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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Ohconfucius (talk | contribs) at 01:35, 25 February 2009 (→‎Edit warring by User:Tennis expert: moved pr request). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Anyone, whether directly involved or not, may add evidence to this page. Create your own section and do not edit in anybody else's section. Please limit your main evidence to a maximum 1000 words and 100 diffs and keep responses to other evidence as short as possible. A short, concise presentation will be more effective; posting evidence longer than 1000 words will not help you make your point. Over-long evidence that is not exceptionally easy to understand (like tables) will be trimmed to size or, in extreme cases, simply removed by the Clerks without warning - this could result in your important points being lost, so don't let it happen. Stay focused on the issues raised in the initial statements and on diffs which illustrate relevant behavior.

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Arbitrators may analyze evidence and other assertions at /Workshop. /Workshop provides for comment by parties and others as well as Arbitrators. After arriving at proposed principles, findings of fact or remedies, Arbitrators vote at /Proposed decision. Only Arbitrators (and clerks, when clarification on votes is needed) may edit the proposed decision page.

Evidence presented by Locke Cole

I've made a few statements at the top of my section, and further down I've presented direct evidence (in the form of diffs) to support as many of my conclusions/opinions as possible. If any arbitrator feels they need additional evidence or clarifications, please feel free to contact me.

Mass delinking of dates has no consensus

Regrettably I have no diffs to provide to support this (proving a negative is impossible), but that's the truth of it. What does have consensus is deprecating dates linked soley for auto formatting. There is also consensus (I believe) that dates may "sometimes" be linked where the links are relevant. And this is the crux of the problem here: bots and semi-automated scripts cannot discern between a date linked only for auto formatting and a date linked because the author of the article thought the link was relevant. Worse, these scripts and bots are often ran over the same article multiple times, so if an editor restores some or all unlinked dates, that work is undone again.

Reply to NuclearWarfare

That question isn't relevant IMHO. The issue here is that some date links (years or month-day) are "sometimes" allowed. A bot/script can't discern between a valuable date link and one made simply for auto formatting, and nothing so far supports the assumption that all date links are just links made for auto formatting.

Community consensus was not established

The consensus used to support mass date delinking was established in late August here. Of those participating there appears to be 11 people supporting deprecation of date linking and 3 people opposing. This is not sufficient, in my view, to justify mass editing of articles when the change is this drastic (intentionally linked dates are unlinked, signed in editors lose auto formatted dates in articles, etc).

Editors question need to delink, consensus

Editor opines over loss of metadata by delinking

more to come, if needed

More editors questioning consensus

  • 2008-10-02T22:50:13 - LlywelynII (talk · contribs) questions consensus, noting Tony's "cherry-picked talk page (in short, it strawmans his opposition; downplays the opposition clear on the subsection page and here; and blames date linking for errors caused by autoformatting, which are far more efficiently solved by removing preference autoformatting if it's a legitimate problem.)"
  • 2008-10-05T18:32:42 - Kendrick7 (talk · contribs) indicates he's argued with Lightbot's owner and agrees no automatic delinking should occur until consensus has been reached.

Editor questions lack of wide discussion/consensus

Tony1 has been incivil

Note to arbitrators, more evidence is in this section, these diffs are largely chronological where possible
  • 2008-10-26T01:26:55 - Tony using the same mantra he uses even now to divert discussion: he sees no reason why the order of month-day should matter. Even after the RFC, two months later (showed support for it) he continues to disparage commentators and discussions in this manner.
  • 2008-10-26T12:33:19 - Tony disparages editors disputing mass delinkings as being "armchair critics" and "noisy complainers". Tony insists we're "unwilling to lift a finger" to improve Wikipedia's date formatting. He refers to auto formatting as a "cancer" and a "toy", and insists we should be "ashamed of [ourselves]".

MediaWiki dev indicates fixing issues with formatting would not be difficult

One of the biggest reasons for delinking dates was that auto formatting doesn't work for those who aren't logged in, however a dev has indicated fixing it wouldn't be difficult
  • 2008-10-28T06:32:02 - Werdna (talk · contribs) indicates that fixing one of the main issues with date auto formatting would not be difficult.
  • 2008-10-31T23:00:38 - I announce the devs response on MOSNUM
  • 2008-11-01T05:29:04 - Ohconfucius (talk · contribs) insisting it's "one person" (referring to me) that supports this (the later RFC would prove this to be false, and in fact a majority of the community supports auto formatting of some kind).
  • 2008-11-03T15:23:09 - Tony again asks why "[w]hy are people wasting time here[?]", the pattern here being that if Tony doesn't like it, he disparages it, repeatedly, insisting it's resolved and a waste of time (when it's obviously not resolved, and clearly isn't a waste of time to those discussing it).
  • 2008-11-04T05:19:27 - Dmadeo (talk · contribs) responds, apparently having been involved in MOSNUM a month prior, to opine on the civility issues and cabal-like natures of regulars of MOSNUM.
  • 2008-11-04T11:50:45 - Tony again referring to those trying to discuss the issue as people who are "sitting in their armchairs dreaming up so-called solutions", insisting we engage in the activity we're trying to curb instead of "sideline gazing".
  • 2008-11-04T14:36:57 - Tony insists he's the only one doing work (undercurrent of that being that people trying to talk aren't helping).
  • 2008-11-04T14:34:28 - Dmadeo notes that calling those who disagree with Tony "complainers" and "contrasting them as people who dont work hard" isn't helpful. He also notes the "fait accompli" decision from Episodes and characters 2.

Uninvolved editors are affected

See also Dmadeo diffs above.
  • 2008-11-02T18:59:54 - Uninvolved editor Rumping (talk · contribs) comments about the lack of consensus for mass unlinking of dates.
  • 2008-11-03T01:01:41 - Tony's first response calls the subject "churning" and a "waste of time" (note the pattern of responses so far), refuses to acknowledge potential damage being done.
  • 2008-11-03T01:41:48 - Ohconfucius says all dates should be delinked.

Editor wishes to return to status quo

  • 2008-11-04T19:41:06 - Jheald (talk · contribs) had started an RFC about the linking of birth and death years in article prose. As that RFC failed to gain consensus one way or the other, he requested Lightmouse cease delinkings as he believed a lack of consensus should return to the previous status quo (link all dates).
  • 2008-11-05T03:05:50 - Tony denies lack of consensus, claims August consensus has "wide support".

Community RFC development began

Tony1 disruptively creates his own RFC

I still don't know what to make of this, but given his behavior up to this point it seems as if he was trying to do an end run around the publicly drafted/developed RFC
  • 2008-11-23T13:50:29 - Tony starts his RFC, without warning and in the face of the developed RFC being ready to run (probably his most disruptive act during this dispute)
  • 2008-11-23T14:19:33 - Masem objects to this unannounced RFC, rightly noting that the other RFC developed over many weeks of discussion was less than 24 hours from going live.
  • 2008-11-23T14:51:56 - Tony claims "that many users have pointed out the shambolic wording of that RfC, and its drafting has appeared to go nowhere"; further "I believe that they are rather too closely related to the one MASEM is still working on for a watchlist notice to be a workable arrangement now."

Attempted admin closure undone

Lazare Ponticelli, abuse of WP:FAR

This is an interesting case study of Tony's behavior, as well as the MOSNUM proponents behind the push for date delinking. Note that during this the article is a featured article and that neither RFC on date linking had yet been closed
This seems like an abuse of Wikipedia's Featured article system, making what is likely a bad faith review request due to editing disputes of date linking. It's worth noting that the article is still under review at WP:FARC. Arbitrators may also find the last two discussions in this old version of User talk:Tony1 worth reading (they seem to admit to coordinating efforts).

More abuse of FAC/FAR

Not going to go into incredible diff detail here, but the basic gist is there was a dispute between Tony and I about one sentence and two words in WP:MOSLINK, and he demanded the page be reverted back to it's original state. When I refused (and after a revert war involving myself, Tony and Dabomb87), he made this edit:
  • 2009-01-11T16:49:46 - Tony1 says "I now see MOSLINK as illegitimate, and will advise editors to disregard it at FAC and other forums."

Tony1 behavioral pattern

I've been asked to look at a situation between another editor and Tony1, and I believe the exchange there will help demonstrate the behavioral pattern detailed about at MOSNUM. Applicable are WP:OWN, WP:CIV, WP:NPA, WP:AGF, WP:RM (particularly WP:RM#Requesting uncontroversial moves) and WP:BOLD.
Eye movement in music reading
  • 2006-11-26T12:21:46 - Tony creates the article Eye movement in music reading.
  • 2008-06-23T02:39:10 - ChyranandChloe (talk · contribs) makes a few minor edits to the article, as well as adding a link to a disambiguation page they had been working on.
  • 2008-06-23T03:10:29 - Tony reverts with the edit summary "Reverting: DON'T make such major changes without prior discussion at talk. Who's sock are you?", clearly showing he assumed bad faith, and even making a personal attack (re: sock).
  • 2008-06-24T03:50:14 - On the talk page Tony again badgers the other editor, asking what their prior username was and continuing the accusations of sock puppetry.
  • 2008-06-24T17:33:45 - Again on the talk page, after being told to assume good faith by another editor, Tony suggests ChyranandChloe is a sock of a banned editor and continues "to be suspicious".
Eye movement in language reading
  • 2006-11-26T12:34:44 - Tony creates the article Eye movement in language reading.
  • 2008-06-23T03:03:31 - Tony comments on the article talk page with the edit summary "WRONG: THIS IS NOT THE WAY ARTICLE TITLES ARE CHANGED", apparently thinking page moves require two weeks of discussion first.
  • 2008-06-24T03:43:14 - "Oh, and I'll thank you not to vandalise the link to "Eye movement in music reading". How dare you. Heck, I think I'm going to treat you like a vandal from now."
User talk:ChyranandChloe

Harassment by Ohconfucius

Also see the Workshop page for some examples of incivility bordering on harassment
  • 2009-01-16T09:09:40 - Ohconfucius likely uses a browser with bookmarking, this merely serves as a way of "shaming" me on his userpage and is totally unnecessary. I've tried very hard to avoid ArbCom this time around precisely because of my prior experience here.

Disruption by Greg L

In the midst of good faith discussions to try to fix date auto formatting Greg L attempts to start yet another Request for Comment asking similar questions asked (and answered) at the last two RFCs

Date delinking editors were aware of prior Fait accompli decision

Many of the editors named as a party to this case were informed of the decision from Episodes and characters 2, yet continued to perform mass delinking when notified of the dispute.

Ohconfucius has engaged in talk page campaigning, harassment and baiting

After an exchange between Arthur Rubin and myself, Ohconfucius seemed to take delight in trying to tell anyone even remotely involved in this dispute that Arthur and I thought Tennis expert had "lost it".

MOSNUM editing statistics

I think these are interesting when taken together with the conduct of editors displayed above.

Edits to Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)

The first number is total edits (followed, I believe, by major/minor edits in parenthesis), followed by user name, date of first edit, date of last edit; source
  • 233 (228/5) Tony1 2005-10-20 06:13 – 2008-11-18 15:47
  • 155 (115/40) Greg L 2008-04-05 20:25 – 2008-09-13 17:58
  • 145 (136/9) Pmanderson 2007-08-12 23:25 – 2008-10-30 16:58
  • 109 (22/87) SMcCandlish 2007-03-15 23:51 – 2008-09-04 05:30
  • 73 (56/17) Stephen Turner 2005-11-25 09:42 – 2007-08-01 13:59
  • 69 (50/19) Centrx 2004-08-11 18:47 – 2008-06-07 22:38
  • 68 (51/17) Kotniski 2008-07-30 12:15 – 2008-11-20 19:41
  • 58 (35/23) Thunderbird2 2007-09-27 15:01 – 2008-08-03 08:48
  • 57 (51/6) Gerry Ashton 2006-07-30 16:38 – 2008-10-05 22:11
  • 51 (51/0) Fnagaton 2007-05-10 13:35 – 2008-09-20 11:30
  • ...
  • 9 (5/4) Locke Cole 2008-11-01 01:57 – 2008-11-18 20:30

Edits to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)

Same format as mentioned above, this time for the talk page; source
  • 2929 (2493/436) Greg L 2007-12-15 21:53 – 2009-02-18 01:12
  • 1365 (1364/1) Tony1 2006-03-15 11:22 – 2009-02-14 12:12
  • 1090 (1079/11) Fnagaton 2007-04-04 17:56 – 2009-02-04 04:17
  • 903 (873/30) Pmanderson 2006-03-10 16:07 – 2009-02-17 00:20
  • 796 (544/252) Thunderbird2 2007-09-07 17:04 – 2009-02-03 18:43
  • 684 (682/2) Jimp 2006-07-10 02:42 – 2009-02-17 23:37
  • 591 (373/218) Headbomb 2008-04-27 05:40 – 2009-02-15 11:29
  • 554 (507/47) Gerry Ashton 2006-07-30 16:42 – 2009-02-16 19:46
  • 554 (554/0) Lightmouse 2007-06-01 11:01 – 2009-02-11 12:55
  • 548 (536/12) Gene Nygaard 2004-12-28 19:33 – 2009-01-19 15:12
  • 451 (96/355) SMcCandlish 2007-02-12 18:33 – 2008-10-04 05:07
  • 305 (282/23) Matt Britt 2005-07-13 01:33 – 2007-11-05 23:49
  • 279 (262/17) Ohconfucius 2008-01-05 08:23 – 2009-02-12 16:14
  • 274 (251/23) Locke Cole 2006-04-22 17:03 – 2009-02-15 11:38
  • 269 (1/268) Bobblewik 2004-06-30 12:51 – 2006-10-02 20:28
  • 263 (252/11) Stephen Turner 2006-01-02 19:29 – 2007-08-03 20:01

Locke Cole is taking a break from all this

  • 2009-02-21T12:06:35 - It is my sincere hope that, should I return in a few weeks, the committee will have done something to address the patterns of behavior set out above. It has poisoned and continues to poison discussion, even attempts by clerk Ryan to mediate the dispute via a new RFC. The sooner expected community behavioral norms are enforced the sooner serious discussion on the locus of the dispute can be undertaken, but so long as editors feel empowered to engage in ad hominem (personal attacks, incivility, and assuming bad faith) such discussions are hopeless. I remain available to clerks and/or committee members via e-mail should additional information be needed.

