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::Kumioko (as Kumioko) can't really reply here, and I wouldn't want to 'proxy for a banned user' or whatever they call that in [[NewSpeak]] currently, so I won't copy-and-paste his responses here. If anyone is interested, he (and other less-banned Wikipedia editors) are engaging this blog post at Wikipediocracy [http://wikipediocracy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=90276#p90276 here]. <font color="red">→</font>'''''[[User:Stanistani|<font color="green">Stani</font>]][[User talk:Stanistani|<font color="blue">Stani</font> ]]''''' 05:52, 22 April 2014 (UTC) |
::Kumioko (as Kumioko) can't really reply here, and I wouldn't want to 'proxy for a banned user' or whatever they call that in [[NewSpeak]] currently, so I won't copy-and-paste his responses here. If anyone is interested, he (and other less-banned Wikipedia editors) are engaging this blog post at Wikipediocracy [http://wikipediocracy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=90276#p90276 here]. <font color="red">→</font>'''''[[User:Stanistani|<font color="green">Stani</font>]][[User talk:Stanistani|<font color="blue">Stani</font> ]]''''' 05:52, 22 April 2014 (UTC) |
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:::Yes, I noticed that thread the other day when looking at something else. Seems to me that there are many Wikipediocracy members who are wondering more or less the same thing that Newyorkbrad is. [[User:Risker|Risker]] ([[User talk:Risker|talk]]) 15:13, 22 April 2014 (UTC) |
:::Yes, I noticed that thread the other day when looking at something else. Seems to me that there are many Wikipediocracy members who are wondering more or less the same thing that Newyorkbrad is. [[User:Risker|Risker]] ([[User talk:Risker|talk]]) 15:13, 22 April 2014 (UTC) |
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::[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3ANewyorkbrad%2FNewyorkbradblog&diff=605833257&oldid=605827057 Comment Redacted by Choess] |
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:@Stanistani - I think we all want freedom in the general sense. However, some people seem to mistake Wikipedia for a public space. It is, in fact, a privately owned endeavor. If I want to exclude someone from my house, they are not free to keep trying to break in. If the Wikimedia Foundation wishes to exclude someone from the web site ''they own'', it is almost certainly unlawful to knowingly attempt to force the way back in. If someone had acted with the same level of purposeful disruption against the web site of a major national bank, is there any question but that they would be investigated? [[Special:Contributions/50.45.159.56|50.45.159.56]] ([[User talk:50.45.159.56|talk]]) 04:48, 24 April 2014 (UTC) |
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:::Blogs that are purely about WP matters are generally considered not NOT. All the best: ''[[User:Rich Farmbrough|Rich]] [[User talk:Rich Farmbrough|Farmbrough]]'', <small>01:50, 26 April 2014 (UTC).</small><br /> |
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:There are doubtless laws broken on both sides of the Atlantic (I can't even comment on more far-flung places) by many editors in both high and low places on the Wikipedia non-hierarchy. I have even hinted (as did Elen of the Roads) at some of the areas that are troublesome. |
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:As to specific blocked/banned users, there is an almost vanishingly small number that have caused significant problems for the community ''purely by their actions on-Wiki''. (As for actions off Wiki, these fall into three categories, two of which are easily dealt with.) |
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:These "problem" blocked editors can ''always'' be dealt with either socially or technically. Unfortunately, while we have a coterie of technically capable folk "in charge" of technical areas, we all seem to think we are "socially able". No one is, or has been, forced to respond to or even read what a blocked/banned editor says, or in most cases any editor, and if this choice was exercised more widely we might have a lot less conflict. All the best: ''[[User:Rich Farmbrough|Rich]] [[User talk:Rich Farmbrough|Farmbrough]]'', <small>01:50, 26 April 2014 (UTC).</small><br /> |
Revision as of 01:50, 26 April 2014
The future of the Arbitration Committee and its role in dispute resolution
I've been wanting to comment on this topic for a few days, so I'll post here. I was a party to two arbitration cases pre-2009. During the first case (2006), I largely did not have the ability to participate or give input due to Internet issues, and I know that would never fly during the "modern" ArbCom era. At that point, ArbCom took the approach of sanctioning everyone, and I don't think that was effective, though of course I am likely biased. My second case was in 2008, and the problem with that one was that it took suuuuupppper long. By the time that ArbCom got to the proposed decision stage four months later, it was such a convoluted mess that the decision said practically nothing. So no, I don't think the days of 100+ cases a year were a good thing; ArbCom had too much going on and couldn't keep cases straight. I had a case in 2011 that I think ArbCom got largely right (minus the references to the maligned Highways 2 case), although I more or less served as an auxiliary party there.
