Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Notability guidelines

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Contents 1 Comments by uninvolved editors 1.1 Observation by MONGO 1.2 Observation by Ideogram (talk · contribs) 1.3 Observation by Yuser31415 (talk · contribs) 1.4 Observation by tangentially involved Circeus (talk · contribs) 1.5 Observation by uninvolved Pschemp (talk · contribs) 1.6 Observation by tangentially involved Dweller (talk · contribs) 1.7 Observation by Sir Nicholas 1.8 Observation by Friday 1.9 Observations by User:JzG 2 Note

[edit] Comments by uninvolved editors

[edit] Observation by MONGO

Badlydrawnjeff is at heart an inclusionist, overwhelmingly voting to keep articles rather than delete them (though this isn't a fault on his part). The notability guideline has been in need of reform regarding what notability should be based on. Badlydrawnjeff perfers a lower bar of notability than does Radiant. This is therefore, a content dispute. Furthermore, if an essay is changed to a guideline, it can always be amended or later dismissed by consensus. If there has been little or not opposition to an essay becoming a guideline, then promotion to guideline is no big deal....guidelines are not policy and exist merely as suggestions to editors for the sake of uniformity. Lastly, there has been no tenacious editing or disruption that I can see, being bold is encouraged of course. I see two bold editors in a content dispute that can be worked out by adhering to consensus and believe that this is not a case ArbCom should be getting involved in. A content Rfc would be a more appropriate venue for this situation.--MONGO 19:10, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Observation by Ideogram (talk · contribs)

Although this does seem to be basically a content dispute, the history between these two users has reached the point where they are unable to AGF. In particular, Radiant has accused badlydrawnjeff of making personal attacks and demands an apology/retraction before engaging in discussion. badlydrawnjeff does not feel an apology is necessary. I really have no idea how this can be resolved. --Ideogram 21:19, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Observation by Yuser31415 (talk · contribs)

As a user who requested full protection of a notability guideline due to Radiant! and Badlydrawnjeff's edit warring over it, I can only say that (a) it is very sad to see experienced users acting in the way they are, and (b) a little more AGF might be good on their part. I second MONGO's observation. As I see it, the dispute is a disagreement between two users with different philosophies over the way Wikipedia should work. It is a pity they could not come to a compromise before RfAr. Yuser31415 21:46, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Observation by tangentially involved Circeus (talk · contribs)

I agree with Ideogram and Yuser above. These two have edit warred over the status of enough pages to make this entire thing call for arbitration. At his worst, I've personally seen Jeff make outright false statements and petty wikilayering, when he as not directly belittling the consensus process (Via the now merged Wikipedia:Consensus can change). I have not reviewed Radiant's actions all across (I left the WP:OC in disgust after someone agreed with user:Fresheneesz ove rthe use of a poll), but I recall him making also at times almost uncivil comments. This is partly my fault as I was the one to request extra admin attention to the WP:OC talk page in the first place.Circeus 23:06, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Observation by uninvolved Pschemp (talk · contribs)

There is no doubt that since Radiant!'s return, he has been systematically changing essays into guidelines and guidelines into policies with no attempt at community input. Several of these have turned up on ANI, and then Radiant! claims that no one opposed, when the reality was that no one was notified and nowhere was consensus developed. The changing of WP:CREEP is an example of this and the resulting ANI discussion is here. Badlydrawnjeff, while he has legitimate complaints about Radiant!'s policy/guideline crusade, has not always responded appropriately. Radiant needs to stop making changes without consensus and then edit warring to preserve them when people complain, and badlydrawnjeff needs to stop over-reacting. In short, neither is behaving. pschemp | talk 03:57, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Observation by tangentially involved Dweller (talk · contribs)

This is my first contribution to any such page, so forgive me if I speak out of turn. I tried to intervene and calm down the dispute with this diff ([1]). To my mind, both editors are hugely admirable contributors to this Project. It seems to have reached a circumstance where the parties are at loggerheads... because they're at loggerheads. I would hope that both parties would agree on the fundamental need for consensus and the importance to Wikipedia of being bold, of assuming good faith and being civil. It seems they're locked in a vicious circle of thinking the other has not held fast to one or more of those fundamentals. Perhaps I'm naive, but I think the content dispute could be easily resolved by both parties agreeing to a neutral party assessing consensus on the content issue. Getting both to return to mutual respect is more difficult - and unless this is resolved, there is danger it will simply flare up again when they next disagree. --Dweller 11:46, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Observation by Sir Nicholas

