Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement
For appeals: create a new section and use the template {{Arbitration enforcement appeal}}
See also: Logged AE sanctions
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For all other problems, including content disagreements or the enforcement of community-imposed sanctions, please use the other fora described in the dispute resolution process. To appeal Arbitration Committee decisions, please use the clarification and amendment noticeboard. Only autoconfirmed users may file enforcement requests here; requests filed by IPs or accounts less than four days old or with less than 10 edits will be removed. All users are welcome to comment on requests except where doing so would violate an active restriction (such as an extended-confirmed restriction). If you make an enforcement request or comment on a request, your own conduct may be examined as well, and you may be sanctioned for it. Enforcement requests and statements in response to them may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator. (Word Count Tool) Statements must be made in separate sections. Non-compliant contributions may be removed or shortened by administrators. Disruptive contributions such as personal attacks, or groundless or vexatious complaints, may result in blocks or other sanctions. To make an enforcement request, click on the link above this box and supply all required information. Incomplete requests may be ignored. Requests reporting diffs older than one week may be declined as stale. To appeal a contentious topic restriction or other enforcement decision, please create a new section and use the template {{Arbitration enforcement appeal}}.
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Lazyfoxx
Editor topic banned for three months, and indef banned from contacting people on their talk pages about discussions occurring on article talk pages within the topic area. KillerChihuahua 14:08, 16 January 2013 (UTC) |
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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
Attention: This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below. Request concerning Lazyfoxx
The user was already sanctioned on this board for exactly the same conduct Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive110#Lazyfoxx mainly canvassing and accusing other editors of having agenda
--Shrike (talk)/WP:RX 13:28, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
Discussion concerning LazyfoxxStatement by LazyfoxxI highly suggest anyone reading this to read through my entire statement, I have put a lot of thought, effort, and good faith into this, and would appreciate my opinions heard fully and duly.
Normal protocol as outlined in Wikipedia:Dispute Resolution, "When you find a passage in an article that is biased or inaccurate, improve it if you can instead of just deleting it. For example, if an article appears biased, add balancing material or tweak the wording. Be sure to include citations for any material you add, or it may be removed. If you do not know how to fix a problem, post a note on the talk page asking for help. To help other editors understand the reasoning behind your edits, always explain your changes in the edit summary. If an edit is too complex to explain in the edit summary, or if the change is potentially contentious, add a section to the talk page that explains your rationale. Be prepared to justify your changes to other editors on the talk page."
"When you find a passage in an article that is biased or inaccurate, improve it if you can instead of just deleting it. For example, if an article appears biased, add balancing material or tweak the wording. Be sure to include citations for any material you add, or it may be removed. If you do not know how to fix a problem, post a note on the talk page asking for help." The user Shrike, may possess unclean hands in this request in Arbitration, "those seeking equity must do equity". The misconduct I was sanctioned for in the past was when I was very new to Wikipedia and had not learned the policies yet, to bring that up in relation to this is not fair to me, in the past I was not even sure how to make a statement in my defense, I have come a long way since then providing much improvement to articles on Wikipedia. It's important to note that the editor who nominated me this time is the same from last time, is it reasonable to think he/she may hold a grudge against myself and has not assumed good faith with my edits? In discussion I asked Shrike simple questions regarding Wikipedia policy and although I answered every question they asked me about content, I was not given a dignified single response to my questions. As I understand it "Arbitration is the last step in the dispute resolution process: it is a last resort, only to be employed when all else has failed or there is very good cause to believe they will not help. Try other steps first, including discussion between disputants and, where appropriate, mediation. The Arbitration Committee only deals with the most serious, entrenched, or persistent disputes and cases of rule-breaking, where all other reasonable means have failed." My edits on Wikipedia will and have always been for the improvement of articles and for the protection of Neutrality on Wikipedia, thank you.Lazyfoxx Lazyfoxx 14:14, 15 January 2013 (UTC) ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Re:user:Brewcrewer (yada,yada)'
(Moved from section for uninvolved administrators by KC):
Re: Killerchihuahua
Re: Killerchihuahua
Re: Killerchihuahua
Re: Killerchihuahua
Re: Killerchihuahua
Re: Killerchihuahua