Evidence presented by NuclearWarfare

The following is an assessment of the two community RfCs that went on during December, which were supposed to be the be-all and end-all for this issue. I had summarized them earlier, but I have no issue with doing so again:

The two Requests for Comments showed a clear consensus in most cases for at most very limited linking.

  • Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)/Three proposals for change to MOSNUM had a clear consensus to reject date linking and date autoformatting. It had a less clear, but still fairly strong consensus to allow automated and semi-automated edits to help delink dates.
  • Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)/Date Linking RFC
    • Deprecating the current date autoformatting - Dates should not be linked (very clear consensus)
    • Is some method of date autoformatting desirable? - About 50/50, but this is not relevant to this RfAr, and is more a Developer issue.
    • When to link to Month-Day articles? - 2/49/49 support. Examples:
      • "John Fred was born on September 15 and invented the tricycle on October 29."
      • American independence was declared on July 4
      • American independence was declared on July 4.
    • When to link Year articles - 10/60/30
      • "John Fred was born on September 15 1789 and invented the tricycle on October 29 1810"
      • "In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue" but not "George Adams was born in 1977"
      • "In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue."
    • When to use Year-in-field links - murkier; no real consensus came about there.

Hope this helps. NuclearWarfare (Talk) 23:55, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[]

Reply to Point One by Locke Cole

Evidence presented by RexxS

There is a valid counter-argument concerning bots

I agree with Locke in that I also believe there is consensus that dates may be linked when the date article is relevant to the article containing the date. (See User talk:Dabomb87/Summary of the Date Linking RFCs.)

The counter-argument concerning the bots goes like this:

  • The number of date links that are relevant is a tiny proportion (possibly less than 1%) of all date links. Presumably they are mistaken links of date fragments by editors believing that should be done to auto-format. (See for example the first few edits to WT:Manual of Style (dates_and_numbers)#Date linking template.)
  • It is more efficient to remove the vast majority of irrelevant date links (millions?) with a bot, then re-add the (relatively) few relevant ones manually, than to work out which are irrelevant and remove them manually. (for an example of this debate, see WT:Manual of Style (dates_and_numbers)#Summary of the RfCs.)

I honestly believe that this represents a sincere, good faith (if long-running) difference of opinion between two groups of editors, and for what it's worth, an examination of the sections I linked above will show that these diferences can be debated in a generally civil and polite way. It is sad that there is no agreement yet on which of the two opinions should prevail, and as I respect ArbCom, I trust that they will not attempt to adjudicate a resolution of this particular difference of opinion without reflecting on the very large amount of debate that has already taken place. --RexxS (talk) 01:07, 13 January 2009 (UTC)[]

The consensus to deprecate Date Autoformatting was documented on 24 August 2008

A consensus to deprecate date autoformatting was reached between 16–23 August 2008. The discussion is documented on talk:MoS archive here:

supplemented by discussion on a subpage of of Tony's:

and two notices on Village pump requesting input:

The change was made on 24 August 2008. The important point is that that consensus - although questioned regularly - has not changed and was re-affirmed in both of the recent RfC's.

Response to Tennis expert
The evidence presented here and in proposals needs to be examined in the context of the surrounding edits on each page. Such an examination clearly shows that TE was more often the instigator of the problem because of his refusal to edit collaboratively. For reasons of brevity, I illustrate this by examining the most recent example (January 8) that I can find of his reversion of an edit by Colonies Chris. The edit by CC removed a massive amount of overlinking in the article. However CC made one mistake: he linked Birmingham to "Birmingham, Alabama", not "Birmingham, UK". Any editor looking for a collaborative consensus would have corrected that error and attempted to reach consensus: TE did not; he simply reverted the entire edit made by CC and complained about use of AWB. Within just the sections "Challenger and ITF tournaments" and "Past events", TE created by that revert:
  • about 30 unnecessary redirects (e.g. changed "Wolfsburg, Germany" to "Wolfsburg, Germany", "Braşov, Romania" to "Brasov, Romania", etc);
  • over 30 unnecessary links to countries (e.g. changed "Italy" to "Italy" nine times in one subsection, "Brazil" to "Brazil" six times in the same subsection, etc).
The irony is that he corrected CC's "Birmingham, England" to "Birmingham, England", adding a link to England as if nobody knew where it was and missing the fact that all other UK towns were given as e.g. "Brighton, United Kingdom". If TE actually took the time to review his edit, he would have spotted such overlinking and internal inconsistencies. That is a show-piece example of a "blind revert". --RexxS (talk) 19:05, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[]

Evidence presented by MBisanz

At the beginning of this conflict, I was asked to mediate between the various sides, but this was declined at [1]. Since then I have kept the page watchlisted and recorded some edits that seemed problematic

Edit warring

Prolonged edit warring that led to blocks on Locke Cole (talk · contribs), Tony1 (talk · contribs), and Kotniski (talk · contribs) after page protection failed to stop an edit war. Currently WP:MOSNUM has been protected since November 20th [2] because of the failure of the parties to resolve their differences. I had previously protected for a week because of this sequence of edit warring [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13], however the parties soon resumed after the protection lapsed, as shown below.
Tony1:[14], [15], [16], [17], [18], [19]
After the initiation of the RFAR: [20], [21], [22], [23]
Locke Cole: [24], [25], [26], [27]
Arthur Rubin: [28], [29], [30], [31], [32]

Threats

Arthur Rubin threatened to block Lightbot (talk · contribs) despite admitting he was an involved administrator to the dispute [33], [34]

Yes, administrators who don't like the changes you've made to the MOS without a clear consensus are threatening to block bots acting on an extension of the (changed) MOS. So? As for "involved" admins, if Lightbot edits a date article and removes links specifically mentioned in the appropriate WikiProject, (and I happen to notice it), I'll block it, even though I'm involved

Civility and Battle

Tony1
Rudeness comes naturally to me. When responding to a question over editing at FAC
...the strongest muscle we have is "name and shame"... When describing how to respond to disputes with administrators
This is typical of Anderson's deceptive tactics. No, metric conversions may not be removed from the inline text.
Gimmetrow: please inform us of any "edit skirmishes", because I'll be along there promptly to hose them down. The guidelines are quite clear as to which should be used, and editors who get some nationalistic kick out of arguing about them need to move on and do something useful. "Back off and raise the issue here" will be my advice, if they can't work it out locally. It's very simple in most cases.
Oran, don't be fooled by Anderson's "half dozen", first put about at VP. I think I counted double that above, and there are of course the scores who have voted with their feet in actively supporting removal, or in expressing favourable comments. Their comments are gathered here. I see no groundswell of opposition in the community, but sniping from a few disgruntled users who find themselves significantly outnumbered and, in particular, are short of good arguments.
Yes, Anderson, you oppose the whole idea of the MoS, and we're all heartily sick of it. Of course you oppose any strong moves to reform the project that might involve ... that c word ... compulsion... Calling out another editor's mental health state.
...Contributors should revile this attempt at sabotage. Some of the other changes may be OK, but the new text does little to improve what is now a straightforward, concise statement. We need to grow up. when addressing proposed changes to part of a guideline.
...You're trying to encourage people to repeat-link in an article, This is destructive.
Is this code for "If you don't submit to Katz'z views, go away"? That is what is sounds like. I'm not rude enough to suggest that you go away, so stop telling me to go away. It's insulting. You're stuck with me, I'm afraid, and over my dead body will you rule the roost here.
Quite a few of our most talented people have been working in the background, unsung, making headway in improving this mess. Some of this work has also involved the correction of spelling and typos, over time on a quite massive scale. Really, you people should be ashamed of yourselves. It's high time that you pitched in and did some work on something constructive for a change instead of squealing about some precious order of month and day, day and month. This would be the application of the "shame and name" comment above
And your sideline sniping at people who actively work to improve WP is not irresponsible? Let me think about that for a moment. You should be ashamed of yourself, calling for the blocking of those who shoulder the work (unlike you); your view of the situation appears to be based on utter ignorance of the long long debate that has gone on here and ended in consensus in August. You're a Johnny-come-lately, perhaps, who's upset at having missed the debate—sorry, but that's just too bad. Maybe you'd like to bone up on the four information and consensus pages linked to at the bottom of this page. More shaming and naming
Now, tell me, as a child were you thrashed regularly by your father for disobedience? I'm trying to work out exactly why you have such a bee in your bonnet about rules. Calling out another editor's mental health state
[35] Lengthy comparison of other editors' behavior to being an "analogy with state fascism".
WARNING: The addition of the partisan comments at the top of the RfC, and the continual reversion of attempts to remove them by a number of users, fits squarely into WP's definition of vandalism.
If you revert again, subverting my statement—clearly against the rules of talk pages—I will launch an ANI against you. Do NOT split my statement, falsify my date stamp, or change the opening of RfCs. Rather aggressive response to RFC edits.
Anderson, I don't have to acquire telepathy to know that you thirst to dilute any centralised authority as far as style goes, except when it comes to points you happen to agree with.
Kotniski: I will take you to ANI then. You have made a major move with the disagreement of at least two people here. I request again that you undo it, and return CONTEXT. and Dabomb, I now see MOSLINK as illegitimate, and will advise editors to disregard it at FAC and other forums.
Locke Cole, are you, seriously, making an admission that you abused admin privileges as an INVOLVED admin? That is a significant breach of WP:ADMIN. Whom did you block? Note: Locke Cole has never been an administrator.

Bot policy

Lightmouse has repeatedly misused Lightbot in violation of Bot policy and 3RR, despite being warned by several members of the bot approvals group to edit its own userpage and undisable its own stop button: [36], [37], [38], [39], [40], [41], [42], [43], [44], [45], [46], [47], [48], [49], [50], [51], [52], [53], [54], [55], [56], [57], [58], [59], [60], [61], [62], [63], [64], [65], [66], [67], [68], [69], blocked for disabling shutoff, discussion, User_talk:MBisanz/Archive_5#Lightbot.

The bot has continued subsequent to the warning, blocking, and discussion to edit its own usertalk page in violation of bot policy through January 3rd.

Socking

Lightmouse (talk · contribs) has operated former accounts Editore99 (talk · contribs) and Bobblewik (talk · contribs) in a deceptive manner.

User:Lightmouse created his account May 23, 2007 [70].

His 23rd edit was setting up an archive bot for his talk page [71] copying the code used on User talk:Editore99, of his first 50 article edits, half were the edit summary of general edit and half were the edit summary copyedit.

User:Editore99 registered on May 5, 2007 and stopped editing May 23rd 2007 [72] His last fifty edit were with the edit summary copyedit. During his month of activity he was blocked once for making very fast edits, something Lightmouse has been blocked for several times.

In the course of his editing, Editore99 imported and began editing a date-delinking script [73] that Lightmouse has continued to refine. As this edit shows, it was retrieved from User:Bobblewik's date-delinking script five days after Editore99 registered.

Bobblewik was a very prolific editor from March 2004 to October 2006 (65,000+ edits), who was blocked over 17 times [74] by several administrators and arbitrators for running fast automated date delinking processes. At the time he stopped editing, there was apparently a great degree of controversy at his talk page and the block lengths were a week to a month in length. Also, he submitted several rejected date-related bots at BRFA archive and was the subject of RFC/U.

