Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Rachel Marsden/Proposed decision

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Contents 1 Better nothing than a hatchet job 2 misspelling 3 Definition of attack page 4 Conforming to BLP 5 in my defence 6 What version doesn't conform to BLP?

[edit] Better nothing than a hatchet job

Would the inverse be true as well? Geedubber 08:52, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Nope.Arthur Ellis 01:18, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] misspelling

I detected the following misspelling :

"3.1.7 Appropriate use of copyrighted material 6) Wikipedia:Copyrights#Using_copyrighted_work_from_others, a policy, provides that the information in copyrighted works, if properly cited, may be included in Wikipedia. This policy does not continence copying of the copyright work, only use of the information contained in it."

"continence" should be spelled "countenance"

Normally, I would be bold and change it but I'm a bit hesitant to do that with an ArbCom page. I figured I'd remark on it here and hope that an arbitrator or clerk would see it.

--Richard 02:53, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Definition of attack page

I don't mind the assessment that the page needs to be made more balanced; however I believe calling it an attack page is going too far. The current definition of Wikipedia:Attack page is, A Wikipedia article, page or image created for the sole purpose of disparaging its subject or consisting solely or primarily of personal attacks against that subject or a biography of a living person that is negative in tone and unsourced. Nowhere does it say that an article consisting mostly of well-sourced, unflattering information constitutes an attack page. I am very concerned about the precedent this case may set for defining what an attack page is, and in particular its potential chilling effect on criticism of public figures. I don't want contributors to have to think, "If I post one more critical opinion of Michael D. Brown in his article, it may tip the page and have it end up getting speedily deleted." Kla'quot 07:50, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I see that Marsden-Donnelly harassment case was just deleted without going through AfD. Even in WP:OFFICE, Jimbo says, "The right answer is: stub and rebuild with strong verification. The right answer is: temporary protection of a safe version while good editors take the time to figure out what the heck is going on." Speedy deletion is way further than that, and I don't understand why it's justified. Kla'quot 08:05, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Conforming to BLP

Regarding the recommendation here involving me, I will state this again: I have conformed to BLP in this matter precisely as written, and have applied no subjective interpretations at all. I note that nobody has responded to my statement of the same fact on the Workshop page, so I'm concerned that a second arbitrator has now voted in favour of a statement for which nobody has even responded to my objections in the first place. Frankly, at this point I'm not even going to get involved if somebody rewrites the article to claim that Rachel Marsden is a Martian bounty hunter with green skin and antennae growing out of her head; I simply don't care anymore. But I'm really not too clear on what anybody expects of me with the statement here that I'm somehow burdened with a new expectation to do exactly what I already did throughout the entire disagreement to begin with. And frankly, I expect some kind of actual response to my concerns in this matter. Bearcat 23:36, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm still waiting for somebody to respond to my concerns... Bearcat 17:39, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Three arbitrators have now voted in favour of the remedy involving an expectation upon me, and I'm still waiting for somebody to explain to me how this expectation involves anything even remotely different from what I did in the first place. Is anybody planning to ever answer my question? Bearcat 00:05, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Four arbitrators, and my question still hasn't been answered? Bearcat 18:10, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Still waiting for an explanation... Bearcat 00:06, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

If the article is a hatchet job it may be blanked by any user. It doesn't matter how good the negative references are. Fred Bauder 02:34, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Anywhere else in the world, the definition of "hatchet job" requires conjectural interpretations and factual distortions that aren't supported by sources; it does not include neutral, non-editorializing summaries of indisputably known and properly sourced controversies involving a public figure, no matter how many such controversies exist. If Wikipedia has decided to redefine "hatchet job", somebody had best come up with a clearly quantified metric by which controversial material can be measured to see how much is too much; until such a metric is actually in place, I simply don't see how this answers my question. Bearcat 19:10, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Bottom line: describing the subject as a monster without redeeming qualities is not acceptable. Fred Bauder 20:18, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

And my bottom line is that the article as written did not describe the subject as a monster without redeeming qualities. Bearcat 22:12, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] in my defence

Arbitrator Dmcdevit judges a series of my actions as an admin inappropriate, and I'd like to say a few words in my defense.

1. "inappropriately used his administrative tools to block ArthurEllis or his IP, in enforcement of his prior Arbitration Committee restrictions, numerous times despite his involvement in the conflict (see log),". I have never blocked Arthur Ellis [1]. I have blocked several IPs that were both breaching the Kinsella-ArbComm and vandalizing pages. Three of these were on 21 Sept:
   • • 64.230.112.173 (talk • contribs • page moves • block user • block log)
     • 64.230.105.193 (talk • contribs • page moves • block user • block log)
     • 64.230.105.173 (talk • contribs • page moves • block user • block log)
   • Since I had never edited the Kinsella page, I regarded myself as an uninvolved administrator who saw its provisions being breached in a gratuitously vandalistic way. I blocked the offender and reported it in the appropriate way. I think it would have been a dereliction of duty not to have done so.

