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When I confronted Tony1 [[User_talk:Enric_Naval/Archive_7#No|here]], he didn't find any problem with his behaviour, and he said that he couldn't be blamed for the departure because the editor didn't make explicit reference to him when departing. |
When I confronted Tony1 [[User_talk:Enric_Naval/Archive_7#No|here]], he didn't find any problem with his behaviour, and he said that he couldn't be blamed for the departure because the editor didn't make explicit reference to him when departing. |
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Dicklyon then tried a "compromise" by inserting the hyphen anyways, after the RM |
Dicklyon then tried a "compromise" by inserting the hyphen anyways, after Tony1 failing to subvert the result of [[Talk:Nova_Scotia_Duck_Tolling_Retriever#Requested_move|this RM]] [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nova_Scotia_Duck_Tolling_Retriever&diff=444992058&oldid=444975085]. This keeps happening all the time, this small group of editors supporting each other, and trying every excuse to cram their preferred version into articles and into MOS pages. This sort of behaviour burns out good editors, like [[User:Kotnisky]] (as commented in JCScaliger's statement). |
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In [[User_talk:Tony1/Archive_12#About_your_edits_of_Flue-gas_emissions_from_fossil-fuel_combustion|this other complain]] you have Tony1 telling an expert that he doesn't know how to spell names in his profession. Several editors disagree and say that the edit is mistaken, and against reliable sources. Tony1 refuses to change his mind, Dicklyon changes the rest of the article anyways[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Flue-gas_emissions_from_fossil-fuel_combustion&action=historysubmit&diff=468688858&oldid=468293050]. After [[Talk:Chief_Mechanical_Engineer#Requested_move|this RM]] failed, Tony1, Dicklyon <s>and Noetica</s>(*) kept badgering in the talk page, trying to force the renaming anyways, rebuffing all arguments by expert editors that were familiar with the sources. Small examples of the usual problem: a small group of determined editors edit areas where they have no expertise, and rebuff the advice of experts and the usage in reliable sources. Expert editors give up in despair and stop trying to correct articles in their area of expertise. '''I suspect that this causes a slow and semi-invisible bleeding of expert editors.''' |
In [[User_talk:Tony1/Archive_12#About_your_edits_of_Flue-gas_emissions_from_fossil-fuel_combustion|this other complain]] you have Tony1 telling an expert that he doesn't know how to spell names in his profession. Several editors disagree and say that the edit is mistaken, and against reliable sources. Tony1 refuses to change his mind, Dicklyon changes the rest of the article anyways[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Flue-gas_emissions_from_fossil-fuel_combustion&action=historysubmit&diff=468688858&oldid=468293050]. After [[Talk:Chief_Mechanical_Engineer#Requested_move|this RM]] failed, Tony1, Dicklyon <s>and Noetica</s>(*) kept badgering in the talk page, trying to force the renaming anyways, rebuffing all arguments by expert editors that were familiar with the sources. Small examples of the usual problem: a small group of determined editors edit areas where they have no expertise, and rebuff the advice of experts and the usage in reliable sources. Expert editors give up in despair and stop trying to correct articles in their area of expertise. '''I suspect that this causes a slow and semi-invisible bleeding of expert editors.''' |
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(*) (Tony1 asked Noetica to participate, but he didn't have time[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Chief_Mechanical_Engineer&diff=449973848&oldid=449971807]) Tony1 later commented him that it was a disease and Noetica said that it was a "[http://www.thefreedictionary.com/shlepping |
(*) (Tony1 asked Noetica to participate, but he didn't have time[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Chief_Mechanical_Engineer&diff=449973848&oldid=449971807]) Tony1 later commented him that it was a disease and Noetica said that it was a "[http://www.thefreedictionary.com/shlepping shleeping] giant", which means clumsy and stupid person[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Noetica&diff=450406905&oldid=450406390]) |
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On the other "side" of the capitalization and proper name arguments, we have [[User:Born2cycle]], who has caused GTBacchus to leave, see [[User_talk:GTBacchus#Why_I.27m_leaving]]. I'll leave others to comment on this one. |
On the other "side" of the capitalization and proper name arguments, we have [[User:Born2cycle]], who has caused GTBacchus to leave, see [[User_talk:GTBacchus#Why_I.27m_leaving]]. I'll leave others to comment on this one. |
Revision as of 12:46, 29 January 2012
Requests for arbitration
Initiated by Breadbasket at 15:52, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
Involved parties
- Breadbasket (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), filing party
- Yopie (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
- Diff. 1
- Diff. 2
- Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried
The user Yopie has been involves in several disputes and complaints. Here is a selection:
- 2009: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/3RRArchive109#User:Yopie_reported_by_Lucas_.28Result:_Protected.29
- 2010: User_talk:Yopie/Archives#Blocked
- 2011: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/3RRArchive151#User:Yopie_and_User:86.101.110.57_reported_by_User:Nmate_.28Result:_Semiprotected.29
- 2011: Wikipedia:Wikiquette_assistance/archive111#User:Yopie
Statement by Breadbasket
For many years, the user Yopie
- has misused various functions, especially by that he, in combination, reverts legitimate and/or rule-supported edits and threatens his opponents with 3RR,
- has demonstrated unwillingness to contribute to clean and neutral articles of academically good quality,
- has demonstrated disruptive patterns of behaviour.
