Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Article titles and capitalisation/Workshop

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

Case clerk: AlexandrDmitri (Talk) Drafting arbitrator: David Fuchs (Talk)

The purpose of the workshop is for the parties to the case, other interested members of the community, and members of the Arbitration Committee to post proposed components of the final decisions for review and comment. Proposals may include proposed general principles, findings of fact, remedies, and enforcement provisions, which are the four types of proposals that can be included in the final decision. The workshop also includes a section (at the page-bottom) for analysis of the /Evidence, and for general discussion of the case.

Any user may edit this workshop page. Please sign all suggestions and comments. Arbitrators will place proposed items they believe should be part of the final decision on the /Proposed decision page, which only Arbitrators and clerks may edit, for voting, clarification as well as implementation purposes.

Motions and requests by the parties

[Content struck in this section was provided by blocked editor (sock of User:PManderson). Jojalozzo 03:33, 15 February 2012 (UTC)}

Repair revert warring

1) That the language in WP:Consensus on "no consensus" edit summaries, referred to in #Noetica rewrites policy on consensus. be restored to its condition on January 4, 2012, until this case concludes or consensus forms to change it.

Comment by Arbitrators:

I don't agree. AGK [•] 22:52, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

• The new language is the following addition to a long-standing sentence: Unless a discussion regarding a claim of "no consensus" is undertaken on the discussion page, an edit summary of "no consensus" or "not discussed" is not helpful, Unless a discussion regarding a claim of "no consensus" is undertaken on the discussion page, an edit summary of "no consensus" or "not discussed" is not helpful, except possibly if the edit being reverted created a change in prescribed practice (as on policy and guideline pages), since such a change would need to have wide consensus to be valid.
• The sole discussion of this change is WT:Consensus#Noetica edit, begun after the edit. Two editors commented, besides myself and Noetica. Both disagree with the change. This is not "wide consensus".
• Therefore, the addition condemns the process by which it was added.
• Noetica has now restored his own language; Dicklyon also reverted to it after it was removed by another editor; it was then modified by uninvolved editors and Noetica reverted again to his own original wording.

Comment by others:

No tendentious editing

2) Noetica is barred from editing policy or guideline pages until the conclusion of this case.

Comment by Arbitrators:

I don't see why this is necessary. If there is an issue with Noetica's conduct during this case, it can be resolved in the immediate instance by the standard venues. AGK [•] 22:52, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

In addition to the events above, in which Noetica edited WP:Consensus to justify his own actions, the main complaint here is Noetica's edits on WP:TITLE. Under this sanction, it could be unprotected.

As I shall show in evidence, Dicklyon has also been involved; but he has normally been involved following Noetica's lead. JCScaliger (talk) 22:38, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Postponement if necessary

3) If any of the parties to this case is blocked due to the complaint of another, the schedule of this case shall be postponed accordingly.

Comment by Arbitrators:

I also don't see why this is necessary. If the issue is that the dispute is ongoing during this case, I would prefer to issue a temporary injunction prohibiting all editing by the disputants of the pages in question, but that would require it to be demonstrated that there is serious problem. No such demonstration has been made. AGK [•] 22:52, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

This may not be necessary, but it removes an incentive to disruptive complaints. (Noetica did bring his dispute to ANI, and neglected to inform me of it until reminded. I think it is this he calls failing to act with a perfect appearance of propriety by your unpredictable standards or anyone else's.

(This could conceivably be problematic in the case of a quite long block; but if such conduct takes place, I count on ArbCom reconsidering this motion, and delivering summary judgment on the offender.) JCScaliger (talk) 22:46, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

The time I would have spent today on evidence has now been used replying to Noetica's post at ANI. If I were to do the converse (not that I'm intending to), I might well use up his time, and get him blocked too; that would give me an unfair advantage. If the meaning of the ANI section is not: Noetica = consensus, which it comes close to saying, then he may have done it for this tactical advantage, which would be a bad thing. JCScaliger (talk) 22:58, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

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Proposed temporary injunctions

Moratorium on consensus policy change

1) Participants in this case are enjoined from editing WP:CONSENSUS until it is concluded.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Diffs, please. AGK [•] 22:54, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

I concur with Phil. AGK [•] 00:59, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

The page is currently fully protected, so I'm unconvinced this is necessary. PhilKnight (talk) 11:42, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Since we all know what it said, and that Noetica added the language which now stands, the difference to this case is small, but real. Restoring it as it used to stand would remove the incentive to misconduct. (And in addition, for other editors, this is the opinion of Noetica and Dicklyon, not consensus. WP:Consensus should express consensus, if any page does.) But I don't intend to edit it further, myself. JCScaliger (talk) 22:52, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

See my comments above for four diffs: Noetica's original edit on January 5, and Noetica's and Dicklyon's reversions today. In addition, I did restore long-standing language on consensus as an ongoing process. I do not intend to cite this here, and don't think it's relevant to the case; I was merely surprised to find it gone. It has not been touched in the ensuing revert war. JCScaliger (talk) 23:07, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Proposed to avoid muddying the waters further. Making a moving target out of the meta-policies which govern the modification of the MOS is disruptive. Mangoe (talk) 14:15, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

I think I support this. It seems even-handed and solves the edit warring problem there. Phil, the only reason that the policy is fully protected is because of edit warring by participants in this case. The effect is that multiple other editors—people who have not been edit warring and who are not involved in this case and who are not trying to make the policies look like they support a particular side in this dispute, like SmokeyJoe—have been stymied in their ongoing work to improve the policy page. If the participants were enjoined from fighting over that page, then it would no longer be necessary to protect the policy, and everyone else could get back to work again. I see this injunction as a logical implementation of the page-protection policy's statement that "edit warring by particular users may be better addressed by blocking, so as not to prevent normal editing of the page by others." Actual blocks seem unnecessary, but there's no good reason to prevent normal editing by others merely because a couple of parties to this case wanted to have a little edit war. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:04, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

This is essentially what I'm seeing. There is an attempt to improve the wording of the lede which is being stymied by this conflict. Mangoe (talk) 17:14, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

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Proposed final decision

Proposals by Greg L

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Proposed remedies

Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.

Limit tendentiousness directly

1) Locking down guideline pages for a year (as some have proposed elsewhere on pages related to this action), is an exceedingly good way, in my humble opinion, to highlight that the very essence of Wikipedia and its Five Pillars have been severely undermined by behavior and that current interventional processes were incapable of handling the experienced editors involved. Clearly, the venue itself didn’t change in the last month; just the way the mix of actors behaved.

ArbCom in other cases has resorted to remedies such as topic bans and inter-editor interaction restrictions, but I urge ArbCom to consider something else. One of the key reasons—I believe—that WT:AT broke down is that walls of text and cybersquatting (just short of WP:OWN) by a handful of experienced combatants made it exceedingly difficult for “outsiders” to join in so they could moderate hot-heads and help to establish a consensus.

I propose that rather than throwing good, knowledgeable editors clean out of certain areas of Wikipedia or other remedies like interaction restrictions, ArbCom consider identifying which parties mostly contributed to a climate that drove others away from Wikipedia and from specific areas of Wikipedia such as WP:AT and WT:AT. Once those editors are so identified, I propose that they be muzzled to a 24-hour total of (something like) 600 words across all venues combined in which any of the other restricted parties is also present. Like this:

• Party A is on WT:AT advocating something.
• Party B sees this and weighs in with disagreement.

(now the 600-word per day limit kicks in}

• Party A takes offense and goes to Party B’s talk page to profess grief.
• Party B goes to Party A’s talk page.

All the above interactions, in total, count to the 600-word limit for the day.

The solution is simple for each party: If they avoid each other, they are unrestricted. If they want to mix it up, they had best learn to be succinct.

The beneficiaries will be the rest of the community. They will still benefit from the restricted party’s expertise and insight. When things are humming along smoothly and the parties aren’t mixing it up, there are no restrictions. If they want to mix it up, the disruption it causes is minimal. The word limit breaks the back of tendentiousness. If Party A and Party B actually learn to agree on something, they can *break the rule* of their limitation since they can merely elect to not report the foul. Greg L (talk) 18:23, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:

I don't think it will be possible to lock down a policy page for a year. Such a remedy is incompatible with the very nature of Wikipedia, and I'm unconvinced that this dispute is so inherently unresolvable as to require a draconian remedy such as this. AGK [•] 01:01, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

A simple, straightforward solution. Locking MOS and TITLE down would be even better; that way those who get their fun out of "giving their little Senate laws" would get bored and go away. But I still think that there are less drastic remedies. [Note to clerk; isn't this section really two remedies?]

The chief problem with the word limit is that rational discussion of any of the points here at issue requires examples, and probably discussion of examples. Those could well go on a subpage; but they would still count against the 600 words. JCScaliger (talk) 18:46, 31 January 2012 (UTC) {Struck by Greg L because this account was a sockpuppet of a puppet master User:PManderson, who had previously been banned from these type of discussions—and is now blocked for one year for operating the sock. See User:Elen of the Roads for limitations on this editor. Greg L (talk) 07:12, 14 February 2012 (UTC) }

• The chief form of developing consensus on WP is discussion. When one party refuses to engage in substantive discussion, and is quite willing to engage in non-substantive discussion, non-substantive discussion results, and can go on and on, as it did in this case. The evidence shows one reverting-opposing participant even admitted to not reading the proposed change and explanation that he was actively reverting and opposing; substantive discussion is obviously impossible in such a situation. So I suggest what might appear to be tendentiousness is a symptom/result of the underlying problem, and we should be treating the underlying problem - refusal to engage in substantive discussion - rather than the symptom, which is all limiting verbiage (or topic bans) would treat. Treating the root cause underlying problems is what my proposals attempt to do.

  I'd also like to add that many editors were able to join in along the way and make substantive contributions to the discussions and polls, so I'm not convinced that all those walls of words were all that much of a deterrent for others to participate. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:36, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Disagree this works, at least alone. It simply takes a protracted debate between the dissenting sides of a MOS debate into a long protracted debate. The larger issue of this case involves editors' attitudes in how the MOS is treated, and my experience in watching various MOS debates is that it is impossible to the change the minds of those that have a strong opinion of which way the MOS should go even if you add more voices against that position. Even for date delinking case, the difficulties of getting an advertised RFC was troubling enough. Locking down the MOS page (with allowable editrequests to be performed when there is a clear consensus for a change) seems reasonable, however. --MASEM (t) 19:21, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Good idea, but too complicated IMO. How about forbidding editors from editing the same talk page more than once in 24 (or whatever) hours? (That would also mean that they have time to think twice before hitting “Save page”, which could limit ad hominem arguments and similar irrelevancies.) ― A. di M.  22:47, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Oh maybe, but remember that if your comment is misinterpreted as an ad hominem or worse, you would have to wait till tomorrow to re-explain it. Or you could invoke IAR and say it now, but then everyone would think what they have to say is similarly more important than a bureaucratic timing rule. Art LaPella (talk) 06:40, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

The point is that this way you'd have to be extra careful that what you write cannot be misinterpreted. ― A. di M.  10:55, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

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Proposals by User:Mike Cline

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Proposed findings of fact

The relationship between style (MOS) and other criteria unclear and inconsistent

1) This is a direct quote from an ongoing RM: It doesn't make much sense to defer to COMMONNAME for style; we would have a different style for each title. The gist of it in the context presented, was that despite overwheming evidence that the common name of the subject in English language RS was capitalized, we should ignore the Common Name evidence and impose WP style WP:MOSCAPS on the article title. We may or may not want this to be the policy, but currently our collective policy on the relationship between common name and style is not clear and that lack of clarity leads to contentiousness when both sides want to have it different ways. Making one naming decision based on a consensus of editors who favor Common Name evidence and making another decision based on a consensus of editors who favor style based decisions, isn't a very good way to run the ship.--Mike Cline (talk) 20:59, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:

Born2cycle, I think I can help to clarify the situation. Whilst your position is understandable, ArbCom actually never does that. We don't decide policy or content issues, though we can help to resolve disputes about such by resolving conduct issues and mandating an effective form of community decision-making; for instance, we sometimes resolve that there will be a binding discussion and vote about a policy issue. Whilst we can provide for a resolution, we don't make the decision. If you're new to this process, then that's probably a very good thing! (And arbitration means adjudication, not arbitrary.) AGK [•] 01:13, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

• I'm not involved much in these MOS arguments, but I certainly favor less ambiguity in the rules, especially about arbitrary points, so that there is less pointless debate and consternation. The decisions about whether to go with common name evidence or to rigidly follow internal convention doesn't really matter. What does matter is wasting hours, weeks and months rehashing such questions over and over and over on a case-by-base basis. It's a side of the road problem - that is, it doesn't matter which side of the road we drive on, but we do have to decide which side it is, so we can all drive accordingly and as congenially as reasonably possible. Letting us decide "by consensus" on a case-by-case basis is like letting all the motorists on each street block decide whether to drive on the right or left.

  Maybe one of the things arbitration should do is arbitrarily pick one side or the other in arbitrary side-of-the-road decisions when the community can't come to a consensus decision one way or the other. Perhaps it already does that? (sorry, I'm new to ARBCOM) --Born2cycle (talk) 01:47, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

• The quoted bit is from ErikHaugen at Talk:Welsh Corgi#Requested move. Mike misrepresents the context when he says "overwheming evidence that the common name of the subject in English language RS was capitalized". Quite the contrary, as the evidence that I presented there showed. This kind of distortion just complicates what is already a complicated enough issue. Dicklyon (talk) 20:26, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
• @Blueboar, I don't think anyone is saying that the MOS is more than a guideline, that everything must "conform", or that "it is absolutely wrong for different titles to have different styles". Sure, conforming is usually best, and styles shouldn't vary a lot, but nobody has proposed that we should be extreme about it. Or if someone has, show us. Dicklyon (talk) 20:26, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

• Two responses:

Mike Cline is an admin who does valuable and conscientious work at RMs, and I appreciate his analysis here and elsewhere – even if the message is sometimes less than clear. For his present point, the supposed problem has a proper solution. We were working toward such a solution at WT:MOSCAPS in January, and I hope that process can be resumed when the dust has settled.
Wikipedia's Manual of Style is developed by:

1. discussion toward consensus among as many from the community as possible
   (achieved unevenly so far, with WP:MOS itself a great success)
2. reference to core reliable sources
   (which it does very successfully; in the case of MOS the core reliable sources are existing guides to style, especially major ones)
3. reference to other "reliable sources"
   (that is, the sources used for content, where anything useful emerges from their typically chaotic range of style preferences)

If those three touchstones are respected, there is rarely a problem. But most editors are unfamiliar with manuals of style, and don't immediately see how Wikipedia's MOS fits naturally into the landscape. If MOSCAPS can be shown to fall short by any of these three measures, the simple remedy is to address the failure at the talkpage. This has been attempted, but entrenched forces that favour the last (and least) touchstone alone stand in the way. Or rather, they favour bypassing altogether the orderly "mediation" of MOS, and make direct and therefore chaotic appeal to "reliable sources" alone. PMAnderson (yet again, sorry!) has been foremost among that group. Enric Naval is another; and there are a few more to complete a rather short list. Myself, I have only edited at MOSCAPS six times, ever. The last three times were reversions of edits that subverted ongoing slow and painstaking discussion toward consensus: two by PMAnderson's sockpuppet, and one by Enric Naval. The case illustrates how easily a small pressure group can stand in the way of progress toward consensus.

Blueboar is a sensitive analyst of titling and MOS issues, and I have always read carefully whatever he brings to discussion. Below, he highlights an "underlying dispute". I disagree that it is the underlying dispute; but as my preceding remarks suggest, I think he's onto something important. Again I say it: if WP:TITLE and MOS are both allowed to operate in their proper spheres, and are developed not in competition but in harmony, the discord dissolves. The underlying harmony depends on a proper application of "reliable sources", which have always dominated for content and for the wording of titles. But style is by definition something separate. It is orthogonal to content. Just as MOS has nothing to do with the choice of wording for a title, WP:TITLE has nothing to do with the styling of a dash in a title, or the choice of hyphen as opposed to dash, or capitalisation, and so on. Is there an apparent clash, that systematically causes problems in title decisions? Then return to the three touchstones, or three criteria. Work diligently to improve MOS, and to improve WP:TITLE in its proper domain also.