I believe this accusation by Shrike is in itself a Bad-Faith request on his part. He justified himself in the request stating that my notifications "are clear violation of canvassing as he notified two users that probably will support him in the argument.He notified only them." That is Shrike's opinion that they would support me, as Nishidani has said above, Shrike is assuming bad faith with me. Lazyfoxx 21:00, 15 January 2013 (UTC) Re: Killerchihuahua
Re: Killerchihuahua
Re: Seraphimblade,
Comments by others about the request concerning LazyfoxxComment by BrewcrewerLazyFoxx appears to have violated 1RR a couple of days ago.[3][4] --brewcrewer (yada, yada) 15:10, 15 January 2013 (UTC) Statement by NishidaniThis repeated use of AE on frivolous grounds is getting rather farcical, Shrike. ‘he notified two users that probably will support him in the argument.’ I'm one of the users alluded to. The suggestion I would 'probably support' Lazyfoxx in any issue, not only violates WP:AGF, it quite patently ignores the record, and indeed, the direct consequence of Lazyfoxx contacting me. Above you accuse Lazyfoxx of accusing others of 'having an agenda'. In your suggestion I am a partisan who will predictably support one side, you are saying I have an agenda. What's bad for the goose (Lazyfoxx) is good for the gander (yourself).
Older editors are supposed to help relatively new ones here. This repeated use of AE when a little commonsense and friendly remonstrance can work equably is nasty and decidedly tactical. User:Plot Spoiler wasn't of course canvassed when, after a 3 year absence on a page he never edits, he suddenly showed up to make this egregiously bad revert edit others had removed, to support a side, without further bothering, as is his manner, to ever join the talk page discussion. No one reports this, though it occurs every other hour. No discussion, no evidence of article work, no evidence of anything other than hanging round, seeing a 'friend in need' of support and reverting to the text he favours. Infinitely more deplorable than a neophyte's request for assistance. All your needed to do was raise the manner on his page, explain the rule, and ask him to be more careful. To do otherwise is piddling and snarky.Nishidani (talk) 15:20, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
Statement by Plot SpoilerI don't know why I'm being brought in on this, and I can't tell if you're being actually accusing me of being canvassed -- which is absolutely false and is a violation of WP:AGF and perhaps WP:Attack. Therefore, please strike those remarks. That page has long been on my watchlist, and it's very amusing that just adding the term "false" before rumors is considered an "egregiously bad revert edit." Stick to facts please. Plot Spoiler (talk) 15:29, 15 January 2013 (UTC) Statement by BorisGI think this canvassing and OR issues are minor and do not warrant a long topic ban. I know the user has been warned but I suggest another strong warning would suffice. Or a short sanction at most. - BorisG (talk) 17:10, 15 January 2013 (UTC) Statement by Dlv999Agree with Boris. In my opinion what is more of a risk to content and the encyclopedia is that ARBPIA sanctions are being consistently used to attack and intimidate good faith editors for making minor or technical violations of policy. The topic area is riddled with disruptive sock accounts. As long as this remains the case it doesn't make much sense that we are handing out draconian topic bans to good faith editors who fall foul of the rules, because it just gives more weight to the sock accounts operating in the topic area illegitimately. Take a look at the history of the page in question. A brand new account with an experienced user behind it appears from nowhere and jumps straight into a contentious IP article to antagonize Ladyfox and ignore the IP editing restrictions. Given that we are working in an environment of systematic gaming by sock accounts does it really make sense to hand out a long topic ban for an editor who invited several long term editors in good standing to take a look at the article. Has Ladyfox' action caused any harm to the project? Dlv999 (talk) 18:10, 15 January 2013 (UTC) Statement by Sean.hoylandFocusing on one editor is a bit shortsighted. For the love of kittens, have a read through Talk:Palestinian_people#Behar_study and please stop Chicago Style (without pants) from filling that talk page up with irrelevant drivel. Canvassing is not helpful but WP:CANVASS is a guideline. WP:TALK is a guideline too, an important one, and disrupting ARBPIA by using a talk page as a forum is a "behavior that is unacceptable". Talk:Palestinian_people in particular would benefit from the instant blocking of anyone who expresses a personal opinion about the real world. Sean.hoyland - talk 17:28, 15 January 2013 (UTC) I'm not going to provide anecdotal evidence in the forms of diffs by sampling a conversation. If you would prefer to not read the talk page section and come to your own conclusions about the conversation, that's okay. Sean.hoyland - talk 18:01, 15 January 2013 (UTC) Result concerning Lazyfoxx
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Rich Farmbrough
Rich Farmbrough (talk · contribs) is blocked for two months for violating the restriction requiring him to edit Wikipedia only completely manually – that is, by typing text into the edit window – as explained and agreed to by Rich Farmbrough here. Sandstein 21:33, 19 January 2013 (UTC) |
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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
Request concerning Rich Farmbrough
This edits has serious problems, and the only expanation for these errors that I can reasonably think of is that Rich Farmbrough ran a script across a number of sources, and dumped the result in the article. While this is only one page, it is still using automated editing, and a return to the problems that caused the restriction in the first place.