From the beginning of my time here on Wikipedia in March 2005, I've been a roads editor; while meta-processes fascinate me for some weird reason, and while I have been an admin since late 2005, I am first and foremost a roads editor. Throughout my seven-and-a-half year tenure, I've had to deal with plenty of editors who are not willing to work with others. Be it WP:CIR, WP:POINT, WP:3RR, WP:CIVIL, WP:CCI, WP:ANI, WP:SPI, WP:TOV. etc., I've had to deal with it all. (Maybe not that well in my earlier years; I started editing at the age of 15, meaning that I was a party to Highways at the age of 16, and some of my earlier decisions were inexperienced). But all of this disruption results in everyone having to take time away from writing articles to deal with a) cleaning up the damage and b) trying to restrain the editor from causing more damage. During the years of 2007–2009, the California roads articles were decimated by three editors who brought the project to complete ruin. I spent most of my on-wiki time cleaning up after those editors; I barely had time to do anything else, and there was little that I could do to stop it from happening (until finally I got some outside help in 2008/2009). I'm going to "closely paraphrase" Courcelles' statement made elsewhere, since he expressed a similar sentiment very well: [1] Editors that actively damage this project must be sent away, not hid behind friendship and an "anyone can edit!" mentality as a shield.
All this to say that I'm 22 now, I've been here for 7.5 years, and I'm more experienced now. I've started a FA binge lately and am hoping to get 2 more FAs before the year is out, so the road article editing is still there. U.S. Roads does not have project coordinators like WP:MILHIST does, but a few of us take initiative and deal with a lot of the meta-issues that come up on a regular basis. As an admin and as an editor who has survived three arbitration cases, one of my goals the last year or so has been to take intiative resolving these complex issues that affect the U.S. Roads project where others cannot do so without a massive time investment, be that improper GAN reviews, another editor trying to delete all the road articles, sockpuppetry, or other disruption. And in a sense, that's largely what I see ArbCom as; the community delegates the issue of solving difficult and complex issues to them so that the community can get on with other things.
I think it's fairly clear what my views are regarding the threshold of taking issues to ArbCom, as the filing party of both the Featured article process request and the soon-to-be-rejected Youreallycan request. The Committee is not a first resort for resolving disputes; that is something I firmly believe. But is it necessary to exhaust every single possible venue for resolving a dispute before the Committee will accept a case? Is it necessary to have the RFC or AN discussion just to check the box? (That's not to say that RFC/AN is never productive; that's how one of the aforementioned CA editors got sent away). Is it worth the community's time to have said discussion, when it will only increase drama and take away editors' time, when we could be writing articles instead? Will the community always make the "right" decision, especially in complex issues where the history goes back years, possibly before 75% of the commenters started editing?
Taking a look at the Featured article process/Jack Merridew case request, for example: I realize there were other issues, such as my poor scoping of the case request; it would have worked if either Raul or Jack had posted a coherent statement, but neither did, so the whole thing fell apart. Jack wound up banned anyway, which might have happened in a case; but Raul has not edited in over two months; I wonder if he will ever return. I get that he had little respect for ArbCom, with the discussion regarding Jack's return in the spring; I also get that he lost his functionary status after ArbCom removed it, so that probably didn't help either, and I don't endorse everything Raul did. But I wonder if this all could have been handled differently, so that the man who contributed so much to the featured article process didn't feel like he was being trolled off Wikipedia with nobody willing to do anything about it, and leaving us with only one editor who is semi-active who is "constitutionally" allowed to schedule TFAs. (Which, if Raul never returns, is going to be a serious constitutional crisis in the short-to-long term, depending on the fluctuating activity of Dabomb87; yet almost nobody is aware of this).
Two primary things motivated me to make the two declined case requests (which I'm using as examples since I don't know much about some of the others; I don't have an ax to grind or anything): First, a comment made by Risker made a while back. Unfortunately, I don't remember the page or the exact wording, but it went along the sentiment of "We wish that people would bring these sort of issues to us, because we can't intervene in them otherwise." Secondly, the concern about a complex and high-drama issue being resolved at a high-drama noticeboard, ANI. I've been the subject of an ANI before; it ain't pretty, and makes some of my arbitration cases look placid. I've seen plenty of ANI threads spiraling out of control, and it concerns me that the community might be making a biased and/or uninformed decision in particular cases. Add to that the time cost of the editors participating: time spent arguing, and time lost should editors get offended and leave over the dispute. So I largely disagree with SilkTork's comment regarding case requests [2], though in this case I agree with the decline as the interaction ban does reasonably need to be tried.
