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The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.

— Thomas Jefferson

Making WP:Mediation meaningful

Please consider how you might assist Feezo, who you will know is the mediator at Misplaced Pages:Requests for mediation/Senkaku Islands.

As context, please scan "Hands off" mediation plan.

Mediation involves conflated issues, but wider community intervention is needed in order to help, support and encourage Feezo so that we may reach those issues. --Tenmei (talk) 18:41, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm hesitant to wade into this at this time. MedCom is discussing this case per the request made, we should have something shortly. --WGFinley (talk) 02:47, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

This was not an invitation to "wade in" -- no.

My purpose was more subtle, more indirect. In posting this note on your talk page (and on the pages of your mediator colleagues), it was a good guess that your "back channel" comments might bolster Feezo's resolve, patience and flexibility.

Also, I thought it very likely that Bobthefish2 would closely follow my edits. If so, he would notice the sequence of diffs posted on mediator talk pages; and the cumulative effect of my carefully mild words might cause him pause.

My guess is that this gesture achieved no discernible goal. At best, these were a small things. These small "nudges" represented the extent of my ability to affect the momentum of things spinning out of control.

I adopt Feezo's argument that "mediation requires honesty, but also a willingness to engage." This small strategy demonstrates both honesty and willingness and an investment in speculating about the probable consequences of a few words. --Tenmei (talk) 03:30, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

The MedCom mailing list is no secret, it helps coordinate the assignment of cases, manage caseload and handle requests such as those made in this case. It's not something I would reply to individually at this point as it's under review. --WGFinley (talk) 05:55, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Whisperback

Hello. You have a new message at The_Artist_AKA_Mr_Anonymous‎'s talk page.

Nableezy AE case

Arbcom

Nableezy

Hi Nableezy displays battleground approach. You saw his conduct in your talk when he asked you if you were contacted by somebody. Now please see his conduct in BorisG talk, and in my talk.70.231.238.93 (talk) 00:43, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case#ARBPIA 3

Care to add yourself as a party commenting as one of the AE patrollers? --Peter cohen (talk) 14:26, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

AE case about Jiujitsuguy may be ready to close

The request at WP:AE#Jiujitsuguy might close without action, but you have raised the question of an interaction ban. "Seems we have a consensus to close, is there a support for an interaction ban for JJG and Nableezy perhaps modeled on the one with Cptnono last year?" This might be considered but I think it would take some evidence (diffs showing personal attacks or whatever). Do you want to add a couple of sentences on why an interaction ban is needed? I was thinking of closing the request myself with no sanction but saw that this item was not answered or resolved. If you are not around, I will try to do something anyway. Thank you, EdJohnston (talk) 02:42, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree, there's no consensus for the interaction ban, just with two of them filing on each other I thought it may be appropriate. I just closed it out as there wasn't any support for that vocalized. --WGFinley (talk) 05:42, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps you didn't notice the diffs provided by Nableezy that showed a long-term habit of Jiujitsuguy falsifying what sources say, or the message from T. Canens in which he acknowledged those problematic diffs and wrote "I think a topic ban is in order." — Malik Shabazz /_Stalk 06:41, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Nope, I didn't, I have reopened the case, thanks for bringing my error to my attention. --WGFinley (talk) 06:46, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. — Malik Shabazz /_Stalk 06:56, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

AE decision

I do not understand this action at all. For one the editor who actually filed the report had at the end suggested possibly moving it off AE as the editor felt it was no longer as serious. Not to mention that, since the main objection any of these editors raised (including the main issue you raised) was me not discussing changes before making them, your decision to bar me from all related talk pages as well seems excessive and contrary to what you claimed was the issue. So, what exactly did you think justified barring from me the talks pages as well as editing despite the editor who filed the request having a change of heart and suggesting my actions may not warrant the more extreme sanctions that result from AE?--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 06:06, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

The issues were detailed in depth in the AE report, I made my suggestion on the AE report and it was there for a week without any objections noted from any other uninvolved admin and therefore made my decision accordingly. I think your refusal to look at the totality of your conduct and how your actions disrupted editing in a controversial topic area were a large reason for indicating to me the block clearly wasn't sufficient as you don't think you did anything wrong. I went forward with the topic ban per the AE report to prevent further disruption. Try to get over it, learn to lose gracefully and take a break if needed. You're not helping things with walls of text, drop the stick instead. --WGFinley (talk) 06:18, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Do you want a short explanation for why I am so insistent that I did nothing wrong? How about the fact that at every turn, no matter how many times I got reverted, no matter how many times those reverts unnecessarily removed material that was of no controversy, no matter how many times I found myself struggling to get any real discussion going, no matter how many bad faith accusations I faced, no matter how many uncivil remarks I received, I still tried my best to work out the issues with those editors calmly and respectfully?