Noetica^Tea? 22:23, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by others:

"It doesn't make much sense to defer to COMMONNAME for style; we would have a different style for each title." This comment highlights the underlying dispute here. It all centers on two different views about the importance of Style. We have one faction that strongly believes that everything in Wikipedia should "conform" to an MOS, and that it is absolutely wrong for different titles to have different styles. Then there is another faction that believes just as strongly that an MOS is "just a guideline" that can and should be freely ignored as needed, and that it is perfectly OK for different titles to have different styles. Blueboar (talk) 19:27, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Proposed remedies

Lock The Policy Page Down 365 days

1) In proposing this remedy, I first want to call attention to 3 of the five WMF strategic goals

• Grow participation
• Grow scope and quality of content
• Grow reach into the global south

Disputes like this sap volunteer energy in a great many ways, and does little if any to contribute toward achieving our communities’ strategic goals. WP:Title is a policy, but as a policy statement its evolved into part guideline, part how-to essay and part link farm to other conflicting and contradicting guidance. There is only one absolute, undisputable truth about WP article titles—they must be unique, the software demands it. Yet, we’ve managed through 1000s of edits to create a policy document that only one can guess is trying to explain how to create the perfect or best title for every article—all 3.9 million of them. Perfection is difficult, so we attempt to create wording on a case by case basis. Anytime a dispute arises around a title, we seem to need to tweak the policy wording just a bit to what end is unknown other than the quest for perfect titles and perfect policy. I am confident that a great many editors not only enjoy these disputes and enjoy tweaking policies and guidance on a whim but it's become their Raison d'être for participation in the project. Unfortunately when viewed holistically and in context of our strategic goals, such participation is counterproductive.

To say our titling policy is dysfunctional is an understatement and no amount of tweaking in the next 365 days is going to significantly alter that dysfunction, so I recommend, as I did on the evidence page, that the policy page be locked down for 1 year. During that year, interested editors, hopefully from a much wider audience than those who see policy pages as a playground, via RFCs or other methods develop a more concise and functional titling policy. I fully understand there are those who object to this, but I challenge anyone who does to provide substantive rationale as to why no title policy changes over the next 365 days will adversely impact WP and the communities’ ability to work toward the WMF strategic goals. I struggle with the notion that our titling policy is perfectly functional, yet to keep it that way we have to change the policy every few days. If it is dysfunctional today, no amount of incremental change will make it any more functional in the next 365 days. On the contrary, if it is functional as some claim, what is gained by incremental changes?

There are two very important reasons this policy should be locked down for 365 days. 1) to give editors who seriously want to improve this policy and make it reflect WP practice across ~3.9M articles growing to ~5M in the next few years some breathing room to do some real work and consensus building. And 2) It will remove the opportunity for contentiousness over a policy discussion and a policy page. Editors may still involve themselves in contentious debate, but hopefully it will be over big issues, not sound bite incremental policy wording.

This whole dispute started out over the contentiousness caused by trying to change a policy page with incremental, sound bite edits that favored one position over another. That type of behavior will not cease, and will not abate unless we agree to stop and look at this policy we call WP:Title and all its associated MOS and naming conventions holistically. We can’t do that as long as the policy page isn’t protected because energies must inevitably be diverted to defending any change perceived as against a local position. We are hostage to the current dysfunctional policy. There’s a rather famous line in hostage negotiations-Drop the gun and step away from the door. In our case, its Stop editing and step away from the policy.

Comment by Arbitrators:

I concur with Greg L's assessment, and have given my view on this remedy at #Limit tendentiousness directly. Having considered this submission, I could not support (and will not propose) such an draconian remedy. When we begin locking down policy pages due to disagreement, I will first be looking to have the wiki dropped from Wikipedia; this would violate the fundamental nature of our encyclopedia's community. AGK [•] 01:04, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

This suggestion is analogous to closing the school for the rest of the year because the teachers and administration haven’t yet figured out how to handle bullying. Greg L (talk) 00:19, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

While TITLE has been protected seven times since it was renamed, four of those protections involved Noetica and his friends, and one (by Nyttend, last May) involved Tony and Kwamikagami. Barring MOS regulars from the page would be more than enough; imposing restrictions so that the MOS style of stonewalling and reversion is impossible would be enough.

I shall be proposing sanctions for both alternatives. Straightening out MOS, where multiple editors have been behaving the same way, probably is beyond the reach of individual sanctions. JCScaliger (talk) 03:30, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

To me this is an overreaction and an admission of administrative inadequacy. Lesser measures such as enforced BRD would prevent the instability this proposal aims to achieve while still supporting improvement in the article and in the editorial community. Jojalozzo 14:29, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Agree with Greg's analogy here. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 21:13, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm with Greg, Joja, JCS-PMA and Sarek on this one. I think the recurring issue here is that the community is reluctant to make firm decisions on a variety of binary questions that ultimately don't matter, except in the sense that we have to pick one or the other. Some express this reluctance by saying they don't like agorithmic approaches to deciding titles, etc. But the result is a quagmire that invites endless debate about whether to go this way or that when it really doesn't matter, expect that we do have to decide, somehow, which way to go. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:57, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Many in the community object to the binarization of the titling process. Things are not so black and white that we can turn them over to a Boolean machine. In my experience, the "quagmires" and "endless debates" are mostly those requested moves in which Born2cycle decides to participate. Often, if the decision doesn't really matter to him, it might work better to leave it to people to whom it matters. His recent attempts to rewrite "recognizabilty" and "precision" to take them out of the title consideration process is based on this plan to binarize and decide, to cut human judgement out of the loop. So, if the community is reluctant to make firm decisions, stop trying to force them to do so (as Greg's poll also was trying to do). Dicklyon (talk) 06:18, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Does this mean to fully protect, as suggested above at Lock 'em down, or does it mean no edits whatsoever? I'm not sure what "lock the policy page down" means or if it means something different then it does in that other proposal. In any case, while I agree that a total rewrite is unlikely to happen now, I don't see why it would be any more likely if there was some kind of moratorium on changes to the current version. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 17:29, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Assuming this means a total ban on edits to the pages for a year, this is a terrible idea; these guidelines need to change to reflect what is happening, and quite simply they need work. The dash project from last summer demonstrates that there is no need whatsoever to lock the page down completely in order to have "breathing room to do some real work and consensus building". Please don't do this. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 17:58, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Where would that be? This RFC, from May? It contains some useful ideas and phrases. JCScaliger (talk) 21:50, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

And Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/dash_drafting. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 07:06, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, but I do not think that second discussion a model; it was designed, by one of the parties to this Arbitration, so that 51% of the !votes got 100% of their way. This is what WP:Consensus was written to prevent. JCScaliger (talk) 18:39, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

It seemed to me like overwhelming agreement on the result after a lot of good discussion and evidence. I have no idea what you mean by 51%. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 17:24, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Consider demoting WP:Title to guideline status

2) We might want to consider demoting WP:Title to guideline status for several reasons. First, an honest read of the page reveals it is really written like a guideline. There is so much equivocal language in it, that it is terribly difficult to concisely say what our titling policy is. We have 3.9 million article titles, and yet we can’t clearly say in a concise way what the policy is that defends those titles as worded today. By comparison, most of our other policies are essentially unequivocal on the subject they are about. There’s always details and nuance when they are being interpreted and applied, but the policy is clear and concisely stated. Other policy examples: WP:NPOV – unequivocal, we edit from a Neutral, not biased POV. WP:V – unequivocal, content in WP must be verifiable, not un-verifiable. WP:CON – unequivocal, we operate based on community consensus, not the dictates of an individual. WP:CIVIL – unequivocal, we behave with civility and respect for other editors – uncivil behavior isn’t tolerated. I believe most of our policies, with the except of WP:Title can be viewed in this way. Even our notability guideline is more unequivocal than the titles' policy. Article subjects must demonstrate notability, non notable subjects don’t warrant articles.

The real problem arises when editors in dispute over any given title invoke some minute aspect of the current policy and claim the policy supports my position, what don’t you understand about the policy. It makes for impossible discussions. It’s a bit like having a dozen different speed limits on the street that you live on, all based on the weather, day of the week, the time of day and what kind of vehicle you are driving. No matter what speed you are traveling, you can probably defend it with one of the criteria.

Demoting this thing to a guideline might defuse some of the contentious we find in titling disputes.--Mike Cline (talk) 08:06, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:

Worth exploring. di M's suggestion, immediately below, seems still more workable, though it's early days so far as my consideration of this dispute is concerned. AGK [•] 01:06, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

This is unlikely to have any effect on the problem; all of MOS is {{guideline}}s and the situation is worse there. Reduction to {{essay}} might help, but seems unjustified for TITLE; "familiarity" is consensus (TDN presumably standing out), so is Recognizability (Mike Cline objecting).

I believe there have been discussions of the level WP:TITLE should have, resulting in leaving it a policy. As I understand it, the purpose of TITLE is to indicate the goals which the various naming conventions implement; all of them do seem to be goals which are valued at move discussions, even if some individual editors don't.

But this can be raised on that talkpage without ArbCom.JCScaliger (talk) 20:47, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

I like the suggestion by A. di M below - to split WP:AT into a true policy section and then a guideline section with guidance, but I don't think this would solve anything fundamental unless in that process we also substantially removed ambiguity our rules.

But the resistance to making the policy/guideline/rules/whatever more definitive is strong. This WP:AT debate ultimately stemmed from a change that sought to have Recognizability reflect an underlying principle already accepted in practice and in writing in other areas: namely, that adding precision to a title that is not needed to disambiguate it from other uses in WP should be avoided. Even though this is already clearly expressed at WP:PRECISION, there was considerable resistance (albeit from a small minority) to also say it at Recognizability in the proposed terms (that there is no need to make a title recognizable to someone unfamiliar with the topic - the goal is to make it recognizable to those who are familiar with the topic, which generally means to just use the topic's most commonly used name). As long as we continue to favor ambiguity in our naming policy and guidelines, we will continue to have many silly time-and-resource-consuming debates, regardless of whether the policy is restructured. --Born2cycle (talk) 02:12, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Born2cycle is correct that his efforts to make titling more mechanical have met with strong resistance. His approach favoring more ambiguity in titles and less ambiguity in titling does not have the consensus that he claims. He has several times, including last week, tried to rewrite the "Precision" item to say that precision is bad, when historically it has said that precision is good ([1]). As for demoting TITLE to guideline status instead of policy, that does make sense; it's hard to see how it can be considered comparable to our core policies, when it's in more turmoil and flux than other guidelines like MOS. Dicklyon (talk) 18:08, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Maybe we could have a ‘minimal’ policy page stating the ultimate desiderata in naming articles, and a longer guideline page giving rules of thumb about how to fulfil the desiderata. ― A. di M.​  23:31, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

That appears to be the common intention. If you have any ideas on what to move to guidelines to accomplish it, suggest it on WT:AT, and I'll probably support. JCScaliger (talk) 21:23, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Proposed enforcement

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Proposals by Masem

Proposed principles

A Manual of Style is for consistency

1) A Manual of Style for any work is meant to provide a means of providing a consistent reading experience for the end user of that work. It is meant to define presentation elements such as layout and formatting without directly influencing the content of the work.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Acceptable proposal. AGK [•] 01:09, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

That is certainly the purpose of the MOS for most works, but WP is different. For example, works that use a MOS for consistency also don't use a mix of English language variants within the work. So the goal on WP is no so much about "providing a consistent reading experience for the end user", as providing a reliable way to know what to do in a given editing situation. For example ,WP:ENGVAR tell us to make each article self-consistent in terms of English variant, but we don't make all articles consistent with each other. --Born2cycle (talk) 02:19, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by others:

To set up why we have a MOS... --MASEM (t) 17:50, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

en.wiki's Manual of Style is a guideline

2) Within the English Wikipedia, the Manual of Style has been determined to be a guideline, "sets of best practices that are supported by consensus", as defined at WP:PG. They are not hard rules as with policy, and are open for the occasional exception often under WP:IAR.

Comment by Arbitrators:

The MoS is not so much open to IAR as it is not a policy at all, to begin with, but I suppose that's what you're driving at. However, I'm not sure how far this principle goes towards clarifying the situation with respect to the crux of the dispute; I haven't yet made my mind up about this whole thing. (A well-written proposal, too.) AGK [•] 01:09, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

While the MOS is designated a guideline, it has been my experience that there are plenty who treat it as a cookie-cutter approach, such that articles which Do Not Conform must be steamrollered, even though the letter of the MOS allows far more variance. This is compounded by the use of repetitive, automated editing tools which fail to recognize the diversity of permissible options. Jclemens (talk) 07:21, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

To set up the fact that the MOS is not policy, but descriptive of what we like articles to look like... --MASEM (t) 17:50, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

My impression is that too many of the regulars believe that the MoS is policy, & thus its worth their time to agitate that the MoS reflects their preferences in usage. Make the MoS a guideline, & there is less incentive for fighting over what the MoS says. This wouldn't reduce its effectiveness -- the MoS will be consulted by not only those editors who want to write content that is consistent with the rest of Wikipedia, but who have no preference for a given option in style & don't want to spend time deciding which to use -- but doing this will force people to explain why a given option was endorsed, & this explanation will only strengthen adoption of the MoS, instead of tersely & unhelpfully saying, "This is what the consensus decided; deal with it." -- llywrch (talk) 21:05, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

@Jclemens - Hopefully by your comment you recognize where a core dispute is here: the weight of MOS as recommended practice versus the weight of MOS as a requirement, and the various editors that take these sides in such disputes. My point here with this is that MOS, right now, per the various pages, is simply a guideline. --MASEM (t) 18:47, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

en.wiki's Manual of Style aims to prevent edit-warring over trivial matters

3) The English Wikipedia MOS was set up to encourage consistency across the work to prevent edit-warring over formatting and presentation matters. Editors for an article are expected to defer to the consensus for style for that article, or the first-author preferences if appropriate, instead of forcing the MOS-appropriate style to a different one.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Good. AGK [•] 01:09, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Agreed in principle, in practice, this seems to fail rather often. Jclemens (talk) 07:22, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

This proposal appears to be self-contradictory: appealing to the notion of local consensus or first-author selections for each individual article would be a recipe for setting article editors against each other; it brings to mind many complications and distortions.

The overwhelming majority of contributors are quite happy with the arrangement that pertain for every professional-standard publisher: "you write, we fix" (i.e., where necessary and according to centralised guidance that brings cohesion and authority to the publisher). That's why publishers employ copy-editors. Indeed, most writers are unaware of the details of the guidance, beyond a few basic ones. That is the norm. The situation is yet more pronounced on a wiki that "anyone can edit"; here, the idea that specialist gnomes touch on an article once in a while, copy-editing it and, sometimes, bringing it into line with aspects of the guidance, is one of the key aspects of the WP engine-room. It's the way we get good articles, and underpins the group effort, which can so easily produce mess.

Far better to centralise the debates on style, big and small—and therefore the tensions between editors with different ideas about them—than to spread the tension everywhere: that would be chaotic. Underlying this dual process of wiki freedom and openness + centralised guidance is that no one ever banged anyone about because they didn't space a value and a unit: they just fix it. It's collegial. It's the basic mechanism by which we accommodate freedom and openness plus professional standards. I'm very happy for people to improve my grammar/style: so should we all be.

I apologise for not having said anything thus far. I'm burnt-out, tired, and rather unhappy at this stage from the biggest RL work deadline in the year, which makes huge, unreasonable, and inescapable demands of me. Arbs, please let me know if my participation is necessary and I'll try to oblige. Tony (talk) 03:02, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

I see I am not the only one worried about the intent, here. The first sentence of the principle is fine:

"The English Wikipedia MOS was set up to encourage consistency across the work to prevent edit-warring over formatting and presentation matters."

I agree, provided that we make explicit the inclusion of elements like punctuation, capitalisation, and so on. "Formatting and presentation matters" could be read too narrowly. Surely style is intended, quite broadly. The second sentence is not well phrased:

"Editors for an article are expected to defer to the consensus for style for that article, or the first-author preferences if appropriate, instead of forcing the MOS-appropriate style to a different one."

My uncertainties:

• What is it for editors to defer to "the consensus for style for that article"? I genuinely cannot be sure, but I assume it means this: "Among optional styles that according to MOS are equally suitable for the article", editors should defer to "any consensual choice that has already been made".
• What does this mean: "the first-author preferences if appropriate"? Does this suggest a completely free choice to adopt the presumed preferences of the "first author" (however that identity and those preferences are to be discovered), regardless of other considerations? What determines that choice as "appropriate"? If this is about an absolute last resort, when neither MOS nor local discussion can settle a matter, then perhaps such resort is needed. But in fact that is quite rare.
• What does this mean: "forcing the MOS-appropriate style to a different one"? I can guess that this is intended: "Where there is a choice to be made, among styles each of which MOS allows, shifting from one to another". Well, in fact there are only a few areas in which WP:MOS itself states no preference; and nearly always a good reason can be found for choosing one and not another. (Serial comma is definitely preferred where failure to use it would leave things ambiguous; and then, consistent use throughout the article is highly advisable. See MOS:SERIAL, at WP:MOS.) For the residual cases, no problem: it doesn't matter, for example, whether an article consistently has the spaced en dash or consistently has the unspaced em dash (see WP:DASH, at WP:MOS). That is normally trivial.