The cases 2 and 3 in the following complaint in Wikiquette assistance, which is among several reactions against this, broadly describes the problem, which remains unchanged since September 2011 and earlier: Wikipedia:Wikiquette_assistance/archive111#User:Yopie
As concrete and recent examples, I would especially draw the attention to False titles of nobility and Alexander Montagu, 13th Duke of Manchester. The last-mentioned is a so-called BLP. Despite rules stating that challenged (poorly sources, biassed, etc.) content in BLPs must be ‘immediately removed’ and must not be re-added without discussion, the user has re-added it.
I allow myself to suggest that one, independently of me as a user and of my limited explanation, seeks to investigate the user’s broader history on Wikipedia in order to determinate whether there exist problems that require a solution. Indications are strong for that the user is related to problems which have consisted for a considerably long time and which, without administrators’ intervention, likely will continue as before.
— Breadbasket 17:12, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
Statement by Yopie
This request is blantant misuse of rights. User Breadbasket did not use talk page of article, or any other step before escalation to the Arbitration. RfA is last step and Breadbasket must show, that he tried to resolve the dispute by other means.
About so-called BLP dispute - Breadbasked deleted well referenced informations, without any discussion. References are Sydney Morning Herald, Daily Mail and The Telegraph, all reliable newspapers.
For more I need two days, as I ´ m off my PC and writing on iPhone is difficult. --Yopie (talk) 17:31, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
Comment by (pretty much) uninvolved Bwilkins
I'm only involved as much as I likely commented on the ANI discussion a couple of weeks ago, and have tried to steer the filing party in the right direction on Wikipedia (without much luck, unfortunately).
This filing is so premature that it should be quashed and removed ASAP. This is a minor set of disputes that the filing party refuses to even READ nor FOLLOW dispute resolution, even though they have been advised sufficiently. I have even recommended the filing party do so themself, however they chose to delete such advice.
My recommendation: a mentor for BOTH parties, and clearly I'm not able to be one of those mentors (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 18:37, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
Clerk notes
- This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).
Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (0/2/0/0)
- Decline This matter is much more suited to WP:ANEW, WP:3O or even WP:ANI. Arbitration is the last and final step of dispute resolution, when other methods have failed, and the evidence here doesn't even show other steps have been recently tried. Arbitration is not a quick process; a simple and quick case can take a few weeks; and this matter is suited to lower, speedier venues. Courcelles 17:36, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
- Decline per Courcelles. Jclemens (talk) 04:37, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
Article titles/MOS
Initiated by SarekOfVulcan (talk) at 22:23, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
Involved parties
- SarekOfVulcan (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), filing party
- Born2cycle (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- Dicklyon (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- JCScaliger (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- Noetica (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- Tony1 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- Amatulic (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- Greg L (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- Kotniski (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- Mike Cline (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
- GTBacchus (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- Blueboar (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- Kauffner (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- Vegaswikian (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
- ErikHaugen (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
- SMcCandlish (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- Jojalozzo (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- David Levy (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
- Kwamikagami (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
- Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
- Born2cycle
- Dicklyon
- JCScaliger
- Noetica
- Tony1
- Greg L
- Kotniski
- Mike Cline
- GTBacchus
- Blueboar
- Kauffner
- Vegaswikian
- ErikHaugen
- SMcCandlish
- Jojalozzo
- David Levy
- Kwamikagami
Statement by SarekOfVulcan
There has been long-term disruptive editing on the MOS and article naming pages. As far as I can tell, no single RFC/U or edit warring block is going to solve the problem, so I'm bringing it to Arbcom in an attempt to break the back of the problem and make working in this area of the encyclopedia less unpleasant. For examples, see the recent history of Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Capital letters and Wikipedia talk:Article titles. There have been huge amounts of discussion spent on these topics, as well as related arb cases like WP:RFAR/DDL, so I'm not providing specific diffs of previous dispute resolution attempts above.
