Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Notability guidelines

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Notability guidelines

Initiated by badlydrawnjeff talk at 17:47, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Involved parties

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Statement by badlydrawnjeff (talk · contribs)

According to Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines, a guideline "is any page that is: (1) actionable (i.e. it recommends, or recommends against, an action to be taken by editors) and (2) authorized by consensus." In late December 2006, W.marsh (talk · contribs) (who's involvement in this conflict ends here, and has no dog in this fight) made a change to Wikipedia:Notability (music) ([1]) and WP:BIO ([2]). This went unnoticed by me and without comment by any parties involved at the talk pages of the individual guidelines or at Wikipedia:Notability, which these edits allegedly stemmed from. On 24 January, Dragonfiend (talk · contribs) (who also has no dog in this fight) made a similar change to Wikipedia:Notability (web) to match the two that were changed in December. ([3]). Noting the lack of consensus or discussion regarding these changes, which appeared to me to be a fundamental change to our long-standing notability guidelines, I reverted at WP:BIO ([4]) and WP:MUSIC ([5]), while an unrelated person made the reversion at WP:WEB ([6]). At this point, I started/joined in on conversations at the talk pages of all three guidelines in question. (Long conversation, so instead of diffs for now, see WP:WEB, WP:BIO, and WP:MUSIC. Please use these links as talk page evidence in the coming sections). After taking some time to think about it a little more following comments from someone I respect and trust, JzG (talk · contribs), I reverted back again. And then the problems began.

Over the course of over two weeks, beginning on 29 January, Radiant! (talk · contribs) began a large-scale revert war with me on the pages ([7] [8] [9] [10] [11]), sometimes with discussion at the talk pages, sometimes not. Upon realizing this situation, I decided to place a disputed section tag in the areas while attempting to get a grasp on the consensus at the talk pages ([12] (I initially used the wrong tag at WP:BIO) [13] [14]). These were also removed by Radiant!, typically with little (WP:BIO, WP:WEB) or no (WP:MUSIC) discussion over a multiple-day period. ([15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22]. Note some of the edit summaries, where the discussion Radiant! was not part of was ignored, and many of my edits were considered "nonsense" or dismissed as "WP:IDONTLIKEIT").

At all times, I have tried to begin/continue a discussion at the talk page. Rarely was that reciprocated by Radiant!, the chief edit warrior against me in this conflict. I have not been a saint by any means - I did my share of edit warring, and occasionally made a comment or two that could be considered uncivil ([23]), but I feel I was protecting consensus, a guiding principle. Contrasted with Radiant!'s activities at other project pages, such as WP:CREEP's history, which resulted in page protection after he promoted an essay to a guideline without consensus, Wikipedia:Overcategorization, which eventually gained tangible consensus, but not without my pushing the issue on the talk page, and Wikipedia:Multiposting, now a redirect [24], which was promoted to guideline with no discussion, consensus, or demonstration of current practice. ([25] [26]).

Per the essay at Wikipedia:Tendentious editing, I believe Radiant!'s activity on the pages in question meet this standard. Furthermore, his activity fits the description at Wikipedia:Disruptive_editing as well, as he has "edit[ed] an article or group of articles in pursuit of a certain point for an extended time despite opposition from one or more other editors." He has also "resist[ed] moderation" (Community-enforced arbitration proposal; RfM; MedCab) and his activity felt like a "[c]ampaign to drive away productive contributors" (me) with his continued behavior, as I nearly left the project last week due to this conflict. Again, I have hardly been a saint in this ordeal, but I have been trying to do things properly in an attempt to figure out if said changes had any consensus or bearing, and, essentially, one person has stood in the way. I believe my comments about Radiant! being a tendentuous and/or disruptive editor in this ordeal has merit based on the evidence, but I want a resolution to this somehow, and this is all I can figure out at this point.

