Obama Arber Drama, or, ArbCom don't care about BLP if it's the President Options

[Sceptre]

Well, The Obama RfAr is about to close. And what a clusterfuck it is.

First, the finding of facts are totally over-exaggerating what has actually happened. Case in point, as it will be for most of my posts, will be the proposals concerning me.

8) Sceptre (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · abuse filter log · block user · block log) has engaged in edit-warring[20][21][22] and continued to revert Stevertigo outside of the Barack Obama FAQ.[23][24] and engaged in edit summary attacks.[25]

Okay, I admit that I did edit-war on the Obama FAQ. But the reversions of Stevertigo were because he was in full-disruption mode at that point (one of the diffs is me reverting an edit which was used in a proposal about Stevertigo disrupting!). Oh, and the "edit summary attack"? I said "fuck". Other people I've talked to have failed to see any wrongdoing on anything other than the edit warring.

Which brings us to the proposed decision:

5) Sceptre (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · abuse filter log · block user · block log) is admonished for his edit-warring. Furthermore, Sceptre is subject to an editing restriction for one year. Sceptre is limited to one revert per page per week (except for undisputable vandalism and BLP violations), and is required to discuss any content reversions on the page's talk page. Should Sceptre exceed this limit or fail to discuss a content reversion, he may be blocked for the duration specified in the enforcement ruling below.

What the fuck? That is way over-the-top for what can be shown to be one case of edit warring. I contested it saying that my actions were all in the spirit of BLP (as I would enforce NPOV on McCain's article just as much as on Obama's, and I worked on removing and rearranging similar articles and sections regarding Bush at the same time), and so should not be subject to a sanction that harsh, and that it would leave me unable to edit in the area where I can actually prove to be useful (Doctor Who, and I take the article writing seriously, not "zomg so good here's some theory splurge!") because of how popular those articles are (high visitor and anonymous editor count, and often semi-protection after episodes air). Wikidemon agreed to the same effect, saying that while I may have gone OTT, it was in the spirit of BLP and unduly restrictive. But of course, as this case shows, ArbCom don't listen to the users.

But the icing on the cake? Stevertigo is about to receive the exact same sanction. This is the same person who was desysopped by ArbCom for edit-warring and failed to win his adminship back. This just proves that the ArbCom's (stated) philosophy of BLP enforcement being something that should be encouraged and unimpeded is no longer functional. Now, they are just trying to appear politically "fair" and "unbiased" because stricter sanctions on Steve would prove Wikipedia's "liberal bias". But that hasn't been an issue before, so why should it be now?

I'm very disappointed in ArbCom with this, having held some users to be trustworthy and actually give a fuck about BLP. Let me just say that, unless I see otherwise, I'm opposing anyone running for re-election in December.

This post has been edited by Sceptre: Wed 17th June 2009, 4:16pm

[Shalom]

But the icing on the cake? Stevertigo is about to receive the exact same sanction. This is the same person who was desysopped by ArbCom for edit-warring and failed to win his adminship back.

You live in a glass house, Sceptre, so you should not throw stones at Stevertigo. You may well be correct about the sanction being unfair to you. Similar complaints have come up from editors sanctioned in the date delinking case who played a peripheral role in the controversy. When I edited I never edit warred, and would not have had any difficulty meeting a one revert per page per week remedy if that were the policy.

[cyofee]

Sceptre, if Wikipedia is so bad to you, why don't you finally leave it alone? It's not like you've never received any negative feedback about your work and behavior.

[A Horse With No Name]

Sceptre? Wikidemon? Dank? ChildofMidnight? Baseball Bugs? Hell, what did anyone expect from this crowd?

[Jon Awbrey]

But the icing on the cake? Stevertigo is about to receive the exact same sanction. This is the same person who was desysopped by ArbCom for edit-warring and failed to win his adminship back.

You live in a glass house, Sceptre, so you should not throw stones at Stevertigo. You may well be correct about the sanction being unfair to you. Similar complaints have come up from editors sanctioned in the date delinking case who played a peripheral role in the controversy. When I edited I never edit warred, and would not have had any difficulty meeting a one revert per page per week remedy if that were the policy.

The Edication of Sceptre : Chapter One

In which Sceptre discovers Seekrit Rule № [Rule № Redacted — it's seekrit, you φ00ℓ], to wit, or not, Reality Is Not Important (WP:RINI).

See Also

• Omerta

Ja Ja

[Sceptre]

But the icing on the cake? Stevertigo is about to receive the exact same sanction. This is the same person who was desysopped by ArbCom for edit-warring and failed to win his adminship back.

You live in a glass house, Sceptre, so you should not throw stones at Stevertigo. You may well be correct about the sanction being unfair to you. Similar complaints have come up from editors sanctioned in the date delinking case who played a peripheral role in the controversy. When I edited I never edit warred, and would not have had any difficulty meeting a one revert per page per week remedy if that were the policy.