I've rambled on at a length possibly rivaling Newyorkbrad's original post, so I'm going to close with this concluding thought: Is it always best for an issue to have exhausted every possible venue before it is brought to arbitration, no matter what the cost may be? --Rschen7754 05:04, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
- I'm not sure if this answers the question you asked, but arbcom needs to take more issues up. In the YRC example you posed, for instance, one could argue that the interaction ban the two parties agreed to worked in the short term -- but given the fact that both prime disputants in the case (YRC and Prioryman) have a history of blocks, one could probably argue that the case is "capable of repetition, yet evading review" and thus should have been reviewed. Hot Stop (Edits) 14:50, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
As I've said in other places, one of the biggest problems Arbcom has is assuming good-faith towards those brought before it. Competence is required and the right answer to a request like this is for the first Arb responding (in this case, you) to tell the person to withdraw the request or be indef blocked for maintaining a frivolous request (yes, even naive people should be sanctioned for abuse of process when they won't listen). Frivolous requests are as disruptive as poor conduct in other parts of the project and the Arbs have shown too great a willingness to hear everyone out, presume everyone can become a good editor, and assume that everyone is due his day in court. Starting with a presumption that if a dispute has made it to Arbcom, at least one person has done something wrong (either bad conduct, stupid filing, inability to communicate) and needs to be sanctioned would greatly improve the climate of Arbcom requests and discourage frivolous filings. If people are aware that Arbcom is the absolute end of the line and that their behavior in it will be scrutinized for the strictest compliance with policy, they will be far less likely to abuse the process. MBisanz talk 18:44, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
As a longtime ArbCom follower, I have enormous respect for you and considerable skepticism for the institution. There's no real need to discuss ArbCom's weaknesses since they're all well-known to you, but in a nutshell, the issues are mainly structural (since the vast majority of arbs have been reasonable, well-intentioned individuals) and serve more as a symptom of Wikipedia's more general disease. Wikipedia's dispute resolution mechanism, from ArbCom and AN to RFC/U and other venues, ties up Wikipedia's leadership and most of the passionate users of the website in a great deal of hateful nonsense. In the ongoing struggle to define "civility," which you'll agree stands as one of the community's major political issues, the ever-decreasing ranks of this community's leaders have mostly spent their time nursing long-time disputes and splitting off into factions when they're not actively just shouting at one another.
Your questions can broadly be answered by saying that both ArbCom and the administrators have failed in maintaining anything like collegiality on Wikipedia. A stronger ArbCom that swiftly dispatched cases could maybe address some of these problems, but I don't think it's politically feasible when you are all so evidently divided on many issues and when the community doesn't seem to want your opinion. Administrators could have a clear, open process on the noticeboards, but if you lot haven't figured out that kind of process by this time, I doubt one is forthcoming. The poisonous atmosphere usually serves to distract from real problems, including BLP vandals, massive content issues, and the role Wikipedia plays in the real world.
The point here is that you and most of the other passionate users of this website pour all of your volunteer efforts into barely controlling the Dispute Resolution beast, if they're not being swallowed up by it through one firestorm or another. I'm not sure what the solution is (I personally prefer a separate-but-equal GovCom, ArbCom, and an editorial board, but that probably isn't very likely), but however you answer the questions posed at the end of your article, that answer must address the time-sink DR represents to Wikipedia's most valuable community leaders. They have important things to sort out. Archaeo (talk) 08:07, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
Question: As a fairly new observer to ArbCom cases, what's struck me most is the pattern of accepted cases -- some initial comments that are possibly unique and thoughtful followed by degradation is the usual suspects spouting the usual rhetoric, over and over. It's like watching a merry-go-round. Do ya'll actually read all that stuff? NE Ent 23:23, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
- It's always worth being aware of who made what comment and hence get some idea of where they're coming from, yes, and alotting a correspondingly appropriate amount of time in digesting it according to its value. Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:38, 1 December 2012 (UTC)
One factor contributing to the fact that arbcom is getting fewer case requests is that people have learnt just how stressful and hellish participation in a two-month or four-month arbitration case is. In addition, history has shown that often parties on both sides end up sanctioned (and rightly so): entering an arbitration case in pursuit of a foe is taking a 50% chance of finding that one has inadvertently committed harakiri.