Less serious contentwise, but typical of the use (and lack of control) of a script are the following issues:
I have stopped checking in detail after Chattisgarh, skimming the rest of the very long page seems to show similar errors all the way down. The systematic and stupid nature of the errors clearly shows that this is not something caused by manual editing, but by automated editing and a lack of manual checks afterwards (which was the reason for the original restriction).
I raised this issue at User talk:Rich Farmbrough#Edit that appears to be automated, hoping that another convincing explanation would be offered and that a needless AE discussion could be avoided. While a reply was swiftly given, it doesn't seem very convincing to me, claiming that the errors were caused by doing it manually (how this would explain the loss of entries in the exact same manner from both the Assam source and the Chandigarh source is not made clear, nor why other errors are made in such a systematical way either).
Replies to Rich Farmbroughs initlal statement: I made this post originally directly beneath Rich Farmbrough's undated statement, but apparently this doesn't belong there and has been removed by Rich Farmbrough (not clear where he found the instructions to do this, but never mind). So I'll repeat my questions realting to his original statement here:
@Kumioko: I have enough examples of errors created by Rich Farmbrough (directly or through his bots) which remained in the articles for months before I eventually cleaned them up to know that the "someone else will notice it if it is really a problem" mantra is false. It was also clear from the ArbCom case that comparing his number of edits with his number of errors was a false comparison, since often the edits had little or no benefit, but the errors were a lot more serious. Your claim that "Rich was actively working on the list at the time of the complaint and said that on the talk page." is a bit deceiving (his comments indicate that he had uploaded the full list and that what remained to be done was matching the lists with articles and so on; not going back to the sources he used to see whether his work was actually correct; and he had stopped working on it and moved on to othet articles, I wasn't interrupting him in the middle of edits on it) and completely misses the point; he used automation, and it caused clear and serious errors. This is what this discussion is about. If you want to rehash the whole ArbCom case, or discuss my edits, including ones that haven't got anything to do with this situation at all, then there are other venues you can use; let's stick to what is directly relevant here please. Fram (talk) 15:35, 18 January 2013 (UTC) @Rich Farmbrough: for years, you created tons of errors by mass creations and automated editing. At first, I hoped that by things would improve when you became aware of this, but when things didn't improve, you got two community imposed editing restrictions. When that didn't solve all problems and it was obvious that people still needed to check your edits for repeated or serious errors (and some other problems with your editing and admin tool use besides), the Arbcom case resulted in yet another restriction. This means that, if you followed the restriction, the need to check your edits and point out your errors would be over. However, it is quite obvious that even those restrictions aren't sufficient. When you didn't have restrictions, I was quite willing to give you the chance to correct things, but you didn't. Now, you have lost that chance, and are limited to no automated editing. Not "automated editing with Fram finding errors and me correcting them", "no automated editing at all". You violated that, you caused serious errors while doing it, so no, I am no longer intersted in "but I cleaned up afterwards", we are long past that stage now. Fram (talk) 20:58, 18 January 2013 (UTC) @Rich Farmbrough 2: concerning your defense of the actual edit: it was a systematic edit: everytime you encountered a "strange" entry in the pdfs, your script screwed up. Whether it was subentries, entries with an empty last column, entries with incorrect numbering in the original: your errors can be directly traced back to how the source looked. It had nothing to do with "empty csvs" or any other manual manipulation on your side, no matter what you claim. You used a script, and didn't check this. You claim to have worked very hard on this, but even a cursory check would have shown these problems. But, as usual, why would you do a manual check when you can have scripts do the work for you? Fram (talk) 20:58, 18 January 2013 (UTC) @Kumioko, regarding his errors and the fixes: "Many of the ones he didn't was because he was prevented from doing so because of this sanction or the long discussions which distracted much of his time." Bullshit. He made these errors, corrected his script halfway through, and continued to run the improved script without even bothering to go back and correct the old ones. I corrected them two months later manually, nothing prevented him from doing the same. I have noted