- Response to AGK
- Actually, I urge you not to put a temporary injunction in place, because I suspect part of the case will be figuring out its actual scope, and putting an injunction in place that doesn't cover the complete scope may lead to wikilawyering and bad feelings, instead of solving the problem at hand.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 23:57, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
- Comment on party list
- I was pretty sure my list was too short, but I figured further discussion here would identify other people who needed to be added. From mostly-outside, I saw there was a godawful mess -- I didn't dive far enough into it to figure out who was "the problem", when there were some current examples of disputes to start with. (To be clear, I did figure GregL would get added at some point, because of his extensive participation in MOS/titling issues.) Remember, "involved party" does not mean "potential recipient of sanctions", it just means "involved in the dispute under discussion". I never intended this to only deal with the two cases I mentioned as examples, I figured they were good examples of the larger problem.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 08:22, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
Statement by JCScaliger
On the other hand, I do believe that a single couple of blocks (or better, mentorings) will solve the immediate problem. A timeline of the events behind this is at User:Born2cycle/DearElen; long, and one of you has been faced with it already, but full of diffs.
Noetica and two of his friends have a tendency to engage in "campaigns" to "improve" Wikipedia, and assert the "authority" of our manual of style; I believe some of them have come before ArbCom before. They are a close-net little community, that tends to write about gaining territory, subversion, and, again, subversion. (They behave as though they were one mind; they appear on the same pages, they make the same arguments, they use the same language. I have not seen them disagree.) They are led by Noetica, who speaks for Order, in his own vocabulary.
The three of them are engaged in two of these crusades (or should I say internal security investigations?) and happen to have encountered me at both of them. At WP:TITLE, they came up with an idea for unnecessary disambiguation, which did not get a warm reception. They decided that one of the phrases in the first section of the policy was responsible, and began to boldly edit it. There were objections, and a poll; WT:AT#RFC on Recognizability guideline wording; it seems fairly decisive, but their response was to denounce the poll, boycott the page, and edit war for the wording they prefer.
This produced a month of discussion, and continual war; the page was protected twice. A couple of alternate versions were suggested by various people, and widely approved of. Two of these three editors did not object, but they reverted the results. Eventually I was bold enough to put both on in succession (together with the text that had been there when all this began), in the hope of at least novel wording from the dissentients, on the grounds that consensus should finally prevail.
(A hitherto uninvolved editor said: that there was clear consensus and one of Noetica's wikifriends said: it appears there is quite clearly a consensus and reverted in support of the language on familiarity. It has just had another RFC, this one unanimous.)
A policy with this amount of support has been disturbed for a month, almost entirely by Noetica alone, with some support from his friends and the admin Kwamikagami. This has cost us User:Kotniski; who quit Wikipedia, as explained in this edit because of the "month of smoke and mirrors".
Their other campaign has been to make all articles be lower-case, based solely on a vague expression in the lead of WP:MOSCAPS. Five editors joined in disliking this, and deploring the language, only to be told that the text, which had been boldly written by Noetica two weeks before, was "long-standing consensus"; Dicklyon has now reverted to the version he himself wrote in December. This is at least progress, and why I believe that mentoring Noetica may be enough. JCScaliger (talk) 00:32, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
- Note. Another reason for leniency is that these three are merely exporting the poisonous environment of MOS to other pages. For example Wikipedia_talk:MOS#Species_capitalization_points is a lengthy current discussion whether MOS should "tolerate" or expunge a widespread custom used by many editors over a whole group of pages. Clearly five or six editors (none of them in this case) think their discussion in this corner is legislation, to be obeyed by all editors and left stable and unedited (unless there is consensus to change it, which is unlikely as long as the five or six decline to do so). It is unusual only in that a member of the group being discussed is actually present. If the five or six go forth to enforce their edict, there will be scattered protests, which will be ignored or brushed off (unless perhaps "consensus" can be as unmistakably shown as at WP:TITLE); changes will be revert-warred, because the protesters are tampering with the Law. This is what happened at WP:MOSCAPS too; Noetica was doing the same thing at TITLE, but was outnumbered (and Dicklyon is still arguing whether there is a consensus). If ArbCom can make a dent in this mindset, that would be most helpful. JCScaliger (talk) 04:14, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
- Dicklyon's response suggests that he still feels his series of exact reversions to a text supported only by the usual minority justified. A single exemplary sanction may not suffice.JCScaliger (talk) 19:17, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
Statement by Amatulic
Until some articles on my watchlist (including two I created) got caught up in a mass-renaming spree by Tony1 (the vast majority of which, upon examining his move log, constituted excellent work with just a few errors), and subsequently became aware of this ArbCom request, I had not known that there was a coordinated campaign to enforce an imagined "authority" of MOS:CAPS as written by two or three editors without the involvement of a larger community.
My involvement here has to do with the naming of technical analysis indicators. The entire page Talk:True strength index contains arguments from those well-versed in the field and familiar with the mass of reliable sources (most of which are not online) against renaming to lowercase. It amazes me that a handful of editors wielding an incomplete style guideline would try to force-fit it to every article, effectively re-writing decades of standard usage by reliable sources.