(IP evidence removed)

According to the usercompare tool [75] they have 9,700 pages in common as editors.

According to the relevant section of the sockpuppetry policy:

Alternative accounts should not be used to edit in ways that would be considered improper if done by a single account. Using alternative puppet accounts to split your contributions history means that other editors cannot detect patterns in your contributions. While this may occasionally be legitimate (see below under legitimate uses), it is a violation of this policy to create alternative accounts in order to confuse or deceive editors who may have a legitimate interest in reviewing your contributions.

By splitting his edits over several accounts even after knowing them to be controversial (by being blocked over 17 times), he prevented BAG members and crats from having adequate knowledge of his abilities as a bot operator and user of high speed editing tools. He further prevented administrators from utilizing blocks of an appropriate length when responding to complaints of his behavior, as they could not be aware of his prior blocks under other names.

See also


Evidence presented by Masem

There is a push to deprecate date autoformatting as presently supported in MediaWiki software

The method of date autoformatting, where one of several date formats is wrapped with double square brackets as to cause the Mediawiki software to reparse the date with links and in a style for logged-in users with date preferences set in their desired manner while leaving the written date format unchanged for all other users, has been argued by Tony and the others to be a bane for WP due to several issues (overlinking and date inconsistencies for the majority of readers). The effort to remove them has been happening for at least 5 months (since August 2008) if not even earlier.

The RFCs have both clear and unclear results.

NuclearWarfare above provides a clear summary of the results of the RFC. Most important is the strong support for the removal of autoformatted dates (which is important to note applied to a day/month/year combination, other ways of presenting dates, such as year alone or day-month alone, do not fall under this). As these RFCs were started to establish that community-wide consensus was there to remove date autoformatting, the use of bots specifically to remove these types of links should not be an issue.

What is not clear from the RFCs is what to do with links to day/month pages or year pages that otherwise don't interact with the date autoformatting system. It is clear that we do not want to link to every day/month or every year, but it is also clear that there are some times when day/month and years are linked. Some situations when these are appropriate are suggested by the RFC but there was never any significant iteration or discussion of them, instead leaving the language to link infrequently and when necessary to these.

There is more than one way to skin a cat

Tony, Greg L, and others that are strongly in favor of removing date links per the RFC are insistent on going ahead and getting various bots started on the task, with editors that want to restore dates doing so manually after the bots are done. I have attempted to point out several times that while this approach is perfectly fine and against no specific policy or guideline, there are methods that are more favorable to all WP editors and can gain better goodwill, making it less than a hassle for others, and the like. Specifically, I've recommended that templates can be used to grandfather in any existing year and date links that will be invisible to the existing bots (thus requiring no bot change), and that we give editors two weeks to a month to apply the template to dates they believe they should keep (given the current lack of the consensus of when such links should be made), announcing the methods to do this at the Pump and other places. Then after this period the bots can run to achieve the same result. I'm sure there's other ways this can be done to keep certain dates unchanged by bots, but the practical upshot is that in exchange for waiting a bit more to achieve their desired results of reducing the number of date links, they gain good faith from the community in their efforts.

There is no deadline

The primary concern of mine in this entire affair is the insistence of Tony and the others at MOSNUM that we have to achieve these results in the very short term. Date linking of any type is not hurting Wikipedia in any way beyond some usability issues; it is not like WP:BLP or copyright violations that need to dealt with quickly. The changes to MOSNUM regarding date linking are far reaching, likely to affect every WP article (since it will also affect reference lists). Thus, instead of trying to race to establish consensus and then immediately set off into action, it seems to make more sense to sit down and reach consensus on all factors relating to date linking (including exact cases when years and day-months should be linked, when to use year-in-field links and how to make date links overall more relevant to the pages of interest). There is also a likelihood of working with the various projects that maintain the targets of these date/month, year, and year-in-field pages to make sure they are relevant as well when they are linked.

This will be an automated task

More to confirm Ohconfucius' point below, there is no question that a bot needs to be let loose to run the tasks of (at bare minimal) removing date autoformatting, doing volumes more work that humans can in general editing to remove linked dates. Lightmouse's Lightbot seems best poised for this, as well as making sure that AWB users can do this as part of general cleanup, and so forth.

There is a poisonous atmosphere at MOSNUM that leads to unhealthy discussion

While I believe that ArbCom stated that this case would only focus on the issues of date delinking by bots, it is important to note that I strongly believe we would not be here if attitudes on both sides of the issue worked better on compromise and consensus building instead of what actually resulted. When I entered the debate around August 2008, I was amazed at the vitriol that was being thrown about by both sides. (Others have linked to such examples already, but the archives speak for themselves) Tony, Greg L, and others were taking their attitude of elitism that they seemed to know best for Wikipedia, and thus They Were Right, while others like Locke Cole were involved in trying to argue every nitpick of the arguments; neither approach is consensus building. Nothing that is enforceable, but neither is good to promote. When the RFCs closed, I thought everyone was going to put that all behind but then when there was negative feedback about the bots delinking bare years, the attitudes came right out again. Even with this ArbCom case started, I am amazed at how both sides are reacting to this, everyone trying to find the tiniest fault with the process or the person. When I go back over the past discussions, I realize that if the same thoughts were stated but without the negative connotations of the delivery of those thoughts, we likely would not be here at ArbCom now, and maybe have already settled the entire issue a month or more ago. While I don't believe that ArbCom should take any action regarding this, I do believe it is in ArbCom's best interest to recognize why this case got here to understand what aspects they should and should not take up.

Evidence presented by Ohconfucius

I am frankly appalled by some of other "evidence" here. Many submissions are bloated, include irrelevancies and red herrings, disinformation, and misrepresentation. In parallel, the workshop is turning into a right old dog and pony show due to the motions of censure which do nothing to restore calm -quite the reverse. I suspect these actions may be due to the personalities of the parties involved, the sheer mistrust and acrimony this issue has created, and the decision by ArbCom to examine only the behavioural aspects in this date-delinking hooha. Among the parties fanning the flames is one admin who may be using this case to demonstrate his "independence" and "impartiality" and a certain "non-party" who may believe that this status accords him some immunity on this process. We see from his expanded "evidence" that he is attempting to drag yet more parties into the ring while he hypocritically attempts to stay outside, despite him being in actual fact maybe not the general, but certainly one of the principal soldiers in this battle.

Since I became involved in September, I have strongly objected to methods used by certain individuals to block, stymie, and browbeat. They also attempted to reinterpret "consensus", as well as to redefine the meaning of "controversy" - particularly regarding the use of Auto Wiki Browser. The consensus arrived at in August may have been too small to be representative, but was a consensus well within the historical practice of WP. Attempts to 'warn' fellow editors to stop edits to put articles into compliance with WP:MOSNUM and WP:CONTEXT were actually misplaced, and some of those warned considered it harassment or intimidation - witness the reactions of Colonies Chris and Skywalker (both editors who have never been at the centre of these machinations). As has always been the case on WP, consensus remains consensus until it is overturned by another consensus. I believe this difference in "interpretation" is a fundamental locus of this dispute. Despite the complaints, and the traditional onus upon challengers to the consensus to prove their case, no attempt was made to demonstrate the validity or otherwise of this consensus until November 2008. In any event, even if there was any doubt then, there can be none whatsoever any more.

Irrespective of all that, the modus operandi here on WP is that things are always permitted except when expressly forbidden. WP:MOSNUM is a guideline which will never mandate correction of spelling mistakes, or the removal of sequentially repeated commas, full stops and 'the's for example. There is no suggestion that semi-automatic tools cannot be invoked to remove these occurrences, and this should not change. Case in point, AWB always checks spelling, and turns "the the" into "the". Needing special mandates to do this, as well as banning all semi-automatic tools from doing this would seem pretty ludicrously luddite retrograde to me. It's like asking/telling your fag to scrub out the toilets with a toothbrush. Sure, it gets the bog cleaner, but it also happens to be verging on torture.

The pace of delinking

It has been asked how many articles have been delinked. Whilst agreeing with User:Masem above, the task of delinking is gargantuan: assuming 1.5 million of the 2.8 million articles in en:WP have DA date links, and the rate of delinking (as I estimate at present 2,500/m) and including the full potential of lightbot @ 80,000/mth (based on 40,000 minor edits in January -full date delinking could slow it down) of approximately 82,500 per month, it will take almost 18 months to complete.

Although the evidence from both sides may show there have been some reverts, I believe most of the delinking has been uncontentious or has been welcomed. Delinking and the resulting warring have been largely limited to those cases offered in the evidence (of all parties). Although I have no firm proof, I believe that fewer than 300 articles in the entire population of articles in WP have been reverted.

Consensus

Attempt to 'load' questions of ongoing RfC

Attempt to delete WP:MOSNUM

Crotalus horridus (talk · contribs) nominated WP:MOSNUM for deletion at MFD with the pretty blatent aim of changing policy by deleting a page. Kotniski (talk · contribs) speedily closed it. Locke Cole (talk · contribs) reverted those changes and reinstated the MFD tag, twice, before it was closed definitively by Ameliorate! (talk · contribs)

Incivility

  • User:UC Bill (23:03, 4 November 2008 (UTC)) "Just ignore Tony" "I would recommend to you that you simply ignore him and his comments. Nobody takes him seriously, everybody knows he's full of it, and it does you no good to argue with him...." - disparaging remarks about Tony, and invitation to revert edits of "Lightmouse, GregL et al"[]
    • UC_Bill also posted a link to Bugzilla 4582 in the above posting, in which he publicly and openly (posts with real name and email address) says "Tony, you're an idiot who clearly doesn't understand the first thing about technology. You should just leave Wikipedia for good, and stop annoying people. At the very least you should drop yourself from replies on this ticket, since you've made it clear you have no interest whatsoever in a solution to the problem outlined here. Bypassing autoformatting is not the same as fixing it, so your asshole-ish actions of mass delinking aren't actually a "solution" at all. Go away... I recommend we just completely ignore the MOS-nuts who have some sort of vendetta against date links.. "
  • User:Locke Cole (02:24, 17 November 2008 (UTC)) "rm message from troll" response to and removal of WP:3RR warning on his talk page.[]
  • User:Tennis expert (Revision as of 05:23, 22 November 2008) "Remove crazy comments" in the edit summary removing third party comments about his abuse and false accusations.
  • User:Locke Cole (Revision as of 05:19, 24 November 2008 (UTC)) "open threat? insanity! "TONY STARTED THIS RFC TODAY IN A CLEAR SHOWING OF BAD FAITH, KNOWING FULL WELL AN EXISTING RFC WAS ALREADY IN PROGRESS... How hard is it to understand that this is Tony merely being Tony and trying to be disruptive yet again? He KNEW an RFC was being worked on, and he chose to phrase the questions to his liking with no background information at all... This RFC is inherently illegitimate and your acknowledgment of it is only making the situation worse."[]

Inappropriate use of Admin powers

Edit warring by Pmanderson

Lazare Ponticelli

It's amazing what you can do with the same information (minus the "commentary")- thanks to Cole for the diffs ;-)

actions reverts by User:Pmanderson
"script-assisted date/terms audit",
Dabomb87(10:24, 16 November 2008) 		"undo MOScruft"
(23:26, 2 December 2008)
"Rv disruptive edits by Manderson",
User:Tony1 (23:46, 2 December 2008) 		"Thanks, Tony; I see I missed two"
(23:49, 2 December 2008)
"Please do not disrupt compliance with MOSNUM",
User:Tony1 (23:52, 2 December 2008) 		"revert misreading of MOSNUM"
(23:55, 2 December 2008)

Edit warring by Locke Cole

USS Monitor

action reverts by Locke Cole
"script-assisted date/terms audit" User:Lightmouse ( 21:17, 13 November 2008) "rvt, no consensus for removing date links"
(22:04, 13 November 2008)
"script-assisted date/terms audit" by User:Dabomb87 (11:06, 14 November 2008) "rvt, no consensus for removing date links"
( 11:08, 14 November 2008)
"consistent date formats" by Dabomb87 (12:29, 14 November 2008) "rvt, no consensus for removing date links"
( 15:37, 14 November 2008)
"script-assisted date/terms audit" by User:Dabomb87 (21:10, 14 November 2008) "rvt, no consensus for removing date links"
(04:48, 16 November 2008)
"Per MOSNUM:..." 3 successive edits by User:Dabomb87 (09:54, 16 November 2008) "rvt, no consensus for removing date links"
(06:39, 17 November 2008)
"no consensus for instituting inconsistent date formats and reverting wholly beneficial edits..." by User:Dabomb87 (06:55, 17 November 2008) "you are purposefully making multiple edits to make undoing your disputed edits more difficult; I will no longer play that game with you" (07:01, 17 November 2008)
Reverted 1 edit by Locke Cole; See WP:UNLINKDATES by User:2008Olympian (09:19, 17 November 2008) "rvt, no consensus for removing date links"
(09:45, 17 November 2008)

Lazare Ponticelli

It's amazing what you can do with the same information (minus the "commentary")- thanks to Cole for the diffs ;-)

actions reverts by User:Locke Cole
"Delink dates, fix hyphens, and overlinking of common countries"
User:Lightmouse (00:24, 3 December 2008) 		"eh, MOSNUM is a guideline"
(02:55, 3 December 2008)
"script-assisted date/terms audit"
User:John (03:10, 3 December 2008) 		"rvt, clearly no consensus for these edits to this article" (04:50, 3 December 2008)
"remove year link in infobox only, it is already linked once",
Dabomb87 (06:42, 3 December 2008) 		"rvt per WP:MOSNUM/RFC"
(06:38, 4 December 2008)

Edit warring by User:Tennis expert

During the period from end of October until his "retirement" Mid November, Tennis expert conducted a slow edit war to reinstate linked dates on at least 107 articles. The number of actual reverts is at least 622, and a highest revert count of 11 for any given article.Detailed information is located at [User:Ohconfucius/Tennis wars]]. Note that the assertion of "local consensus" is demonstrably false as The Rambling Man, 2008Olympian , HJensen, amongst others active in the tennis project reverted him; There are 10 or so articles (some extremely high-traffic) which remained delinked for up to 24 days days before expertly (sic) undone by Tennis expert.

