Wikipedia lacks a few articles of frankly peripheral importance, the whole value of the project is jeopardized and he can no longer be a part of it.

I can't tell badlydrawnjeff (or Stammer, who also has left us over this decision and for whom I have left a note on his talk urging him to return, or anyone else who has expressed unhappiness on this page or elsewhere) how they should spend their time, but I would like to think that our valued editors can accommodate to the need to be sensitive to living subjects of articles while being allowed to contribute to Wikipedia, and I would urge that we all encourage them to try. Newyorkbrad 17:20, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

That's a very reasonable and fair comment. It would have been nice if ArbCom had asserted that incivility breeds incivility and both sides should have known when to back off and cool down before reengaging in the dispute. As far as I recall all parties in the case are subject to ArbCom's decisions and sanctions. For the sake of not having to repeat this would it be too much for ArbCom to ask the involved admins on the "winning" side to enforce this interpretation of WP:BLP as quickly as possible? I would imagine that it wouldn't be too hard to do so given that the articles in question are all placed within easy to identify categories. If this truly was about WP:BLP and not just Jeff then I would imagine that would be in everyone's interest. MartinDK 17:40, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it's necessary to "enforce" the principles adopted in this case by any swift or precipitate action. It isn't as if we have a shopping list of articles to delete. Besides, to suddenly delete lots of articles would send entirely the wrong message to the community. Now is the time for discussion, not action. --Tony Sidaway 18:02, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

This issue is not what's prompting me to leave, but other things that are mostly unrelated. If no sanctions occur on me as a result of this charade, I still don't envision a return following the conclusion of this - at this point, I'm merely trying to protect what's left of my reputation. --badlydrawnjeff talk 17:41, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

"I haven't seen any estimates, but perhaps a couple of hundred out of 1,800,000+ articles are within the intended purview of this case." Really? The language of the new policy seems exceptionally broad. Any admin can summarily delete any biography of a living person with only a claim of a WP:BLP infraction. The deck is then stacked heavily against the restoration of the article, because most editors won't even be able to see what was deleted and a consensus to restore is required. This would indicate that far more than a couple hundred articles are at risk. Oh well, I'm piling up too many edits in the Wikipedia space, so it's back to the articles for me...while they still exist. Casey Abell 18:14, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

This smells to me like a straw man argument. You assume that all admins will agree with the deletion, and you assume that no one will be able to discuss the article without being able to see it. Both of those assumptions are, I believe, false. If a biography is deleted and no one discussing it can find out anything about the subject, then it obviously fails notability, much less any dispute over BLP issues. For cases involving people of limited notability (Allison Stokke, "little fatty", "bus uncle", and so on) a discussion on the appropriateness of an article can easily take place without having to see the article itself. After all, the issue in these cases was never false or unsourced statements, but whether or not there should even be an article in the face of multiple reliable sources. Thatcher131 18:23, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand the counter-argument. It doesn't take "all admins" to agree with the deletion. It doesn't even take one other admin to agree. Any single admin, acting unilaterally and with only a claim of a WP:BLP infraction, can summarily delete any biography of a living person. This isn't a straw man argument, or really an argument at all. It's a simple statement of ArbCom's now-approved Proposed Principle #4. And if most editors can't even see the material that supposedly violated WP:BLP, how can they discuss whether the deletion was justified? Not to mention that the "burden of proof" is on them to show that the article complies with every aspect of WP:BLP. Which is going to be difficult, if they can't even see what's supposed to be out of compliance in the first place. Anyway, this really is my final comment. I've had my say, and I'm returning to exo mode. It's a lot more enjoyable. Casey Abell 18:38, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Suppose admin A deletes an article that he believes to be irretrievably compromised on BLP policy grounds. Another administrator, B, takes a look and says "look, revision Y seems to be uncompromised, I think you overlooked it." A, the deleting admin says "oh what a silly sausage, you're right and undeletes and reverts to the good version." No problem.

Or suppose administrator A doesn't agree with B. Well C and D and E come along and they agree with B. They take it to deletion review. During the discussion the administrators make a case of undeletion. A makes his case for deletion. Non-administrators listen to the arguments and add their opinions. The closing admin examines the arguments and decides whether administrator B has established that the article is compliant with the BLP. --Tony Sidaway 18:45, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, it would seem - I am not entirely sure why - see above - that we are not to have an article on Lisa Potts, the most recent living recipient of the George Medal.[7] -- ALoan (Talk) 18:29, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Seems right to me. Lisa Potts is a person who is notable for a single event, there is no way to write an encyclopedia article (in contrast to, say, a newspaper article) on her that does not suffer from bias and undue weight due to the fact that all the coverage about her is about this event. Although I would cite "Wikipedia is not a newspaper" rather than BLP (or maybe, "Wikipedia is not a newspaper" being interpreted more strictly for bios than for other articles). Does she like cats? Where did she go to school? What are her achievements? Thatcher131 18:34, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Cats? School? I have no idea Perhaps someone should consult her autobiography.[8] She may well have an entry in DNB too (I don't have online access so can't check). -- ALoan (Talk) 18:53, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