With its role properly interpreted and accepted, yes: MOS effectively reduces "edit-warring over trivial matters", as the heading of this section has it. That is a core goal for any manual of style, and Wikipedia's MOS achieves that very well.

Noetica^Tea? 05:26, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by others:

To understand that we are not to edit-war over MOS issues within articles. Not that this necessarily always works, but... --MASEM (t) 17:50, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Also, it means that if a MOS provision is causing more edit wars than it's preventing, it shouldn't be there. ― A. di M.​  23:32, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

That seems a reasonable test, if you can tell how many it's preventing. JCScaliger (talk) 20:04, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Sure. Remove the provision. Wait some time, e.g. a couple weeks. Count the edit wars that erupt about the issue. Scientific method FTW! ― A. di M.​  22:54, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Proposed findings of fact

en.wiki's Manual of Style incorporates a mix of other MOSes

1) The English Wikipedia Manual of Style has been built from a number of pre-existing Manuals from numerous fields. The best practices from these have been combined to create a single, unique MOS that applies to articles on the English Wikipedia.

Comment by Arbitrators:

I wasn't aware that this is the case, though now I think about it, such a finding is probably self-evident. Of all the manuals of style I've read, Wikipedia's does not seem to fully accord with one in particular. Nevertheless, is there some page documenting the MoS's history that the other arbitrators and I can look at? (You should presume we are completely new to every dispute we arbitrate, because such is usually the case.) Thanks for this and all your other submissions; you are a good draftsman. AGK [•] 01:15, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

There are the talk page archives at WT:MOS and subpages, but they're not pleasant reading. It was once proposed to summarize major decisions with their rationales at WP:MOSR, but it didn't fly. ― A. di M.​  11:57, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

To understand that our MOS is a mix of several MOSes, which leads to the next FOF... --MASEM (t) 17:50, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

en.wiki's Manual of Style allows for editor preferences

2) The English Wikipedia Manual of Style, due to its disparate formation from multiple other MOS, recognizes that one form doesn't not fit all articles, and thus for some aspects, allows for selection from two or more variants for some style decisions, such as using Harvard references or citation templates for inline citations, as long as internal article consistency is maintained. Some choices involve common-sense selection between the options, such as using British English over American English for an article about a British person. These selections are to be made by consensus of the editors of each page.

Comment by Arbitrators:

True. AGK [•] 01:15, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

The MOS specially allows editor choice to come into play, reflecting the nature of it being a guideline, meaning that hard enforcement of the MOS is strongly discouraged (see above Principles #2 and 3). --MASEM (t) 17:50, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Proposals by User:Jojalozzo

Proposed principles

Policy and guidelines require special protection

1) "Wikipedia has a higher standard of participation and consensus for changes to policies and guidelines than to other types of articles. This is because they reflect established consensus, and their stability and consistency are important to the community." - Wikipedia:Consensus#Level of consensus

Comment by Arbitrators:

Good. AGK [•] 01:16, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

This is not a proposal but a reminder of existing principles. Jojalozzo 18:40, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

It's not uncommon for ArbCom decisions to restate already-existing principles. ― A. di M.​  11:59, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Proposed findings of fact

Policy and guidelines have insufficient protection

1) Existing editorial meta-policy is insufficiently codified and too easy to game.

Here are some statements about changing policy and guidelines that I have been able to locate:

Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines#Content changes:

"Policies and guidelines can be edited like any other Wikipedia page. It is not strictly necessary to discuss changes or to obtain written documentation of a consensus in advance. However, because policies and guidelines are sensitive and complex, users should take care over any edits, to be sure they are faithfully reflecting the community's view and to be sure that they are not accidentally introducing new sources of error or confusion.

Because Wikipedia practice exists in the community through consensus, editing a policy/guideline/essay page does not in itself imply an immediate change to accepted practice. It is, naturally, bad practice to write something other than accepted practice on a policy or guideline page. To update best practices, you may change the practice directly (you are permitted to deviate from practice for the purposes of such change) and/or set about building widespread consensus for your change or implementation through discussion. When such a change is accepted, you can then edit the page to reflect the new situation."

Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines#Proposals:

"New proposals require discussion and a high level of consensus from the entire community for promotion to guideline or policy. Adding the {{policy}} template to a page without the required consensus does not mean that the page is policy, even if the page summarizes or copies policy. Most commonly, editors use a Request for comments (RfC) to determine consensus for a newly proposed policy or guideline, via the {{rfc|policy}} tag."

Wikipedia:Consensus#Level of Consensus:

"Wikipedia has a higher standard of participation and consensus for changes to policies and guidelines than to other types of articles. This is because they reflect established consensus, and their stability and consistency are important to the community. As a result, editors often propose substantive changes on the talk page first to permit discussion before implementing the change. Changes may be made without prior discussion, but they are subject to a high level of scrutiny. The community is more likely to accept edits to policy if they are made slowly and conservatively, with active efforts to seek out input and agreement from others."

Template:MoS-guideline

"This guideline is a part of the English Wikipedia's Manual of Style. Use common sense in applying it; it will have occasional exceptions. Please ensure that any edits to this page reflect consensus."

Template:Under discussion

"This page is the subject of a current discussion on the talk page.
Please feel free to join in. This doesn't mean that you may not be bold in editing this page, but it can't hurt to check the discussion first."

Template:policy-guideline-editnotice:

"Attention: You are editing a page that documents an English Wikipedia policy or guideline. While you may be bold in making minor changes to this page, consider discussing any substantive changes first on the page's talk page."

Comment by Arbitrators:

I'm not sure that there is a problem with the requirement of consensus for policy change, but I do think problems can arise in specific cases if the changes are not duly subjected to the views of the wider community. We expect that policy changes will be ratified by a significant subset of the community, and in my experience (and perhaps in this case too) there only arise problems when a dispute about policy change is hidden from the attention of uninvolved or less-involved editors. AGK [•] 01:18, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

While I agree with the thrust of what AGK is saying, I think "hidden from" might imply actively avoiding scrutiny, when my impression the opposite is true: the subset of editors working on the MOS would welcome more participation, but everyone seems to ignore changes until someone comes along and changes "their" article in a way they don't like, and they feel no ownership in a MOS change in which they had no participation, even though they almost certainly had ample opportunity to contribute. Jclemens (talk) 07:26, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

None of the policy and guidelines statements says that greater care must be taken when editing policy and guidelines. The language has the same loopholes, suggestions, and IAR latitude that we find valuable for regular articles. I think IAR and BRD are not workable policies for substantive changes to policy and guidelines. A protective editorial process needs to be made binding and stated clearly. Current policy statements differ from article editing policy statements only in the degree of caution suggested. Because they fully embrace IAR and BRD they are operationally identical to article editorial policy. Jojalozzo 17:56, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by others:

You might have included WP:GUIDES: "Editors should attempt to follow guidelines, though they are best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply." (emphasis added) To me, that contradicts the above: "you may change the practice directly (you are permitted to deviate from practice for the purposes of such change)", because anyone disregarding a guideline (without bothering to demonstrate an exceptional circumstance in a specific article) is likely to argue that his edit is the best practice that everyone should follow. So does the Manual of Style mean anything, or is it just one of hundreds of grammar guides? If it's the latter, I'll find something more useful to do. Art LaPella (talk) 01:02, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

This does not appear to particularly concern editing policy and guidelines pages as much as applying them when editing articles. Jojalozzo 15:32, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

But when someone "changes the practice directly" without bothering to change the guideline, changing the practice and applying when editing are indistinguishable. Art LaPella (talk) 19:30, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

I think I get what you mean but IAR applied in article space has an indirect effect in policy space which may even be beneficial in terms of (Darwinian) improvements in practice unlike what I am attempting to get at here which is the explicit impact (genetic modification) of IAR applied in policy space. Jojalozzo 21:21, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

"I think IAR and BRD are not workable policies for substantive changes to policy and guidelines". - I could not agree more.

• IAR is policy, but "'Ignore all rules' does not mean that every action is justifiable. It is neither a trump card nor a carte blanche."
• BRD is an essay, not policy, and in my opinion far too often relied on, throughout Wikipedia. Personally I prefer to ask for input first before making an edit to an article for anything other than an obvious and minor error.

Milkunderwood (talk) 22:59, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

"I think IAR and BRD are not workable policies for substantive changes to policy and guidelines". - I could not agree Less.

BOLD, BRD (less so) and IAR are crucial to a wiki. These guides are presumed to work for articles, because edits are being made, constantly giving an opportunity to fine-tune our appreciation of the issues pertaining to each particular article. In wikipedia space, the paranoia about every single edit results in incivility and stalled discussion and progress.

Some policy pages (IAR is one, also Consensus/Workshop and Civility/Workshop) have an associated /Workshop page, where drafts of sections or the entire POL page can be carried out. Although some editors complain that the workshop is "not a live page", I submit that this approach may be a helpful one. NewbyG ( talk) 19:13, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Proposed remedies

Overview

My proposals are structural rather than personal. I think in general that participants in the subject disputes have been acting in good faith within guidelines and policies that do not provide sufficient support and structure for working at the policy/guideline level of the project.

For this arbcom to accept and implement my proposals would be both overreach and self-contradictory. However, I will propose them and perhaps arbitrators would consider a short term, experimental implementation for WP:Title and MOSCAPS while the wider community considers these ideas for general long term application.

Limit bold edits of policy and MOS to refinements of status quo

1) When making changes that clarify and refine existing policy and guidelines, follow the same editing policies as for any other pages. If you are not sure if an edit is clarifying or refining and not a more substantial change, ask on the talk page first.

Comment by Arbitrators:

With the exception of minor edits, I suppose this is broadly true. However, I'm not sure if we can reconcile this with the general principle that policy documents, and does not make, standard practice. (On the other hand, I guess a small number of policies, like the Manual of Style, cannot be so neatly categorised as descriptive and not proscriptive.) AGK [•] 01:24, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Bold edits offer an efficient proposal mechanism that allows changes to be viewed and developed in their full context. BRD serves us well with articles and as long as policy and guidelines are not being substantially redirected, we should encourage BRD on policy pages with caveats that extra sensitivity is required with policy/guideline edits. I think the existing policy and templates do this well. Jojalozzo 17:56, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Very strongly oppose. This is another tool to lock in existing wording, whether it has consensus or is the invention of two or three editors. JCScaliger (talk) 19:56, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by others:

My feeling is that "minor edits" that "clarify and refine existing policy and guidelines" can easily be the most insidious of all. Quoting from Greg L, editors were inserting clever, ambiguous, wholesome-sounding changes with little-to-no discussion and others suspected that the changes had hidden meaning or were "loaded" in some way. See my Proposal, below. Milkunderwood (talk) 02:38, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Require and support wide-audience RfCs for substantive changes to policy and guidelines

2) Do not propose substantive changes that take policy and guidelines in new directions via bold edits but instead introduce them through a formal, wide-audience RfC process (see "{{rfc polisubst}}). If an edit is made to a policy or guidelines page and you consider it to be a substantive change, revert the edit with the edit summary, [[WP:RfC polisubst#0-RR]], and start an RfC on the talk page with template {{rfc polisubst}}.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Any abstract view about consensus and decision-making is likely to be generalised and naive; I suspect such will apply to both this comment and these proposed principles. Nevertheless, it seems to me that there already is a bias towards stability in policy decisions. If consensus requires a BRD cycle, then the editor suggesting a change, upon being reverted, is obliged to discuss his change (and seek consent). If we are running into problems in this regard, the issue is probably that the cycle is not being followed, or that a wider consensus is not being sought (in the event of a deadlocked discussion). AGK [•] 01:24, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

In other words, we don't need to dictate new processes, just see that the existing ones are applied well. Jclemens (talk) 07:28, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

This editorial meta-policy would improve our chances for maintaining policy/guidelines stability and consistency and reduce the likelihood of disputes overflowing onto policy pages. This will require at least rewording Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines, Wikipedia:Consensus#Level of Consensus (possibly other policy/guidelines pages) and the hatnotes for policy and guidelines pages as well as implementation of new templates for the 0RR BRD and RfC processes. I realize that I don't have sufficient knowledge or experience to implement or fully formulate my proposal and leave final wording and implementation to those who are better qualified. Jojalozzo 17:56, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Please don't; this will, in practice, become yet another device to entrench non-consensus language. JCScaliger (talk) 02:33, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

I believe this reflects the need for my and Jojalozzo's suggestion even more. Editors are never worried if their pet non-consensus positions are entrenched in policies and guidelines, but when it is something they don't agree with, any process that stabilizes that position is worrysome for them. --Mike Cline (talk) 07:32, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

That may be; although I hope that TITLE is more reasonable. But this is not going to be helped by handing out entrenching tools right and left. JCScaliger (talk) 21:16, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

I fully support this concept that policies and guidelines need serious stability and that changes should be made through deliberate, structured processes that not only reflectr, but ensure a very wide community consensus on what the policy says and how it is to be interpreted and applied. We are beyond the days of a Frontier WP where we can make up the rules as we go. Policies and key guidelines ought to be on an annual cycle of review, discussion and change only as necessary to keep the policy/guideline relevant to WP practice.--Mike Cline (talk) 07:32, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Support If nothing else comes out of this, a bias towards stability would at least contain the tendency toward combat to the discussion rather than afflict it on great swathes of articles, as appears to be the custom now. Mangoe (talk) 20:04, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

I would like to believe this; but what I have seen is stability by revert-warring, followed by great swathes of edits by the supporters of the existing text. ("Since we've reverted any change, this is stable text; since it's stable, it must be consensus; since it's consensus, all pages must follow it, whether other editors agree or not.") JCScaliger (talk) 21:34, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Proposed enforcement

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Proposals by User:A. di M.

Proposed principles

Policies and guidelines should reflect consensus

1) In a discussion regarding a section of policy or guideline, "no consensus" means that a proposed section should not be added. If the discussion is about a section already in the policy, that section should be removed.