As an addendum to this following a comment below, it is my belief that this is not a content dispute as much as a dispute regarding how policies and guidelines are reached, consistent with the principles put across in past cases regarding consensus, Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Tony_Sidaway, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Non-Notability , Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Webcomics, and perhaps ownership. I've been involved in more than enough content disputes over the years to understand when it evolves past that, and I believe this has.

As a further addendum regarding JzG's comment, this ultimately has more to do in my mind about resolving the issues at the guidelines which govern the 1.5 million articles here than worrying about how to deal with two people in conflict over them. While I know that any acceptance of this case is likely look beyond what my long-term focus is and examine individual actions, I take that risk of repurcussion because every day the dispute regarding how consensus is gathered, judged, and implemented extends, the more harm it does to the project, which is why I've tried every few days to again test the waters and attempt to get us to move on in those additional subject-specific pages. Individual mediation (such as the one Friday refers to) may in fact help Radiant! and I get along better in the future, but may not solve the more pressing issue regarding consensus building and guideline promotion/implementation.

Statement by Radiant

The issue at WP:BIO started as a disagreement between Jeff (on one side), and me, Recury, Satori Son, Ben Aveling, and W.Marsh on the other. I'm not sure how Jeff can claim that his side therefore represents consensus; the page was stable for over a month before he decided it should be reverted to a much older version. Now there's more people involved, and I've already withdrawn from that dispute. The problem is that Jeff isn't really engaging in civil discourse (BIO [27] [28] [29], WEB [30] [31] [32], ANI [33] [34] [35]). It seems to me that calling people tendentious or disruptive, or saying they've never made any positive contributions to the wiki, are personal attacks - commenting not on what is said, but on who said it.

Since the underlying policy-related disputes have been advertised to the community and are all being resolved through getting more community input (e.g. witness discussion at WP:BIO), this really is an issue for mediation. Jeff has made requests for mediation three times, and every time I've said that I would be happy to discuss and get mediated if Jeff would simply lay off the personal attacks. I can do without the apology if he would simply stop. The only reason mediation has failed is that Jeff has refused to do so [36] [37]; mediator's response. >Radiant< 09:18, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

  • Oh by the way - Pschemp's observation is incorrect. I frequently post to e.g. the village pump or the admin noticeboard to get feedback on policy-related matters, e.g. [38], [39], [40], [41]. Two guidelines I've recently been involved in writing are WP:OCAT and WP:PNSD; it should be obvious from their respective talk pages that they have had extensive community input. >Radiant< 09:36, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Statement by Durova

My offer of community enforced mediation remains open if the participants in this dispute would rather go that route. DurovaCharge! 21:00, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Statement by involved User:JzG

Noting that previous observations have been removed, I would count myself as at least peripherally involved here. I am already trying to mediate between the parties (if this is possible), and am a participant int he discussions on the disputed articles. To be brief, I see two issues to arbitrate here:

  • Status of the notability guideline, as per Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Notability guidelines#Observations by User:JzG. Although ArbCom does not rule on policy, it is undoubtedly the case that some firm guidance is needed on the status of the "primary notability criterion". It is asserted by numerous contributors that the primary notability criterion at WP:N represents a codification of the community's view of what constitutes encyclopaedic notability, and that the conflict between this and the criteria asserted in the subject specific guidelines in terms of "a foo is notable if it meets any one of the following criteria"; meeting any number of such criteria without evidence of non-trivial coverage in external sources invites friction at AfD, with two groups asserting competing and contradictory guidelines. I see this is an issue amenable to arbitration, as per Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Non-Notability.
  • User conduct. There are kettles in evidence, but obviously there is an issue to be fixed. Can it be fixed by mediation? Unclear, maybe, maybe not. The user conduct is clearly within the accepted scope of ArbCom, I'm just not sure if the actual conduct rises to the level ArbCom usually considers.

Guy (Help!) 22:17, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Clerk notes

Comments by uninvolved editors have been moved to Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Notability guidelines Thatcher131 18:36, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
Discusion unrelated to the present case moved to Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration. Thatcher131 21:42, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (2/0/0/2)