Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Infoboxes/Evidence

Main case page (Talk) — Evidence (Talk) — Workshop (Talk) — Proposed decision (Talk)

Case clerk: TBD Drafting arbitrator: TBD

Any editor may add evidence to this page, irrespective of whether they are involved in the dispute. Create your own section and do not edit another editor's section. By default, the evidence submission length is limited to about 1000 words and about 100 diffs for named parties; and about 500 words and about 50 diffs for non-party editors. While in general it is is more effective to make succinct yet detailed submissions, users who wish to submit over-length evidence may do so by posting a request on the /Evidence talk page. Unapproved overlong evidence may be trimmed to size or removed by the Clerk without warning.

Focus on the issues that are important to the dispute and on diffs which illustrate the nature of the dispute.

You must use the prescribed format in your evidence. Evidence should include a link to the actual page diff in question, or to a short page section; links to the page itself are insufficient. Never link to a page history, an editor's contributions, or a log for all actions of an editor (as those change over time), although a link to a log for a specific article or a specific block log can be useful. Please make sure any page section links are permanent; see simple diff and link guide.

General discussion of the case will not be accepted on this page, and belongs on the talk page. The Arbitration Committee expects that all rebuttals of other evidence submissions will be included in your own section and will explain how the evidence is incorrect. Please do not refactor the page or remove evidence presented by others. If something is put in the wrong place, only an Arbitrator or Clerk may move it.

Arbitrators may analyze evidence and other assertions at /Workshop, which is open for comment by parties, Arbitrators, and others. After arriving at proposed principles, findings of fact, or remedies, Arbitrators vote at /Proposed decision. Only Arbitrators (and Clerks, when clarification on votes is needed) may edit the proposed decision page.

Evidence presented by Moxy

Current word length: 417; diff count: 1.

Its about editor behavior and conflicting project advice

The main concern is editor behavior and a few projects not understanding procedure. Editors involved need to understand that the damage begin cause by.... (edit wars despite ongoing conversations,- editors being bitten and attacked, loss of old editors because of bullying, and mass addition of hidden notes in articles after infobox deletion without talks, that is telling our editors they now need permission before editing an article despite there never being a talk about the matter in the first place is confusing our new editors to no end)..... all the previous is more disruptive then any infobox being there or not will ever be. Behavior by all involved - both sides need to be amended ASAP - this may require a restriction on infoboxes themselves if parties involved cant come to a understanding. There would also be a need to bring related project guidelines up to speed with our polices and guidelines on editing. Moxy (talk) 19:36, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

Policy is clear on the matter

• WP:Advice pages - An advice page written by several members of a project is no more binding on editors than an advice page written by any single individual editor. Any advice page that has not been formally approved by the community through the WP:PROPOSAL process has the actual status of an optional {{essay}}.

If a group of editors (a Wikiproject) is not willing to go through the proposal process for the guidelines then wish to implement they should expect there advice page to be questioned and lack authority - thus it should be no surprise that it is being ignored because it contradicts site wide policy.

• Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Infoboxes#Using infoboxes in articles - The use of infoboxes is neither required nor prohibited for any article. Whether to include an infobox, which infobox to include, and which parts of the infobox to use, is determined through discussion and consensus among the editors at each individual article.

To be clear again - neither required nor prohibited for any article - no project has the right to dictated what can and cant be there - if as a whole the project community has decided this is simply not possible for this situation (WikiProjects do not own articles).

• Wikipedia:Be bold - "Just do it" The Wikipedia community encourages users to be bold when updating the encyclopedia.

The core of our growth is based on the freedom for all to edit at will and then discus any problems that an edit may have caused. - To tell editors they need permission to edit a segment of articles by a Wiki project is simply outrageous (WP:OWN). Moxy (talk) 19:36, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Brambleclawx

Current word length: 250; diff count: 18.

It's rooted in different interpretations/views of infoboxes

At the basic level, this conflict appears to be between a core group of editors who have opposing views of infoboxes: those for say they are useful because they are machine-readable and they summarize facts. Those against say information to be included is often uncertain in these subject areas, and the information that is not equivocal adds little/is redundant. Along with this are conflicting interpretations of some key policies like WP:OWN and WP:BOLD [1], and disputes over consensus at past discussions. Those involved are having difficulty reaching an agreement, but in this aspect, I would not single out any specific editor to be especially problematic. It would, however, be helpful if Arbitrators could consider the arguments for and against and propose some sort of compromise with extremely clear wording so as to avoid different interpretations extending this conflict.