Comment by Arbitrators:

I don't think this is the case, and it would be dangerous to assume that any discussion can be neatly categorised into having "no consensus", "a consensus for the change", or "a consensus against". AGK [•] 01:20, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

No consensus means no change in the most general case. Jclemens (talk) 07:28, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Verbatim from WP:No consensus. ― A. di M.​  23:41, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

That's an obscure essay that most of us had never heard of; that provision about removing was put in the original version by the essay author, but has never been discussed. It does not represent practice with respect to policy/guideline editing. Dicklyon (talk) 03:06, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

I used that quote because it expressed my idea better than I could have myself, not because it was written by God or something. I could have written it myself, or Attila the Hun could have dictated it to me in a dream, but what matters is the spirit, not the origin of the letter. See WP:ONLYESSAY – and I know that that is itself only an essay. ― A. di M.​  23:00, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Support. Thank you for finding what I have been trying to phrase. JCScaliger (talk) 03:28, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Disagree on the second statement: if there's a policy section with a long standing history, an RFC (presumably, to determine if it should be removed) that ends in "no consensus" should retain it. "No consensus" in all other aspects of WP means to retain the status quo. This is particularly true if the RFC is more about replacing a section with a different one - we wouldn't remove the section nor default to the new one if we closed "no consensus". --MASEM (t) 18:56, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

I interpret that second statement as applying to questions of keeping or removing existing policy statements. To me it means that existing language may only be retained if there is consensus to do so, i.e. if there is no consensus to retain existing language, it should be removed. Given that we may disagree with such a process for eliminating long standing policy, on what basis would we propose the arbcom ignore this policy which is itself (I think) long standing? Jojalozzo 21:05, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Taking the approach that an RFC can require long-standing (more than several months) text to be removed if the RFC closes in "no consensus" would open up a lot of system gaming. I can envision editors using this to dissect NFC policy or notability guidelines, for example, by starting RFCs on specific aspects that they don't agree with but know are generally accepted but not by a large margin, and wait for them to close as "no consensus" to remove these. Basically, if the RFC is about adding to policy, "no consensus" should keep the addition out of policy; while RFCs about modifying or removing from policy long-standing text, "no consensus" should mean to retain the text. Of course, say in the case of an aggressive editor that makes a change, and within a few days, people dislike it but don't revert it, and an RFC is started, and it ends "no consensus", in that case, I'd defer to the previous version. --MASEM (t) 16:57, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

That undoes the principle which you ask ArbCom to endorse; if we have a section on which there is no consensus, retaining the text means presenting something disputed and presenting it as consensus. JCScaliger (talk) 04:25, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

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Proposed findings of fact

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Proposed remedies

Throttle on large-scale editing

1) Each editor is forbidden from editing (or moving) more than 32 distinct articles in a 24-hour period.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Common sense would require that this be the case, but there are hundreds of possible exceptions (like for automated or bulk page moves, in relation to deletion discussions, and so on). More to the point, I can't support such a draconian restriction in what is supposed to be a collaborative, fluid editing environment; we are not quite at our wits' end yet. Even if this proposal is supposed to apply to MoS-related moves (which, again, would be very difficult to codify or define in a remedy), I don't think this is warranted in response to what is a comparatively narrow dispute. AGK [•] 01:27, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

While I can't see this happening as phrased now, my gut feel is that most problems crop up in association with large-scale automated editing. There is probably some threshold above which BAG approval should be necessary, regardless of whether the editor is doing things by hand, with AWB, or some other automated tool. If it's really a good consensus change that needs to happen everywhere, it should be vetted, handle MOS exceptions appropriately, and be done in a staged manner that collects feedback and measures success appropriately. Jclemens (talk) 07:31, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Generally agree. The comments below object to a ban on making 32 different edits in a 24 hour period, which is not what is proposed. I would add language making clear that the intention is to cover editing 32 different articles to make the same sort of change. "Big, controversial change" goes the wrong direction; the changes under discussion here are always small, and the editor making them will almost always claim that they are uncontroversial, even if they are - and that they are consensus, even if they are not (after all, his two mates like them). JCScaliger (talk) 20:00, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't see anything in the present case that this is a remedy for. Nobody involved has been doing any large-volume edits, have they? As an alternative, a limit on the volume of talk comments would be handy; e.g., limit B2C to posting not more on any given day than 1 KB plus the sum of the numbers of bytes of the next three most active editors on any talk page; that would go a long way to throttling his ownership, while still giving him plenty of room to speak his piece and answer plenty of disagreements. Dicklyon (talk) 08:06, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by others:

This ought to stop people from editing lots of articles without even reading them because of their own petty peeve, whereas it shouldn't affect people who actually read the articles they edit (unless they take less than 15 minutes in average to read and edit an article or spend more than 8 hours a day on en.wiki). ― A. di M.​  00:04, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

This ought to stop many non-controversial edits, too, and that isn't the intent. Does it apply to AWB? If so, it pretty much eliminates the reason to use it. Or suppose someone wanted to change something simple like a template name in the March 9 article, and similarly in all 366 day articles. I've done things like that, and probably more than 32 articles a day. How about Wikipedia:WikiProject Disambiguation? Renaming a category with more than 32 members? Art LaPella (talk) 06:12, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Note that the clarification "to make the same sort of change" wouldn't prevent the proposal from applying to most of my examples. In the March 9 example, for instance, changing the template name is the same sort of change, made in all 366 articles. Art LaPella (talk) 21:33, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

I think we need to be able to recognize and deal with disruptive behavior without resorting to these kinds of crutches. This is way too blunt. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 18:34, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

The comments below object to a ban on making 32 different edits in a 24 hour period, which is not what is proposed.—I just want to make it clear that I understand the proposal and am objecting to a ban on making even the same sort of change to more than 32 pages. There are all kinds of obvious examples of why making the same sort of change to 100s of pages in a day is just fine. This proposal is not nearly nuanced enough. It's probably on the right track, though—maybe there is a way to word a prohibition on controversial changes to more than 32 articles without getting a clear consensus first. I can't think of a good wording, offhand, but this proposal sure isn't it. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 18:28, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Disagree strongly. 32 non-contentious edits/day is extremely simple to meet for any editor. I would presume that the intent was for this to only apply to the editors that are party to this case, but even then, as so far argued, not all of them are necessarily active in this case. Nor does it appear to be an issue with speed of edits (unlike the Betacommand case). --MASEM (t) 19:14, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Seems like overkill to me. We need something that's more like "don't do a big, potentially controversial change without getting consensus first". Mangoe (talk) 15:16, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

"Big" here would include "change affecting huge numbers of articles". That the change in each article might be small is irrelevant. Mangoe (talk) 21:12, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Restore and protect

1) All the policy and guideline pages involved in this case are restored to their revision as of 1 January 2012, 00:00 (UTC) and fully protected until 31 December 2012, 23:59 (UTC); the normal {{editprotected}} mechanism will be used for fixing typos and other non-substantial issues, but actual changes to guidance shall be discussed first in an RFC advertised on WP:CENT, WP:VP, relevant WikiProjects' talk pages (if any) and on the policy/guideline page itself through {{underdiscussion}}. (If the RFC results in no consensus, the relevant section of the policy/guideline page shall be removed altogether.) ― A. di M.​  00:18, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:

Protection shouldn't be used to force the editorship to edit policy in a collaborative, professional manner. If people can't foster a consensus, then they ought to be using dispute resolution and seeking input by the wider community. In the event that they have failed to do so, I would have this committee sanction them for misconduct. Even with the explicit recognition for the editprotected-template paradigm, I cannot support a proposal, per my comments at #Lock The Policy Page Down 365 days and related proposals. AGK [•] 01:29, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

I strongly concur and endorse the step suggested above for two reasons. Policies and important guidance should never be altered by the whims of local consensus but instead should be subject to wide community resolution and consensus. Additionally, preventing edit-waring and the resultant discussions on minor and essentially inconsenquential changes to an otherwise important policy will give those desirous of improving this dysfunctional policy some breathing room to consider, discuss and review potential improvements. IMHO, volunteer energy spent on inconsequential changes to dysfunctional policy is a huge waste with no upside for the encyclopedia. When such discussion inevitably evolves into contentiousness and incivilty, especially on important policies and guidelines, real harm is done to the community and encyclopedia. The suggested protection is a good idea. --Mike Cline (talk) 15:01, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Bad idea. What's magic about the first of the year? --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 21:12, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Agree with Sarek... bad idea, at least in the case of WP:AT, which was finally unlocked just today[2], and the change clearly supported by consensus has finally been implemented[3]. Reverting to the Jan 1 version would reverse this progress.

As to locking it for a whole year... see #Lock_The_Policy_Page_Down_365_days. --Born2cycle (talk) 02:31, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Proposed. ― A. di M.  00:18, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Proposed enforcement

Template

1) {text of proposed enforcement}

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Proposals by User:Guerillero

Discretionary sanctions

Standard discretionary sanctions are authorized for all pages relating to Wikipedia's internal Manual of Style, broadly interpreted.

Comment by Arbitrators:

I'm not sure that the dispute is quite broad enough to warrant discretionary sanctions, though that hasn't stopped us authorising them in the past. (The wording here is good, because we now require standardised, simplified remedies when providing for discretionary sanctions.) AGK [•] 01:31, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

This would probably be a good idea, depending on the other remedies that come out of here....--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 21:08, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

@Guerillero: "the nth time that issues surrounding the MOS has come up before arbcom", that is, the CAPS part of this case, was entirely due to Pmanderson's socking ban evasion; he was also the cause the the n-1 time (dashes), and several before that. The only sanctions appropriate are to make his block indef. Dicklyon (talk) 17:58, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by others:

This is the nth time that issues surrounding the MOS has come up before arbcom. (Date delinking, dash/hyphen, etc) The whole area needs to take a rest. I believe that this has the ability to knock some wind out of the sails of the next major MOS dispute, diacritics perhaps, because it keeps the MOS pages from being a battleground. I may have more ideas to come after reading the evidence en masse. --Guerillero | My Talk 05:21, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Proposals by User:Born2cycle

Proposed principles

Only revert for substantive reasons

1) Editors should revert only for substantive reasons in objection to the edit in question, ideally explain those reasons before, during, or just after reverting, but certainly after being asked to explain. Editors should not revert if there is no substantive reason to object which they can explain and discuss. Editors should not revert an edit without reading it and giving it and the argument supporting it (in edit summary and/or talk page) due consideration.

Comment by Arbitrators:

What's the justification for this? In the BRD cycle, while it might be best practice for the reverting editor to explain himself, the burden is really on the one making the contested change to justify it after being reverted. Jclemens (talk) 07:33, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

I would hope this could go without saying, but I know it doesn't for at least some editors who seem to feel no explanation of substantive objection is required when reverting another editor's work, no matter how much it is requested, especially on policy pages. --Born2cycle (talk) 02:35, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Arguments that B2C doesn't like are always "non-substantive". Perhaps a good alternative principle would be to not be dismissive of the arguments of others. This is what he did in his non-admin close of the RM at Battles of the Mexican–American War, where he sincerely felt that there was a consensus to move, because he had dismissed all the arguments against it. Dicklyon (talk) 02:55, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

The evidence shows that it was Dicklyon (along with Noetica and Tony1) who were dismissive of the arguments that I, Kotniski and others made in support of the Dec 21 change at WP:AT. There has been no evidence presented that supports the assertion that any arguments I don't "like" are "non-substantive", much less that they "always" are. This kind of unsubstantiated irrelevant hyperbole is typical of Dicklyon's comments in discussions, and is no more helpful or substantive in an ARBCOM case than in a policy, MOS or RM discussion.

No evidence about Battles of the Mexican–American War was presented in this case, but my efforts in closing there were a good faith attempt at resolving a controversial issue by applying what I believed to be community consensus as reflected in practice and policy. --Born2cycle (talk) 17:53, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

B2C's closing statement there illustrates my point: "mostly hokum", "no reason for Wikipedia to sweat over it", "no consensus to follow the ndash guidance" – dismissive of both the stated positions and the guidelines that they were based on, thereby giving no weight to the opposition of his "consensus". Dicklyon (talk) 07:19, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by others:

I am finding on this page a number of references to WP:BRD, which appear to assume that BRD is Wikipedia policy. It is neither policy nor a guideline, but is labeled as being an essay. I can see the utility of BRD being applied in many circumstances for Wikipedia articles, but invoking this procedure for editing policy or guideline pages strikes me as being a certain recipe for discord and argument. Even for articles, common courtesy would seem to dictate posting an explanation on the talkpage both for any substantive good faith edit and for any good faith revert of the edit. Milkunderwood (talk) 19:33, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Milkunderwood, I would suggest that you look at the discussion surrounding the edit in question and decide for yourself whether the objections and explanations the five editors expressed before the edit were "substantive" or not. Also, whether those objections were ever addressed before reverting the edit. Neotarf (talk) 07:01, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Don't engage in status quo stonewalling

2) An editor should not take advantage of the fact that the status quo version is generally preferred in disputes where he happens to prefer the status quo for dubious reasons by resorting to disruptive editing like filibustering and other stonewalling tactics in order to preserve the status quo. The status quo and proposed changes should be defended or opposed based on substantive arguments, period.

Comment by Arbitrators:

eh.... sounds pretty ABF to me. The status quo exists because a lot of people don't dislike it enough to change it. That's not necessarily a bad reason for keeping it so. Jclemens (talk) 07:35, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Proposed findings of fact

Users engaged in disruptive editing

1) Users Tony1, Dicklyon and Noetica engaged in two types of disruptive editing:

1. WP:IDHT disruptive editing at WP:AT, WT:AT, page moves and WP:RM discussions by refusing to acknowledge that there is no consensus support for their belief that a Wikipedia title should convey what the article is about to a reader who is not familiar with the topic, and
2. by "repeatedly [for almost two months] disregard[ing] other editors' questions or requests for explanations concerning ... objections to edits" (a.k.a. "Does not engage in consensus building" at WP:DE#Signs_of_disruptive_editing) at WT:AT.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

We have the guideline against disruptive editing for good reason: to prevent exactly the kind of disruption that occurred at WP:AT/WT:AT between 12/21/11 and 2/13/11 about a very small change to the policy that should never have been controversial. Had these editors engaged in consensus building rather than avoiding it with this type of disruptive editing, the whole fiasco would have been entirely avoided. Born2cycle (talk) 06:27, February 14, 2012

The premise is broken. I have never sought consensus for "their belief that a Wikipedia title should convey what the article is about to a reader who is not familiar with the topic" because I have never espoused such a belief. I have tried to make my position clear in my participation in the TITLE talk page; if I don't answer all of B2C's questions it is because they are off topic or already answered. Dicklyon (talk) 02:01, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Dicklyon is correct that he has never sought consensus. That's a big part of the problem. I don't recall whether he has actually espoused such a belief, but the evidence shows his behavior is consistent with holding it. --Born2cycle (talk) 17:56, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Addressing Milkunderwood who commented below: Disruptive editing usually refers to editing of article or policy page, not talk pages. The disruptive editing to which I refer is that of Tony1, Dicklyon and Noetica in repeatedly (collectively) reverting the edit in question (restoring the wording originally inserted by Kotniski which Milkunderwood eventually favored restoring as well), and not engaging in substantive discussion about it. That mostly occurred before you got there, though it re-occurred every time the page was unlocked until the final time when Elen finally said anyone would be blocked for reverting the restoration of this wording.

My efforts were to explain and rectify the situation. Are there any particular comments that you found to be problematic, or is it just the volume? The point is if they had been cooperative and willing to work towards finding consensus from the beginning, then all of that would have been avoided. But they wouldn't, no matter how hard I, and others (like Kotniski, who finally quit out of frustration, and Greg L), tried. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:45, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

It has not been mentioned yet on this page, but Dicklyon has compiled a history of edits and discussion at User:Dicklyon/Whither Recognizability?, which might or might not be pertinent or helpful here. I have not attempted to read all of it. Specifically in answer to your question, the volume, certainly, but also the tone, which frequently struck me - perhaps unfairly - as being disingenuous. I can only speak for myself. Milkunderwood (talk) 01:27, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

That's shocking. I've certainly been accused of posting too much on talk pages, but I don't think anyone has ever said I've come across as being disingenuous before. I'd like to know what I said that seemed disingenuous to you. Thanks. --Born2cycle (talk) 22:37, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

What did you say? That last comment. That very comment of yours, Born2cycle: given all the weight of evidence, all the walls of words, all the admonitions from admins to stop talking and listen for a change; and given the departure of admin GTBacchus through sheer exasperation (see my evidence). But I too can only speak for myself. Noetica^Tea? 23:18, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Maybe I'm misusing the word. In reading your various posts I constantly sense a tone of injured innocence; but this may be just my own reaction. I can only say that this tendency, combined with your filibustering, makes trying to follow the discussion an unpleasant chore for me. I apologize for having to say this. Milkunderwood (talk) 23:53, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

I think what you're sensing is a genuine feeling of injured innocence. B2C, in my opinion, has no ability to empathize with the positions of others, and so feels that he is always right, and always the injured innocent party. He sincerely finds the accusation of disingenuousness to be "shocking". I think I have accused him of that myself in the past, but I have a different model of his behavior now. In the same vein, he is pretty sure of what my position is on things that I haven't taken a position on, since I disagree with him – in spite of all the times that I've tried to explain that he has me wrong. Dicklyon (talk) 03:34, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Concerning disruptive editing, I had not originally been aware of edits, or reverts, to the guideline page without prior discussion and consensus. Personally I disapprove of any ad hoc changes to a policy or guideline. Milkunderwood (talk) 00:11, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Sorry, I'm still not sure whether I'm a "party" or an "other" - I first came to the discussion long after it had been in progress, and did post there. My impression has been that neither Tony1, Dicklyon or Noetica has engaged in disruptive editing. To the contrary, my impression has been that Born2cycle has dominated the discussion with walls of text, probably equaling all other posts combined. Overall, I felt confronted with a TL;DR situation. My own positions were 1) in favor of lockdown of the page regardless of what it said, to stop contentious edits and reverts, and 2) once I thought I had figured out the issue, in favor of the wording proposed by Kotniski and presumably being championed by Born2cycle. Milkunderwood (talk) 23:06, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

I am probably an "other" so I will comment on the above "disingenuous" discussion here, if that isn't too confusing. Regarding Born2cycle's sincerity, he seems to consider "consensus" to be the absence of disagreement. If I am interpreting his statements elsewhere on this page correctly, he considers debate to be a pointless waste of time, and wants arbitrary rules that will prevent disagreement, both in the MoS and in the process for writing it. So anyone who initiates discussion of issues is viewed as being uncongenial. Perhaps this is a misinterpretation of his comment about side-of-the-road decisions, and if so I apologize in advance for the misunderstanding, but that explanation does have the advantage of assuming good faith and at the same time explaining why he has been at odds with other editors. Neotarf (talk) 07:30, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Disruptive editing enabled/prolonged by administrative action

2) The disruptive editing at WP:AT/WT:AT was (presumably unintentionally) enabled and prolonged by the administrative practice of favoring the status quo version in disputes, rather than making sure that both sides had substantive support and neither side was supported by consensus. For almost two months the only actions of the few administrators who got involved in the WP:AT fiasco at all was to lock the policy page. If we had just one uninvolved administrator who took maybe 15-30 minutes to carefully review (not skim) and evaluate what happened and what was said in the first 24 hours following the original edit, the stonewalling, the refusal to explain the objection to the edit, the clear consensus in favor of the change... all should have been obvious, and weeks and months of wrangling, not to mention this ARBCOM effort and the loss of Kotniski, could have been avoided.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

One uninvolved admin; 15-30 minutes. That's all that was needed to avoid all this. --Born2cycle (talk) 07:55, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by others:

“15-30 minutes to carefully review (not skim)” – you're way overoptimistic IMO. ― A. di M.​  13:22, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

What I mean was that if you look at the section Clarification of recognizability lost in WT:AT shortly after I made my initial change and after there was some discussion about it [4], which is when I initially asked for administrative assistance, I submit it would take no more than 15-30 minutes to review the situation, including following the given links, to assess whether my initial explanation supporting the edit made sense and reflected consensus, and that none of those reverting/objection had anything substantive to say. There was nothing complex about this. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:05, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Titles don't matter; title decision process does matter

3) It doesn't matter whether we drive on the left or right (it works fine either way), but we have to decide to do one or the other, or we would have chaos and mayhem on the roads. Similarly, it doesn't matter what the titles are (just about any title will "work"), but we have to decide what they are (and how we decide what they are), or we have chaos and mayhem in deciding each title.