The discussions on Talk:True strength index and Talk:Relative Strength Index pointing out that MOS:CAPS is a guideline that should be applied with a modicum of common sense seems to have fallen on deaf ears on the part of those who seem to want to treat it as absolute policy. The MOS:CAPS defenders, while civil, do appear to give higher priority to this guideline than to policy (such as WP:RS). In my view, their entrenched position on this matter borders on tendentiousness while not quite reaching it.
I was going to suggest a change to MOS:CAPS to include technical analysis indicators as creative works in the MOS:CT section, but then realized that this would be futile without wider community involvement, because the primary participants there are the same ones who promote the disruptive renaming of articles about technical analysis inventions in the first place.
I will note that the debate on Relative Strength Index has been closed as keeping the original uppercase version of the title, while the debate that started after Tony1 changed True strength index to lowercase is still open with no consensus. ~Amatulić (talk) 02:30, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
Statement by Born2cycle
The month-long dispute at WP:TITLE is about whether the recognizability criterion should be restricted to those familiar with the article's topic, or not. This dispute is really part of a larger one about so-called "pre-emptive disambiguation" that extends to interpreting WP:PRIMARYTOPIC and many RM discussions [1] [2] [3] [4][5][6][7] [8] in which Noetica, Tony1 and Dicklyon are involved, because they hold a view contrary to long-held community consensus about titles. In particular, they want more descriptive information in titles in situations where the relevant policies, guidelines and conventions indicate otherwise, primarily because of our convention to add more descriptive information to titles only when needed to disambiguate the titles from others uses in Wikipedia.
- Dec 20, 2011 22:35 Tony1's edit alerts me that familiarity clause of the Recognizability criterion at WP:CRITERIA is gone.
- I researched history of wording.
- Knowing some might oppose re-inserting the phrase despite it reflecting usage and consensus, I simultaneously fixed the policy page and added explanation to talk per BRD:
- I was prepared to discuss it. I wasn't prepared for a discussion about why there needed to be a discussion.
- 40 minutes of non-substantive discussion
- 23:53 Dec 20, 2011 Born2cycle re-inserts phrase [15]
- 00:07 Dec 21, 2011 Phrase removed by Dicklyon [16]
- 00:15 Dec 21 2011 Noetica (talk · contribs) launches personal attack [17]
- 00:58 Dec 21, 2011 Dicklyon suggests "make proposal" and "wait for some discussion". [18]
- 01:09 Dec 21, 2011 Kotniski restores phrase [19]
- 01:26 Dec 21, 2011 Noetica removes phrase [20]
This stonewalling insistence to discuss the change, while simultaneously not discussing the change, has been continued by Tony, Dicklyon and Noetica for over a month (see WP:AT); not one of them has said anything substantive about the edit.
Every editor who has spoken substantively about this edit has supported it. Consensus support for the change was established in the early discussions [21] [22] [23] [24] (which Noetica et al denied), but was confirmed again just this week in a poll in which re-inserting the phrase was supported unanimously.
Yet any time anyone tries to insert the change clearly supported by consensus[25] [26] [27] [28] [29] [30] [31] [32] [33], they revert[34] [35] [36] [37] [38] [39] [40] [41] [42] [43] [44] [45] [46], or manage to get an admin to revert to their preferred version[47] [48] [49], or even protect the page at their version[50] [51] [52] [53]
Their behavior is way beyond disruptive. It's so exasperating, Kotniski left on a break because of it[54].
I urge ARBCOM to find that Noetica, Dicklyon and Tony1 must adjust their behavior:
- They must acknowledge that the community consensus is to disfavor additional precision in titles that is not needed to disambiguate from other uses of that title on WP.
- If they revert an edit, they must address any good faith substantive argument in favor of making the edit. --Born2cycle (talk) 07:52, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
Response to Statement by Kwami
Kwami continues to ignore that when the community looks at the two wordings, there is no question that unanimous consensus supports the wording with the familiarity wording. This was demonstrated clearly in the discussions in December where all substantive comments about the edit favored the version with the familiarity restriction[55] [56] [57] [58], and even more clearly recently in Greg's poll. Kwami's claim that following this consensus-supported wording would lead to "overly conventionalized titles that are unrecognizable to anyone who needs to read the article in the first place" is bereft of foundation (i.e., actual examples). Besides, anyone who knows he "needs to read the article" must be familiar with the topic to some degree (or how could he know he needs to read it?) - and so this wording indicates that the title should be recognizable to such a person.
Most importantly, Kwami demonstrated his contrary-to-consensus bias regarding pre-emptive disambiguation on this issue back on Dec 15[59], so he should have known better than to involve himself as an admin on this issue in the first place, especially in making subjective decisions like deciding which version to lock, and engaging in an edit war. Kwami's involvement in this matter as a biased admin who refused to see the consensus that was plainly there made it impossible for this situation to be resolved by following that consensus, and is probably the main reason it has even gotten to Arbcom. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:48, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
Statement by Tony1
I'm unsure why the filer believes there's an intractible situation that warrants an ArbCom case, rather than community action if necessary. While there are disagreements at both wp:title and wp:moscaps (not wp:mos, as in the heading), this is hardly unusual in the evolution of policies and guidelines. The community needs to work through the issues calmly and gradually; there should be no hurry, since complexities are involved.