some errors he made after the Arbcom case, he corrected one, I corrected the other, he has since made the exact same error at least five times more (probably "manually", right...). Despite the claims always made, no one else cleans those, not Rich Farmbrough, not one of his defenders. He just cntinues doing what he always did, only more sneaky and (thankfully) more slowly, but I fail to see any improvement, any reason to believe his fanciful explanations, or any reason to have any more patience with this (or with your wilder and wilder tales you spread about me). He has restrictions, he doesn't care to follow them, then I don't care about the consequences for him. The consequences for Wikipedia are minimal though, only a few people actually notice that these thousands of edits are no longer made, and even fewer miss them. Fram (talk) 20:58, 18 January 2013 (UTC) Discussion concerning Rich FarmbroughStatement by Rich FarmbroughThis is a huge table that has taken a month to prepare, and as well as being part of a significant article in it's own right, is important for defusing conflict, as can be seen on the talk page. The data used was prepared off-line on a spreadsheet, and cut and pasted into the article. Because I wanted the data sorted (though the table provides this functionality) and certain parts were not in the order I wanted I used the spreadsheet's sort function - which did not sort exactly as wanted. There were also a few minor formatting issues relating to empty columns. These issues were fairly easy to fix, taking about two or three hours compared with the considerable effort to build the table. Note that I described the table on the talk page as a "first cut", the sources being in conflicting formats, and the exact use of the data also under discussion. While using a spreadsheet may contravene the letter of the arbcom ruling, I think that the encyclopaedia benefits from this article, at least until it can be decided whether it should be split into sub-articles. (I would have created sub articles in the first place, but need consensus to emerge before I do that.) OBCs are a topic of vital interest to India and her 350 million English users, and we have never had a good coverage of the basic information before. @Sir Fozzie: yes, so I cant move one sentence after the next. I can't paste in the details of a citation. I can't pretty much do anything - including following the process for requesting an amendment or clarification. Effectively I am blocked from editing, except that no one thinks that the sanction is important enough to implement. Well almost no one. Well I have hardly edited since the initial sanctions, so they have been successful, I guess, in saving the encyclopaedia from some possible improvement. And indeed I was blocked for a month for correcting two spelling errors, which is a triumph for process over product. @CBM, on the contrary, Fram is damaging the encyclopaedia by being confrontational instead of cooperative. And indeed you misread Kumioko's comment, it is the behaviour of those who think that "tattling" is a valid strategy to reach their goals that is in question. Similarly those who edit war to their own ends should also be careful where they cast aspersions. @Killer Chihuahua, not having kept every version of the spreadsheets since on or before 15 December I can't definitively track this down, but it seems to be related to saving some almost empty lines as CSV, before I finished the Andra Pradesh section, the same issue occurred with about five states - had it been a systematic error it would have been with all the states or none, there is nothing I can see that makes those five states special. Presumably the reimport parameters munged them. Anyway it's an easy fix. I am however a little puzzled, Fram comments "I am not discussing the cleanup you did after I found the problems and raised the issue here. I am discussing your initial edit only."[9] Yet at the Arbitration case, he played a different tune saying "No one expects error-free editing, such a thing isn't possible. " and that the problem was that "he expects other people to clean up his problems." - a claim he has made for years, yet when asked "Do you think there are known errors on the English Wikipedia created by me, that I have not yet fixed? If so please list them for future reference, with approximate dates." he not only refused to answer but edit warred to remove the section I had created for him to answer, concealing his lack of cooperation. @Sandstein Whether there is a technical breach or not, you are not required to block, no administrator is required to do perform any act. You may block me for a year if you choose to do so, and if you think that it is the right thing to do, you should do it. Nonetheless you can be sure that many will question the utility of such an action, and not without cause. It is fairly evident that this edit has not caused any problems, and indeed it is just for such cases of frivolous abuse of process that WP:IAR can be used. @All The key question at AE is: Do we use discretion, or are we mindless automated drones of Arb Com?