So, although titles could theoretically be arbitrary strings and so don't really matter, in practice we don't use arbitrary strings and so must decide on some title. In order to avoid everyone wanting whatever they want and nobody ever being able to agree, we choose to have policies, guidelines and conventions to introduce determinism into our title decision process. In general, in terms of reducing disputes and debates, more determinism in our title-determining rules is better than less determinism.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Titles do matter to some editors, if not to B2C. So does process, which is why I objected so strenuously when B2C edited a policy page to change policy in his favor during an argument in which that policy was cited. There was no "chaos and mayhem" in WP:TITLE or in RMs during the month that B2C was away from WP (Aug 16 – Sept 15, 2011), but chaos aplenty wherever he has been involved (there were only 5 edits to WP:TITLE in the first half of Sept, then 5 on Sept 15 when B2C returned, and on from there). Dicklyon (talk) 02:01, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

In his last posts to WT:TITLE, Feb. 17, new section WT:TITLE#Proposal: clarifying PRECISION, Born2cycle again tries to use "clarifying" for his proposal to rewrite and change titling policy. He expresses the opinions that "We use extra precision to distinguish the titles to avoid clashes due to the technical limitation of not being able to have two articles with the same title. We don't do it to distinguish titles for readers. and ... the point of WP:PRECISION is that we only care about it in a technical sense - that each title technically refers to precisely one article - and that that is inherently required by the software. These are far from current understanding and statement of the "precision" point in titling policy. His proposed changes got zero support there, so I don't think I'm misunderstanding the situation. His constant attempt to change the titling process to a more technical and mechanical process would not be so disruptive it were not so incessant (since Sept 2009), persistent, and high velocity, and supported my misleading statements of intent as in the heading "Proposal: clarifying PRECISION". Dicklyon (talk) 01:04, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Proposed remedies

Beware of status quo stonewalling

1) Emphasize to editors and administrators the harms of status quo stonewalling, how to identify it, and how to remedy it. In particular, non-substantive objections to good faith edits should not be tolerated by the community, and especially by administrators. Administrators should be careful to not blindly or quickly simply favor the status quo version or remain neutral when there is a dispute; they should verify that there is at least one truly substantive position on each side, and claims that one side is clearly supported by consensus should be seriously evaluated and given due consideration.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

"status quo stonewalling" seems to be a term B2C invented to describe the defense of policy against arbitrary and capricious change, or against changes to make policy be more on ones' side during a debate that the policy bears on. If it's as I understand it, then yes, I'm guilty of it. Dicklyon (talk) 01:07, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Admonish disruptive editors

2) Users Dicklyon, Tony1 and Noetica are to be admonished as follows: consensus clearly does not support their idea of making titles recognizable to readers who are not familiar with the topic in question. They need to stop moving articles, reverting policy, and being disruptive in RM and policy discussions based on this view, unless and until they can come up with a practical and workable specific proposal that achieves consensus support. They also must answer questions, address requests for explanations about objections to edits, and generally avoid WP:DR behavior and engage in WP:CONSENSUS building behavior.

Starting with a warning, failure to avoid disruptive editing of this kind will lead to progressively longer Title/RM area blocks.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

I'm not a big believer in blocks, but sometimes threatening a block (and hopefully that will be sufficient) is the only way to stop disruptive behavior.

The request seems to be that I should be made to stop reverting B2C's changes to policy unless I can come up with a practical and workable specific proposal that achieves consensus support, but that I still need to let him hijack my RFC that attempts to do that, and turn it into a vote on his way versus nothing, and stack it with imputed votes, as he did here. Obviously, I have a different POV on what the disruptive behavior was there. Dicklyon (talk) 01:16, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Encourage more engagement from administrators

3) An explicit request for administrative assistance at AN/I, and a request for closure of the initial RFC, were all ignored by administrators. I urge ARBCOM to consider how administrators might be encouraged to be more helpful in these situations.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

What admin would want to come in and support the closure of an RFC in favor of the guy who hijacked it and drove out any possibility of discussion? Dicklyon (talk) 01:18, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Proposals by Noetica

Proposed principles

Development of policies and guidelines

1) Policies and guidelines of Wikipedia should be edited, documented, and discussed with greater care than any articles. This requires:

• that consensus be more diligently sought out, and not easily assumed to have changed (or to have stayed the same);
• that edits be more fully and accurately registered in edit summaries; and
• that discussion be conducted with respect, good order, and wide community consultation commensurate with the proposed alteration.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Sounds sensible. Jclemens (talk) 07:36, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

This echoes some concerns that are voiced at length above, for example by Jojalozzo and A di M. Noetica^Tea? 23:57, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Fully agree, but relevance to this case is unclear.

The evidence presented shows that the edit in the WP:AT case being discussed here (regarding recognizability) was accompanied by explanation in both edit summary and on the talk page, that all this was ignored by Noetica, Tony1 and Dicklyon when they reverted the edit and refused to discuss it substantively. Multiple discussions and polls over the following weeks confirmed over and over nearly unanimous support for this edit, much less consensus. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:50, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

A misdirected comment. The present subsection concerns a principle. This case is not all about one editor, one edit or series of actions, or even one page. Not every point articulated in this principle is relevant to every element of the case. No one claims that it is. Noetica^Tea? 21:15, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

How is this principle relevant to any element of this case? --Born2cycle (talk) 22:19, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

This principle bears on at least three pages that are discussed in this Workshop and on the Evidence page:

• WP:CONSENSUS

I give just one episode as an example. In a single edit to that much-cited policy page, various material was added at the end of December by Collect, with a completely inadequate edit summary. One substantive alteration that resulted was not discussed. This prepared the way for the wrangling that Mangoe refers to on the Evidence page: "The focal change is this one in which the requirement to achieve consensus before making big changes to policies/guidelines is removed." Mangoe's link is an example of sock JCScaliger, operated by PMAnderson, taking advantage of a situation to sow discord for his own political purposes – three days after the opening of this ArbCom case, in which he had already launched a vicious and prejudicial attack on me in opening statements. (That might all have been successful, if PMAnderson's sockpuppeting campaign had not been discovered and dealt with.) Born2cycle, you and Kotniski were involved in the wrangling at that page too: after I made an initial clarification to Collect's edit (explicitly disavowing in my edit summary any opinion on the clarifying material), so that a newly linked essay was no longer invoked misleadingly. (Those earlier edits are not mentioned on the Evidence page.)

• WP:MOSCAPS

Just one example, again. That MOS guideline page has been extensively edited without regard for consensus or consultation, even while slow and careful discussion that I initiated was in progress. Kotniski was involved, and so of course was sockmaster PMAnderson. I had introduced a revised lead, with factual corrections, improved expression, and a more rational way of accommodating reliable sources. My edit summary was completely clear, and it invited reversion if anyone objected, but pointed to the systematic discussion that I had begun and that 17 editors then contributed to. Sound process of this sort proved too much of an innovation for some.

• WP:TITLE

One example, again. Kotniski's single wide-ranging edit at that page in August 2010 (substantively complicating the recognisability provision) had an inadequate edit summary, and was never discussed until May 2011, when the complication was removed. You, Born2cycle, later edited that very provision in August 2011 (as I note in Evidence: [5]). Despite this evidence of your familiarity with the wording (which you never disclosed), you later felt justified in claiming that a reversion to Kotniski's complicated text was warranted because its reversion was inadvertent! Your claim favoured an ill-signposted change that went undiscussed, until it was reverted in after a well-labelled discussion on the talkpage, with five participants. And we have seen the mess that results from that claim. It is first of all a procedural matter; and the weeks of discussion that ensued still did not welcome the community in for comment. So much for community consensus, then. Discussion was disorderly and disrespectful, and thoroughly dominated by the same old voices and the same old slogans. Under the principle I state above, a great deal of the mess could have been avoided. In 2010, Kotniski would have given a proper edit summary, the substantive change would have been discussed, and there would have been community consultation commensurate with his proposed alteration. Similarly over the last couple of months.

Noetica^Tea? 23:06, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Ownership of policies and guidelines

2) WP:OWNERSHIP is a matter of greater concern with policies and guidelines than with any articles. The community should be watchful so that it does not become entrenched anywhere. It is reasonable for editors to raise concerns over ownership; it is reasonable to resist changes suspected of being motivated by ownership, or that disproportionately serve any "ideology" of Wikipedian practice.

Comment by Arbitrators:

That's a pretty astute observation. I've seen "ownership" be used for much good, but ownership is still ownership, and editors do not get "seniority" in policy discussions such that their opinion counts more just because they've been around the policy/guideline page longer. Jclemens (talk) 07:37, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

This echoes some concerns that are voiced at length above, for example by Jojalozzo and A di M. Noetica^Tea? 23:57, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

It is not reasonable to revert ("resist changes") because the changes are "suspected of being motivated by ownership". Such resistance is not a substantive objection to any edit, much less justification for a revert. Changes motivated by ownership issues (or any other reason for that matter) might still be consistent with consensus. That's why speculation about an other's motivation should never be a basis for reverting. That's contrary to WP:AGF, WP:CONSENSUS and goes to the heart of how we're supposed to work together. Reverts based on such resistance are WP:BATTLEGROUND behavior, and need to be avoided. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:59, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

What is reasonable in slow, careful, open-minded deliberation is one thing; what is reasonable in defending duly established policy when such collegial deliberation has been rendered impossible is another. Noetica^Tea? 21:15, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

This is the argument you made at the very start, instead of engaging in collegial substantive deliberation. Simply asserting and re-asserting that productive discussion is not possible, while refusing to engage in discussion except to make those assertions, is not persuasive. In the two months since you started claiming such discussion is not possible, dozens of editors have engaged in exactly such discussion. How do you explain that? --Born2cycle (talk) 22:16, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

There is nothing for me to explain, because I deny the premiss. I did not "simply assert" that productive discussion was not possible. I showed how it was not possible. If I was attacked in WP:AN and WP:ANI actions that were not intended to examine my conduct (and not initiated by me), and vilified at admins' talkpages when I sought interventions to support orderly process, and on my own talkpage with threats, and hounded and provoked by your accomplice who turns out to be a sockpuppet pretty well dedicated to harming me on Wikipedia by any available means – if all of that was going on, as far as I'm concerned productive discussion was impossible. Other editors, not under such attack, have discussed at enormous length at WT:TITLE. How productively, how conclusively, and with what closed-shop endorsement of the narrow alteration with which you began the whole thing? Different question. Noetica^Tea? 23:33, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Proposed findings of fact

Development of WP:TITLE, WP:CONSENSUS, and WP:MOSCAPS has been compromised

1) The named pages have long failed to be edited, documented, and discussed with sufficient care. The problems:

• consensus has not been diligently sought out, and it has been too easily assumed to have changed (and to have stayed the same);
• edits with substantial effect have not been fully and accurately registered in edit summaries; and
• discussion has been conducted without respect, without good order, and without wide community consultation commensurate with alterations made.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

I express concerns that fall under my Proposed Principle 1, above. Noetica^Tea? 23:57, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Ownership problems at WP:TITLE and WP:CONSENSUS

2) WP:OWNERSHIP has affected the two named pages. They have been made to serve disproportionately the "ideologies" of some Wikipedians, whose preferred methods and practices lack wide acceptance. Introducing caution or ideas from the community at large has been difficult. Repeated polling (even when outcomes are superficially decisive) is worse than useless if the terms are not impartially phrased, or if the poll is not signalled clearly and comprehensibly to the wider community.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

I express concerns that fall under my Proposed Principle 2, above. The immediate concern is WP:TITLE, but WP:CONSENSUS is also affected, and it has been invoked by and manipulated by parties active at WP:TITLE. I include PMAnderson among those. Noetica^Tea? 23:57, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Ownership is the main issue at TITLE. The only editor more active than Pmanderson in controlling WT:TITLE in the last year or so has been Born2cycle. And that's by number of edits; by amount of text, it's another factor of 2 at least. Dicklyon (talk) 06:00, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Being prolific on an article's or policy's talk page is not a characteristic of an ownership problem, per WP:OWN. Reverting without a substantive objection comes much closer, by the way. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:08, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

No one claims that such overwhelming domination of a talkpage is by itself a mark of ownership. What constitutes a "substantive objection" at a policy page will vary – partly conditioned by how collegially it has been developed, or how much it is hostage to one continually reiterated set of opinions. The diffs show what they show. Let the evidence be weighed, and not the spin. Noetica^Tea? 21:15, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by others:

PMAnderson has caused widespread disruption

3) PMAnderson, particularly through his sockpuppet JCScaliger, has caused significant harm at WP:TITLE, WP:CONSENSUS, and WP:MOSCAPS. He is a party to this case by being named here as "JCScaliger". The base problem has already been acted on, with a one-year block for PMAnderson. But the disruption goes far beyond what motivated that block. Given that the three named pages are important in this ArbCom case, it is clear that PMAnderson went far beyond the mere use of a sockpuppet. He had been topic-banned from at least one of the pages (WP:MOSCAPS), and from commenting on technical matters of English usage (which he has now done, contentiously and obstructively, in respect of proper nouns and similar topics). Through his sockpuppet he edited each of the three pages in a tactical manner to bring instability, to polarise disagreement, and to poison attempts at resolution on the talkpages (including heightened activity when PMAnderson was blocked for violation of his topic ban, over the week from 24 December 2011). He used his experience from past encounters to pursue a vendetta against those who had earlier stood up to his abuses. He used his skill in distortion of facts, contentious discussion, manipulation of sentiment by specious means, and appeal to sectional interest – to denigrate editors without their knowledge of his identity or past involvement. Most pointedly, he laid the foundations for this ArbCom case and then turned it to his own use: by the manoeuvres mentioned, and by striking viciously against those named as parties in the case whom he perceived as his "enemies".

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Unpleasant to have to articulate all that; but the facts are inescapable. I prefer to be silent in this Workshop about the behaviour of others: in what led to this case, and in the pursuit of the case once it started. Let the evidence speak for itself. Let the diffs and other linked material be read to see what they truly show, rather than what they are purported to show. If there has been misconduct or sustained disruption by parties other than PMAnderson, the arbitrators will of course decide what to do; and there is also the option of one or more RFC/U actions, later. Focused measures may be advisable, to restrain excessive domination by any whose habit is to monopolise proceedings. But stress should generally be laid on positive ways to improve the situation (see my proposals below), rather than on "problem editors". Noetica^Tea? 23:57, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Proposed remedies

A community-wide consultation to address the issues

1) [Rewritten after release of the new schedule for this case (see top of the page).–N]
There should be a broad, well-structured, well-supervised consultation of the community, aimed at finding consensual solutions to the issues raised in this case. These are too complex to be treated summarily, and important for several areas of operation on Wikipedia. Some concrete suggestions:

• ArbCom might give a preliminary outline of what the issues are; but this might be modified by discussion in the earliest stage of the consultation.
• There should be a cooling-off period before the consultation begins, from the determination of this case till the end of March. During that time, parties can reflect carefully before deciding on their initial positions, and prepare for a positive renewal of effort that will not dwell on past obsessions or past ill feeling.
• The consultation itself should last for one month (all of April), after which a week should be allowed for drafting detailed resolutions for ArbCom to consider and implement.
• Once it is set, the timing and the administrative details of the consultation should be strictly observed by all parties, so that no one is unnecessarily inconvenienced by changes.
• There should be clearly nominated admins from the very start who will act as clerks to maintain orderly process, and to address any tensions or undue domination by parties. This should be managed in a non-threatening way so that every voice is heard – especially the voices of those alienated by attempted ownership of pages in the past, or by the technical obscurity of dialogue.
• There should be a nominated Arbitrator to oversee and advise the process, and to respond if actions of clerks in the consultation are queried.
• A large part of the difficulty has been domination by small numbers of editors; so any editor with a record of excessive posting, contentious contributions, or use of inaccessible language or Wikipedian jargon should be excluded. Alternatively, such editors should be subject to special constraints and monitoring.
• With these arrangements in place, discretionary sanctions should not be made available. They are likely to be more detrimental than helpful. Editors should be able to contribute without fear of unusual or unpredictable consequences, so that inexperienced and experienced participants are on a more equal footing.
• ArbCom might reserve an option to review the behaviour of disruptive editors at the close of the consultation.