I don't understand why I've been named as a party, since my input has been only to participate with civility and in good faith in talk-page debate, and then only sporadically (I did revert a change I thought was premature and unwarranted, but that is hardly a behavioural transgression requiring arbitration; please examine my contributions). I don't have a solution for the scoping of article titles—I'm still trying to come to grips with the issues—and while the issues are interesting, I don't care enough about them to get worked up.
I've skimmed through the long posts above, and note that I'm being closely associated with Dicklyon (who upbraids me on technical and procedural matters) and Noetica; there is much I don't agree on with these editors, and I am my own person on these matters.
I hope this will be the only post necessary on this page. I ask that an arb or clerk ping me if a further response is required. Thanks. Tony (talk) 11:54, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
Statement by Dick Lyon
It's unclear what behavior this AC proposal is intended to address. A few comments:
Born2cycle has pledged at AN to improve his contentious behavior; I don't see huge progress yet, but suggest we wait and see how that goes.
JCScaliger seems to have learned that his campaign to change the guidelines on capitalization was disruptive and elicited a lockdown at CAPS; I expect he'll pursue it still on the talk page, which is as it should be.
Noetica has made only 4 edits at MOS:CAPS in the last month, and has started a good discussion of the capitalization guidelines. His suggestion has a lot of support, and also a lot of opposition (including some from me), but it seems like a good discussion. His bold change, however, I have rolled back along with JCScaliger's bold change, after the unlock, since neither has yet gained consensus in the ongoing discussion. That seems stable.
Tony and I have been active in fixing over-capitalization, though not always in agreement with each other. These are mostly uncontroversial moves, unopposed RMs, and successful RMs, but there has been some pushback from editors in specific areas like the technical market indicators. Amatulic seems to be asking for an area exception in CAPS, but I don't see any behavior issues there.
I have been active on both the CAPS and TITLE talk pages. On the corresponding guideline/policy pages, I have made 2 reverts on each, and no other edits in the last month or so.
If anyone has an issue with my behavior, I'd like to hear about it first on my talk page, not at ArbCom. I'm open to input from anyone there (with the exception of Born2cycle, who I have asked to stay away from my talk page).
– Dicklyon (talk) 18:58, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
Statement by Noetica
[I'll make a full statement soon. The scope of the projected case seems uncertain; but it's clear that WP:MOS has been implicated (with recent protracted discussion of capitalisation for specialised naming), and certain RMs. I've added certain involved editors as parties, who may be able to help ArbCom in its deliberations. The actions of some may be relevant also. NoeticaTea? 05:48, 28 January 2012 (UTC)]
Statement by Kauffner
I haven't been following the great MOS debate, so I guess I am here because I voted in some related RMs. I supported many of Tony1's excellent proposals to lower case titles that are improperly upper cased. (I regret only that I don't have time to vote for them all.) My votes are not based the MOS clause Tony1 cites, but rather on WP:CAPS, which states: "For page titles, always use lowercase after the first word, and do not capitalize second and subsequent words, unless the title is a proper noun." I have opposed various efforts by Noetica, Dicklyon, and others to include parenthetical descriptors that were merely explanatory in character. As I see it, WP:PRECISION stipulates that such descriptors be used only when necessary to disambiguate among existing Wiki articles. See, for example, French Quarter, Catholic Memorial School (West Roxbury, Massachusetts), The Artist (film), or Fry (Futurama). Kauffner (talk) 08:38, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
Statement by Kwami
I protected the AT page in Dec. at the last stable version during an edit war among several of the named parties, asking that they find another admin who could see the alleged consensus, which I failed to see, to resolve the issue. No such other admin came forward, despite B2C's requests at AN, so when the protection ended, the edit war started up again and I protected it again. There have been repeated recriminations over which version I should have protected it at, the one stable for the last six months, or the one which had been stable prior to that. The issue appears to be over how to best word AT to encourage professional-sounding titles without sanctioning jargon; I'm not sure there can be a correct answer, as I suspect either wording would be used to wikilawyer for ridiculous titles. (On one side, overly long titles that summarize the topic like 19th-century chapter headings; on the other, overly conventionalized titles that are unrecognizable to anyone who needs to read the article in the first place: Should we be immediately accessible to all, approach the topic like an introductory textbook, or write to the professional audience of the specialized journals we use as sources?) Perhaps the dispute could be remedied by giving examples of bad titles from both extremes, so that the intent of AT is clear? I have not been following much of the debate and don't expect to follow this one unless requested to return. — kwami (talk) 22:34, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
Statement by Jojalozzo