The problem I have with being accused of being disruptive is that it implies my actions were inhibiting progress, when the opposite is true. In several cases I corrected issues that had been standing for years, on one occasion as a direct result of my involvement another editor also noticed such an issue (though the editor seemed to blame me for it the error was around for four years). Generally many improvements I made still stand with no objection, most of them part of the very edits cited in those noticeboards as examples of my "disruptive" behavior. The problem I have with being accused of edit-warring is it implies that I simply tried to reassert myself over and over without considering what others were saying when, again, I did the opposite. I immediately sought the opinions of other editors and repeatedly made changes to accommodate their concerns, letting go of issues even when I found the reasoning flimsy or poor. No editor or admin has yet to actually dispute that this was the case.

Despite being on the right side of the facts and policy, I was fully ready to accept what I thought was coming in this instance. Barring me from editing said articles, no matter how much I may dislike it or see it as unequal, is something I at least could accept. Barring me from discussing changes altogether? That is another matter entirely. So, I have a very simple request: if you are unwilling to reverse your action entirely, it would be nice if you would at least allow me to contribute on the talk pages.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 08:03, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Your actions in the article space and the talk space were the reasons for the AE report, hence your topic ban from them. If you go and read WP:TBAN you will see this is the standard of almost all topic bans, I'm not meting out cruel and unusual punishment specifically for you. In fact that's your main issue, I'm not meting out punishment, I'm preserving the peace there since you have demonstrated your are unable and unwilling to work collaboratively with others as demonstrated in your response. I have one more essay for you, I hope you actually read them (starting to doubt it): don't be a fanatic. Take care. --WGFinley (talk) 14:22, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

What do you think I did in the talk space that justifies keeping me from commenting in it? This notion that I am unwilling and unable to work collaboratively is nonsense. From the very beginning in that article I sought their opinions and sought to accommodate them, even when I strongly disagreed. Interestingly your essay describes good editorship as asking for and respecting notable views even when one disagrees. So, calling me a fanatic based on that essay is a tad ironic.

See there, I am in fact reading your essays even though the general tenor of them is insulting (telling me to get over it, regardless of the context, is not exactly nice). That is the difference here, I actually completely read over whatever other people are saying and you have already admitted that you do not despite being tasked with taking action against me. If you had maybe you would realize that my "walls of text" were in fact not repetitive or useless as your citing of that essay would imply. Just because I don't agree with you doesn't mean I am not paying attention.

As for the rest of what you said, no where did I suggest your action was "cruel and usual" only that it was excessive under the circumstances. You and every other editor was claiming the issue was me not discussing my changes so if you really wanted to encourage that you would bar me from editing articles but allow me to discuss them. However, just briefly looking over some other instances it is not at all uncommon for editors to be allowed to discuss a subject, but banned from editing articles on that subject. You were the only one who used the word punishment I might add.

So then, how about commenting on what I actually said rather than what you apparently wish I had said?--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 17:39, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

I have some concerns about this AE decision. Most significantly, if you are going to ban a user, then you should always read what they have to say, so citing TL;DR is not encouraging. Drawing the implication that "coming off a block" implies "a topic ban is in order" is also an inference requiring more justification.