Comment by Arbitrators:

I'm somewhat skeptical that this can attract the same level of community interest as content dispute RFCs have. To be frank, I only look at MOSes when I don't care about how I do something and want to go for the "ideal" version. In fact, I most often just copy the style of a similar article I like, rather than going to an MOS to answer questions. One of the reasons I don't take content through the FAC process is that I simply don't think the efforts to comply with MOS guidance actually improve the reader's experience sufficiently well to justify the effort. I'm sure I'm not alone in my non-reliance on (and hence relatively low interest in) MOS'es. Jclemens (talk) 07:41, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, the RFC on en dashes was participated in by several tens of editors; whereas this is nowhere near the hundreds of editors in RFCs about stuff like SOPA protests or Main Page redesigns, that's a large improvement compared to most discussions in the MOS in which the number of participants seldom exceeds the dozen (even though sometimes the ‘winners’ then feel and behave as if they were supported by the entire Wikipedia community). ― A. di M.​  10:06, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

This is motivated by my Proposed Findings of Fact 1 and 2, above. Noetica^Tea? 23:57, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

The specific plan need not be as Noetica outlines, but some such plan for a process to return to an orderly discussion to find a wide consensus, while minimizing the thrashing of important policy and guideline pages, would certainly be welcome. Dicklyon (talk) 01:40, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by others:

PMAnderson to be banned indefinitely

2) PMAnderson should be banned indefinitely, and the sockpuppet account with which he disrupted the Project (JCScaliger) should be deleted.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

This is motivated by my Proposed Finding of Fact 3, above. Extraordinary long-term problems – abuse of editors, of policy, of guidelines, of talkpages, and of the mechanisms of ArbCom itself – call for extraordinary long-term solutions. PMAnderson has been given every opportunity to improve his behaviour and act as a responsible member of the community. He shows no sign of doing that. Deleting the sockpuppet account will work to lessen the harm; it will make the signature appear in red wherever it occurs, alerting editors that an abuse has occurred and in some cases allowing the abuse to be countered with fresh editing or other action. Noetica^Tea? 23:57, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

I support the proposal that PMA/JCS be indef'd. His bad-faith troublemaking has been at the core of all the recent disputes; he has egged on some parties while vilifying others, stirring up way more trouble that what the parties would have done without his negative influence. With him out of the picture, I think that any reasonable plan for future discussion in these areas stands a good chance, as all the other parties act in good faith; I don't think we should have to also anticipate how to deal with him returning. Dicklyon (talk) 01:40, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by others:

PMA has edited constructively in non-style-related areas, so maybe a way to throw away the bathwater while keeping the baby would be banning him throughout en.wiki for (say) six months, and thereafter indefinitely banning him from the WP: and WT: namespaces and from requested moves and subjecting him to the 1RR. ― A. di M.​  12:14, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

A di M, he was quite justifiably topic-banned for one year, and then recently blocked for one year. Now that a string of compounded infringements comes to light, should the penalty be reduced? Even ArbCom has been egregiously manipulated. Do we settle this by metaphors? Well, some babies are scarcely to be distinguished from bathwater. Editors have been banned from the community with far less on their record than PMAnderson. I have reluctantly, after myself bearing the worst of his relentless and covert attacks, requested this ultimate sanction for him also. Noetica^Tea? 22:15, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Proposals by Neotarf

Almost everything I wanted to say can either be gotten from the diffs or has already been said better by someone else. Anything of value I can add probably comes from being a relatively new user, and therefore willing to naively suggest things that others already know "can't" be done.

1. Problems in search of a solution:

—Somehow, a user who had already disrupted the project and wasted untold hours of other peoples' time, gained access to the process once again and wrecked more havoc.

—There are untold numbers of people of all skill levels who want to participate in editing punctuation and style topics.

—While the MOS has sections on probably every punctuation topic there is, the encyclopedia itself does not always have good information. For example, there are articles on the serial comma and apostrophe, but what about titles? How are we supposed to figure out how we want to order our titles when no one has compiled the information that is already known about it? Has anyone done a survey of possible new articles that would be useful for the public?

—Disruptive users are extraordinarily hard to deal with. Limiting the disruption takes a lengthy and annoying process that few are willing to initiate. There is no anonymous "like" button or "report abuse" button. Anyone who objects to unsuitable behavior is known. The disruptive users are usually back very quickly, this time gunning for the ones who dared to say anything about their behavior. Has anyone looked at editor turnover in the topic areas where there have been repeated formal actions?

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

2. Solutions in search of a problem:

—For some reason, even though the process here has been extraordinarily frustrating for many, there are talented (devoted?) editors who are still willing to put their energy into cleaning up the mess.

—While Wikipedia may be the encyclopedia that can be edited by anyone, maybe some consideration should be given to whether the MoS is a style guide that can be edited by anyone. At a minimum, anyone who edits there should 1)know what a manual of style or an in-house style guide is 2)know how to construct a paragraph 3)know how to identify and summarize main points that other users make 4)know how to summarize their own points. Wikipedia already has various levels of permissions for administrators, why not progressive levels of permissions or invitations for commenting or editing in sensitive policy areas.

—Even the CMOS comes out with updates every year, as well as a blog that summarizes current issues and changes. The last in-house style guide I saw was in a loose-leaf notebook, not on a stone tablet. Changes to the manual should be cyclical and planned.

—It would also be nice to have some sort of documentation about the current issues and topics of discussion and how they were resolved (including minority view) besides the walls of archived text and meta-discussion in the back room.

—And we need a one- or two-page user guide (with links to lengthier discussions) that can be reviewed in less than 10 minutes for someone who just wants an overview.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Neotarf (talk) 05:24, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Proposals by Milkunderwood

I have just now accidentally stumbled upon this page, hopefully not too late; and although I participated in the discussions at Article titles, I assume I am not considered to be a "party". My view is fairly summarized in the following exchange at Wikipedia talk:Article titles/Archive 35#Request for edit, Poll, with Greg L's response:

"FWIW, I'm more and more coming to the conviction that edits to policy and guideline pages should never be made willy-nilly by any editor, however well-intended, without first posting a proposal on its talkpage, and waiting for full discussion and consensus. Even what may appear to be innocent phrasing can subtly impact the interpretation of other statements on the page." Milkunderwood (talk) 22:47, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

"I couldn’t agree more. That was the problem with the disfunction for a month: editors were inserting clever, ambiguous, wholesome-sounding changes with little-to-no discussion and others suspected that the changes had hidden meaning or were “loaded” in some way. By the time the poll had been conducted, the crucial distinction of what the two camps were really driving at was sufficiently clear so uninvolved editors could weigh in on a properly moderated poll to establish what the community consensus was really about." Greg L (talk) 22:57, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Specifically, then, I would propose that no edits at all be made to either a policy or guideline page except by an administrator, or under the direct supervision of an administrator, and then only after appropriate posting of the proposed edit, full discussion, and consensus. I have no particular problem with either of the suggestions made, above, for imposing either a word limit or a cooling-off time limit, or both, for discussion, in conjunction with this proposal. (I apologize for not formatting this section properly - I'm not sure how it's supposed to be done.) Milkunderwood (talk) 13:26, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

These are good ideas that would be improved upon if we could find a way to make policy and key guideline changes on annual review,and decision cycle where important policy issues can widely discuused and changes if required reflect wide community consensus. I think the days of the wild west wp are over. --Mike Cline (talk) 14:13, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

• Milkunderwood, it is of course not too late to participate. Thank you for your comments. AGK [•] 00:59, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Proposals by Dohn joe

Proposed principles

The spirit of Wikipedia is based on collegiality

1) The ethos of Wikipedia includes collegiality, good faith, and compromise. The mission of WP is harmed when clashing personalities repeatedly interfere with the common purpose of its volunteer editors. An atmosphere lacking collegiality, good faith, and compromise lowers morale and drives away otherwise content contributors.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Proposed findings of fact

Clashing personalities

1) Noetica, Dicklyon, and Tony1 on one side, and Pmanderson and Born2cycle on the other side, have clashed on numerous instances, in numerous venues, over a long period of time. Each one of these editors has shown a perfect capability to interact well and productively with other editors (I speak from personal experience with all except Pmanderson, with whom I don't recall any interactions), and though there have been difficulties with other editors, their interactions with each other are particularly notable for their increasing mistrust, lack of collegiality, and on ocassion, lack of civility.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Dohn Joe, first of all, you have interacted with PMAnderson, through his sockpuppet JCScaliger. (See the RM at Talk:Napoleonic Code. It is because of such confusion that I have now proposed deleting the JCScaliger account, so that the record will show red signatures and alert editors that something was amiss.) Second, it is important to distinguish "a perfect capability to interact well and productively with other editors" and "absence of seriously disruptive interaction with other editors". Those you name above are not alike in this latter respect. Let the evidence be consulted for that. Born2cycle has alleged that I somehow caused Kotniski to leave. But the evidence does not support that conclusion. I never hounded Kotniski; I was the first to thank him for his good work when he left (see WT:MOSCAPS). All I did was point out that he edited unilaterally instead of waiting for consensus to emerge (notably in a large consultation that I had started at WT:MOSCAPS, mentioned elsewhere on this page). And I asked for his apology to admin Kwamikagami (and to me!), when he accused Kwami of partisanship when he intervened to keep order at WP:TITLE – without me or anyone else requesting that he do so. Born2cycle, in contrast, relentlessly hounded admin GTBacchus. See my evidence. As a direct result, Wikipedia lost a fine admin, known for his diligence and accountability in determining RMs. Third, note that the supposed desirability and convenience of all parties being equally to blame does not make it so. A common error. ☺ Noetica^Tea? 06:24, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Also at Talk:Call to the bar, where Dohn Joe and Tony supported downcasing, and only JCS/PMA opposed. And maybe at Talk:French paradox and Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (music). Ain't Google great? Dicklyon (talk) 07:19, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by others:

I'm confused by the frequent lumping together on this page of User:Dicklyon, User:Noetica and User:Tony1. Is there an assumption that these three editors somehow form a cabal, and post in support of one another, wandering as a pack from one page to another? If so, I haven't noticed it. On the other hand, I'm relatively new to posting at Wikipedia, and have had little interaction with any of them. A general impression that I had formed of Tony's posts, where I have seen them, is that they are well thought out, well-spoken, and to the point. I'm less familiar with Dick's, and hardly at all with Noetica's. Milkunderwood (talk) 03:49, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Noetica and Tony are long-time well-known editors of MOS and TITLE; I encountered them about a year ago when we intersected on some en-dash issues. When that blew up into a dispute with Born2cycle and Pmanderson, they lumped us together and have done so since then (less than a year) (like here where B2C lumps me with them and attributes to me a view that I've never espoused). Actuallly, on searching, I find that Noetica and I had some disputes years ago, like here about a primary title and disambiguation issue; but I didn't really remember him or Tony from before the 2011 en dash encounter. Dicklyon (talk) 04:37, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Um ... I agree with Dicklyon. Sorry if this is wordy, but the question has been raised and it should be answered once and for all. It is true that Tony and I have an abiding interest in WP:MOS (the central page of the Manual of Style). We have similar views about its development and its status within Wikipedia, which I think we both see as the central repository of reasoned and consensual guidelines for style. As such, it should be developed with skill, with deep understanding of established style guides and best practice in publishing, and with as much community consultation as can be brought to bear (see the huge dash consultation of 2011, which delighted MOS specialists; it was great that Dicklyon came along to work on that). With such care and community involvement, the recommendations of MOS can be optimised for Wikipedia's unique environment: collaborative online writing and editing, largely by volunteers, many without professional writing experience. Myself, I have had less involvement with WP:TITLE. I have had run-ins with PMAnderson there, when he did his best pointedly to exclude links to WP:MOS – concerning dashes in particular. I posted on the need for a natural harmony between the two pages. There is no reason for them to conflict; and if each serves its own proper function, they do not. Apart from that (and the recent troubles that I diagnose as ownership by a very small but very zealous pressure group), my few edits at WP:TITLE have mainly been fixes in wording, linking, and layout. I have had substantial disagreements with Tony in the past (all visible in the MOS archives); and also with Dicklyon, who in my opinion posts with too much complexity at talkpages for policies and guidelines. Nevertheless, we do often contribute in the same areas to maintain excellence, and we often agree. As admin Mike Cline has had to remind Born2cycle at WT:TITLE, there's nothing wrong with working together for improvements on the Project. Dick, Tony, and I take an interest in RM discussions, where we don't always see eye to eye. I think we do agree about the role of MOS in settling the style of titles, as opposed to their wording from reliable sources and their accord with WP:TITLE. But I sometimes notice that Dicklyon drifts toward using sources that are reliable for content as if their diverse style choices were compelling for Wikipedia – which along with many other editors I regard as a categorical confusion. PMAnderson long promoted the idea of a "MOS cabal", whose membership appeared to shift from time to time, depending on what he was most affronted by. Sometimes it included Kotniski, sometimes Greg L, sometimes Kwamikagami, and so on. But working together for the common good is not to be confused with sinister manipulations such as we have seen from PMAnderson, topic-banned for his abuses and recently blocked for a year because of sockpuppetry to evade detection of those manipulations. Noetica^Tea? 05:57, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

I'll have to take you up on that cup of tea some time, as we seem to still misunderstand each other on the use of sources in caps issues. Dicklyon (talk) 07:23, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

True disruption

2) While each of these editors has been guilty of disruptive editing to some degree, the most insidious disruption to WP has come from their interaction with each other. These interactions often result in talkpage gridlock, sometimes resulting in the need for outside intervention.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Dohn Joe, please point to the evidence presented in this case that supports your assertion, for each of the editors you mean (apart from PMAnderson, over whom there is little disagreement). Looking over the evidence concerning me, I find nothing of any weight at all. Please consider the actual diffs, and their context; and please take note of responses in my own section on the Evidence page. Noetica^Tea? 06:03, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Looking now at Talk:Napoleonic Code/Archive 1#New request to move, I get the definite impression that Noetica can be verbose, argumentative, and testy. I don't know whether this counts as "disruptive editing", but it did appear to come close to "talkpage gridlock". But perhaps the same could be said of me, for instance at Talk:Piano Sonata No. 14 (Beethoven)#Requested move et seq, as Dohn joe can no doubt affirm. Milkunderwood (talk) 07:56, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

First, that page has not been linked in evidence, so it could not be used in forming ArbCom's decisions. Second, sure! I can make walls of text with the best of them. I do so less and less now. At that RM such profligacy was not out of place, I think. There were detailed submissions on all sides. As you can see, I took the rare step of withdrawing my opposition to the move, when I was persuaded by argument (from Kotniski) that this was the best course of action. You can also see that no one else was in the slightest moved by argument or evidence. Since I have specialist knowledge concerning proper names (one element in the case), and no one seemed at all interested in acknowledging or even noticing the expert testimony I presented, yes: I grew irritated. The provocations of a sockpuppet whose raison d'être was to achieve my demise on Wikipedia did nothing to help, of course. Noetica^Tea? 08:48, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

• I went to that page only because you yourself had referenced it, above. Prior to that, the most posts of yours I have seen are on this present page.
• I'm not at all familiar with these Arb procedures, but now your pointing out that that page had not been linked in evidence, I see that 1) "Evidence closes 12 February 2012", long before I was aware of this Arbitration request, but 2) "Arbitrators may analyze evidence and other assertions at /Workshop". However, you may well be correct.
• In that latter move discussion I find 5 posts made by "JCScaliger", all brief and seemingly, to me, not disruptive; 15 posts made by Wikiain, the original movant; and 38 posts made by you. Yes, I do see that you withdrew your opposition, in what appears to be your 31st post there.
• "Since I have specialist knowledge concerning proper names (one element in the case), and no one seemed at all interested in acknowledging or even noticing the expert testimony I presented ...": To me this is the most interesting point - I have long wondered about the proper role at Wikipedia for specialist knowledge and expert testimony. Perhaps someone can clarify this for me.