In fact, arbitration should not be called arbitration. What arbcom does is not arbitration. Arbcom's own remedies, aside from referring things back to the community via discretionary sanctions or an RfC, are largely limited to issuing admonishments and sanctions to individual editors, up to elimination from the topic area or the project as a whole. Arbitrators are judges pronouncing sentences. Andreas JN466 11:16, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
On having an article deleted
- At least the article will have referenced, briefly, the marvelously titled and probably short-lived radio show: "Toilet Bowl of Tone-Deaf Tunes". What better name could there be? Binksternet (talk) 22:44, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
- Shirley, it passed AfD. It'll be kept. Lament not on your article looking like Merv Griffin. --Hammersoft (talk) 21:36, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
- You are living on borrowed time. Your blog has just been discussed as a candidate for submission to "Miscellany for deletion".[3] Fortunately, you may be safe for now because it "doesn't really look like a blog". Beware, the vultures are circling! Thincat (talk) 17:22, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
Help pick Newyorkbrad's FA project
Would it be good to force each prospective admin to write 1FA? Probably. Would this lead to additional FAs. Some, sure, but maybe not many. Writing an FA doesn't seem to be best done as a solitary effort. If you haven't (co-)written an FA before, you would be well advised to work alongside a practiced FA writer. This may not initially and directly lead to an extra FA, but it would be a good thing for multiple reasons.
A deceased former Justice of the United States Supreme Court
So, someone in Category:United States Supreme Court justices but not in Category:Living people. Or even better, are there any missing biographies? Probably not, List_of_Justices_of_the_Supreme_Court_of_the_United_States#List_of_justices has a feel of completeness about it. There seems to be 100 deceased justices, finishing with William Rehnquist, which is not even GA.
Warren Burger or Potter Stewart, Oliver Wendell Holmes or John Marshall Harlan?
Thomas Todd or Gabriel Duvall, each of whom was named as "The Most Insignificant Justice". Intriguing. But probably a bad place to start. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:33, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
Charles Evans Whittaker would make me happy, given the strong connections to Kansas, which is severely deficient of featured articles (only 4 FAs out of over 4000 articles in the project). Surprisingly Brown v. Board of Education is not one of those featured articles, though it is a good article. Ks0stm (T•C•G•E) 10:30, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
- John Marshall would be a good choice. Of course if you wanted a living justice, you could do Clarence Thomas. It'd be easy too, just match his page to Scalia's since they agree on everything else. Hot Stop (Edits) 14:58, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
- James Clark McReynolds (semi-serious, though why not?) ---Sluzzelin talk 03:01, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
- Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar II (I love the name) or William Howard Taft (because it's a twofer). Ealdgyth - Talk 15:19, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
- Email privacy -- This doesn't fit the mold of 'deceased fomer Justices of the United States Supreme Court' but it is a topic which has relevance to disputes on Wikipedia and is of current public interest. If you took on this topic you might choose to cover the legal aspects and leave technical matters to others. The topic leads to interesting paradoxes. EdJohnston (talk) 03:13, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. — because he coined the phrase, Freedom for the Thought That We Hate, which then was used as the title of a book on Freedom of speech. Cheers, — Cirt (talk) 08:30, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
- Thurgood Marshall is beyond ripe for improvement—he was the chief counsel for NAACP then he became the first African American Supreme Court justice. The article is only "start" or "C" class right now, but the topic is assigned annually as schoolwork for thousands of students (which is probably why it is currently protected). Binksternet (talk) 23:03, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
- George Anastaplo's bar-admission case earned a stirring dissent by Justice Hugo Black, which was by Black's instruction read at Black's funeral. A page stalker might be inspired to start an article. Kiefer.Wolfowitz 13:56, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
- Earl Warren, Louis Brandeis, William Brennan, and Benjamin Cardozo have all been influential, the latter in part for his time on New York's highest court. I was going to also suggest Learned Hand, but that was a NYB tribute FA.--Chaser (talk) 05:01, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
- Personally I'd support a Homles FA run, given his long service and 'stache. Wizardman 00:54, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
Oppose the deceased former justices
Newyorkbrad should absolutely try his hand at writing an FA, because it's an experience and an intellectul adventure. Notice how I don't say "because we want more FAs" or "because, Brad, it's your duty to share your specialist knowledge about American judges and related subjects with Wikipedia and everyone on the planet"? You've done enough duty; remember Wikipedia is a hobby, do something for you! And, on that theme, the times when I used to write FAs (long ago), I always most enjoyed researching and writing up some subject that I was far from knowledgeable about to begin with. Your mileage may vary, but it felt like a more dynamic process that way. I found it exhilarating to flounder about at random at first, and then gradually, if I was lucky, be able to zoom in on a useful selection of sources, structure, etc. And on that principle, why not let the judges and even Nero Wolfe fend for themselves and click around on "Random article" until you find an intriguing stub that'll bear expanding? Or, oh, I don't know, maybe write about some 19th- or 20th-century artist, writer, philosopher, or crank that you've always liked the look of? Or, a little nearer to your own specialty, why not take the Watergate scandal to featured status? While there's a lot of good stuff in the article already, it certainly needs work: more research, more structure, etc etc. And if you dive in there, and pull gently at a few people, you may well be able to rope in others, with complementary skills to your own. (And, you know, if you insist on helping Wikipedia, Watergate is obviously a top-importance subject that deserves one of our best articles.) Bishonen | talk 00:50, 7 November 2012 (UTC).