It's not a case of "may", it's a case of "is". Where two editors, one with a prior sanction for edit warring and was arguably being disruptive and violating BLP (supported by the fact that his article got salted for violating NPOV and therefore BLP) and another editor with no prior sanctions for edit warring and was trying to uphold BLP get the same sanction, something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

[Jon Awbrey]

Er, ratum —

The Edication of Sceptre : Chapter One

In which Sceptre discovers has yet to discover Seekrit Rule № [Rule № Redacted — it's seekrit, you φ00ℓ], to wit, or not, Reality Is Not Important (WP:RINI).

See Also

• Omerta

Ja Ja

[Somey]

Sceptre? Wikidemon? Dank? ChildofMidnight? Baseball Bugs? Hell, what did anyone expect from this crowd?

Well, exactimundo. I would think it's assumed by most of us here, actually, that any WP article on a sitting US President is (by necessity) going to be hopelessly mired in edit-warring and agenda-driven gamesmanship, so while it's probably unfair to single one or two people out for it, it's difficult to take it very seriously.

Still, I take it this Stevertigo fellow is fairly talented at pursuing the conservative agenda while pretending not to be especially conservative? I recall some business a while ago in which he claimed he thought Obama was a "great guy" while insisting that there should be a separate "Criticism and Controversy" section in the main article, and that anyone disagreeing with him was "obviously POV" or something to that effect. Is that how you remember it, Sceptre? (Though I don't remember you being a part of that discussion.)

[Sceptre]

Sceptre? Wikidemon? Dank? ChildofMidnight? Baseball Bugs? Hell, what did anyone expect from this crowd?

Well, exactimundo. I would think it's assumed by most of us here, actually, that any WP article on a sitting US President is (by necessity) going to be hopelessly mired in edit-warring and agenda-driven gamesmanship, so while it's probably unfair to single one or two people out for it, it's difficult to take it very seriously.

Still, I take it this Stevertigo fellow is fairly talented at pursuing the conservative agenda while pretending not to be especially conservative? I recall some business a while ago in which he claimed he thought Obama was a "great guy" while insisting that there should be a separate "Criticism and Controversy" section in the main article, and that anyone disagreeing with him was "obviously POV" or something to that effect. Is that how you remember it, Sceptre? (Though I don't remember you being a part of that discussion.)

The point is that we shouldn't be pursing any agenda. No liberal or conservative, no fascist or anarchist, no scientific or psuedoscientific agenda, none at all. There should be only one point of view on Wikipedia: the neutral point of view (though, as we both know, that's not what happens in practice).

That seems to be a cyclic problem. ChildOfMidnight seems to have taken up that mantle. Although it's getting beyond ridiculous now by virtue of ignoring us when we say repeatedly "why should there be a controversy/criticism section in this article, when no president in the past sixty years, including Nixon and Bush, has one?"*. Of course, Steve, if he was acting in good faith, jumped in at entirely the wrong time, given the WorldNetDaily controversy days before.

*This wasn't necessarily true three months ago; Bush had a criticism article up until March, which had survived solely because "NPOV violations are not a reason for deletion". It was successfully and unanimously merged around the same time as the Obama DRV. Currently, to my knowledge, the latest president to have a "Criticism" section or a "Criticism of..." article is FDR.

This post has been edited by Sceptre: Wed 17th June 2009, 5:05pm

[Apathetic]

I think that the Barack Obama article is notable enough now to have an article written about it, don't you agree?

[Somey]

The point is that we shouldn't be pursing any agenda. No liberal or conservative, no fascist or anarchist, no scientific or psuedoscientific agenda, none at all. There should be only one point of view on Wikipedia: the neutral point of view (though, as we both know, that's not what happens in practice).

Sure, but now you're getting into a "realist vs. idealist" argument, aren't you? Even die-hard Wikipedians probably realize that's a red herring. Which is to say that idealism isn't any more important to WP's editorial process than realism is.

Not to coin a new term or anything, but I believe what you've gotten into there might be thought of as a "civility brawl." It really doesn't matter what you believe, what perspective you have on the topic, or what agenda you're pushing (if any) - you just have to remain "civil" longer than the other brawlers without actually retreating, and ultimately you win, though it may take years to finally succeed of course. I can see your point about being unfairly singled out, not to mention being the victim of some sort of political balancing act... but the fact that Stevertigo is receiving any sanctions at all is a fairly good sign, I should think. It shows that they're catching on, at least to some extent.

[Sceptre]

The point is that we shouldn't be pursing any agenda. No liberal or conservative, no fascist or anarchist, no scientific or psuedoscientific agenda, none at all. There should be only one point of view on Wikipedia: the neutral point of view (though, as we both know, that's not what happens in practice).

Sure, but now you're getting into a "realist vs. idealist" argument, aren't you? Even die-hard Wikipedians probably realize that's a red herring. Which is to say that idealism isn't any more important to WP's editorial process than realism is.