Milkunderwood (talk) 10:23, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

No problem, Milkunderwood. If Arbitrators did choose to examine that page, I would have not the slightest objection. But I would want a right to answer any questions. I don't think there is anything untoward. As you can see, I was assiduous in responding, and scrupulously attentive to detail; I suggested that the discussion might serve as a case study for future examination (my reference there to "common law"). In particular, the matter of proper names is crucial to get right. See my later initiative at WT:MOSCAPS (motivated by uncertainties in several hopelessly muddled and interminable discussions, including at WT:MOS concerning names of birds, in which I did not take part). That initiative was disrupted by editing of WP:MOSCAPS by PMAnderson (as JCScaliger). Now, I do not say that the posts from sockpuppet JCScaliger at the RM concerning "Napoleonic Code" were obviously disruptive. Soon after, "JCScaliger" came to my talkpage in a way that topic-banned PMAnderson would certainly not have. Reviewing the action at that time, I observe how PMAnderson was attempting to deceive and to gain trust by subtle means. But his full unmodulated fury can be seen in his sock submission on the main (initial) page for this case, and especially in his proposals that have been struck out on this Workshop page. Noetica^Tea? 21:58, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

In this age of sound bites, it's refreshing to see a conversation that can focus on one topic and discuss it in detail, even if it takes the reader an entire pot of very strong tea to get through it. That advances understanding of the issues much more than all the bickering about consensus and personalities, the rephrasing of things that have already been said many times over, or sentences that consist of nothing but links to policy pages. Neotarf (talk) 06:23, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Of course it is refreshing; but in reading through comments posted here by different users, and especially at this 2007 discussion Talk:Gamut#Dab link (it's quite long, but very revealing) linked by Dicklyon, above, I'm struck by how a user's personality can say much more to a reader than does the specific text posted. I'm starting to think that most of these disputes are really about personality clashes. Milkunderwood (talk) 07:28, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Interesting that even then they were not agreed on the use of the disambiguation page as a primary topic. But now the debate seems to rely less on rhetorical devices and more on tools like n-grams and page-view statistics; for instance, Talk:Baden (disambiguation). Neotarf (talk) 10:20, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

It does seem silly in light of such discussions to lump me and Noetica together as pushing for the same policy. We were pretty much talking past each other at the time, but we've both had 5 years to mature and understand each other since then. It turns out we did have a PRIMARYNAME at that time, but I was unaware of it, and perhaps he was, too (his first and only edit there being over 4 years later), so this most relevant point of policy never got properly discussed at the time. Dicklyon (talk) 16:11, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

My purpose is not to draw attention to issues of content or policy here. It's simply my observation that when these editors converge on talk pages - through whatever policy or content dispute - discussions turn personal, the talkpages bog down, and general editor morale decreases. Personality is the issue. Indeed, as we saw with "JCScaliger", Noetica and Dicklyon were able to interact civilly with him - until they found out he was actually Pmanderson, and they "should" have been upset with him all along. Maybe the solution is to force people to switch usernames every year or two. That way, they wouldn't know who they held a grudge against.... Dohn joe (talk) 21:46, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

You're being absurd. Did my behavior toward JCScaliger change when we found out who he was? No, I haven't behaved toward him at all since he was banned, other than to hat some of his disruptive comments. And did I ever behave badly toward Pmanderson? Not that I recall. And as I pointed out already, we've had 5 years under the bridge since the one conversation that you're reading so much into. Dicklyon (talk) 21:52, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

I think you did change your view of JCS - unless you thought those hatted comments were disruptive at the time they were made. If you did, then I take it back. If you didn't consider them disruptive at the time, though, then it was likely because the perception of "JCS" differed from that of "PMA" among those who interacted with both. Again, my point is that it's the personalities here - in combination - that get in the way of collegial discussions. Dohn joe (talk) 22:10, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

My view of JCScaliger was always quite low, from when he started interfering in so many downcasing moves, out of nowhere, and then started adding to the mess at TITLE. But I don't think my behavior toward him, in either of his personas, was ever incivil or disruptive, which is what you seemed to be saying. Dicklyon (talk) 22:26, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Dohn joe, I accorded "JCScaliger" the usual assumption of good faith, and welcomed him civilly when he came to my talkpage for the customary cup of tea. But if you check the record, I too grew impatient with him well before he was unmasked as PMAnderson. Looking back, we see the same old evasions and refusals to answer fair questions, the same old slogans, the same old opportunistic alliances to suit his agenda – regardless of whether he genuinely shared the views of those he sought to ingratiate himself with. Those "friendships of convenience" include Born2cycle, Kotniski, and WhatamIdoing (who as I write has been re-inserting her own favoured view in policy at WP:CONSENSUS – of all places – in a way earlier abetted by "JCScaliger" for his own disruptive purposes). It's hard to fathom the depth of PMAnderson's deceits if you have not been long familiar with them; and newer victims are often reluctant to admit how thoroughly they have been duped. That remains as a legacy of success for him. He has influenced opinion, in this case especially. Allowance should be made for that.

Noetica^Tea? 22:45, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

You know, I'm not sure anyone is even listening to all this - the cutoff for comments was almost 24 hours ago. Milkunderwood (talk) 22:33, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Not so. The revised cutoff is the end of 26 February, which by UTC is still a little way off (as I write).

Noetica^Tea? 22:45, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Proposed remedies

Monitor their interactions

1) A mixture of self-policing and community monitoring is called for. Assign an admin or ArbCom member to act as a parole officer. When the parties themselves, or others in the community, see indications of negative interaction, that behavior will be reported. The knowledge that someone (and indeed, many people) is aware of and monitoring their interactions with each other will go a long way to reducing the number of interactions, and ensuring that the interactions that do occur will be more civil.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

I see no warrant at all for such "parole" (as if the parties in question had all been found guilty of something, and were as a first recourse to be ostracised). Let individual sources of disruptiveness be dealt with. Speaking for myself (as is proper here), I have threatened no one, at any time. When I was threatened and bullied on my own talkpage, and at many other places, I withdrew. I left the most problematic page. See my evidence: I left WT:TITLE two months ago, on 30 December; and I have stayed away entirely since then. I want no conflict. A real, besetting danger: editors who stand up to abuses and make the hard calls to counter non-consensual edits are put at risk. If sanctions are clumsily imposed on them, editors will not be inclined to stand up, but meekly accept manipulation of Wikipedia's policy pages. I seriously doubt that ArbCom would want that as an outcome. Because I stood up to PMAnderson most effectively, he has steadfastly and vindictively worked against me by the most devious means available. If you had an inkling of how he strove to weaken MOS at every opportunity, believe me: you would want someone to stand up to him. We are faced with a similar situation here, though of course apart from PMAnderson himself (disguised as a sockpuppet) none of the parties comes close to his level of disruptiveness. Noetica^Tea? 06:45, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Proposals by David Fuchs

Proposed principles

Editorial process

1) Wikipedia works by building consensus. This is done through the use of polite discussion—involving the wider community, if necessary—and dispute resolution, rather than through disruptive editing. Editors are each responsible for noticing when a debate is escalating into an edit war, and for helping the debate move to better approaches by discussing their differences rationally. Edit-warring, whether by reversion or otherwise, is prohibited; this is so even when the disputed content is clearly problematic, with only a few exceptions. Revert rules should not be construed as an entitlement or inalienable right to revert, nor do they endorse reverts as an editing technique.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Drawn from the Ayn Rand RfArb, it nonetheless can be applied to non-article content. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 19:28, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Looks good... --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 21:43, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Comment by others:

The Manual of Style

2) Style guides are used as a means of creating a consistent end result. It does not affect content, but rather how that content is presented. The English Wikipedia's Manual of Style (MoS) is a guideline, or a set of "best practices" supported by consensus. The MoS is not a collection of hard rules.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Looks good... --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 21:44, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Role of the Manual of Style

3) The Manual of Style encourages consistency to prevent edit-warring over matters of presentation and style. Editors are expected to defer to consensus regarding the accepted style for articles they edit, instead of broadly applying MoS-appropriate styles to all articles.

Comment by Arbitrators:

This is drawn from Masem's "en.wiki's Manyal of Style aims to prevent edit warring over trivial matters" entry on the Workshop. It elucidates the key difference between MoS and other style guides and the ostensible role it should have in cooling disputes rather than creating them.

Thanks for your comments. My point was not to say it's merely an essay. It does seem a little unclear, I'll work on revising this. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 22:51, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Looks good... --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 21:44, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

I thought the MOS was a record of consensus. This principle appears to conflict with WP:LOCALCONSENSUS. Am I misunderstanding?? Jojalozzo 02:20, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Proposals like this seem to be saying the Manual of Style should be used only for your WP:OWN article, so the Manual amounts to an essay. So why bother with the Manual of Style at all, if it's just more text to look at, like the rest of the Internet? My essay on that subject Art LaPella (talk) 00:43, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

A second proposed FOF I'd made pointed out that the MOS has points of flexibility, such as the use of US/UK spelling or the type of citation format. This allows the MOS to be flexible given the breadth of topics that we cover, but also maintains an intra-consistent framework of expected style/format approaches to make WP as a whole easy to use for the end reader. EG: We give editors two overall choices for citations: superscript inline, or parenthetical inline, and withe the choice of formatting the citations up to the page editors as long as it is internally consistent; to the reader, this appears nicely transparent, making it very easy to know what the inline cite is calling to, where to look on the page for the reference, and how to inteprete the reference, even if multiple decisions have been made by editors for that.

Basically, it is not an anarchy of styles (eg the OWN aspects mentioned), but orchestrated variation. When the MOS, or the enforcement of the MOS, threatens that, the MOS is not serving its purpose correctly. --MASEM (t) 01:02, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Nice essay, Art. I agree. This seems to be a novel theory, somewhat contrary to a widely supported guidline: "Editors are expected to defer to consensus regarding the accepted style for articles they edit, instead of broadly applying MoS-appropriate styles to all articles." Dicklyon (talk) 00:52, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

This seems to be self-contradictory—or it's just too hard to make out what it means. Depending on what the meaning actually is, the question may become whether (i) the "principle" is useful for the project (and by implication, whether there's anything significantly wrong in the historical role of WP's guidelines), and (ii) whether it's within the committee's remit to make political/governance decisions on the relationship between guidelines and articles, rather than leaving such matters to the community to decide. Methinks it's well beyond the "behavioural" remit, actually. Tony (talk) 08:00, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

A core issue of this dispute is how some view the MOS as stronger than a guideline (and in some cases, policy) when it is only a guideline via the current community consensus and page tagging. It is well within Arbcom's ability to judge behavior of editors in light of this factor. --MASEM (t) 13:40, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

You could use that argument for ArbCom to become GovCom on any issue. I doubt there would be community support for that. Tony (talk) 14:24, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

But no one has asked ArbCom to establish any changes to how MOS should be handled (policy/guideline/whatever), only to affirm/establish what the community currently treats the MOS as, and to consider the behavioral issues in light of that current standing. It is important to this case whether the MOS is policy or guideline or something else, so that needs a FOF or statement of principal to establish that point, but that's not the same as a remedy or course of action. --MASEM (t) 14:52, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Policy and guidelines

4) A higher standard for participation and consensus exists for changes to policies and guidelines, per Wikipedia:Consensus#Level of consensus.

Comment by Arbitrators:

In the spirit of Jojalozzo. While the MoS is a guideline, its place as such should be recognized. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 19:28, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Looks good... --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 21:45, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

I agree. Tony (talk) 11:26, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Good faith and disruption

5) Behavior that violates Wikipedia's policies, even if driven by good intentions, is still inappropriate. Editors acting in good faith may still be sanctioned when their actions are disruptive.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Also in spirit from Ayn Rand. I think the evidence shows that most parties involved strongly believe in their viewpoints, but genuine good faith can still lead to conflict. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 15:08, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Yes, but perhaps a rider that prior warnings are yet more appropriate where problematic behaviour is presumed to be in good faith? I guess admins do usually warn, but maybe a "last chance" warning should be explicitly required unless there's a compelling reason for haste? Tony (talk) 03:35, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Proposed findings of fact

Manual of Style as unique style guide

1) The English Wikipedia Manual of Style has been built from a number of pre-existing Manuals from numerous fields. The best practices from these have been combined to create a single, unique MOS that applies to articles on the English Wikipedia.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Drawn in whole from Masem's proposed FoF. A good leadoff.

Comment by parties:

Looks good... --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 21:46, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes. Tony (talk) 11:27, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Surely the purpose of any manual of style is to promote excellence in writing. Since Wikipedia is international in scope, and its editors come from both sides of the pond, as well as both northern and southern hemispheres, the Wikipedia Manual of Style does not follow any one style guide. It does address some of the same issues all style guides address, such as commas, but is unique in that it deals in electronic print rather than physical typeface, and especially because it is utilized extensively by search engines.

Style guides promote the ideal--it is simply not possible for every word produced by every institution with an official style guide to conform exactly to that guide. Something written in haste, or under a deadline, may simply be a best effort based on common sense, common practice, and past familiarity with other style guides. Academians may care more about the content of a paper than with the format recommended by their institution. Newspaper hacks may not have a copy of their style manual laying around and in a pinch may have to rely on someone's memory of how the manual handles a particular style issue. But sooner or later most writers realize that it's not always what you say, it's how you say it, and they search for ways to present their ideas in ways that are most likely to gain acceptance. Especially for more formal and for published works, like dissertations, they turn to someone who can do a close edit with the pertinent style manual in mind. I would imagine the same to be true for Wikipedia: for breaking news or in the case of a new article, the initial goal is to get the information available to the public as quickly as possible. Then, as time permits, the piece acquires more polish, and in the case of a featured article, may undergo scrutiny by more than one editor. Neotarf (talk) 14:46, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Locus of dispute

2) This dispute concerns contentious edits to the MoS and article naming pages that has been occurring sporadically for years. The sparking incident that resulted in this RfAr was a rapid series of edits at WP:TITLE.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

• To clarify, the evidence shows that the initial edit of the recognizability wording at WP:TITLE (by yours truly) was accompanied by a simultaneous explanation at WT:TITLE, and that those reverting never addressed a single point made in that explanation despite countless repeated efforts by myself and others to engage them in discussion about that. Over and over, discussion showed that there was clear consensus support for the edit, but they insisted on reverting and creating a general air of disagreement, even though no substantive disagreement existed. What is one to do in such a situation? The disruptive stonewalling continued for over a month, and only finally ended when Elen unlocked the page to allow the edit and threatened anyone who reverted the edit with a block. And that was it. It's over. While there is some discussion by a few about further changes, there is no evidence of strong consensus in favor of any particular change, certainly nothing related to recognizability.

  If everyone involved had followed WP:CONSENSUS, the initial edit would never have been reverted. Instead, there would have been discussion about the explanation, everyone would agree consensus agrees with the edit, and that would have been that. It should have been over in a matter of hours. But instead it took a month. This is the kind of frustrating experience that drives editors like Kotniski away. It's not because we don't have good behavioral rules. It's because the rules (in this case WP:CONSENSUS, WP:DE, Wikipedia:Reverting#Explain_reverts, Wikipedia:Revert only when necessary) are not enforced, and therefore not respected. --Born2cycle (talk) 03:19, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Pmanderson

3) Pmanderson disrupted MoS-related discussions through the use of a sockpuppet and named party, JCScaliger.

Comment by Arbitrators:

While Pmanderson has been sanctioned by the community, I think it bears bringing up here as he was a party to the case.

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Born2cycle

4) Born2cycle's editing on the disputed pages and related subjects has hampered efforts at resolution, specifically by excessive responses and not following the spirit of WP:BRD.

Comment by Arbitrators:

I'm somewhat hesitant about this one as I don't want to say writing a lot is a crime, but it seems clear from the evidence provided it was not helping in the slightest, particularly in editorializing in userspace[User talk:Born2cycle/dicklyon]. Born2cycle is also the only party whose actions have been commented upon significantly with evidence, while other issues were referred to but did not contain diffs or relevant links to the material.

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Proposed remedies

All parties reminded

1) All parties are reminded to avoid personalizing the MoS disputes, and to work collegiately towards a workable consensus. In particular, a rapid cycle of editing the pages to reflect one's viewpoint, then discussing the changes is disruptive and should be avoided: carefully consider edits to MoS pages and to explain all changes promptly on the talk page.