Comments by SirFozzieAs one of the people who voted on the restriction, I'm likely too involved to adjucate fairly, but I'd just like to point out for the record that part of his restrictions include the following line: to make only completely manual edits (ie by selecting the [EDIT] button and typing changes into the editing window); which is confirmed in the section "The Way Forward.." here. SirFozzie (talk) 09:26, 18 January 2013 (UTC) Comments by KumiokoI also admit I am a bit involved and I have been a vocal critic of this case. I think this complaint is a waste of time. We are looking for reasons to ban Rich plain and simple. Lets look for reasons to keep him editing. The pedia has been punished enough with his banishment I for one am glad to see he is at least editing and didn't just give up on the communities bullshit and walk away completely. I think Fram is too involved and needs to step away, even if that means though enforcement on the part of Arbcom. I'm tired of Fram being the only one to be the tattle tale in these cases and bad judgement calls like submitting hundreds of WikiProject categories for speedy deletion. These things are happening frequently and its time someone told Fram to knock it off rather than encourage his destructive behavior. If Rich's editing is that much of a problem someone else can and will bring it up.Kumioko (talk) 11:43, 18 January 2013 (UTC)
Comments by CBMThis is not a playground; the term "tattle" is bizarre in this context. On Wikipedia, Rich Farmbrough is treated as an adult and has responsibility for his edits. If he is not willing to abide by the restrictions, he should explicitly state so, and voluntarily stop editing. I think it would be better for the project if he remains and follows his restrictions. This is not the only violation I have seen in the past two weeks. Fram is limiting the damage that can be done to the encyclopedia by raising violations while they can still be fixed easily, rather than waiting for more severe problems to occur that might be more disruptive and less simple to resolve. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:52, 18 January 2013 (UTC) @KillerChihuahua: I needed a small amount of time to gather the links here. The relevant facts seem to be that Rich Farmbrough has stated above
while his arbitration case includes a remedy [10]
Separately, the same motion has a remedy
while Rich Farmbrough has recently made edits including [11] [12] [13] [14] which violate that arbitration remedy as well as his community editing restrictions. Rich Farmbrough has made at least 30 edits of this sort since the beginning of 2013. I will have limited access to the internet beginning this afternoon, but I will make an effort to respond within 24 hours to any further questions posted by clerks.— Carl (CBM · talk) 16:04, 18 January 2013 (UTC) @Sandstein: FWIW I think one year is excessive. The last block was two weeks so one month woulld be a more reasonable progression in my opinion. Rich Farmbrough can in principle appeal the remedies again in six months, so a block longer than that would be less useful. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:09, 19 January 2013 (UTC) Comments by Leaky caldronNot for the first time, Fram's motives are being called into question. He is familiar with the (many) background cases, knowledgeable in the technicalities of the possible infraction and willing to bring matters to attention when others might not wish to appear unpopular. Fram's motives are not subject to Arbcom enforcement - let's leave the personality out of it. Leaky Caldron 13:16, 18 January 2013 (UTC) Comments by OrladyAlthough his edits to List of Other Backward Classes appear to violate the letter of Rich Farmbrough's restriction, I don't see them as violating the intent of that restriction because they were focused on a single article page, rather than the automated edits to many pages that I understand to have been the focus of the Arbcom case. Furthermore, I am grateful that Rich Farmbrough has taken up the editing of this particular list-article. This list is inherently problematic, as it relates to the very touchy subject of caste in India. The list was severely incomplete before he started editing it. Also, due to a combination of India's multiple languages, transliteration quirks, and definitional questions, there apparently can be complex issues in determining whether a wikilinks to an article about a specific group actually points to the right group. I opened an AfD in which I proposed that the article (which at the time was far more deficient) be userfied until various deficiencies had been addressed. The community in its infinite wisdom decided to keep that page in article space based on a promise of fixing the issues, but shortly after that, the creator of the page got topic-restricted from the topic of Indian