User:The Devil's Advocate, as the username suggest, makes comments which can be helpful in drawing editors' attention to problems (e.g. of maintenance) that they may face if they are not scrupulously neutral and fact-based in their approach to controversial topics: the most recent example is this edit about quantifying "evidence". I am entirely unsurprised that making comments of this nature leads TDA into conflict situations, and TDA's own conduct may be imperfect as a consequence. However, we should take care not to shoot the messenger. Editors who seek to encourage an encyclopedic treatment of a controversial subject, may, like TDA, find themselves regarded as POV pushing conspiracy theorists, when instead they are simply trying to help improve the encyclopedia. Geometry guy 23:37, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

I think I have respectfully listened to the pleas but the simple fact of the matter is there were valid complaints in the AE report. I left it open for a good while for others to chime in and there wasn't anyone adverse to my proposed course of action so I closed out the case. At this point the horse has been sufficiently beaten. --WGFinley (talk) 05:45, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Um, actually that's not really true. You should look at the edit history with regards to that case and you will see someone did insert a criticism, a criticism very similar to Geo's here, with regards to your "tl;dr" comment. That editor removed the comment almost immediately, but it is probably something you should have noticed. I was reluctant to mention this given that the user may not want to draw attention to himself, but you should realize there was someone who had the same problem Geo did well before the discussion was closed.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 06:39, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Respectfully, I have read your arguments, I have read your email, I understand you don't like WP:TLDR but it is a method used to convey to someone they are being far from concise. I'm sorry you feel that way but you have an issue with avoiding brevity. Per the guidelines set up by Arbcom an uninvolved admin can invoke sanctions and I have done so. I might be inclined to review my decision at a later time but refusing to accept the decision and continuing to badger me about it when I've called for a natural end to the discussion is not the best way to go about doing that. Taking what I, and others, have said about it to heart and editing harmoniously in other areas for a bit might be of great benefit. I assure you, the 9/11 articles will be there in a month. --WGFinley (talk) 14:32, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

I suggest you read the "Maintain civility" part of the tl;dr essay. Also you indicated above that it was not merely a matter of you suggesting I be concise, but that you did not actually read my comments. That you made plainly false claims about my comments in your first response to the AE case demonstrates that this was indeed the case.

I do not have a "problem with brevity" as anyone reading the article talk page can see. At the time you made the tl;dr comment there was a grand total of seven paragraphs in my statement that you could have easily read through in ten minutes at most, though I was able to read through it completely just now in three minutes. The first paragraph addressed all the post-block edits listed at the time and the one addressing the pre-block edits had bolded text at the beginning. In spite of that you claimed I did not respond to the diffs provided.

Now, I am not entirely sure what reasoning you have for imposing the ban. It seems your reasoning ranges from "although your behavior would be perfectly standard and acceptable elsewhere here it is disruptive editing" to "you insist you did no wrong in the previous block so I am adding stricter sanctions" in spite of the fact the blocking admin did not consider my insistence on that, of which he was well aware, a reason to bring it up on ArbCom.

Given that you and every other editor pushing for a sanction said the issue was me not discussing changes before making them, barring me from discussion seems counter to the change you want me to make. As I said before, I can live with a ban from editing the article despite disagreeing with it, but the ban from the talk space is another matter.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 18:36, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Should you wish to appeal your TBAN at a later time you can post a new section for me to reconsider. --WGFinley (talk) 18:48, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Re dispute resolution

That's drawing us into content where we shouldn't be going

WG, I'm afraid that this comment of yours demonstrates that you simply aren't up to speed with the current state of play at AE. Over the last 18 months, administrators have increasingly recognized that simply handing out speeding tickets for technical violations, while ignoring obvious abuses like misrepresentation of sources or adding outright falsehoods, doesn't work. You are trying to drag AE back into an earlier era where civil POV pushers could run rampant while those attempting to prevent their abuse were given no support from dispute resolution or even penalized for trying to do the right thing. I would strongly urge you to read the comments collected by NuclearWarfare at his candidate guide, under the "On administration" section, they summarize the problem very well in my view. Gatoclass (talk) 16:32, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Admins aren't supposed to be handling content disputes, that's what dispute resolution is for. I haven't seen any perceived change in the handling of disputes nor has there been any change made by Arbcom. In fact, the New Admin School specifically outlines cases of entrenched users that create arguments by calling any source that doesn't agree with their view as unreliable. --WGFinley (talk) 05:39, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Dispute resolution doesn't work if administrators are not willing to deal with POV pushing. The very page to which you refer has a section entitled Obvious POV pushing which encourages admins to block or otherwise sanction POV pushers. How are you going to gauge whether someone is POV pushing if you are not willing to look at the content of their edits?