Cause of complaints against Lightmouse

(Note: this entry is a repost from Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring 02:59, 24 November 2008 (UTC))

TE's complaint above cited certain 'problematic edits': However, it would appear that the problems relate more to the incorrect date formats which litter WP. He complained about 5 here and another 5 on LM's talk page,which I have analysed as follows:

    • 1st edit: [76] was incorrectly date-formatted - the essential delimiting comma was missing in the original text throughout
    • 2nd edit: the [only] date link in [77] was in the reference or WP:EL section below, and 200% validly removed because they have no incidence on the interpretation of the text at all.
    • 3rd edit: [78] was incorrectly date-formatted - the essential delimiting comma was missing in the original text throughout
    • 4th edit: [79]
    • 5th edit: [80]
In this edit to Lightmouse's talk page, TE also warned about certain 'problematic edits'. It's the same story as above, I have analysed those cited as follows:
  1. Apollo 17 was incorrectly date-formatted - the essential delimiting comma was missing in the original text throughout;
  2. Royal League 2004–05 refers to Dutch Football, and was correctly converted by LM to dmy;
  3. the [only] date link in Secret Intelligence Service was in the reference or WP:EL section below, and 200% validly removed because they have no incidence on the interpretation of the text at all.
  4. the [only] date link in Royal Knifefish was in the reference or WP:EL section below, and 200% validly removed because they have no incidence on the interpretation of the text at all.
These cases, chosen apparently at random to illustrate the 'offenses committed' by Lightmouse are actually symptomatic of the lack of consistency between articles, and clearly illustrates the important work LM is performing to effect compliance with WP:MOSNUM. It also illustrates the disruption being perpetrated by the complainant in concert with User:Locke Cole whether in terms of edit-warring, stalking or other actions against all who disagree with their stance. Ohconfucius (talk) 07:03, 19 January 2009 (UTC)[]

Gaming the system, forum shopping

Evidence presented by User:Kotniski

Two issues; don't let one cloud the other. First: what went on before the RfCs. No-one's in a position to cast the first stone about behaviour during that period; arguing about exactly who was out of order and how much is completely beside the point, and won't help reach an outcome. And the outcome can only be diagnostic here: what went wrong in the system and how such messes can be prevented in the future. That's a matter for wider debate, but maybe ArbCom will offer some wise guidance. That's all it can do, so any discussion of behaviour in the period in question must be looking in that direction, not towards scoring points in personal disputes which should be long forgotten.

Second: what to do about the date-delinking process post-RfC. This is a technical issue. I agree with Masem up to a point, but would point out: there is no deadline, but it's also harmful to obstruct good work without good reason. The fact that people are willing to spend their time and expertise on making a contribution to the project should be respected; we shouldn't tell them they have to wait in line because there's a couple of Spidermen on the Reichstag wall right now. And the idea about the template that says "leave this link alone" is a bit irrelevant - people can add such things before or (far more likely in practice) after a visit by the bot, it's not a reason why the bots should wait. Simply, the bots are doing what they've been doing for a long time, fully in line with consensus and very well established practice. No reason has been given for people to be told to stop making Wikipedia better in this way. Discussion is now totally exhausted; we know what people think, and we know that the vast majority of these links are not desired, and none of them are desired to any significant degree. Change for the better must not be allowed to be held back indefinitely just because a few people are making a noise about it.

Evidence presented by Karanacs

Clear consensus that approval at MOS page not required before running a date-linking/unlinking bot

There was quite clear consensus at Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers)/Three_proposals_for_change_to_MOSNUM#Proposal_3:_Automated.2Fsemi-automated_compliance_with_any_particular_guideline_requires_consensus that the following wording was rejected: The use of an automatic or semi-automatic process to bring article text into compliance with any particular guideline in the Manual of Style (dates and numbers) requires separate and prior consensus at the talk page.

Locke Cole has shown an unwillingness to acknowledge RFC results

at the time, the other RFC was still in draft
response to this was someone saying to stop putting words in voters mouths; as one of those opposers, I also took offense to this but didn't comment then

Evidence presented by Septentrionalis (Pmanderson)

The polls under #Evidence presented by NuclearWarfare show that this is a three-way debate; a small minority, including Locke Cole, want to routinely link all dates, and autoformat. The rest of us divided evenly between "link sometimes" and "never link"; actually reading the results will show that many editors, on either side of the line, actually said "link rarely". There is no consensus for never linking.

Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers)/Three_proposals_for_change_to_MOSNUM consists of three questions,posed and phrased by Tony1 (talk · contribs), solely, as extreme choices, so they would fail. Observe that he !voted against them himself, as he posted them. All they can show is that those three propositions do not have consensus; no effort was made there to form or judge consensus. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:39, 13 January 2009 (UTC)[]

Lightbot's approval

Lightbot (talk · contribs) presently claims to be operating under Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Lightbot 3. The current phrasing of that approval is

  • I would like to make it explicit that I will be editing dates in a variety of forms.
    • A 'date' is any sequence of characters that relates to time, chronology, or calendars. This includes but is not limited to seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, fortnights, months, years, decades, centuries, eras, and can be in any sequence or format.
    • Edits may add, remove or modify the sequence or format of dates.
    • Edits may add, remove or modify templates that involve dates.
    • Edits may add, remove or modify autoformatting. For example, where autoformatting is invalid, broken or itself breaks a date for readers. Struck text replaced with:
    • Edits may add or modify autoformatting. Edits may remove autoformatting where it is invalid, broken or itself breaks a date for readers.
    • Edits may add, remove or modify links to dates.
  • I would like to make it explicit that I will be editing units of measure in a variety of forms.
    • A 'unit of measure' is any sequence of characters that relates to measurement of things. This includes but is not limited to units defined by the BIPM SI, the US NIST or any other weights and measures organisation or none at all. This includes but is not limited to time, length, area, volume, mass, speed, power.
    • Edits may add, remove or modify the metric or non-metric units.
    • Edits may add, remove or modify the sequence or format.
    • Edits may add, remove or modify templates that involve units.
    • Edits may add, remove or modify links to units.
  • I would like to make it explicit that I will make other edits.
    • These will usually be minor improvements that are often done by other editors or are part of general MOS guidance.
    • These will usually be incidental to the main motivation for the bot which is units and dates.

Under this phrasing, Lightbot can do almost anything. This is contrary to the intent of bot approval; and was almost immediately criticized by MZMcBride (talk · contribs) as far too wide. It was also opposed by several users, not all of them parties to this controversy; and, after approval, several users (again, some but not all of them involved in the controversy over dates, Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approval/Lightbot_3#Reconsider appealled to reconsider Lightbot's permission. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:55, 13 January 2009 (UTC)[]

MOSNUM and consensus

MOSNUM has not been edited by consensus; it reflects the edit-warring of a small number of regulars. Rather than plow through the distressing evidence of its archives, I will simply point out that it has been protected for edit-warring four times in the past year. I could reconstruct the issues over which this silliness took place, if ArbCom likes; but only two of them were this; two of them were even more petty. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:53, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[]

Tony is improving

By his standards, Tony1 (talk · contribs) seems to me to be being comparatively mild in these discussions, compared to these routine uses of insult and profanity as negotiating tools in past discussions.


I believe these were a set of negotiating tools which he uses when in a hurry or under stress; his user page says that his off-Wiki work load varies drastically. Other interactions suggest he intends these as form of humor, or as part of a Real Australian persona, rough and tough, mate, and all that. But all of these are approaching a year old; he may have learned better techniques for coping. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:11, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[]

Use of FA as a club

Please consider Template talk:E#MOS breach: spacing of the × sign; this is the continuation of a discussion at WT:MOS, now archived at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Archive_97#Common_mathematical_symbols:_spacing. The minority, which insisted that scientific notation must be spaced exactly like ordinary multiplication because they both use ×, demanded that

After that, the minority proceeded to threaten OK, if you're happy for all FA candidates to be knocked back for not following MOS in this respect, fine.... I'll ensure that until it's worked out properly at MOS, FA candidates wait. You're call. [sic] and declare that OK, so the template is no longer acceptable in FAs. The same editor then proceeded to speak to compromise as making him bow and declared that he would be endorsing an alternate template; if this were a matter of any significance, we would call this a POV fork.

This is precisely the problem with MOS. It permits editors of high self-importance to get their way in matters of utter triviality, which should not consume the encyclopedia's time. The idea of judging a scientific article by whether it spaces scientific notation, when many scientists don't, is... Well, what is it? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:55, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[]

This, naturally, is Tony again. I gather from the evidence in the workshop that he actually hasn't improved much. Pity. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:42, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[]

Evidence against PMAnderson

At the moment, this consists of one section by OhConfucius, at #Edit warring by Pmanderson: This contains two reversions, and a novel text, in a short period of time, after which I walked away from the controversy. Is this edit-warring, as MBisanz would have it? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:05, 19 January 2009 (UTC)[]

Evidence presented by Mlaffs

Some of the date de-linking has been directly contrary to the MOS

Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(links)#Chronological_items in its current state reads as follows:

"Items such as days, years, decades and centuries should generally not be linked unless they are likely to deepen readers' understanding of the topic.[1] Articles about other chronological items or related topics are an exception to this guideline.

Links to articles on a topic in a specific chronological period, such as 1441 in art, 1982 in film, and 18th century in the United States, may add significantly to readers' understanding of the current topic. One such link per article is enough to serve as a gateway for readers to access sibling articles for other years (1983 in film and so on); multiple links throughout an article are unnecessary. Year-in-X links should generally be kept explicit, so that readers can see where they lead, but they may be piped to look like plain year links – for example [[1997 in South African sport|1997]] – in some tables, infoboxes or lists where compact presentation and uniform display are important."

While the specific language of this section has been in flux during the time noted in this arbitration request, the exemption for tables, infoboxes, and lists has been a constant. However, on several occasions, Lightbot has removed piped "year-in-X" links from infoboxes, tables, and lists, in direct contravention of the MOS excerpt quoted above. The following are a few examples:

The following is part of Lightbot's approval: "Edits may add or modify autoformatting. Edits may remove autoformatting where it is invalid, broken or itself breaks a date for readers." On numerous occasions, Lightbot has removed the valid contextual linked portion of a set of date links that may have originally been linked for autoformatting. As has been noted on these occasions, it would have made far more sense for the bot to delink the day-month pair and leave the piped link at the year. Examples include:

  • This edit, one of a large series of them, removed a "YYYY-in-radio" link, ultimately resulting in this discussion at AN. The parties concerned about this series of edits agreed that the AN discussion was resolved based on Lightmouse's comment here, that Lightbot would "not fix these errors anymore"
  • Contrary to the resolution of that issue, this edit, once again part of a large series of them, again removed a "YYYY-in-radio" link, ultimately resulting in this discussion at AN/I

General comments

Ultimately, I believe the problem here is that the zeal to achieve a project devoid of date links has led to de-linking that has not been as thoughtful as it ought to have been. Would a "See also" section providing a link to contextual information be better than a piped link that might look like a "useless" year link? Without a doubt, and if the bot's edits were inserting that "see also" link at the same time as the piped link was removed, I'd be fully supportive of the bot's activity and the whole idea of automated de-linking. Instead, the bot is only removing the valid contextual link, even when that link conforms to the MOS.