MOS pages are tagged: "... Please ensure that any edits to this page reflect consensus." I am a copy-editing gnome with no FAs or major contributions and a continually developing understanding of the project, who had until recently considered the MOS as a relatively stable, foundational framework to guide editors in producing a relatively consistent work. This illusion dissolved in the last couple of months with a flare up in MOSCAPS, especially in the lead ( [60], [61], [62], [63], [64], [65], [66], [67], [68], [69], [70]), but eventually throughout the article. Multiple, significant, conflicting edits made by several editors, including wide sweeps that are difficult to track with inadequate edit summaries, sometimes BRD and sometimes under the guise of a couple of day's unannounced discussion and subsequent consensus among two or three participants, liquified MOSCAPS' once stable ground. I think arbitration to limit such instability and guide the MOS development process would be very helpful. Jojalozzo 00:39, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
Comment by completely uninvolved Thryduulf
I have not been involved at all in this dispute, indeed I wasn't aware of it's existence until just now. However it doesn't surprise me in the least, nor does the appearance of certain names in the list of parties (most notably Tony1, noetica and Born2cycle) having encountered them in similar warring over article titles and similar MoS issues over the years - see for example WP:ARBDATE, hyphens/dashes and the history at Talk:Yogurt (the latter dispute given a good précis at WP:LAME#Yoghurt or Yogurt).
If accepted this will be at least the third arbitration activity regarding applying the manual of style to the encyclopaedia at large, following Date de-linking (case) and Hyphens and dashes (motion), with a large crossover involved parties. Given this, I think that the committee should at the very least consider investigating the broader issue here of the interaction of consensus at MoS pages (often involving only a relatively small number of users) vs "local" consensus of editors at affected articles, especially when they weren't aware of the discussion. Thryduulf (talk) 10:27, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
Comment by uninvolved Masem
This feels like a repeat of the Date Delinking case all over again, and represents a persistent problem at MOS that I observe but see no immediate means for correction, in that the named editors in addition to others form a small clique that, though their editing actions, seem to suggest that have full power and control over the MOS and reject any attempt to change MOS away from that. This is not to say that what they want the MOS to say, at times, doesn't have consensus nor that others don't agree with them; furthermore, some of these editors based on what we know are probably some of the best people to discuss the implementation of a MOS. However, it is the air of authority, and the lack of any ability to compromise on a different approach that makes trying to suggest changes or improves to the MOS an extremely bitter affair, if those changes are contrary to what this niche group believes is best. I will note that sometimes, these are started by editors with their own chip on their shoulders against the named editors here, and that certainly doesn't start the discussion in a positive light, but this case, here, I believe, is one where absolutely no type of personal vendetta was intended by the changes and yet these editors are power-playing their "position".
That said, its an extremely difficult situation to be remedied through WP's processes. As Sarek notes, because it involves numerous editors, no one single RFC/U can do this justice, and issuing a block at this time seems completely pointless. What would be best if there was a way for ArbCom to assess the situation, explain and detail why it is undesirable and harmful (if they find it as such), and issue warnings adn recommend future remedies should those editors excise this type of behavior again. --MASEM (t) 13:18, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
Comment by uninvolved Fetchcomms
This has to be one of the lamest disputes ever. The MOS is not worth wasting hundreds of hours of users' time arguing over. I support consistency, but I support WP:DGAF more. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 15:29, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
The behaviour of some of the participants has been more than wanting. In August 2011 a new female editor specialized in dogs scrambled her name and left wikipedia very shortly after Tony left her several insulting and condescending messages[71][72][73][74]. Ironically, at that time the Foundation was discussing the low ratio of female editors. He also left a general message in the talk page[75]. In his first edit he had blindly mass-changed the article, breaking interwiki links[76], and tagged three times for copyedit the entire prose of all the article because of the name lacking a hyphen, he didn't leave any explanation in the talk page beyond complaining about the hyphen removal.[77][78][79]. The editor removing the tag complained in Tony1's talk page, and Tony1 reverted as "vomit"[80] and "more vomit"[81].
When I confronted Tony1 here, he didn't find any problem with his behaviour, and he said that he couldn't be blamed for the departure because the editor didn't make explicit reference to him when departing.
Dicklyon then tried a "compromise" by inserting the hyphen anyways, after Tony1 failing to subvert the result of this RM [82]. This keeps happening all the time, this small group of editors supporting each other, and trying every excuse to cram their preferred version into articles and into MOS pages. This sort of behaviour burns out good editors, like User:Kotnisky (as commented in JCScaliger's statement).