   • I also blocked two presumed Ellis-IPs for editing the Marsden page.

   • • 64.26.147.175 (talk • contribs • page moves • block user • block log)
     • 206.191.33.197 (talk • contribs • page moves • block user • block log)
   • These blocks may have been poorly judged, given that I was involved in this case. But given that Thatcher had blocked such IPs five times in the previous day for exactly the same behaviour, I thought it was more important that consistent enforcement be implemented. Of the thirteen blocks at Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Warren_Kinsella#Log_of_blocks_and_bans, five are mine. This is surely a sign that the blocks were justified.
2. "as well as for protection of many involved pages including Rachel Marsden [5] (twice), User:Craigleithian [6], User:Ceraurus [7], Talk:Rachel Marsden Marsden, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Warren Kinsella/Proposed decision for arbitration/Warren Kinsella/Proposed decision, User:Arthur Ellis Ellis, Hot Nasties Nasties, and Marsden-Donnelly harassment case harassment case."
   • The semi-protection of Kinsella-related pages, again, was on pages that I've never edited, and so I saw myself as performing a service. (All these were semi-protections, since the problem was IP-vandalism; the Kinsella page has been the site of continued IP-vandalism and has been semi-protected by another admin even today.) I protected the Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Warren Kinsella/Proposed decision because by that point it would never have to be edited again and it had been vandalised by an IP [2]
   • The semi-protection of the Marsden articles was similarly motivated, and since Ellis had so regularly used resetting IPs to revert the page and avoid 3RR, it seemed to me to be justified, and since it was a semi-protection rather than a full-protection, I thought this was a minor and uncontroversial step.
   • Other of the protects I'm not so sure about, in retrospect. I had understood the policy about banned (Ceraurus and CraigLaithian) users to include the posting of a link to the relevant decision (correctly: WP:BAN#User_pages), somehow I had gotten the mistaken impression that the pages themselves should be protected to prevent removal, which I cannot find in the policy.

All in all, I think most of my actions as an admin are justified: I've done a lot of vandal-blocking,[3] and I'm confident that I've treated these IPs the same as other admins would have treated them. A couple of the semi-protects, in retrospect, have shown poor judgement. Obviously, I'm willing to take whatever punishment the arbitrators see as justified. Bucketsofg 03:00, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I'd have semiprotected Marsden-Donnelly harassment case if Bucketsofg hadn't seen Ellis' latest revert before I did; he'd been attacking the page for days, removing the bulk of the article (including all the sources) and then marking it as a speedy candidate. —Cryptic 03:31, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

The rotating IP was indeed disrupting the page from my observations of the incident and I would also agree that semi-protection in this case was a good thing to do. The IP radically took the proposed decisions in the arbitration case that hadn't even reached a vote as a final decision and used them to propose speedy deletion of the article several times and remove quite a bit of sourced information. Personally I think a warning to avoid a conflict of interest in such cases or an article ban would be more appropriate than to outright remove Buckets' sysop rights, as the overall effect of desysopping would be negative due to Buckets' contributions in other parts of Wikipedia with the sysop tools. Cowman109^Talk 03:57, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

I dont necessarily disagree with the blocks, or all of the protections. I don't feel I need to. The widom of taking no administrative action when involved is is simple. Whether it ended up being correct or not (I certainly do dispute saome of the protections) is not usually even the biggest determining factor in deciding for desysopping: people are allowed to make mistakes, I certainly have, but those who have demonstrated their judgment cannot be trusted, should not have the tools. Regardless of whether the acual actions taken were correct, your doing them showed poor judgment; and I don't feel confident that if they had been incorrect at the time, you would not have made them, since you were involved in the issue. Understanding the principle of taking no action when involved is one of the key parts of administrative judgment. There are hundreds of uninvolved admins you can go to at any time when you need a neutral position. Adminship is entirely distinct from article editing, and removal of adminship has no effect on that: again, there are hundreds of others with those few extra buttons, and it does us no good to keep someone we don't have full confidence in (or much at all). Warnings reinforce the "adminship is a big deal" culture. Dmcdevit·t 05:05, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What version doesn't conform to BLP?

I have a hard time seeing "Rachel Marsden, in its negative form is inconsistent Wikipedia:biographies of living persons." as being a finding on user conduct rather than content. However, if you think it should be part of this decision, could someone please clarify what version of the article (i.e. a date and time) it applies to? The version that existed when the case was opened? The version that existed when Fred made the motion? The version that exists when each arbitrator votes? Kla'quot 05:17, 18 November 2006 (UTC)