- Watergate scandal would be a good one, or perhaps related Supreme Court cases, New York Times Co. v. United States or United States v. Nixon. :) — Cirt (talk) 00:57, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
- My only FA, pigeon photography, is so quirky that it was a lot of fun to write. I know that there are similarly funny topics in law, which often require a lot of research in sources that aren't easily accessible to non-specialists. I have even written about some such topics myself: Mundat Forest#Anomaly after World War II features a case German Reich v. Federal Republic of Germany. (Some nutcase objected to a trade in which Germany gave some territory to France in exchange for precisely the same territory.) The wife of Nazi criminal Hans Ernst Schneider had him him declared dead so she could marry him again as Hans Schwerte, who again got a PhD (in the same subject) and went on to become an influential left-wing university rector. When his past came out (his colleagues must have known about it all the time), he didn't just lose his pension but had to pay back his entire lifetime salary. The boy Jones was another interesting criminal -- turns out that stalking the Queen isn't a recent invention at all.
- I am sure you must have come across similar cases which would make great entertainment. Surely they are more fun than the average (or even above-average) dead judge. Or maybe you know an interesting legal tradition similar to wife-selling.
- Of course taking Watergate to FA would be great, but it would also be a lot of work and would likely involve interaction with POV warriors. I wouldn't want to risk getting you frustrated over it. Hans Adler 01:30, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
The choosing process
(belatedly) What I find interesting about the whole shebang is when writing it can be fascinating how some articles come together well and some just...don't. What I recommend sometimes is just having a tinker with a few possibles..until one you see you'll just go, "yeah, I can do this." You won't know till you examine the article in detail and then with some, the Big Picture will crystallise and a path will become clear. Enthusiasm also plays a big part. So get the list of possibles and cull using the Enthusiasm and Big Picture Clarity criteria...and just go from there. don't be afraid to leave something half done if something else seems more interesting either. easy peasy. Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:18, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
A surprisingly missing article
A redlink? Fancy that. If I didn't know better, I'd think something happened three years ago that drastically slowed the development of Wikipedia's coverage of 17th-century English literature. – iridescent 2 02:32, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
- Iridescent, your point is of course well-taken, and I very much regret the events that caused Geogre to leave the project. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 03:41, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
- I've blued the link. Turns out there was a surprising amount of material on the web. To make you happy, Brad, I've mentioned and linked to the carpe diem song you quoted. But take a look at the man's productivity here! And those are only his "chief" works! (If you want to believe that. I don't.) What a content contributor he would have made, assuming he could have left those unblushing plagiarisms behind. Bishonen | talk 16:10, 2 April 2013 (UTC).
- I like this article very much, and I had no idea that there was such a colorful individual behind this particular poem. I'll do some poking around and if I find more information to add to the artcle, I'll do it. Meanwhile, I appreciate your taking the time to write this after I mentioned it. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 17:49, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
- And now mainpaged. :) Thanks again. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:33, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
- Not really sure how I ended up here, but it seems to me that this section and the section above are kind of made for each other in the opposite of an O Henry way. The Potato Hose ↘ 08:01, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
A question about searchability, robots.txt, and NOINDEX
I answered you on VP/T. Hope it helps —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:00, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
You mention proposals to noindex user talk pages have not found consensus. Nonetheless, user talk pages are currently noindexed by default anyway. See Wikipedia:Controlling search engine indexing#Namespace control. You can allow indexing on your own user talk page by adding __INDEX__ to it.