There is currently an article about Lisa Potts and I'm not aware of any specific plans to delete it, but as I said before it would seem like a good case for a merge. --Tony Sidaway 18:39, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

There was an article on Lisa Potts until it was turned into a redirect to George Medal at 17:37 UCT by FloNight, presumably as a direct result of our discussion above. You see, Tony, you are an authoritative source - you call something marginal and it gets 'dealt with'.

I am not entirely sure why an article on a "single event" person like Lisa Potts needs to be merged, but another "single event" person like Johnson Beharry is not. -- ALoan (Talk) 18:53, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

If you compare the times, you'll see that I did it before Tony commented. I saw the question about whether Lisa Potts should have an article and looked and felt her fame was from a single event and needed to be merged. I see others agree. FloNight 19:17, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't be adverse to a merge involving Beharry. On the other hand an article may be merited. This is not set in stone in my opinion. --Tony Sidaway 19:21, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Lisa Potts' autobiography Behind the smile is owned by 51 libraries worldwide according to Worldcat, which is decent but not earthshaking. She still appears to be a single-event person, but this could be debated. The straw man argument is thinking that any article deleted under BLP will disappear down the memory hole forever. Such articles can be discussed without needing to restore the text first, and it is a mistake to think that all admins will be monolithic on the subject. The point of this case decision, as far as I can tell, is that Arbcom endorses the more generous interpretation of BLP favored by Tony and Doc et al. rather than the narrow interpretation favored by BDJ et al., and specifically warns against disruptive discussion and undeletion. It doesn't prohibit reasonable discussion. Thatcher131 19:30, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm getting mighty tired of the speculation of what I favor. --badlydrawnjeff talk 20:21, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

It does not concern you that any discussion is now subject to a review as to whether it is "reasonable", and that the first time you are judged to be unreasonable you may be banned indefinitely from future discussion? Doesn't that scare you just a little bit? ATren 20:28, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

In the QZ case, Jeff's futile and unreasonable prolonging of the discussion was quite egregious, and there was a pattern of behavior and an expressed attitude that have made it hard for the committee to believe that his behavior will be acceptable in future. They're still discussing what to do about this. --Tony Sidaway 20:40, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Both of which are completely unfactual and/or speculative statements that have no basis in reality or evidence. Stop perpetuating myths, Tony. --badlydrawnjeff talk 20:46, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

On the arbitrators' feelings, see the proposed finding of fact concerning you, which is currently at 5/0/0 and needs just one more support vote to pass. I'll admit the my statement about your counter-productive behavior is my opinion, but it's based on substantial evidence and is an opinion held by many, many other editors in good standing. --Tony Sidaway 21:27, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh I just remembered we had an RFC on this and JzG made a strong rebuttal in which he strongly criticised the repeated attempts to drag a dead issue back to deletion review. This was endorsed by 31 other editors. --Tony Sidaway 21:54, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes. Myths are continuing to be perpetuated. This must stop. --badlydrawnjeff talk 22:16, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Consider that it may be possible that the thirty-one are right and you are wrong. The arbitration commmittee seems to be of a like mind, too. The evidence is stacking up. --Tony Sidaway 23:30, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I did consider it, thus coming to the conclusion I have reached. The evidence is not stacking up - the evidence does not exist. --badlydrawnjeff talk 23:33, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Well it's 31 editors and 5 arbitrators so far, and counting. --Tony Sidaway 01:12, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

That's nice. Doesn't change the facts much .--badlydrawnjeff talk 01:19, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Tony, this is misleading. You make it sound like nobody supported Jeff in that RfC. Upwards of 20 other editors supported other comments that expressed concern with admin behavior in that case. With misleading statements like "Consider that it may be possible that the thirty-one are right and you are wrong." you make it seem like Jeff was all alone in opposition, which was far from the case. I also notice that people seem to be misinterpreting Jeff's reason for filing that RfC: "This is about behavior, about process, about mechanisms, and about content, no matter what anyone else would like to frame it as." It was less about the Chinese kid, and more about the fact that admins seem to be short circuiting the community-approved process pretty much whenever they want, by invoking IAR or BLP even when it's not entirely clear that there is justification for those process-subverting mechanisms. ATren 02:06, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, you're right that there was considerable concern about admins. However the community has shown that it also supports these actions. If I thought hard I might be able to think of one recent challenged BLP deletion that was not eventually endorsed, in part or in full. But off the top of my head I can't think of one. The process described in "Summary deletion of BLPs" may appear a little new, but it has been developed and tested in the field. It's Wikipedia policy, whether it's written down on a policy page or not. That's huge evidence that Jeff, and those who think his expressed views are correct, are out of touch. --Tony Sidaway 02:17, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Keep thinking that if it helps you feel better, Tony. The amount of waiting people were doing because of this case were considerable, and we might not know the true consensus of this situation for a long time, given Arbcom's reluctance to even address the core issues. --badlydrawnjeff talk 03:08, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Deletion reason