Not to coin a new term or anything, but I believe what you've gotten into there might be thought of as a "civility brawl." It really doesn't matter what you believe, what perspective you have on the topic, or what agenda you're pushing (if any) - you just have to remain "civil" longer than the other brawlers without actually retreating, and ultimately you win, though it may take years to finally succeed of course. I can see your point about being unfairly singled out, not to mention being the victim of some sort of political balancing act... but the fact that Stevertigo is receiving any sanctions at all is a fairly good sign, I should think. It shows that they're catching on, at least to some extent.

I'm a bit of an idealist, so sue me. But the fact that I'm receiving the same sanction as him is a sign that BLP isn't that important anymore

[CharlotteWebb]

something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

Not to mention in the District of Columbia. If you unfold the newspaper you'll notice the dead fish still stinks and people are continuing to lose jobs left and right. They say the actual axe-drop rate is decreasing, which kinda makes sense as you have to gain a job before you can lose it. No one 'round here is hiring, just trying to make a dollar out of fifteen cents, having reached the point where they cannot lay off any more people and continue operating (otherwise they would). Me, I'm doing like four people's work, but hey things could be lot worse. Probably will be soon enough. Wage-bid wars will become the norm. There are a lot of hungry people out there who'd take my job for half what I make now.

Keep working, America—starvation is for quitters.

I would say "Hey Barry, can you spare some change?" but Americans learned an important lesson 77 YEARS AGO TODAY about pan-handling on the White House lawn. I suspect most have forgotten it.

* * *

There should be only one point of view on Wikipedia: the neutral point of view (though, as we both know, that's not what happens in practice).

That's because this neutral POV of which you speak... it's one that nobody holds in actual practice.

[Tarc]

Well, it is kindof like the shogun approach that ArbCom just took to the Judea-Samaria case. Either the committee doesn't have the time to investigate the actual merits and motivations of why individuals have edited the way they have, or if they do not have the competence/skill.

As for Steve-O, he's an idiot, one of these crusty legacy admins who got the position back in the day when

"hey, this guy has edited a lot, wanna make him an admin?"
"yea"
"yep"
"sure"

carried the day. I'd love to see some sort of re-RfA for all of em still around, having encountered another one recently who is nearly as bad.


Stevertigo has spent much of these proceedings telling us how much of a hand he had in ArbCom's creation, and writing TL;DR novellas about how everything he has done is for the good of the project, so he should not be punished for doing what he thinks is right. Its like listening to a real-life Darken Rahl.

[CharlotteWebb]

As for Steve-O, he's an idiot, one of these crusty legacy admins who got the position back in the day
[...]
I'd love to see some sort of re-RfA...

Actually that's been done [1][2] (failed).

...having encountered another one recently who is nearly as bad.

How so?

[Tarc]

...having encountered another one recently who is nearly as bad.

How so?

I only got involved on one article I happened to see a DRV for, but there's apparently a large brouhaha (I love that word) about CountryX-CountryY relations. Some want to create an article for pretty much every intersection, so alongside the expected Canada-US relations we would also have, say, Estonia-Luxembourg. Others want this to not happen on notability concerns. Docu is involved on the pro-article side, closed the above article despite a solid 'delete' consensus, did an endaround to get it reborn as an awkward disambig/redirect, which was deleted again. Docu is now prohibited from closing AfDs in this topic area.

Many have also raised issues with this user about how they do not archive his talk page, rarely uses a proper sig in posts, and communicates with other users in a short and fragmanted manner. Nitpicky probably, but it all of it together makes him come across as a cranky curmudgeon that has simply been doing things one way for far too long. he has quite a history at the AN boards.

[CharlotteWebb]

Docu is now prohibited from closing AfDs in this topic area.

Oh shit, who elected Aitias to arbcom? Now we're all doomed, doomed I tell you...

[Sceptre]

Docu is now prohibited from closing AfDs in this topic area.

Oh shit, who elected Aitias to arbcom? Now we're all doomed, doomed I tell you...

Doomed!

[Jon Awbrey]

The point is that we shouldn't be pursing any agenda. No liberal or conservative, no fascist or anarchist, no scientific or pseudo-scientific agenda, none at all. There should be only one point of view on Wikipedia: the neutral point of view …

Good grief, Man, is there some kind of Wiki-Plenary Indulgence you're hoping to get for Converting the Infidels?

I can assure you, it will be far less painful for all concerned — and save you a helluva lot more time in Wiki-Purgatory — if you just march half-naked through the streets of Wikiputia, thrashing yourself on the back with the ritual barbed wire, and throw yourself on the mercy of the Kabal Kangaroos.

One damned Sysophus at a time, Please!

Jon

[Cedric]

Well, The Obama RfAr is about to close. And what a clusterfuck it is.

. . . [blah, blah, blabitty, blah] . . .

I'm very disappointed in ArbCom with this, having held some users to be trustworthy and actually give a fuck about BLP. Let me just say that, unless I see otherwise, I'm opposing anyone running for re-election in December.

"Wikipedia doesn't do due process."

--Lar

Was there something else you didn't understand?