Is there logic in using an automated approach to remove the vast number of date links that aren't useful, and then leaving it to individual editors to restore the links that were actually useful — the 'collateral damage' resulting from automation? Yep, I can completely buy that argument. However, the bot isn't limited to a single pass through articles. There's been mention of developing a way, through some template or comment mechanism, for editors to 'warn off' bots and scripts from de-linking dates based on their reasoned judgment that the link is useful. This really should have been in place before any mass de-linking began and, regardless of the outcome of this arbitration, it should definitely be in place before the injunction against mass de-linking is lifted.

Reply to Ohconfucius

I'm a bit confused by the statement in your second paragraph above — "assuming 1.5 million of the 2.8 million articles in en:WP with DA date links, and the rate of delinking (as I estimate at present) of approximately 2,500 per month, it will take almost two years to complete.". The math isn't working for me — at 2500 de-links per month, it would take 50 years, not two — so I'm guessing that perhaps the rate you've estimated was a typo.

Regardless, the rate of delinking is significantly faster than that. The five-day period from November 9 to November 13 represents the lead-up to the AN discussion I reference above and the period while that discussion was taking place. During that five-day period, Lightbot alone made approximately 65,500 edits to articles to remove linked dates. That's one bot, five days. I use Lightbot as an example only because it's what most often pops up on my watchlist, but there are other editors using scripts, AWB, etc. — some named in this case and some not — who are making similar edits. I would suggest that we're well into the 1.5 million articles you've suggested had date links; in fact, it wouldn't surprise me if we were already a quarter of the way there, or more. Mlaffs (talk) 20:16, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[]

Evidence presented by Apoc2400

Locke Cole said that it will be possible to autoformat dates without linking them. However, this would require developer action. The request for that feature has been open for just over three years with no result. Two years ago Tony1 presented a petition of 70 editors at English Wikipedia requesting the feature, but the developers refused to implement it. When Tony1 again raised it in October last year, a developer just replied with insults: Tony, you're an idiot who clearly doesn't understand the first thing about technology. You should just leave Wikipedia for good, and stop annoying people. Tony1 is fully right in not wanting to wait for a possible future method of date auto-formatting that does not use linking. If we ever get that feature, we can discuss it then. --Apoc2400 (talk) 19:45, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[]

Evidence presented by llywrch (talk)

Note: I consider myself tangentially involved. I am against the assertion that all links to dates & years ought to be removed, but believe that overlinking is a style problem on Wikipedia, which needs some form of remedy.

Is the Manual of Style equivalent to policy, or is more of a guideline or statement of best practices?

Many of the participants here seem to think that the Manual of Style (MoS) is policy; if so, it can be enforced without exception with automated edits. Hence the heat & emotions over the language of this one section. If it is instead (as I believe) equivalent to a guideline or statement of best practices, then running a bot to enforce it makes about as much sense as running a bot to enforce, say, Wikipedia:Don't draw misleading graphs. Defining the MoS less than policy doesn't reduce its importance -- editting in the face of an established best practice is both foolish, & may lead to one being blocked -- but at the same time if a vocal minority objects to opinions in the MoS, then they can not only ignore it, but write their own essay defending their practice, instead of engaging in an edit-war over the MoS.

I believe that the reason that some Wikipedians are defending their changes to the MoS so passionately, as Septentrionalis pointed out above. From my experience, I am convinced they have found a back-door to admitting their favored policies: edit some statement of how to do something that is not necessarily binding (e.g., edit, resolve conflicts) then defend the change as "established consensus" & enforce their desires over the rest of the Wikipedia community, who then acquiesce under the assumption that the matter was rationally decided on. I was involved in an edit war with another user over this practice, & asked at the talk page for an interpretation, & had the current version of the MoS cut-n-pasted at me as if were the very words of Jimmy Wales himself! This unsatisfactory response -- & later learning that this style choice was not truly a consensus -- was one of the reasons I took a long WikiBreak recently: I couldn't make useful contributions & debate every possible binding rule concerning what & how I contribute to Wikipedia.

Edits to meta-pages like the MoS is supposed to minimize conflict & disputes, not fan them. This conflict has been slowly escalating over the last several months over this admittedly trivial matter, but no one likes to be treated like a child & told without an explanation that she/he can't link dates & years at all. -- llywrch (talk) 20:39, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[]

Evidence presented by Earle Martin

Examples of Greg L being incivil to other editors

At WT:MOSNUM:

At WP:AN, in yet another branch of this disagreement, in November:

Note: I have not investigated the history of the discussion further back in time when I was not present for it. If further diffs exist, please contribute them to this page. -- Earle Martin [t/c] 20:51, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[]

See also the user conduct RfC regarding Greg L that contains many more examples. -- Earle Martin [t/c] 22:31, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[]

Greg L made a bizarre and incivil accusation on the workshop page of this arbitration. -- Earle Martin [t/c] 13:58, 13 February 2009 (UTC)[]

On February 14th this complaint was filed at Wikipedia:Wikiquette alerts regarding Greg L being extremely incivil in an area unrelated to this arbitration. It is clear that Greg L behaves poorly on a regular basis irrespective of venue. -- Earle Martin [t/c] 13:52, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[]

Examples of Ohconfucius being incivil

Ohconfucius mass-delinking dates again in contravention of injunction

In direct contravention of the temporary injunction against automated or script-assisted date linking or delinking issued by the ArbCom during this arbitration, Ohconfucius began mass-delinking dates once again, using both his regular account (occasionally) and his alternate account Date delinker (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) (hundreds of times in bursts, especially on January 23rd and January 29th). The injunction was issued on January 13th and delivered to Ohconfucius' talk page on the same day.

Examples:

Complaints made to Lightmouse regarding date delinking

I have just been through the entire history of User talk:Lightmouse. Here are the complaints made to Lightmouse about his date delinking activities.

[81] [82] [83] [84] [85] [86] [87] [88] [89] [90] [91] [92] [93] [94] [95] [96] [97] [98] [99] [100] [101] [102] [103] [104] [105] [106] [107] [108] [109] [110] [111] [112] [113] [114] [115] [116] [117] [118] [119] [120] [121] [122] [123] [124] [125] [126] [127] [128] [129] [130] [131] [132] [133] [134] [135] [136] [137] [138] [139] [140]

What is also noticeable from the history of this page is that in July 2008, Tony1 appears and starts deflecting queries into the validity of date delinking, a trend which continues right up to and into the beginnings of the current major round of this disagreement.

Evidence presented by Goodmorningworld

By now, I'm sure, the arbitrators are heartily sorry that they ever agreed to taking this case. Of course, they had no inkling then of the tsunami of trouble heading their way - real, serious controversies that require immediate attention and their full commitment. The silliness from Locke Cole could go on endlessly, he can keep this up forever. Case in point, most recently, his tendentious presentation of Lazare Ponticelli. Conveniently he omits his own edit warring on that article but the History of the Article shows the facts. Incivility: if I had limitless amounts of time I could easily find double the number of incivil edits, edit summaries and Talk posts that LC has made compared to what he cites for Tony1. It would take me many hours, though, and please understand that I do not have the time nor inclination, for I have reason to fear that LC has another wall of text already prepared to retake the initiative.

Lazare Ponticelli, as one of the few actual examples where an Article's regular editors objected to delinking of dates, is in fact an example of editors talking mostly reasonably and leaving the article in better shape than it was before. user:Editorofthewiki initially insisted that years of birth and death in the lead stay blue-linked, arguing that linking these dates gave readers context. I replied that "If people need to click a link to find out what 2008 is like, they have been living in a cave or the past few years and most likely they do not have access to the Internet anyway" (see Talk:Lazare Ponticelli). Editorofthewiki then relented, acceding to the unlinking of the year 2008.

Unfortunately Editorofthewiki did not agree to also unlinking of the year of birth, citing policy of WikiProject:World's Oldest People. I pointed out that another prominently featured article on a supercentenarian within that project did not link date of birth and death in the lead; unfortunately Editorofthewiki never replied to explain himself. At that point I decided to let it go.

Similar for the comments by user:Tony1 on that Talk page. While there was some abrasiveness in his tone, he provided good advice on improving the Article, and in fact much of his helpful commentary was accepted with little fuss.

Nothing to see there, just a typical discussion between editors, occasionally a bit rough around the edges, with the normal give and take. Nobody got their way entirely but everyone went home feeling that progress had been made. Everyone, that is, except Locke Cole. (Septentrionalis, an editor who allied with him in the past, is trying to keep it up but his heart isn't in it anymore. Arthur Rubin, another ally, has seen the light and conceded.)

Time to end this

Although this has been largely a big waste of time, it is not too late for ArbCom to reverse itself. This war is mostly over, what you are seeing are a few skirmishes by the diehard. Editors have spoken, overwhelmingly they want most (nearly all) date links gone from articles.

Allow nature to take its course. A few determined stragglers are still fighting a rearguard action. Let them. They are not doing much harm.

ArbCom should end this proceeding, lift its temporary injunction, and deal with more pressing matters. I will not be back to this page to make further comments. It's in the hands of you arbitrators now.--Goodmorningworld (talk) 21:22, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[]

Evidence presented by Dabomb87

Perhaps one of the few things that has been agreed on in this debate is that the current system of autoformatting dates through wikilinks is inadequate and needs to be changed/removed (see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)/Date Linking RFC#Deprecating the current date autoformatting; even Locke Cole believes this to be the case, see this comment and his evidence section above). Since the discussion of this issue culminated in the initial deprecation in late August, the scope of the debate expanded to include linking all chronological items, even those that are independent of autoformatting (1942, 17th century, etc.). Part of what has fueled this dispute is the ambiguous wording of the style guidelines. MOSNUM refers to WP:MOSLINK, which states that "days, years, decades and centuries should generally not be linked unless they are likely to deepen readers' understanding of the topic." Now, "likely to deepen readers' understanding" is a subjective phrase, doubtless every editor has a slightly different view on what would aid understanding. The second issue is that certain editors felt that the gauge of consensus was not completely clear. I believe that it was more than definitive. For one, our Featured Articles/Lists implemented the change in date-linking guidelines with not much complaint (see User:Tony1/Support for the removal of date autoformatting). Also, considering that tens of thousands of delinking edits have been made, there has been relatively little complaint from people besides the usual editors. One editor even asked me for the date autoformatting script here. If anything is needed, I believe that their needs to be clearer wording in our style guide with regards to date linking; I have drafted some guidelines here.

Evidence presented by Sarcasticidealist

Lightmouse has a history of being unresponsive to users' concerns when using bots and semi-automated tools

I've gone back and forth over whether or not to add this evidence, since it admittedly has nothing to do with date de-linking. However, based on the workshop page the effective scope of this case seems to have reached the point that this may be useful; if it isn't, the Arbs will I'm sure feel free to disregard it.

  • On March 13, 2008, Lightmouse used AWB to insert a {{convert}} template into Edmonton municipal election, 1963:1 [141]
  • Since the template was in a direct quotation, where I didn't think the template was useful, I reverted it, with an explanation: [142]
  • Lightmouse used AWB to repeat this edit on April 10 ([143]) and May 5 ([144]). Each time, I reverted it: [145], [146]
  • After the third reversion, I raised the issue with Lightmouse on his talk page: [147]. He responded by saying that he would try to make sure that it didn't happen again: [148]
  • On June 14, Lightbot performed the same edit again: [149]. Again I reverted ([150]) and again I raised the issue on Lightmouse's talk page: [151]. Lightmouse was again very polite ([152]), and took it upon himself to raise the issue at the MOS talk page to see how a repeat performance could be prevented. There, a variety of helpful users engaged in discussion that was mostly beyond me: [153] The upshot of this was that User:Jimp made some changes to the article ([154]) and Lightmouse expressed optimism that said changes would prevent a recurrence: [155]
  • The next occurrence was on October 19, once again by Lightmouse using AWB: [156] Once again, I reverted: ([157]).
  • Lightmouse repeated the edit December 5, again using AWB: [158] I raised the issue again on his talk page: [159]
  • Having raised an issue about Lightmouse's use of AWB on his talk page, I was immediately set upon by the date delinking crowd (pro- and anti-), with User:Tennis expert suggesting that Lightmouse was edit-warring [160] (which he only was under the broadest imaginable interpretation of the term), User:Tony1 calling the edit "something so trivial in such a trivial article" ([161]), and User:Ohconfucius making a totally unfounded accusation of ownership against me ([162]).
  • The experience having been extremely unpleasant so far, I decided not to pursue the matter (since and solution needed to be less effort than a single revert once every few months).
  • While looking up the diffs for this section, I noticed that I wasn't the first to raise the issue of use of the {{convert}} template within direct quotes; Sceptre did so February 8, 2008: [163] Lightmouse on that occasion apologized for "a rare case of [a quote] that slipped through": [164]

I haven't paid enough attention to this entire episode to have any well-developed thought on what Arb Comm's findings should be, but I wholeheartedly endorse the notion that Lightmouse's use of scripts and bots has, over the long-term, been suboptimal. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 00:13, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[]

Addendum:

1Whenever I bring this incident up, somebody suggests that this article, which I created, doesn't meet WP:N. This is obviously a legitimate view, and I'd welcome an AFD (though I'd also !vote keep), but has nothing to do with the complaints I'm raising.