Since BLP has been asserted for the nine article deletions but at no point justified in these ongoing discussions isn't it about time the arbcom actually thought about how correct the deletions were? Right, so I restored several articles that were deleted with the three letters of power when discussion was the correct course, but note that I am the only one that has tried to actually discuss the motives behind the deletions. Has anyone given a single sentence from each of the articles that shows why they were deletion candidates? No. The catch-all "do no harm" is invalid as no harm is proven, particularly as we are talking about the deceased. Either reasons must be given or I will refuse to accept that the deletions were appropriate and that my actions were not. violet/riga (t) 19:51, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't hold your breath, discussion isn't really in their repertoire. --MichaelLinnear 19:57, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

The deletions in question can all be reviewed and (if necessary) reversed by an actual consensus. The reason you are being warned is because you undeleted without discussion and without consensus. --Tony Sidaway 20:04, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Now answer the question I asked. violet/riga (t) 20:09, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I believe he did. The issue, as I pointed earlier, is that you believe there was no justification. The others do (believing the articles "inherently" did harm). I understand you reject that argument, but the confrontational manner of your rejection (as well as jeff's) is part of the issue.

Perhaps another part is that I've not seen it clearly stated what would satisfy you for justification of the deletions. If you could elaborate on that, it might help. The only reasoning I've seen so far is that "harm" is not explicitly defined in BLP, and you feel there was no harm done. -- Kesh 20:20, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I haven't seen any justification attempted yet. Stating that they are harmful is insufficient as they are dead (nobody else has been stated as being potentially harmed) and the articles do not contain any negative text. BLP explicitly states that articles should be reverted/pruned rather than deleted, and the AfDs that took place clearly sided with me insofar as the articles were consensually found not to violate BLP. violet/riga (t) 20:36, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I believe the items violetriga refers to were articles about minors, mostly infants. They were full articles when at best they were merge candidates for various medical conditions and the like, in which context the use of their names was unnecessary. The article now known as Baby 81 is one of the few survivors of that cull, and its borderline significance in any conceivable encyclopedic context is typical of the deleted articles. --Tony Sidaway 20:49, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Search for "minor", "child", and "infant" on the BLP page. There's no mention of them whatsoever. The reasons you give here are not BLP issues and therefore the deletions were invalid. Thanks for your clarification on the matter. violet/riga (t) 21:00, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

The strict constructionist interpretation of Wikipedia policy has never been favored by the community, the arbitration committee or its founder. --Tony Sidaway 21:08, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

The articles could not be deleted because:

1. The subjects are deceased and until it is properly clarified that BLP applies to the dead then it's a grey area
2. There is no clause that states that articles about young people should be removed
3. There is no clause that states that the names of young people should be removed
4. Most of the articles were sourced
5. There wasn't anything negative in the articles

So there are five reasons that they shouldn't really have been deleted. If just one or two of them were relevant then you could start using the word "strict"; as it stands the articles should clearly have been taken to AfD where the correct result would have happened and we wouldn't be having any of this discussion. violet/riga (t) 21:29, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

The problem wasn't that your reasoning was invalid--we could have a very productive discussion on this question, I believe. It was that you wrongly asserted a right to undelete such an article without discussion and without consensus. --Tony Sidaway 21:58, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

If someone deleted Tony Blair I'd undo it. I wouldn't discuss it first. I undeleted these articles because of the above reasons, feeling that they were invalid deletions and that the process of BRD was appropriate. Had reasons for their deletion been forthcoming in subsequent discussions I would have re-deleted them myself, but they were not. Had there not been any other problems surrounding BLP such actions never would have gone to arbitration and the matter would have been resolved weeks ago. violet/riga (t) 22:07, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Well there's the problem. If somebody deletes Tony Blair citing the BLP, it would be very, very bad if you undeleted it without first discussing the deletion. "Do no harm" is the principle. Wikipedia can survive with a missing article or two while you discuss the problem with the deleting admin. --Tony Sidaway 23:34, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