caste, so it wasn't obvious that the fixes were going to happen. Rich Farmbrough's edits have resulted in an enormous improvement to the page; if there are errors in his work due to the way he used automated tools, I have confidence that he will endeavor to correct those errors. If there is still concern about the current condition of that page, I suggest that he be allowed to move it to user space and work on it there (including automated editing) until all glitches have been cleared up. (And when he's done, there are similar needs regarding List of Scheduled Castes that he might be able to address in a similar fashion.) Accordingly, I suggest that this particular "violation" should be ignored/excused. --Orlady (talk) 17:17, 18 January 2013 (UTC) @Sandstein: In view of the fact that these edits are helping to resolve a problem, not create one, a block is not helpful, and a one-year block is seriously excessive. --Orlady (talk) 21:00, 18 January 2013 (UTC) Comment by Nick-DGiven that ArbCom has voted to implement very explicit 'bright line'-type restrictions here, Fram has demonstrated what appears to be a breach of the restriction against automation and Rich has admitted violating the restriction on offline editing (despite a previous sanction), Sandstein's analysis and proposed action looks (somewhat regretfully) appropriate to me, especially as Rich has been pushing against his restrictions for the last few months so he's obviously (or at least should be) well aware of their content and how they work in practice and I don't think that this breach should be considered accidental. Nick-D (talk) 01:06, 19 January 2013 (UTC) Comment by RolandRI have no involvement in this matter, have never come across this before, and am ignorant of the background. Irrespective of that, I am simply astonished by the suggestion that using Excel offline is equivalent to automation. You might just as well argue that use of a spell-checker is forbidden, since that automatically replaces text and the editor will not have entered everything manually. RolandR (talk) 02:20, 19 January 2013 (UTC) Comment by Arthur RubinI do have previous involvement with Rich, in that he appeared to have had damgaed some templates I was trying to clarify. However, I think Sandstein may be misinterpreting ArbComm, and I think one year is excessive. If, hypothetically, a clearer, if more restrictive, sanction on Rich could be crafted, that, together with a one month block, would be reasonable. If not, probably a two to three month block. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 03:33, 19 January 2013 (UTC) Irate comment by WntYou are saying that Rich Framborough is required "to make only completely manual edits (ie by selecting the [EDIT] button and typing changes into the editing window);" Does that mean that if he wants to add the URL for a reference, he has to type it in by hand? To quote text, he has to retype it? No. I would agree with RolandR, Arthur Rubin, etc. that this is absurd. I say opening an edit window and pressing control-V is a "completely manual edit" - that is, provided he is allowed to use a computer to make it! I've never run a bot, but I've used Excel to make edits in the past (just about any table for example) - and I never thought about reading the bot policy before doing so. Wnt (talk) 04:34, 19 January 2013 (UTC) Comment by calm and composed Beyond My KenGiven that clear and obvious meaning of the sanction, and given the admitted breaking of it by Rich, the admins here at AE really have no choice but to impose the block that ArbCom called for. If Rich believes this is unfair, or inappropriately imposed, he can file for an amendment with the Committee, although he would do so at some risk, because it is likely, in my opinion, that the committee would void the current sanction, and impose the full site-ban that they held off imposing at the time of the original case, since Rich has amply demonstrated that he is incapable of following the instructions of the committee. Beyond My Ken (talk) 08:27, 19 January 2013 (UTC)
Comment by Colonel WardenThe edit which is complained of here was well-advertised in advance on the article's talk page by this post on 15 Dec 2012. The method of working was indicated by reference to "1200 rows". The article was, at that time at AFD where this activity was approvingly reported by another editor who is familiar with the chore of working upon this topic: "It looks like Rich Farmbrough is trying to do this either off-wiki or at least not in mainspace. Way to go...". The AFD was closed by an administrator as "KEEP with a promise of FIXING the issues noted". As the list was then a short stub, it seems reasonable to suppose that significant expansion was what was promised. The original author of the list was forbidden to work upon the topic area and so the involved editors seem to have left