Evidence presented by User:Tony1

"Detailed" RfCs were POV and present significantly contaminated results

Meta-comment. I find it hard to engage here with:

  1. the mud-slinging and smearing campaign that has developed in what is supposed to be a judicial process;
  2. the voluminous and mostly irrelevant amount of text;
  3. a process that appears to have no rules of evidence; and
  4. a case in which the purpose was quite unclear from the beginning and which, unsurprisingly, lacks focus.

Support for my assertion. Several users here have been making much of a set of "detailed" RfCs that are purported to provide evidence of some kind of partial or substantial consensus for the use of date-autoformatting and/or linking. Major claims have been made on this basis. I'm linking you to [of the first], [second], and [third] of these RfCs. All show significant contamination in the way information was presented to participating users and the surveys were structured, and which strongly suggest that they offer no useful evidence of anything except the need to apply skill and care to the framing of NPOV RfCs if their results are to be used as evidence. I believe the same is true of the other "detailed" RfCs, and will present analyses of them over the next day or two. The statistics provided by Colonies Chris at the application page on the vanishingly low rate of objection to date-delinking over a considerable period and many thousands of aritlces, together with the results of what I believe are RfCs of much more straightforward design, and many other pieces of evidence too numerous to cite here, point to the broad consensus in the community for what is now known as "smart linking" (a more selective approach to linking on the basis of link-value). Tony (talk) 13:24, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[]

Evidence presented by Tennis expert

Lightmouse has often used AWB at the rate of more than one article per minute

Lightmouse used AWB often at the rate of more than one article per minute. For example, he edited 75 articles in 8 minutes using AWB on December 8, 2008, which is 9.38 articles per minute or one article every 6.4 seconds. On December 9, 2008, Lightmouse edited 197 articles in 26 minutes, which is 7.58 articles per minute or one article every 7.9 seconds. On December 10, 2008, Lightmouse edited 1,777 articles in 114 minutes, which is 15.59 articles per minute or 1 article every 3.9 seconds. On December 15, 2008, Lightmouse edited 75 articles in 19 minutes, which is 3.95 articles per minute or 1 article every 15.19 seconds. Tennis expert (talk) 19:29, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[]

Reedy also has used AWB at the rate of more than one article per minute

Reedy on September 24, 2008, used AWB to edit 162 articles in 61 minutes, which is 2.66 articles per minute or 1 article every 22.6 seconds. On August 8, Reedy used AWB to edit 193 articles in 24 minutes, which is 8.04 articles per minute or 1 article every 7.5 seconds. Tennis expert (talk) 19:29, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[]

Reedy closed a complaint about Lightmouse's rapid use of AWB

Administrator Reedy on December 10, 2008, closed a complaint about Lightmouse's use of AWB and threatened to block the complainant. Reedy's own use of AWB was substantially similar to Lightmouse's. Tennis expert (talk) 19:29, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[]

Tony1 repeatedly has been incivil and disruptive in violation of several important Wikipedia policies

His accusations of my having a major depressive disorder can be found here, among other places. Here are some examples of disparaging names Tony1 has called me: "Tennis pest", "Tennis fanatic", "pig", "very eccentric". Tennis expert (talk) 22:46, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[]

He has also accused me of being "manic" and, in the edit summary for that accusation, sarcastically said, "Tennis expert, if you're suffering from depression or anxiety, please let me know and we can work out a way to help." Tennis expert (talk) 12:48, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[]

Notice this disruptive and conspiratorial thread involving Dabomb87, Ohconfucius, Tony1, and SkyWalker. Tennis expert (talk) 14:56, 23 January 2009 (UTC)[]

Called me a "piggy" in an edit summary on February 4, 2009. Tennis expert (talk) 19:35, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[]

Tony1 said on September 7, 2008: "May I add that User Tennis expert ... appears to be conducting a one-person freak-out about keeping all date fragments bright blue in the tennis empire. This is a pity for the readers and the tennis editors who genuinely want to improve the appearance and readability of our strong tennis categories ... and who want the high-value links in those articles undiluted by useless ones. It's a great pity...." Tennis expert (talk) 06:38, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[]

Tony1 said on November 6, 2008, in a massive assumption of bad faith about Tennis expert: "Is it Tennis expert who is doing this? If so, there'll be a dispute, since he has serious and troublesome ownership issues with the whole Tennis WikiProject. A lot of people are upset about his attitudes and actions WRT more than one matter." Tennis expert (talk) 20:43, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[]

Disparaging the motivations of those with honest disagreements with the date-delinkers, Tony1 said on November 4, 2008: "It enjoys wide community support, but there is a small band of very loud complainers at MOSNUM talk and a few other places. They're VERY upset that I've told them to stop sniping from their armchairs and do some work, for once." Tennis expert (talk) 20:23, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[]

Further dispraging the motivations of those with honest disagreements with the date-delinkers, Tony1 said on November 22, 2008: "There's a small band of loud complainers—none of them representative of WPians or readers at large. I note that these complainers are increasingly resorting to dramatic techniques to shout down hard-working editors who are striving to assist general users to bring their articles into compliance with the style guides. This page is just one of those techniques, which include the posting of threatening, bullying messages on talk pages; I'm sorry that your time and that of others has been taken up in dealing with it at this point." Tennis expert (talk) 20:23, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[]

Tony1 has encouraged edit warring concerning date delinking

In a message to SkyWalker, Tony1 said, "User:Tennis expert is stalking me, User:Colonies Chris and User:Lightmouse, undoing our good work. Feel free to add you weight by reverting this disruptive behaviour". Tennis expert (talk) 13:03, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[]

Ohconfucius has refused to correct errors made by him while using AWB

On December 12 and 15, 2008, Ohconfucius was notified by two editors that he had committed errors to 60 articles while using AWB. To date, Ohconfucious has neither denied that those errors were committed nor corrected those errors. Tennis expert (talk) 19:29, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[]

Ohconfucius repeatedly has been incivil, disruptive, and unconstructive in violation of several important Wikipedia policies

Please see User:Tennis_expert/Date_delinking_arbitration_evidence#Ohconfucius_repeatedly_has_been_incivil.2C_disruptive.2C_and_unconstructive_in_violation_of_several_important_Wikipedia_policies

Please see User:Tennis_expert/Date_delinking_arbitration_evidence#Colonies_Chris_repeatedly_has_edit_warred_to_delink_dates

On the Lightmouse discussion page, an editor nicely asked Lightmouse to make sure that before he delinks a date using a script, he spends a little time exercising discretion to determine whether the date link serves any useful purpose. Colonies Chris interjected this: "CR, since you aren't prepared to suggest any practical means for an editor, human or bot, to make such a determination, your question is both empty and tendentious and LM is quite right not to answer it." See also this, where he repeats that position and then adds that the urgency of date delinking is almost equivalent to an emergency situtation. Tennis expert (talk) 00:00, 18 January 2009 (UTC)[]

Please see User:Tennis_expert/Date_delinking_arbitration_evidence#Dabomb87_repeatedly_has_edit_warred_to_delink_dates

Please see User:Tennis_expert/Date_delinking_arbitration_evidence#HJensen_repeatedly_has_edit_warred_to_delink_dates

Please see User:Tennis_expert/Date_delinking_arbitration_evidence#SkyWalker_repeatedly_has_edit_warred_to_delink_dates.2C_including_blind_reversions_that_harmed_Wikipedia

Please see User:Tennis_expert/Date_delinking_arbitration_evidence#The_Rambling_Man.2C_now_known_temporarily_as_The_Rambling_Man_on_tour.2C_repeatedly_has_edit_warred_to_delink_dates.2C_including_blind_reversions_that_harmed_Wikipedia

Please see User:Tennis_expert/Date_delinking_arbitration_evidence#2008Olympian_repeatedly_has_edit_warred_to_delink_dates.2C_including_blind_reversions_that_harmed_Wikipedia

Please see User:Tennis_expert/Date_delinking_arbitration_evidence#Tony1_repeatedly_has_edit_warred_to_delink_dates.2C_including_blind_reversions_that_harmed_Wikipedia

Please see User:Tennis_expert/Date_delinking_arbitration_evidence#Tony1.2C_2008Olympian.2C_The_Rambling_Man.2C_Colonies_Chris.2C_SkyWalker.2C_HJensen.2C_Ohconfucius.2C_and_Dabomb87_repeatedly_have_engaged_in_tag-team_edit_warring_to_delink_dates

The Rambling Man has been highly disruptive, which is unbecoming of the trust placed in bureaucrats and administrators

Please see User:Tennis_expert/Date_delinking_arbitration_evidence#The_Rambling_Man_has_been_highly_disruptive.2C_which_is_unbecoming_of_the_trust_placed_in_bureaucrats_and_administrators

Lightmouse ignored Tennis expert's September 2008 complaint about Lightbot's date delinking edits of tennis articles

Please see User:Tennis_expert/Date_delinking_arbitration_evidence#Lightmouse_ignored_Tennis_expert.27s_September_2008_complaint_about_Lightbot.27s_date_delinking_edits_of_tennis_articles

Evidence presented by Sssoul

Lightmouse has a history of being very responsive and courteous when approached with concerns about bot/script activity.

Anyone who browses Lightmouse's talk page can find scores of examples of his courtesy in responding to questions and addressing glitches in the bot and script operation. Just a handful of examples from a very quick perusal of recent entries: [166], [167], [168], [169], [170], [171], [172], [173], [174] Sssoul (talk) 12:44, 17 January 2009 (UTC)[]

Evidence presented by User:Colonies Chris

There is community acceptance of date delinking

Most of what I do on WP is gnoming. Since the MoS was changed to deprecate autoformatting, I've been routinely unlinking dates and date fragments in the course of my other edits. I estimate that I've edited about 10,000 articles in that period [175] and roughly 70% of those edits involved some sort of date delinking – either full dates or bare years, decades or centuries, or the occasional more exotic combination. That's about 7000 articles delinked.* If delinking were seriously disputed – by more than just Locke Cole and a few vocal others - you’d expect me to get a lot of complaints. I have received a small number of complaints, and also some endorsements. I've itemised them all here, with a brief description.

  • My talk page: 21 July 2008 I explained about the change to the MoS but the editor would not accept that.
  • My talk page: 24 July 2008 An editor asked why I had unlinked dates, then noticed the earlier discussion on my talk page and considered that sufficient explanation
  • My talk page: 31 July 2008 User:Bzuk objected and would not accept my argument. User:Philip Baird Shearer accused me of disruptive behaviour [I had unlinked dates while fixing a spelling error; several weeks later I returned to the same article while fixing a different spelling error, and, not remembering that I had been there before, unlinked dates that he had relinked in the meantime; he took this as edit-warring]
  • My talk page: mid August User:BillCJ objected in extremely uncivil terms, describing my edits as 'trash' and 'vandalism', reverted all my changes, including many non-date related ones, and then wiped all my responses from his talk page. However, I preserved the interaction on my talk page.
  • My talk page: Aug 2008 User:MBK004 objected to my removal of date links, but another editor of the same article dissented. Among other things, MBK004 accused me of acting 'nefariously' by combining date delinking with other edits. This makes an interesting contrast with the discussion that took place later over the use of AWB, where Locke Cole and Tennis expert tried, unsuccessfully, to claim that making only unlinking edits to an article was a 'minor edit' prohibited under AWB rules. Damned if you do and damned if you don't, it would seem.
  • My talk page: 26 Aug 2008 User:Bluewave accepted my explanation
  • September - No objections or praise
  • My talk page: 22 October 2008 User:Smjg did not object to unlinking per se but complained that I had left the unlinked dates in an inconsistent state. My unlinking had revealed the inconsistency to him, not created it, but he seemed to think it was my fault. Another editor might have thanked me for showing him what almost all our readers had always been seeing, and fixed the inconsistencies himself, but 'nowt so queer as folk', as they say.
  • My talk page: 31 October 2008 An IP complained about my removal of a bare year link, but offered no explanation of why it should be retained.
  • My talk page: late Nov Tennis expert posted a 'warning' of his own devising, with no official status whatever, suggesting that I should desist unlinking. I refused to comply with his bullying.
  • My talk page: 24 Nov Tennis expert notified me that he had reported my edits at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring. The outcome of this complaint was 'NoVio'.
  • My talk page: 12 Jan 2009 User:Swtpc6800 wrote "Your comments at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration#Date delinking are clear and to-the-point. I have no objections when an article on my watch list is stripped of date links."
  • My talk page: 12 Jan 2009 User:John wrote "Yes, I just read them too and you make some very good points. I have been delinking dates since the consensus changed back in August. I must have done several thousand, usually as part of a copyedit (ie I fix any other problems I see with the article at the same time). I had one or two inquiries at the beginning, but it is obvious that an overwhelming majority of editors here never liked the linked dates and are now quite happy to see them go"

A further note:

  • Back when the MoS used to recommend linking dates for autoformatting, I used to routinely link dates when editing an article. I also received the occasional complaint about that. To be consistent, the complainants in this case should count those as evidence of community opposition to autoformatting.