I am one of those who rarely ever agree with Badlydrawnjeff over notability issues; and there have been ample examples over DRVs regarding that. However, Jeff is a responsible user and has been working within the purview of consensus and the process. My observation and the evidence produced above by Jeff on Radiant!'s idiosyncratic behaviour deeply troubles me. I have never been involved in any kind of dispute with Radiant!, but I have seen systematic reverts of other users' edits, without trying to engage them on the talk pages. The WP:CREEP incident would be a good example. What I find even more troubling is the labelling of fairly innocuous edits by Jeff as personal attacks by Radiant!. <melodrama> Badlydrawnjeff is an inclusionist, and while I don't agree with him a lot many times but I will defend to death his right to voice his opinion. </melodrama> I pray that the ArbCom accepts this case and propose a resolution as it deems fit. — Nearly Headless Nick 14:30, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Observation by Friday

Looks like there's now an attempt at resolution between these two, at User talk:JzG/JR. Recommend rejection of arbitration as premature. Friday (talk) 18:01, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Observations by User:JzG

There are at least two threads to this problem.

The first is that of the guidelines / policies themselves. It has taken a long time to come up with a reasonably objective definition of notability, with a credible underlying rationale from canonical policy. The essay User:Uncle G/On notability is the foundation of the "primary notability criterion" which is now included in the notability guideline. While we had no single concise statement on what constituted notability, a lot of subject-specific guidelines were drawn up. Many of these used some pretty arbitrary criteria which left scope for a lot of often very lame disputes (e.g. does an international tour mean one with two dates, one either side of the American-Canadian border). Now we have a well-written and testable (for some values of testable: what constitutes a reliable source is still under debate as is the value of multiple) definition of encyclopaedic notability, there is a move, spearheaded by radiant!, to roll this into the subject-specific guidelines. The primary reason for this appears to me to be to reduce confusion. If an article is submitted to AfD and on one side we have people pointing out that there are no reliable sources while on the other they point to the subject having met one or more of the other arbitrary criteria, it's quite likely to be deleted because in the end without secondary sources, a tertiary source has nothing to work with.

The fundamental problem with these subject-specific guidelines was that they were stated in absolute terms: a foo is notable if it meets any one of the following criteria. It was possible in some cases to meet one of the criteria without actually achieving significant external coverage, which is always a problem for evaluating whether there is original research and whether the article is neutral. Pop culture subjects especially - games, websites and bands - must have a degree of critical review in order to be able to establish neutrality.

This has become more of a problem with the coincident growth of Wikipedia's popularity (hence attractiveness to those promoting their enterprise) and maturity as an encyclopaedic reference (hence creating a mood for increasing the average quality of articles).

So there is an issue here which is amenable to arbitration, namely: does the present definition of notability in Wikipedia:Notability accurately reflect community consensus, and if so is it reasonable to assert that this has primacy over subject-specific guidelines. Cards on the table: I believe it does, but I think that is a matter which may be amenable to arbitration.

The second issue is the related dispute between Radiant! and Badlydrawnjeff. This saddens me as I see both of them as highly committed to building a great encyclopaedia. I was about to try mediating this dispute, in my clumsy way, since both of them seem to accept that, but it may be the decision of the various parties involved that this, too, should be arbitrated. Given that both are genuinely doing their best to protect their view of what Wikipedia is and should be for, albeit with some sniping at each other along the way, I think that they need to come to some kind of truce. I would be enormously disappointed if this case was accepted and then turned into a slugfest or another venue for the perennial sport of Jeff-bashing, or indeed to see it become an outlet for those disgruntled with Radiant's other attempts to reduce the Byzantine complexity of our rule-base. I hope that everybody, including Jeff, can agree on this at least: we have far, far too many rules and guidelines, and consistency and simplicity in basic things like "what is a suitable topic for an article" can only be good. Jeff is unpopular among a certain group of people (i.e. the deletionist cabal). He is a thorn in the flesh of every admin who deletes stuff. As a perennial deletionist and constant disputant with Jeff, I think we need that. He's right often enough that we should learn to respect him and his philosophy, even if we disagree with it. But he does get a bit agitated at times. Radiant! is also given to bouts of certainty, and elements of the steamroller. I can't think of an example offhand where I have not agreed with him, and I can't think of a the problem he was trying to fix that did not need fixing, in the way he was trying to fix it, but there's no doubting that feathers have been ruffled. Do these guys need to change their behaviour? Maybe, a bit, but they have both earned the right to be assertive, in my view.

So, that's my $0.02. And for what it's worth I think an independent ruling on the guideline status would be a great help in solving the interpersonal dispute. Whether ArbCom does accept that task or decides to refer it to a wider community process is of course for the arbitrators to decide - I'd say one could justly claim community support for ArbCom taking this on, but I could be wrong. Guy (Help!) 18:12, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Note

Please see this mediation. >Radiant< 10:50, 14 February 2007 (UTC)