it to Rich to labour away. After a month's work, the additional material which had been prepared offsite was then added to the article in the edit in question. The size of this material (350K) was such that copy typing by hand would have been absurdly inefficient and likely to introduce significant error due to typing mistakes. Cut/paste is clearly the only sensible way of doing this. The edit which introduced this material was again well-advertised upon the article's talk page and described as a "First cut" and so, by implication, inviting review. The edit was soon reviewed by another editor and they praised it about 5 hours later: "Glad to see this progress. The list is comprehensive and thoroughly sourced. Thanks for all your work, Rich Farmbrough!". This then seems to have been delivering upon the promise. The work done in this case seems to have been significant and the way in which it was done was commendably open and supported by consensus. If an involved editor did not care for the large addition then it would have been easy to revert because its nature was clear and well explained. If, by contrast, the material had been added as a myriad small edits then it would have been more difficult to understand and manage this major addition. To block Rich for this action would be perverse - overzealous enforcement which we might liken to Javert, as one topical example. A better remedy would be to give Rich some means of formally registering his plans to make such a bold edit somewhere so that technical objections can be raised beforehand, rather than afterwards.Warden (talk) 09:46, 19 January 2013 (UTC)
Comment by LindsayHI was aware of the restrictions on Rich Farmbrough, and of the antagonism between him and certain other editors; i have no desire to comment on that, nor on anything except to express astonishment, as some other Comment-makers have, at the implication that using a programme off-line to mould an edit could be called automation. I have used OpenOffice to search for and replace multiple errors in some articles; does that mean i ought to have got permission to use a bot? I think that someone might be leaning over backwards to find Rich out of compliance with his restrictions. Cheers, LindsayHello 10:21, 19 January 2013 (UTC) Comment by Andy MabbettThe ridiculousness of this proposal and its tissue-thin justification beggars belief. Try to imagine how it would be reported to outsiders. Close with no sanction, ASAP. Also, what LindsayH said. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:51, 19 January 2013 (UTC) Comment by EdChem
EdChem (talk) 12:46, 19 January 2013 (UTC) Comment from NE EntThe decision was absurd -- a review of noticeboard discussion shows the arbitrators themselves did not agree on what it meant after it passed, with one stating that use of spell check would be a violation! Nonetheless as Sandstein & the lethal small dog have pointed out, it's not AE's job to address that. RF has over at least the past two years [15] demonstrated a chronic cluelessness about the collaborative nature of Wikipedia with repeated pushing the envelope edits. Therefore a sanction is appropriate. Please do note, however, that AE does have leeway here -- the motion cleary says he will likely be site-banned... (emphasis mine). "Likely" is a fine weasel word which allows this board leeway to act with compassion and optimism that a lesser sanction could work. Do the two month block and let's all hope for a brighter future. NE Ent 15:17, 19 January 2013 (UTC) Comment by uninvolved BorisGSince the disruption caused by this edit was minimal, admins should use their discretion, common sense and WP:IAR, and close without any sanction. If they can't agree on this simple thing then ask ArbCom to clarify. - BorisG (talk) 15:22, 19 January 2013 (UTC) Comment by uninvolved HandThatFeedsAs a point of order: per Fram's analysis and Rich's response, it is clear that this was not simply an "edit offline, copy & paste." Rather, Excel's sorting function was used to re-organize said data before pasting it into WP. Result concerning Rich Farmbrough
OK, we've now had time to consider this. Four administrators are of the opinion that this is an enforceable violation of the Committee's sanction, and one is of the opposite opinion. I don't think that waiting for the result of a clarification request is necessary, as it appears unlikely that a majority of the Committee would come to a substantially different result than the substantial majority of uninvolved administrators here, and at any rate the Committee will have the opportunity to review the matter if it is seized with an appeal. Taking that into consideration – I'm not assessing consensus, because AE actions are unilateral – I'm blocking Rich Farmbrough for the duration of two months, as suggested by KillerChihuahua. Sandstein 21:33, 19 January 2013 (UTC) |