I make that seven unsatisfied objections - of which three came from editors known to be extremely prickly - or a proportion of around one in a thousand, or half that if you take out the objections by editors who object to just about everything. And I think it's also significant that almost all the objections came in the first three or so months after the MoS had been changed. As time passed and the changes to the MoS became more widely known, the objections ceased.

This tiny proportion of objections makes it perfectly clear that the community is happy to go along with the MoS. Locke Cole's assertion that the changes are being steamrollered in without community support are complete nonsense. The evidence totally contradicts that.

*I can't provide hard evidence for this percentage - it's just my subjective impression. However, even if my estimate of the percentage were substantially wrong, the number of complaints would still be a tiny proportion; the overall argument stands regardless.)

Response to Tennis Expert's accusations of edit warring

I'm surprised that Tennis expert chooses to adduce these articles as evidence of my alleged edit warring. He seems to have rather shot himself in the foot with this one. A look at the full edit history of these articles shows a pattern of edit warring certainly - by Tennis expert .He repeatedly reverts all attempts to unlink dates in line with the Manual of Style, and claims to be defending a 'local consensus' to keep dates linked. However this 'local consensus' exists only in his own mind. Not a single other editor came forward to support his actions and least two frequent editors of tennis articles actively opposed his actions. A look at the edit histories of Steffi Graf and Tracy Austin is instructive.

Steffi Graf

  • 7 September Tony1 unlinks dates
  • 7 September Tennis expert reverts ("(rv edits by Tony1 that are inconsistent with consensus for tennis articles - see the tennis project discussion page")
  • 7 September The Rambling Man (a frequent tennis editor) unlinks dates again ("Undo MOS breaches since no clear consensus exists")
  • 7 October Tennis expert relinks dates
  • 13 October Dabomb87 unlinks dates
  • 31 October Tennis expert relinks dates
  • 6 November Colonies Chris unlinks dates
  • 6 November Tennis expert relinks dates
  • 6 November Dudesleeper unlinks dates
  • 7 November Tennis expert reverts Dudesleeper ("There is no consensus to remove existing date links, and there is nothing wrong with the other links")
  • 8 November SkyWalker reverts Tennis expert
  • 10 November Tennis expert reverts SkyWalker
  • 15 November 2008Olympian unlinks dates
  • 15 November Tennis expert reverts 2008Olympian
  • 15 November 2008Olympian reverts Tennis expert
  • 16 November Tennis expert relinks dates

Tracy Austin

  • 21 October The Rambling Man (a frequent tennis edtor) unlinks dates
  • 6 November Tennis expert relinks (without explanation)
  • 6 November HJensen (another frequent tennis editor) unlinks dates
  • 7 November Tennis expert relinks ("There is no consensus to delete existing date links")
  • 8 November SkyWalker reverts Tennis expert
  • 10 November Tennis expert reverts SkyWalker
  • 15 November 2008Olympian unlinks dates
  • 15 November Tennis expert reverts 2008Olympian ("There is no consensus to remove existing date links")
  • 15 November 2008Olympia reverts Tennis expert
  • 16 November Tennis expert reverts again
  • 16 November Date delinker unlinks dates
  • 19 November Tennis expert reverts Date delinker
  • 19 November Seicer reverts Tennis expert

You will note that Tennis expert is on his own here. Not a single other editor supports his actions. And I'm also rather surprised that he's adducing as evidence a warning I received about edit warring. Strangely, he fails to mention that it was he who filed the complaint and he who placed the warning on my talk page; and he also forgot to mention that the result of his complaint against me was NoVio. Colonies Chris (talk) 23:52, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[]

Evidence presented by Omegatron

Incivility and votestacking by Greg L

I've been asked to comment here because of my past experience with User:Greg L on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers).

Greg's behavior is one of the reasons I quit Wikipedia last summer (specifically, the fact that problem users can engage in this type of disruptive behavior without any consequences.) He's one of the most abusive editors I've encountered.

I haven't been involved in the last few months, so I'll just point to the Evidence section of the RfC that I filed previously. (I'm not sure if that evidence should be reproduced here. If so, feel free to add it in this section.) I wouldn't be surprised if the same pattern of behavior has continued unchanged to today.

I'll also point out that in his comparatively short time here, Greg L has made far more edits to the talk page than any other editor.[176] Consensus is based on civil discourse and an attempt to understand others' points of view, not sheer persistence. In my past experience, Greg refuses to consider any point of view but his own, does whatever he thinks is best, regardless of consensus, and actively disrupts (votestacking, gaming the system, belligerent personal attacks) any attempts to build consensus that might result in another outcome.

He may try to deflect attention from himself by characterizing it as a "content dispute" (removing it from the jurisdiction of the ArbCom), as he did in the RfC, but the problem has always been his behavior.

(And for the record, I think that most dates should be delinked, with formatting provided by an independent technical solution. I think this puts me on the same "side" as Greg, but that doesn't change my condemnation of his behavior.) — Omegatron (talk) 03:00, 19 January 2009 (UTC)[]

Evidence presented by Thunderbird2

I concur with Omegatron. Greg_L has a long history of incivility, which as far as I can tell continues unabated. Since August 2008 I no longer edit articles on English WP, partly because of the abuse I receive from Greg_L. Thunderbird2 (talk) 18:50, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Greg_L routinely uses ridicule and incivility as a substitute for constructive debate

  1. Gene, you can do better than blow an example like ft/lbs out of your butt. (01:52, 17 November 2008)
  2. (*sigh*) address another herpes outbreak (21:51, 17 November 2008)
  3. Reverts at pi: Fuck off (22:58, 7 October 2008 )
  4. Doing so I will at least help us to accept that you actually like the puke you expect our articles should be linking to. But just because you can prove you can stomach through reading that shit will only prove that you like reading mindless shit; it will come up short of convincing proof that those trivia articles are “compelling reading” that most readers appreciate. 23:18, 7 January 2009

Greg_L is quick to make accusations of disruption, vandalism and bad faith

  1. So stop vandalizing the page by deleting polls please (23:48, 10 September 2008)
  2. What you did is basically vandalism by someone who didn’t want to devote the time that others have invested into this debate (04:19, 9 September 2008 )
  3. I have clear proof that Thunderbird has lost the right to be presumed to be operating here in good faith since it is a matter of record that he lied and deceived to get his way only about five months ago. (20:41, 30 October 2008)
  4. He manipulates others and isn’t up front in his dealings. He wastes our time. He is not due an “assumption of good faith” because he has proven his SOP is to not operate in good faith. I utterly reject the notion that any rule in a decent and civilized society requires that civilized men in a party have to endlessly put up with a brute who crashes a party, disrupts all the proceedings, and refuses to behave himself. It’s high time to kick his ass out onto the street curb. (20:41, 30 October 2008)
  5. Thunderbird2 is not due a presumption of good faith because he has demonstrated that he consistently operates in an exceedingly frustrating, underhanded manner.(20:20, 3 November 2008)
  6. Choose your next post carefully and consider yourself warned. Your behavior as of late bears all the hallmarks of a tendentious, single-purpose editor whose benefits to Wikipedia are wildly offset by the disruption you cause. One remedy for this, which is distinctly possible, is a permanent ban. (20:20, 3 November 2008)
  7. Please stop disrupting Wikipedia to make a point. If you want to hop into a time machine and change reality, do so. Until then, I’ll have none of this effort of trying to deny reality; no editor has to put up with absurdity.Greg L (talk) 18:54, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
  8. Well… Duhhh, what part of “4096” do you not understand? Please stop being disruptive here21:18, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
  9. You and your cohorts have junked this whole article up.22:01, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
  10. Vandalims reverted to last version by Slashme 15:21, 24 October 2007

Evidence presented by Greg L

The forgotten issue: The community consensus

Gee, I don’t know. This place looks a lot like fourth-graders have taken over the elementary school with name calling (“so-n-so called me a ‘poopy head’”). Last I checked, a key consideration is what the community consensus is as evidenced by the RfCs. Anyone interested? Seems clear to me. Dabomb87 has produced a nice summary of the relevant RfCs at User:Dabomb87/Summary of the Date Linking RFCs. There, you arbitrators will find links to the RfCs so you can look at the raw results. Greg L (talk) 05:03, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[]

Leopards don’t change their spots

Locke Cole is the principle opponent of letting bots engage in date delinking. Any rational reading of his block log shows a chronic problem with incivility towards others and profound stubbornness. Like a moth to a flame, he somehow seems to gravitate to conflict. This is also borne out in this RfA, which resulted in a month-long block for stalking another editor. Over the years, Locke has learned the rules of the game here so he can exploit Wikipedia’s propensity to reward civil language (with little regard to true, editing conduct) so he can hide mean-spirited moves behind a veneer of civil wikiwords while avoiding repercussions. The result: stratospheric levels of wikidrama via wikilawyering. And here we all are, like marionettes, getting dragged into it all.

Let’s contrast that with Tony’s block log. One block, which was quickly undone when an admin realized he was mistaken and Tony had been in the right all along. Are we seeing a pattern here? Anything that might be relevant to an important *grin test* here? Greg L (talk) 05:03, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[]

Rehashing tired old issues

As for Thunderbird2 and Omegatron, simple issue: both would like to make Wikipedia go back to using computer terminology like “kibibytes (KiB)” rather than the “kilobytes (KB)” observed by every computer manufacturer when communicating in any way to their customer base, as well as by all other general-interest encyclopedias, as well as all by all general-interest computer magazines in the world. Those two editors were likely *invited* here for a good ol’ Greg-bash. But that “binary prefix” issue is dead and buried. Wikipedia follows the way the world really works and doesn’t confuse our readership by trying to promote change through the use of non-standard terminology that is totally unfamiliar to our readership (and is done in an “oh, didn’tcha-know” fashion).

It’s true, I led the final charge that ended that three-year-long war. What those two editors don’t seem to realize though, is that they “lost”, not because of me, but because their words were unpersuasive in a venue—WT:MOSNUM—that is a marketplace where ideas are exchanged. The community consensus was that Wikipedia should change course—and we did.

Those two editors like to think that this change back to the way the real world works was unjust and can be attributed to “Greg being mean.” No, it was brought about because using terminology like “a computer with 2 GiB of RAM” proved to have been a bad idea in the first place, and after two months of intensive debate, it could finally be demonstrated to everyone’s satisfaction but theirs that there was a new consensus to deprecate the practice. Does anyone see history repeating itself here? Greg L (talk) 05:25, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[]

Evidence presented by Fnagaton

Fallacious points made above by Omegatron and Thunderbird2

Above Omegatron writes "Incivility and votestacking by ..." followed by "I've been asked to comment..." which I would put forward as evidence of someone asking Omegaron to post to stack the votes in this RfC. Omegatron then claims to have quit because of someone which is a weak argument and can be discounted because I could say for example: "I almost quit because of the bad behaviour demonstrated by Omegatron but I realised that would be letting a bully win so I stayed instead." - Obviously that has no weight for the same reasons that Omegatron's claim has no weight, therefore Omegatron's point can be disregarded. The fact is Omegatron's point of view as debated on MOSNUM was refuted by much stronger arguments, in part these stronger arguments came from Greg. So with Omegatron's point of view refuted he then posts an RfC against Greg, it is a credit to the RfC system that what started an an RfC against Greg turned into a forum where Omegatron was given extensive feedback about his poor behaviour. Then Omegatron decided to "quit because of someone" but not quit "quietly" but did instead continue to misrepresent Greg, these are not the actions of someone who deserves to have an administrator tag. Indeed, since Omegatron admits to quitting then the administrator tag should be removed (I believe this is Wikipedia policy?) to avoid an ex-admin account being abused. Now we come to Thunderbird2, in the previously mentioned RfC against Greg Thunderbird2 was also given extensive feedback about his poor behaviour. Lately Thunderbird2 has been the subject of an RfC/U Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Thunderbird2 because the user has refused to accept consensus when it is obvious and amply demonstrated. Please note the lack of support for Thunderbird2's poor behaviour as detailed in the RfC/U and the overwhelming consensus calling on Thunderbird2 to modfiy his behaviour. As can be seen from the recent edit history Thunderbird2 is still using his talk page archive to misrepresent and wiki-stalk other editors and this is despite the RfC/U explicitly pointing out this poor behaviour. Thunderbird2 also claims to have "quit English WP because of abuse" by someone yet Thunderbird2 fails to realise that he is to user who is providing that abuse by repeatedly acting editing consensus and continuing to misrepresent Greg and other editors. As the consensus in the RfC/U shows Thunderbird2's conduct demonstrates this user should be strongly warned and then banned if the behaviour continues. The fact both Omegatrong and Thunderbird2 claim they "quit" for the same reasons but do not do so quietly and continue to misrepresent other editors (like Greg) who actually positively contribute to Wikipedia only go to show how disengenuous and fallacious Omegatron's and Thunderbird2's "argument[sic]" actually is. I put it to both Thunderbird2 and Omegatrong that if you both intend to quit then really do so quietly and stop misrepresenting other editors from the sidelines. Fnagaton 13:01, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[]

Evidence presented by Martinp23

AWB access has in the past been revoked for date delinkage and drama has ensued.