Comment by Arbitrators:

There have been a lot of missteps around the table, and while a few merit being called out as FoF, this is a group issue as well. I prefer a general reminder rather than singling out parties because I don't think per-person remedies (beyond what has already occurred) are likely to address the issue any more than punt it down the road or silence one side. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 15:46, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Consensus building at WT:TITLE

2) Interested parties are instructed to spend the next 21 days from the closure of the case to determine the phrasing of WP:TITLE to obtain consensus on the disputed passages. This may be the continuation of a current discussion or new thread. From that date, a period of five weeks is granted for the gathering of consensus on the issue. The discussion should be of sufficient structure to allow easy quantification of consensus rather than a large amount of poorly-framed debate. Parties are encouraged to focus edits on forming consensus rather than edits to the policy page itself.

Comment by Arbitrators:

As there is not much in the way of actionable evidence since much of the dispute deals with content or presentation thereof, my thought is to try a similar method to the endashes motion and set a defined window for gathering consensus. There have been a lot of issues with "no, this poll wasn't valid, this one is", as mentioned in the evidence, and setting up one more discussion to lead to something more authoritative where everyone can participate seems a good option. I am hopeful in the direction discussion on WT:TITLE has meandered towards. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 15:46, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Analysis of evidence

SarekOfVulcan's evidence

SarakOfVulcan, I'm not sure how you intended your submission sub-section Dicklyon polling to be interpreted. Please could you expand on the argument of that specific section?

Comment by Arbitrators:

Requested SarekOfVulcan to analyse his evidence and clarify its meaning. AGK [•] 00:58, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

@AGK: I was wondering, too. Here's what happened: PBS and Greg L on that talk page said my survey was disruptive and pointy, which surprised me. As you recall, I asked the arbs first, with reference to a draft on my user subpage, to say if it seemed like an OK thing to do, as the last thing I wanted was to be seen as provoking or causing disruption; all three said OK. The survey served a good purpose, in clarifying that nobody supported the extreme interpretation that I was afraid was what B2C intended; some editors (e.g. SMcCandlish) stated in the poll discussion section that the poll was helpful, and many expressed a range of opinions differing from what was previously claimed to be a "unanimous" consensus. That could have been the end of it, but then in spite of these results B2C declared that the extreme interpretation was indeed valid! So I asked again if anyone agreed with him (see Wikipedia talk:Article titles/Archive 35#Whither Recognizability?). By this time, nobody wanted to go near this conversation, except for PBS who wanted to say it was disruptive like he had done with the poll (it's funny that he was the guy who twice reverted Kotniski's revision that inserted the phrase in question!); B2C answered obliquely, too. No disruption, just some attempt at eliciting of opinions. As far as I can tell, nobody supports B2C's interpretation of what happened, or of what the words he inserted mean in terms of policy. This is what I'm trying to ascertain, as it has a lot to do with where the conversation needs to go next. As you can see at WT:TITLE, he's not getting much support for his radical re-interpretation of "precision", either, where he wants to make what has always been a positive attribute of a title into a negative attribute.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Dicklyon (talk • contribs) 07:37, 24 February 2012 (UTC). Comment moved from arbitrators' section; @AGK added to show context. Unsigned template added too. AGK [•] 19:41, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

I meant to show that Dicklyon was ignoring a 16-0 poll in favor of a particular wording and starting his own poll excluding that wording, but GregL specifically said If someone objects to the rules for participating in this poll and chooses to not be bound by them, they are welcome to start their own poll.. So, even though I still think it was disruptive, I won't comment further. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 15:39, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

"Ignoring" is the opposite of what I was doing by trying to see how those 16 (and others) would divide up on a different dimension. It turns out they didn't divide, and none (of those who responded) supported the extreme interpretation that Born2cycle claimed. Dicklyon (talk) 22:46, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Analysis by PhilKnight of evidence presented by Born2cycle

Looking specifically at the evidence that Tony, Dicklyon, Noetica engage in disruptive editing.

• [6] - Vague reference to a talk page, instead of a diff. To demonstrate a view is against consensus, a closed RfC would be appropriate.

• [7] - not even remotely problematic.

• [8] - this cannot in any sense be construed as evidence that Tony, Dicklyon, Noetica engage in disruptive editing.

• Talk:Colombiana#Requested_move_2 - disagreement isn't the same as disruption.

• [9] [10] [11] corrected - Some page moves by Tony which involve changing title cases. Moving three articles, and having one of the changes reverted isn't especially serious.

• [12] [13] - Creating an article, and moving another to disambiguate the page. Again, not usually considered especially problematic actions.

• [14] reverted [15] reverted - Slightly more concerning.

Overall, I don't consider the evidence above that Tony, Dicklyon, Noetica have engaged in disruptive editing to be convincing. The only area of concern is making 'bold' page moves that get reverted, which can presumably be resolved by going through Request for Moves. PhilKnight (talk) 03:22, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:

@ Noetica - I'll look through your evidence shortly, and if needed revisit my earlier assessment. PhilKnight (talk) 00:44, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

@ Dicklyon - I suggest you present evidence to demonstrate this assertion. PhilKnight (talk) 14:33, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

I replaced my guestimates with some sample statistics, but I don't know a good way to present that as evidence. Dicklyon (talk) 17:14, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

PhilKnight - the first reference is vague because the relevant section has been moved since I cited it. Here it is [16].

I did not mean for any one of the citations to be an example of disruptive evidence in and of itself; it's all of them taken in aggregate. For example, the point of the RM citation is to demonstrate yet another situation in which they are the only ones to hold a particular opinion. That in and of itself in that one incident is not disruptive, but the fact that things like that happen over and over, and they continue to revert, move pages, etc., without acknowledging that the basis by which they are operating does not have consensus support, is disruptive. It's the epitome of WP:IDHT, a form of WP:DE. --Born2cycle (talk) 03:53, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Philknight, thank you for that analysis. I suggest that, when you examine my own evidence, you will find that the two edits you here judge "slightly more concerning" are perfectly innocent (see my first point on the Evidence page). I rarely move pages at all; my log shows just thirteen article moves since I started editing in 2005. As I explain, the first move Born2cycle notes was a reversion of an incorrect move by an inexperienced editor (who later apologised), two days into an RM for the article in question. It was certainly not "reverted"; the RM simply followed its correct course, and was duly closed by an admin. The second of those moves involved a problematic article that a few of us worked together to sort out. I explain my action in my evidence, including how I next promptly started an RM with all the issues laid out for consideration. The problem we were all concerned about was solved, and the RM was correctly closed. It is remarkable that Born2cycle should adduce such evidence, which as I have shown is no indication of disruption at all. Quite the contrary. Noetica^Tea? 04:24, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

I make MANY bold moves, mostly for MOS reasons of hyphens, dashes, or caps (16 in January, 26 in December, 34 in November, 31 in October according to my count from my contribs). A few get reverted (maybe 1% or so One in January, Average directional movement index, one in December, True strength index, none in Nov., and one in Oct French Penal Code of 1791). Both of the financial index reverts were by a participant in this proceedings, Amatulic, who wants a local exception for capitalization of financial indicators. And the other was by JCScaliger, socking for Pmanderson who was forbidden to comment on such things. Is this disruptive? Dicklyon (talk) 05:58, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Let's look at what happened at Naranjal District in detail, since this is such a good example of the WP:IDHT disruption that Noetica causes, denies (as he did above), and with which I was completely uninvolved. The evidence shows that Noetica moved this article from Naranjal District to Naranjal District, Paraguay on 22:44, January 15, 2012 [17], and that this was reversed 10:31, January 30, 2012. No one denies this, but Noetica claims that he was simply reverting what he believed to be "an incorrect move by an inexperienced editor". An RM request was made on January 13 by Felipe Montero (talk · contribs) with argument, "I found no other district by that name Naranjal." [18]. Clearly implied in that argument is that since there is no other "Naranjal District", this one should be at Naranjal District.

Two days later Rennell435 (talk · contribs) agrees with the obvious argument, and since nobody has objected, apparently knowing only as precise as necessary has consensus support and so boldly closes the discussion and moves the article accordingly with edit summary "unneeded disambiguation".

Now, at this point two editors are involved, both expressing an argument that is clearly consistent with long-held broad consensus, and have acted accordingly. That would have been the end of it, on January 15th, if it were not for Noetica's disruption.

At 22:44, January 15, 2012, Noetica simultaneously reverts the move[19] and closed discussion[20] [21] for no substantive reason (only procedural - that it was a premature non-admin close). His Oppose argument[22] is nonsense, based on the fact that "Naranjal" is ambiguous as made evident by the Naranjal dab page, which completely ignores the fact that this ambiguity is handled by having the word "District" in the title. This is confirmed by the litany of Support votes that trickle in over the next 2 weeks, until finally the discussion is closed on February 30 and the article is moved to Naranjal District per consensus support (as if that wasn't clear before the proposal was made), with Noetica as the lone opposing voice. Note that virtually the same thing happened at San Alberto District (See Talk:San_Alberto_District and the history of that article).

How many times does this kind of thing have to happen to Noetica before WP:IDHT applies to him regarding his minority view about titles?

Now let's look at the second example, Public Achievement. That article has always been at Public Achievement, except for a disruptive period last October.

• unexplained move by Tony1 (talk · contribs) to Public achievement (US civic scheme) on October 4, 2011[23].
• Corrected by Enric Naval (talk · contribs) on October 21, 2011 [24] (with sensible explanatory and substantive reasoning: "nothing to disambiguate from, can't be confused with any existing article").
• Reverted by Noetica a few hours later[25] with inexplicable justification: "Title was nowhere near precise or informative enough". Note that there is no ambiguity with any other use in WP - so how is it "nowhere near precise enough"? No matter how many times these guys are asked this question about such assertions, they never answer, but repeat it over and over again.
• Week-long RM discussion resulting in move back to original title [26].

Here again, if it wasn't for Tony's disruptive move on October 4, or Noetica's disruptive revert of Naval's correction on October 21, all the disruption could have been averted. The issues with the article itself had nothing to do with the title.

So, again I ask: just how many times does this kind of thing have to occur before it is recognized that Noetica, Tony and Dicklyon engage in WP:IDHT disruption when it comes to their minority view about titles needing to be more descriptive than necessary for disambiguation from other uses within WP? I suggest that whatever numerical answer is given to that question, if it is reasonable, it has been exceeded many times over. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:25, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Response to Born2cycle's late submission in the analysis of evidence

1. Naranjal District

Born2cycle likes to make cryptic references to WP:IDHT. I keep having to look it up. For those of us who are not wikilawyers, that's a shorter variant of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT, which takes us to a section headed "Failure or refusal to 'get the point' ", at the behavioural guideline Wikipedia:Disruptive editing. So it is alleged that I "fail to get the point". I deny it absolutely.

The allegation comes well after the stated time for closing this Workshop page, just as Born2cycle's submission at the Evidence page came late. This sort of thing causes great and unfair inconvenience. I have not behaved in such a way. I object to being treated in a way that appears to game the system, and seeks to disallow a fair response.

The account that Born2cycle gives – the best he can manage, from my short career of just thirteen moves – is incomplete, even though it gives additional evidence that does not belong on this page, by ArbCom's rules. He does not show this exchange, where the matter is collegially addressed at a user's talkpage. By me.

His account is predicated entirely on his own narrow and mechanical view of title choices, which works against the very idea of RMs being decided by free-ranging discussion toward titles to assist the readers. His zealously promoted worldview is at the root of the difficulties addressed in this case.

When I was able to restore due process for the RM that had been started by Felipe Montero, I made a submission, with this text:

"See other entries at the DAB page Naranjal. Especially considering the uncertainty of translated names for geopolitical entities like districts, departments, counties, cantons, and so on, it is not helpful to readers to omit a qualifier. Retaining 'Paraguay' is the present case immediately helps readers find what they are looking for."

Born2cycle dismisses this as "nonsense", above:

"... nonsense, based on the fact that 'Naranjal' is ambiguous as made evident by the Naranjal dab page, which completely ignores the fact that this ambiguity is handled by having the word 'District' in the title."

Which completely ignores the substantive reason that I gave and that I quote here (especially concerning translated terms, a matter of which I have expert knowledge). We might reflect also that the best prima facie evidence for a term's ambiguity is the existence of a disambiguation page for it! It is plain wrong to assert that my reversal of a non-admin RM was disruptive, or even that it was "only procedural" (as if that would have been disruptive, anyway). I wanted to join the RM discussion, and did. With evidence and a reason.

Born2cycle rhetorically distorts the facts with talk of a "litany of Support votes". First, so what if there were an avalanche of disagreement with my position? What are RMs for, if not to weigh opinions? Unlike Born2cycle with his endless protestations when things don't go his way in an RM (entraining the loss to the Project of admin GTBacchus, let's remember), I do not contest a duly decided RM. Second, there was no "litany of Support votes": there were three, including the editor who closed the RM prematurely and against the established protocols.

There is an abundance of other detail to counter in the same vein; but Born2cycle's late and irregular evidence on Naranjal District is sufficiently exposed for what it is, without further ado.

2. Public Achievement

Here I again must be selective, since Born2cycle goes on at such length. Again he presents evidence (unfairly late, improperly on this page) interpreted as if his view of titling were the only reasonable one, enjoying the approval of all sane editors throughout the Project. He uses language like "inexplicable justification", "corrected", "original title" (when several were in question), "except for a disruptive period", "disruptive move". This might be all right, in its place. But it is not accompanied by careful and complete analysis to show that there is anything at all wrong in the process. He cannot claim both that the evil trio of Tony, Dicklyon, and Noetica work covertly together for the demise of a universally accepted code for title decisions (his own, I mean), and at the same time accommodate the plain facts: it is I who initiated the RM that Born2cycle speaks of, to get a wide, overt, and collegial discussion. I make that clear in my evidence (on the Evidence page, where it belongs). And the matter was dealt with in the RM, and everyone was happy. I am not answerable for the decisions others made about that title; I took action to get it resolved collegially.

So, WP:IDHT? "I didn't hear that?" Well, Born2cycle needs to hear that there are views other than his own, and he does not hear them. Nor, it seems, is he happy for them to be heard by others. Since we are bringing new evidence, let's look at this special pleading by Born2cycle at an RM, against his imagined evil trio (whose error is to have an opinion different from his own). I highlight by underlining:

"Comment for closing admin - as of right now, there are only four editors who are opposed to this move, and at least three of them (Noetica, Tony and Dicklyon) consistently oppose such moves, and generally favor titles that are predisambiguated. Just one example of a discussion in which they tried to make their argument is here. They know that general consensus disagrees with them, but they keep trying to buck tradition in relatively obscure discussions like this one. Since there are three or four of them, often that's enough to persuade an admin into thinking there is no consensus. The fact is that policy and practice indicates we only disambiguate when necessary for, well, disambiguation. No one has argued that there is something about this case that should make it an exception to standard policy and convention. I hereby request that their !votes be discounted accordingly, and for general consensus, as reflected in policy and practice, to be given more weight."

That's from a requested move. Born2cycle thinks he has a special right of appeal to admins who decide RMs. He objects that there is an opinion different from his own: when people systematically disagree with him, and "try to make their argument" at the correct talkpage for doing just that. He confuses tradition and Born2cycle's preferred way. And he wants votes and arguments that disagree with him to be "discounted" [sic]. The dissonance is remarkable. On the one hand he insists on policy that he agrees with being followed without any dissent, anywhere; on the other hand, he acts against established procedures for RMs (see my evidence, and see the cases discussed above), and contests endlessly the duly settled decisions of admins. See the continuation of the RM from which I quote Borncycle, just now. His view did not win out, and we can read the contestation following that calamity. It spills into a new section below the RM.

I hope we will see no more of this late discussion, well beyond the stated deadline. For myself, I have spent 90 minutes (in the early morning, here in Australia) addressing this scurrilous abuse. I need to turn my mind to other things, now – like the floods that threaten in the next couple of days in my area. Something of real concern, rather than any untimely and disruptive flood of partisan text.

Noetica^Tea? 20:40, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Since Noetica brings up Talk:Catholic Memorial School (West Roxbury, Massachusetts) I'll respond to that. I urge ARBCOM to look at that discussion carefully. As the discussion shows, in the end, there was significant interest to challenge that "no consensus" decision, but consensus seemed to be that it's not important enough to bother. However, Noetica's response above, citing it as a case to disprove my assertion that the titles should only be as precise as necessary precision has broad community consensus, suggests what's harmful about decisions like that that are contrary to broad community consensus - they are misused as examples and precedent, as Noetica just did here, and used as an excuse to effectively deny what policy and community consensus has said about titles for years. --Born2cycle (talk) 22:31, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

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