No, Tony. If there was every any rule in the history of Wikipedia that required an admin to refrain from undeleting the article of any Prime Minister of the United Kingdom the very instant it appeared to have been deleted, no matter what the reason in the log, that rule ought to be immediately and resolutely ignored. Then that action should be added to the Ignore All Rules article as an example of the best use of Ignore All Rules since Wikipedia went online. If BLP takes precedence over our being an encyclopedia, then Wikipedia is doomed. And ought to be. Vadder 00:31, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

I could argue this both ways, but I think the sense of policy now is veering towards a principle that is common on other websites: if you think a page may have serious problems, temporarily removing it may be in order. Hopefully the Blair article is watched frequently enough so that there are known safe versions, but if such a deletion ever occurred I think it would be a good idea to ask the deleting admin why he did it. If it really was just an admin being silly, then the article will be restored very swiftly in any case. But if the admin has good reason, serious damage could be done by restoring. Ignore all rules only works if you're right. --Tony Sidaway 01:10, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

An outside voice

I'm not an editor, although I work with one, and sometimes give him input when he writes about something I'm more familiar with. I'm a reader. I haven't read your policies. I think having a policy about "biographies of living people" sounds like a wonderful and needed idea. I barely know what it says.

I've thought about changing that. My friend and coworker seems to have a lot of fun here. He is passionate about what he does. But I read some of this over his shoulder, and the rest on my own time, and now I'm afraid to. I'm not a scholar. I'm not a physicist or a historian or a philosopher. I don't think I'm half as smart as most of the people who make this place a useful reference, full of useful information. But I'm not terrible at Google. I know where my local library is, with the real paper books. I've had a library card for almost 30 years. I even know how to use a microfilm reader. And I'm fascinated by people, by the idea that someone can matter enough to be written about before they become a dusty part of history.

I don't want to hurt any of those people. I don't want to write anything mean. As God is my witness, I would never make things up. Yet I don't understand how some of the things talked about cause harm. I don't understand this idea that names are dangerous. I probably only read half of this discussion, but I found mention of a little girl, who was the first person in the world to have her terrible birth defect corrected by surgery. And I just can't see the harm in saying her name. If she was my daughter, I'd be proud of her name. I'd shout it from the treetops, even though she's with God now.

I read about all these people talking about dignity, and how editors have to protect that dignity. I've heard talk about dignity, and about being quiet before. Many times. My cousin is, as they say, "profoundly disabled." If by some miracle, some doctor found a way to cure him, and Wikipedia thought that cure mattered enough to talk about, I'd hope the editor would be able to say his name. I'd hate to think of him as just "an American child." And me? I'm a survivor of violent rape myself. Someone smarter at Google than me could probably even find the couple of newspaper articles about it. I don't think I should have an article at Wikipedia. I am certainly not going to write one myself. Terrible as it is to think about, a lot of women are raped like I was. But not very many people are the girl who fell down the well in Texas or that boy who was kidnapped for four years until the other one got taken too. People have told me that I shouldn't talk about my cousin. People have told me that I should be ashamed of what happened to me. I wish to God that no one had to be born sick, or to be kidnapped, or raped, or murdered. But people are. And there is no shame in it. There is no shame in being sick. There is no shame in being a victim. You do not have to be silent to show dignity for someone. Sometimes, the most dignified thing to do is to speak.

I'm not quite so naive to the politics here that I don't think there was more going on, but this Proposed Decision, well, it says that this editor didn't understand these things, and now he's not allowed to edit anymore. I don't understand. I don't think I agree. Should I just stay a reader, and not an editor, so that no one has to come along later and tell me I have to stop? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 153.2.246.30 (talk • contribs) 21:32, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your sincere and intelligent contribution. I think that one piece of the background that you may not appreciate is that the "medical" articles are just one of the types of articles involved here. The articles that have been deleted or renamed that we are discussing include many other situations. There were articles about children who were abducted and subject to sexual abuse. There were articles about people who have been brutally mocked all over the Internet ("memes") because they supposedly look funny. There was a teenager who was made fun, again all over the Internet, because he was overweight. There was an article that I put through the deletion process that humiliated a person who sold his laptop computer without properly erasing the hard drive, and when he got into a dispute about the price, the buyer dumped all of the person's intimate and financial information onto a website. In answer to your question, please do become an editor: we really do want and welcome anyone, and especially an articulate observer like yourself. With the sensitivity you have shown, I find it highly unlikely that you would fall afoul of the guidelines we are discussing here. Newyorkbrad 23:14, 20 June 2007 (UTC)