As TheDJ said at VP/T, a robots.txt entry prevents Google visiting a page at all, whereas NOINDEX lets them read the page but not include it in public indexes. (Google must read a noindexed page to see the NOINDEX instruction.) Robots.txt only stops Google from reading a page; it says nothing about indexing. Google don't normally index pages in robots.txt because they can't see what's in them. However, Google have a little trick to surprise you: if many other pages link to a page in robots.txt, Google use the context around those links to figure out what the page is about and index it anyway! Since they don't visit the page itself they won't see any NOINDEX on it. Hence, placing a noindexed page into robots.txt can cause it to become indexed.
Hence, NOINDEX is more reliable than robots.txt at blocking indexing. If a page is in robots.txt, putting NOINDEX on it makes no difference; it can still be indexed if enough other pages link to it. – PartTimeGnome (talk | contribs) 21:56, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
Forgery and Wikiality
Obligatory links to the section on Wikiality, and xkcd's Citogenesis (which we also have a redirect for, Citogenesis). :) –Quiddity (talk) 06:39, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
Clear warnings, arbitration decisions, and AE
This is great in many levels. I enjoyed the "(G) Mr. G, who walked across the park carrying a chicken sandwich?". This explanation is of utmost importance. Have you perhaps thought about making it more standard? Maybe under a Wikipedia:Arbitration enforcement interpretations (shortcut WP:AEINT or WP:AEI). Regards.--MarshalN20 | Talk 16:39, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
The message typically used when discussing potential ambiguity v. common sense is "Dogs must be carried". The phrase has a surreal beauty. SilkTork' ✔Tea time 16:47, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
Lovely essay, and I really enjoyed the linked law review. (Was I the only one who immediately assumed Supreme Lawmaker to be mom?). I think your essay points to a system where arbitrators serve a supervisory role for administrators with discretion, especially vis-a-vis enforcement, rather than writing an enforcement script to be followed mechanically. That is to say, more like the relationship between the Courts of Appeal and trial courts than between the legislatures and the court. For that matter, we're probably better off looking at administrative agencies than the judiciary per se.--Tznkai (talk) 20:17, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
Some of Dyson's thoughts on Wikipedia can be found here (on page 2). Among other things, he describes Wikipedia as "totally unreliable and surprisingly accurate". MastCell Talk 18:15, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
An interesting blog post. As a non-attorney, I cordially disagree with the likelihood of Wikipedia obtaining any satisfaction under the law for a socking editor's transgressions. I feel it would be a sad day for freedom (defining freedom as the ability to swing our elbows freely from side to side) if merely violating a website's TOS Terms of Service) and causing problems for site administrators were to be used to constrain the physical or financial liberty of a human being. Note: as a website administrator, I do have insight into the aggravation user actions can cause. →StaniStani 04:13, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
- I think a point might be being missed here. Even before going to the courts, the next logical step would be speaking to the ISPs. Kumioko should consider the implications of that. Risker (talk) 05:15, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
- Kumioko (as Kumioko) can't really reply here, and I wouldn't want to 'proxy for a banned user' or whatever they call that in NewSpeak currently, so I won't copy-and-paste his responses here. If anyone is interested, he (and other less-banned Wikipedia editors) are engaging this blog post at Wikipediocracy here. →StaniStani 05:52, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
- Comment Redacted by Choess
- Blogs that are purely about WP matters are generally considered not NOT. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 01:50, 26 April 2014 (UTC).
- Blogs that are purely about WP matters are generally considered not NOT. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 01:50, 26 April 2014 (UTC).
- There are doubtless laws broken on both sides of the Atlantic (I can't even comment on more far-flung places) by many editors in both high and low places on the Wikipedia non-hierarchy. I have even hinted (as did Elen of the Roads) at some of the areas that are troublesome.
- As to specific blocked/banned users, there is an almost vanishingly small number that have caused significant problems for the community purely by their actions on-Wiki. (As for actions off Wiki, these fall into three categories, two of which are easily dealt with.)
- These "problem" blocked editors can always be dealt with either socially or technically. Unfortunately, while we have a coterie of technically capable folk "in charge" of technical areas, we all seem to think we are "socially able". No one is, or has been, forced to respond to or even read what a blocked/banned editor says, or in most cases any editor, and if this choice was exercised more widely we might have a lot less conflict. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 01:50, 26 April 2014 (UTC).