With regard to contentious topic areas, admins are given even more discretion to act: Any uninvolved administrator may, on his or her own discretion, impose sanctions on any editor working on an article within the area of conflict (or for whom discretionary sanctions have otherwise been authorized) if, despite being warned, that editor repeatedly or seriously fails to adhere to the purpose of Misplaced Pages, any expected standards of behavior, or any normal editorial process. "The purpose of Misplaced Pages" and "normal editorial processes" are based upon the five pillars which include WP:NPOV. So admins are clearly enjoined to determine whether or not editors in contentious topic areas are editing in accordance with such policies. Dispute resolution is not about handing out parking tickets to people who make one revert too many, or who swear occasionally on talk pages. It's about determining who is adhering to the purpose of Misplaced Pages and who is not. Those who are not adhering to the purpose, get sanctioned. Those who are adhering to the purpose, should have our support. Gatoclass (talk) 08:37, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Admins in this topic space know better than to start getting into content disputes, the second you do WP:INVOLVED is invoked. It is not the admin's job to start checking sources, it is up tot he person presenting them to make the case they are reliable sources and those who disagree to make the case they are not. Then through collaboration and consensus things are agreed to. This disputed area is rife of accusations of unreliable sources and POV pushing, it's done on both sides of the dispute and it is done constantly. I won't be drawn into content disputes. --WGFinley (talk) 14:31, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Fabricating the content of sources is not a content dispute. I have asked several questions of you at AE, but as you have ignored them there I bring them to your attention here. You wrote I don't see what he did on Mount Hermon other than to point out there's a ski resort there and added a travel guide as source for information on that. That is simply wrong. Jiujitsuguy did not write anything about a ski resort there, and if you actually looked at the diffs you would not say that. In this diff Jiujitsuguy took a source that says Mount Hermon reaches 9232 feet, but its peak is actually located on the border between Lebanon and Syria. and he changed the article from saying Mount Hermon's summit straddles the border between Lebanon and Syria to Mount Hermon's summit straddles the border between Lebanon, Israel and Syria. In this diff he took a source that says The summit of Mt. Hermon—famous as Israel's highest mountain, at 9,230 feet above sea level—is actually in Syrian territory and dishonestly claimed that what the source says is just Mt. Hermon, famous as Israel's highest mountain full stop. He deliberately manipulated the sources into supporting his own view, a view that those sources directly contradict. For a user already banned for falsifying sources, this should be taken seriously. Can you please say that a. you have read the diffs, and b. why you claim that the only thing he did was use a travel guide for the location of a ski resort, and c. now that this has been, once again, explained, if there is a problem with a user with an established record of falsifying sources to push a POV to continue falsifying sources to push that same POV? nableezy - 14:45, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

I have looked at this diff consistently when assessing this. What I see is you changed the info box, the usual changing back of the map and you removed referenced material that is in opposition to your world view that you don't agree with. Classic case of the constant and never ending warring on all things Golan. One side brings up its claims and states how the other has bad and misrepresented sources and the other side does likewise. As far as my responding to your comments I have ignored most of the continued and constant bickering from everyone there and instead focused on discussing the issue with other admins so we can get the report concluded. --WGFinley (talk) 15:11, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Really, you looked at that diff? How about you respond to the points I made here? That I did not remove "referenced material" that is "in opposition to my world view", I removed edits that distorted the sources and made basic errors of fact. Can you please respond to the points? Because you havent discussed the issue, you simply made things up. At AE you claimed that JJG used a travel guide for the location of a ski resort. He did no such thing, and your claim is patently false. You have consistently ignored the issue, and when you contrast your reaction to reverting socks of banned editors by me to the purposeful distortion of sources in an encyclopedia article you make clear your purpose on AE. Once again. Fabricating the content of sources is not a content dispute. Jiujitsuguy took a source that says that Mt Hermon's summit is located on the border of Syria and Lebanon. He then changed the article to say that instead of the summit being located on the border of Syria and Lebanon that it is actually on the border of Lebanon, Israel and Syria. The source he used says the exact opposite. How is purposely distorting a source acceptable? Have you looked at this diff or not? If so, can you explain how it acceptable to use a source that says one thing and place in the article the opposite? He purposely manipulated the sources to place in the article propaganda. Do you not understand this? If you do, why are you ignoring it? nableezy - 15:16, 1 December 2011 (UTC)