Key editors on both sides have been rather belligerent

Discussions have not been very constructive because discussions tend to degenerate into personal attacks and squabbling. Of those named above, I would tend to say User:Pigsonthewing (Andy Mabbett) has been the most belligerent [2] [3]. Of course, that is not to say all others have been perfectly civil either, but Mr. Mabbett seems to be the one most often accusing others of ad hominem, strawmen, and "smear" tactics. As noted above, these arguments often fall to arguments over OWNing [4] [5], as well as mass action by single users [6] [7]. From my personal feeling, the atmosphere of these discussions tend to drive other editors away; this appears to be the case even with other editors. Brambleclawx 01:05, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Sjones23

TFA topic ban and infobox discussions

I have never been involved adding evidence in an ArbCom case before, but here goes:

On July 25, 2012, Pigsonthewing (talk · contribs) (Andy Mabbett) added an infobox to Georg Solti, a well known orchestral and operatic conductor, as it was a TFA at the time. This sparked a lengthly and contentious discussion on the article's talk page. On August 6, Tim riley (talk · contribs), one of the main contributors of the article and a well-respected editor, called out Mabbett on his own behavior and he retired 4 days later, only to return to active editing in November. After Tim's retirement, a seven-day discussion at ANI resulted in a topic ban on Mabbett for the FA of the day. Another contentious discussion occurred on the Cosima Wagner talk page back in December 2012. More recently, another contentious infobox proposal was made at the Johann Sebastian Bach talk page in March, this time by Gerda Arendt (talk · contribs). Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 04:14, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

{Write your assertion here}

Place argument and diffs which support the second assertion; for example, your second assertion might be "So-and-so makes personal attacks", which should be the title of this section. Here you would show specific edits where So-and-so made personal attacks.

Evidence presented by WhatamIdoing

Nature of WikiProjects

This statement is more background information than "evidence". Having been through multiple rounds of this, one of the recurring themes is a misunderstanding of the nature of WP:WikiProjects. The definition is this: "A WikiProject is a group of contributors who want to work together as a team to improve Wikipedia." WikiProjects are people, not subject areas or pages in the Wikipedia: namespace. These groups are often valuable, knowledgeable editors and can be a source of excellent advice. They can also occasionally develop issues that affect the rest of the community.

The main reasons that WP:Advice pages rejects the notion that WikiProjects get to decide "rules" for articles within their scope are these:

• One group of editors never gets to tell the whole community what to do, especially for articles written by someone other than their own members. Most articles on Wikipedia are written by non-members but fall under the scope of at least one WikiProject.
• Many articles fall under the scope of many WikiProjects, and these WikiProjects can and do have very different recommendations. For example, WPCHEM and WPPHARM and WPMED are all interested in nearly all articles about drugs. WPCHEM and WPPHARM provide contradictory advice about which infobox to use in these articles.
• The scope of a WikiProject is, per long-standing community guideline, whatever the members say it is, no matter how silly that seems to anyone else. For example, WPMED is free to declare that Cancer is outside its scope or that Website is within it. WikiProjects can also be created at will, for any scope and without obtaining permission in advance. If we were to allow WikiProjects to decide rules for articles within their scope, then any group of two or more people could decide that any article was "within their scope" and therefore subject to their rules. The pro-infobox folks could trivially create "WikiProject Classical Composers #2" and declare that their advice was co-equal to the anti-infobox views of the first project.

Ownership

One of the main complaints in the music area is <!-- hidden comments --> demanding that editors respect the (dis)infobox POV of one particular group of editors, merely because the one group of editors has decided that they're interested in the article's subject. Some of the hidden comments say things like After lengthy consideration at the Wikipedia Composers project, it has been determined that infoboxes are not appropriate for composer articles. Before adding an infobox, please review the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Composers/Infobox debates. Text similar to this appears in a substantial number of composer-related articles. This editor behavior needs to be addressed directly. A significant example of the debate can be read at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Infoboxes/Archive 8#Routine_use_of_infoboxes_for_biographical_articles.

Outside of the music area, the issue of collapsing content has been a source of significant friction recently, e.g., Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Infoboxes/Archive 7#Collapsed_or_hidden_infoboxes, and should also be addressed directly. The recommendation to collapse infobox content conflicts with MOS:COLLAPSE for reasons of WP:ACCESSibility. Reconciling this conflicting advice is important.

Evidence presented by {your user name}

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

{Write your assertion here}

Place argument and diffs which support your assertion; for example, your first assertion might be "So-and-so engages in edit warring", which should be the title of this section. Here you would show specific edits to specific articles which show So-and-so engaging in edit warring.

{Write your assertion here}

Place argument and diffs which support the second assertion; for example, your second assertion might be "So-and-so makes personal attacks", which should be the title of this section. Here you would show specific edits where So-and-so made personal attacks.