In this other complain you have Tony1 telling an expert that he doesn't know how to spell names in his profession. Several editors disagree and say that the edit is mistaken, and against reliable sources. Tony1 refuses to change his mind, Dicklyon changes the rest of the article anyways[83]. After this RM failed, Tony1, Dicklyon and Noetica(*) kept badgering in the talk page, trying to force the renaming anyways, rebuffing all arguments by expert editors that were familiar with the sources. Small examples of the usual problem: a small group of determined editors edit areas where they have no expertise, and rebuff the advice of experts and the usage in reliable sources. Expert editors give up in despair and stop trying to correct articles in their area of expertise. I suspect that this causes a slow and semi-invisible bleeding of expert editors.
(*) (Tony1 asked Noetica to participate, but he didn't have time[84]) Tony1 later commented him that it was a disease and Noetica said that it was a "shleeping giant", which means clumsy and stupid person[85])
On the other "side" of the capitalization and proper name arguments, we have User:Born2cycle, who has caused GTBacchus to leave, see User_talk:GTBacchus#Why_I.27m_leaving. I'll leave others to comment on this one.
I'm sure that we can find many more editors who have either retired or completely given up on editing MOS pages. --Enric Naval (talk) 20:28, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
Comment by uninvolved roux
Anything which gets the denizens of MOS to finally understand and accept that MOS is a guideline and thus not enforceable by any stretch of the imagination is a good thing. Anything which makes them finally shut up and stop their insane nitpicking is a good thing. If that takes an Arbcom case, so be it. → ROUX ₪ 20:45, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
Comment by uninvolved Beyond My Ken
Some years ago, I noted "[a] tendency among some editors to treat policy guidelines as absolutes" and commented that
When guidelines are followed slavishly, with no allowance for deviation or experimentation, they are no longer guidelines, they are absolute rules. Since Wikipedia was made ex nihilo, if what was wanted was absolute rules, that's what would have been created – but, instead, we have guidelines, and the spirit of Wikipedia lies in treating them as such, as guidance and not as dogma. We need to allow them to breathe, to live and grow and, if necessary or desired, to evolve; but evolution cannot happen unless change is permitted, and change cannot happen if every time someone tries something very slightly different, their efforts are automatically snuffed out by those wielding the guidelines as if they were absolutes.
With these remarks in mind, I concur with the comments by Fetchcomms and Roux above, and urge the committee to take on this case. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:58, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
Comment by uninvolved Greg L
- My original post was too long. If anyone cares to, they can look at this perma-link for my original, overly-long post. The original post embodies not only my validation that I think there is merit to resolving the disfunction at WT:AT via ArbCom, but also proposes a remedy if this petition is accepted and the case is adjudicated. Johnuniq’s below post unfortunately endorses something that can only be viewed at the link.
- I’ve pretty much stated all I intend to about this fiasco, which I think is disgusting. I’ve received absolutely appalling emails from editors with whom I’ve long had cordial relationships. Wikipedia is supposed to be a fun hobby for those who elect to civilly work in a collaborative manner. I was pleased to help resolve what the real community consensus was on WT:AT. But how much time I devote to the project and the manner in which I do it will not be determined by others.
- I’ll be having nothing more to do with these proceedings. Greg L (talk) 09:00, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
Comment by uninvolved Johnuniq
I have occasionally attempted to work out what the dispute was about, but have always been driven away by the pointless walls of text. I am posting to thoroughly endorse the excellent comment by Greg L above, and implore Arbcom to follow Greg's proposed solution (despite how that would infringe the human rights of those involved!). Johnuniq (talk) 03:50, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
Comment by involved? Vegaswikian
I also have concerns about the editors included as involved. I was added since I do a ton of closes. I'm probably more of a victim in that sense. So I guess to some extent I agree with Greg L and his comments above. If this case is accepted, and there may be good reason to do so, then one of the first steps should be deciding how wide of a net needs to be cast. Let me know if I need to pay attention to this discussion. Vegaswikian (talk) 06:20, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
Comment of distantly concerned 67.119.12.141
Copied from clerks' noticeboard by Alexandr Dmitri (talk) 09:07, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
I'm not involved with this TITLE dispute, but I tangled with some MOS zealots a while back who were using MOS guidelines about units of measurement for computer data (WP:COMPUNITS) as a POV-pushing tool in mainspace. I ended up dropping out and leaving incorrect information in articles on purpose, shrugging it off as another case of "someone is wrong on the internet". Everything said by Enric Naval, Roux, and BMK is true. I found myself wishing for an even more drastic solution than Roux's, like demoting MOS from "guideline" to "nonbinding suggestion" (though I'm not claiming that's really a good thing to wish for). It looks like the case will be accepted; I hope the scope is wide enough to address the issue named by Thryduulf, about the extent to which the MOS cabal can impose its preferences on the rest of the encyclopedia. Note there is an RFC/U about Greg L here. 67.119.12.141 (talk) 08:56, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
Comment from very slightly involved Mangoe
I happened to find out about this case through a user page watch on someone else, but examination of the issues leads me back to this issue popping up in the Christianity WikiProject in the form of a flat statement from one of the participants, followed by an RFC to put all Christianity article names in lowercase on the authority of the MOS by the same editor. I became slightly involved because, in the course of making preemptive moves, they also reduced a collective title to singular; I did manage to get that somewhat undone, but at the cost of a merge discussion which is still being consumed by the capitalization argument.
I've stayed out of the capitalization discussions, so don't count me as significantly involved. I would like to state, however, that having been hit by several of these mass change campaigns over the years, they are very disruptive and set off a lot of ill-will. It's too easy to WP:BOLDly make a mess which, if the change fail, takes a lot of tedious effort to clean up. The time has come to expect people to get some consensus first before going ahead.
Comment from uninvolved User:N-HH
Not involved in the specific topics under discussion, although I have been involved in debates at the wp:link talk page, mainly to contest the obsession some MOS editors seem to have developed with removing huge numbers of perfectly decent and relevant links from articles under the guise of "overlinking", often by automated process, with little apparent regard for context. As well as breaking other, more local, rules, often created to deal with politically sensitive real-world situations - and edit warring over it. I'm not interested in taking anyone to task over that, at least at ArbCom - and currently it's outside the scope of the case as framed - but it does feed into the wider problem.
The broader problem is that we have a needlessly complicated and bloated MOS, which is written and guarded by a pretty small group of people, who then use its provisions - as they choose to interpret them - to impose their preferences over the whole of Wikipedia. I mean, look at wp:dash. Why does a general-use encyclopedia, with thousands of amateur editors, and where it's actually quite difficult to include dashes in the editing function via most keyboards, have such incredibly complicated dash/hyphen rules? Most publications manage with just the basic distinction between a hyphen (for compounds, prefixes and date ranges) and en/em-dash (for "hyper-comma" separation in text). Has anyone seen the kind of absurdly lengthy argument having complex rules about when to use either a hyphen or an en-dash in compounds can cause? Not to mention all the "correction" work generated. N-HH talk/edits 18:28, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
Statement by David Levy
According to the explanation posted on my talk page,
Noetica has "no issue with [me] at all"; I've been named as an involved party because I was a major participant in discussions about organism names at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style. I didn't perform relevant edits to the actual guideline pages or to articles, despite my disagreement with some of the edits made by others.
Like Dicklyon, I'm unclear on what behavior is to be addressed. I'm more than willing to provide whatever helpful input I can, but I'm not entirely comfortable being deemed "involved" in a case in which I'm neither accused of misconduct nor implicating anyone else.
SarekOfVulcan notes that "'involved party' does not mean 'potential recipient of sanctions', it just means 'involved in the dispute under discussion'", but I always have understood it to mean more than "person who participated in discussions related to the dispute" (i.e. what the community is encouraged to do, in the hope of preventing its escalation to an ArbCom case). Such a definition stands to have a chilling effect, with editors shying away from good-faith discussion of contentious matters for fear of being "hauled before ArbCom" (instead of merely being informed of the case and invited to comment). —David Levy 02:11, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
Statement by Jehochman
I agree with what David Levy has said, in general, though I know nothing about this specific case. Please direct the clerks to remove the names of parties who are not under scrutiny. It can be very stressful to be a named party in a case. Discretion should be used. Jehochman Talk 04:21, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
Clerk notes
- This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).
Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (5/0/0/0)
- Awaiting statements. The statements so far are concerning, but there are two sides to every story... Jclemens (talk) 00:45, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
- Accept. This is an obvious mess and no other means of dispute resolution appears likely to resolve it. Our task in addressing the situation will be to help solve the problems, rather than to compound them; if accepted, suggestions on how we best can do so will be at a premium at the workshop stage. Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:22, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
- Accept. I disagree with the statements that this dispute could be solved by community-based discussion, and I agree with the assessment that this is a protracted, messy dispute. If this case is accepted, we might give thought to a temporary injunction that prohibits the continuation of this dispute during arbitration proceedings. AGK [•] 23:45, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
- Accept I have to agree with NYB, I see little hope anyhting short of arbitration will o anything but create more drama and strife while not leading to a solution. Courcelles 04:29, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
- Party list was likely made too long by Noetica's additions, but I'm far too tired to figure out who should not have been added. To reply to Vegaswikian, if you are listed as a party to the case if/when opened, a clerk will post on your talk page to that end. Courcelles 06:34, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
- Accept - similar to deletionism/inclusionism, and NFCC debates, the extent to which we adhere to an MOS is another area with strongly differing opinions not likely to be solved here. We'd review conduct. My question is, would an RfC with broad input from the editing community at large provide a foundation for settling these disputes? Casliber (talk · contribs) 11:57, 28 January 2012 (UTC)