I appreciate I am somewhat late to the party here. [As an AWB Dev] I removed the access of various users to the tool. User_talk:Martinp23/Archive12#Inconsequential_edits and the two threads below contain parts of the exchange. Discussion also took place on the AWB talk page: Wikipedia_talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Archive_19#Using_the_tool_for_inconsequential.2Fminor_edits_.28date_delinking.29, Wikipedia_talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Archive_19#Request_to_lift_the_ban_on_Lightmouse_for_date_delinking, Wikipedia_talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Archive_19#Rules_of_use:_Avoid_making_insignificant_or_inconsequential_edits. Martinp23 20:41, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[]

Evidence presented by Nimbus227

Behaviour

As a lowly krill creator and improver of aircraft articles I complained several times to Lightmouse about repeated removal of contextual date links that were being stripped by Lightbot. On the last occasion my answer to Tony 1 about there only being two people making a noise was swiftly removed from Lightmouse's talk page and placed on my own talk page [177] by Ohconfucius. In my view I had a genuine complaint and found it very odd, if not insulting, that my comment be removed as it clearly was not vandalism. In eighteen months on Wikipedia that is the first time that has happened to me and I think is against policy. I took it as a 'sweeping under the carpet' exercise.

Lightmouse, whilst civil with very short replies, never apologised to me for any inconvenience caused, stripped many templated years from infoboxes, converting them to 'bare' year links ready for the next step of 'sanctioned' bot removal.

I further note that Lightmouse does not provide a readily accessible link to his talk page archives like myself and many other editors do (making it much harder to find 'diffs'), I am not ashamed of my past mistakes and never delete anything.

I find the attitude and actions of all three mentioned editors akin to that of a Steamroller.

Consensus

The word 'consensus' crops up many times. I am concerned that the maximum number of wikipedians sampled here is less than 100, not all agreeing to total date delinking. This surely is a very small percentage of the total number of active editors? While silence apparently implies consent I believe that not all Wikipedia contributors knew or appreciated what was happening and even in late 2008 when a banner message was added to link the various RfC's they probably dismissed it as trivial not realising the consequences. I personally agreed with date delinking except contextual 'years in' links, I got frustrated when they too got delinked with an air of superiority against complaints. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 05:41, 23 January 2009 (UTC)[]

Evidence presented by Kendrick7

I asked Lightmouse to stop his bot from delinking years and eras in July 2008, matter seemed settled

My first encounter with Lightmouse occured on 5 July 2008, wherein I asked his bot to stop delinking years (as here[178]), and gave one, of many possible, suggestions as to why I thought this was a mistake.[179] A half hour later, this sentiment had gotten an added vote of support from User:SkyWalker.[180] Three hours later, Lightmouse removed the discussion from his user page[181] and put it on WP:MOSNUM, for reasons that aren't entirely clear, as at the time MOSNUM said nothing about delinking years (beyond the oddly named shortcut MOS:UNLINKYEARS) and date auformatting had not yet been deprecated.[182]

In the continuing, now moved and retitled discussion[183] yet another user came forward asking Lightmouse to stop the bots behavior, and another chimed in that while he thought delinking was OK, Lightmouse should heed the objection. User:Greg_L reminded everyone that Lightbot was a work in progress and while most years were overlinked that "Maybe the bot can be tuned to cut historical articles some slack." Only one editor seemed to support removing all year links project wide, and insisted WP:CONSENSUS existed to do so. This editor, User:Tony1 wrote:

As far as I'm concerned, Aervanath, there is consensus to de-link years. This cancer should be expurgated from WP without delay. No reason at all to stop. Send the complainers to me and I'll politely explain why it's so necessary, and enquire into their particular reasons for objecting .... TONY (talk) 08:33, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

However, Lightmouse proceeds to say the bot was malfunctioning, and that it should not have been removing all dates, and in particular had been mistaking two digit years for months, and that it had been repaired. I considered that to be the end of the matter.

In October, I noticed Lightbot running back through my watchlist an delinking years again (as here[184]). Following a similar note left be User:LlywelynII on WT:MOSNUM, I echo his insistence that the bot owner should get consensus for this behavior.[185]

This ended up being a long three day discussion,[186] during which time multiple editors pointed out that there was no consensus to delink all years. Locke Coles's evidence above does a good break down of this conversation by diffs.

As a result of the discussion, Lightbot was paused, until such time as a consensus for its behavior, which Lightmouse showed no interest in changing, could be moved inline with existing consensus.[187]

Lightmouse argued that links were pointless, and that readers could just use the search tool, which became another long discussion.[188] It is decided than an RFC could be a good way to move forward on the matter.

(Just one example [189]) And now, I'm a tad snippy about it, having been through this twice already. Lightmouse's bot is claiming in its edits that they are being performed "per WP:MOSNUM" and so I lodge a complaint with him on his talk page.[190] This evolves into a longer discussion[191] before Lightmouse removes it from his user page to WT:MOSNUM.[192] By that time I had already started a new section on this problematic behavior at WT:MOSNUM.[193]

It should be clear at this point there was still no consensus for the bot's behavior, as User:Masem puts it.[194] Much wikilawyering ensues over the meaning of consensus, such as the claim by User:Tony1 that there was never consensus to link to dates in the first place, so no new consensus to unlink dates, (presumably including years), is required,[195] and that opponents to delinking are being completely unreasonable, and, much as in July, he claims that consensus is "well established."[196]

(Same article as above [197]) So here we are 7 months down the road, countless editors asking Lightmouse to stop, and the bot was still humming away.

Evidence presented by SandyGeorgia

Locke Cole overstates allegations of abuse at FAC and FAR

In "Evidence presented by Locke Cole" Locke Cole overstates alleged abuse by Tony1 at WP:FAC and WP:FAR.

2008-12-07T11:36:39 - Tony1 puts the article up for Featured article review claiming MoS breaches, [...] the linked date at the opening, still not satisfactorily justified on the talk page amongst other reasons;

In fact, Tony1 put the article at FAR for multiple reasons (WP:WIAFA 1a, 1b and 1c, in addition to 2, MoS):

IMO, it fails Criteria 1a (poor prose throughout) and 2 (MoS breaches, such as the range-hyphens in the infobox and the linked date at the opening, still not satisfactorily justified on the talk page), with a question mark over Criterion 1b (it's hard to believe that it's comprehensive—a person's whole life and, specifically, his role in the war and symbolic meaning as the last survivor). The repetition and density of the inline citations unnecessarily affects the appearance and readability of the text (cf. the requirement for a professional standard of formatting).

Further, Wikipedia:Featured article review/Lazare Ponticelli reveals the concerns were warranted. There is no abuse of process here.

Locke Cole also presents a diff, alleging involvement in the FAR listing by User:Dabomb87, because he did the routine FAR notifications:

2008-12-07T16:58:00 - Dabomb87 seems to also be involved in the listing.

In fact, most of the editors who frequent FAC and FAR routinely help out with notifications since I stopped doing all of them; this diff indicates nothing out of the ordinary and provides no evidence of abuse of process.

Locke Cole also presents a diff to a conversation on Tony1's talk page, alleging coordination of efforts:

This seems like an abuse of Wikipedia's Featured article system, making what is likely a bad faith review request due to editing disputes of date linking. It's worth noting that the article is still under review at WP:FARC. Arbitrators may also find the last two discussions in this old version of User talk:Tony1 worth reading (they seem to admit to coordinating efforts).

Just as most FAC and FAR regulars follow my talk page, or Raul654's talk page (for the purpose of helping to answer the many questions posed on our talk pages), many editors also follow Tony1's talk page, as he is one of the most respected FAR and FAR reviewers (and because he's in a different time zone than many editors).

None of Locke Cole's diffs alleging abuse of process at FAC or FAR are supported by evidence, and I am unaware of any abuse of process or even any negative effect at FAR or FAR of the date delinking controversy. Delinking of dates was embraced by most FA writers as far as I can tell. I am concerned about the overstatements and misstatements in Locke Cole's evidence. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:18, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[]

Comment presented by AKAF

Lightbot==Betacommandbot

I would like to suggest to the Arbcom that this is a situation which is essentially similar to the Betacommand case:

  • As with Betacommandbot before him, Lightbot is making edits to a significant proportion of all Wikipedia articles.
  • As with Betacommand before him, a user watching an article sees the official-looking edit summary: "Lightbot (Talk | contribs) (7,158 bytes) (unit/dates/other) (undo)"
  • As with Betacommand before him, Lightmouse argues that his bot perfectly implements the current version of the MOSNUM, and so any complaints about his bot are actually complaints about the wording of the MOSNUM.
  • As with Betacommand before him, Lightmouse is responsive to bug reports, but unresponsive to complaints about the scope of his task.
  • Unlike Betacommand, Lightmouse is yet to supply any evidence that this task is so urgent that complaints should be overridden.
  • Unlike Betacommand, Lightmouse is yet to be rude on a talk page.
  • As with Betacommand before him, the user who wishes to complain is completely frustrated using the following method:
  1. directed to Lightbot's user page, which contains only links to the approvals.
  2. looks at the current approval [198] with a whole bunch of complaints which have never been acted upon.
  3. goes to lightmouse's user page and makes a complaint, which is moved to Talk:MOSNUM before being completely ignored.
Now, I would direct you to the archives of Lightmouse's talk page for some evidence, but he doesn't keep any archives, and searching through every diff on his talk page is beyond what I'm willing to do. Searching through the 100-odd archives of MOSNUM is also beyond me, but suffice to say that this [199] is a pretty standard example.

Now, I think that it should be clear that I think that Lightmouse is non-responsive and running a bot which should be disallowed, but I cannot suggest strongly enough that the arbitrators read the request for approval for his current task:

Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approval/Lightbot_3

The section at the bottom is called "Reconsider" and I would add that I have never seen a similar section for a major bot. I would say that the BAG was under probation after the end of the Betacommand case, and has finally demonstrated its complete uselessness in this case. I will close by quoting my comment from that request for approval, which I think has some relevance to this case:

"By its nature, a guideline such as the MOS tends only to have consensus within the small group which actually edits the manual of style. Normally the wiki-wide consensus of the changes suggested by the MOS is gauged by whether those edits are reverted by other editors. Lightbot attempts to turn particular sections of the MOS into a policy by winning all of the following edit wars. Note that I say suggested changes, not mandated changes, since MOS is a guideline rather than a policy. Even if the MOS were a policy, there is still considerable doubt about Lightmouse's interpretation. In many of these cases, Lightmouse is using Lightbot to win the edit war about whether his interpretation is correct. Additionally, this approval is so broad that it essentially allows Lightmouse to write the MOS as he pleases, and enforce his own interpretation on wikipedia. As Lightbot is currently implemented, I think probably at least 60% of its edits are not controversial, but this approval is far broader than the current implementation. (...) When I read Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) I don't see the kind of consensus for Lightbot's currently programmed tasks which you apparently believe is there. Further, the scope of this approval is such that Lightmouse can edit units and dates as the whim takes him. If there is less than full consensus for his current tasks, I simply don't see how there can be a consensus for the entire scope of this approval."

Regards, AKAF (talk) 15:55, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[]

Evidence presented by SWTPC6800

Editing statistics

Locke Cole presented raw edit counts for MOSNUM that are a bit misleading. Some users create and polish their comments in a sandbox before posting; others edit online and make four or five corrections to each posting. (I create mine offline but often have to make a correction anyway.)

Greg_L is forever tweaking his contributions. Here is an example from today. Greg made 5 sequential edits in 14 minute period [200] followed by 7 more sequential edits in a 25 minute period.[201] This is typical of Greg's editing style.

Fort Glanville Conservation Park was a "Did you know…" article today. In creating the article, Peripitus, added 53,421 bytes in a single edit with a summary of "update a lot".[202] Raw edit count numbers can be very misleading.

Here are the top edit counts to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) over the past 5 months.[203] Locke is number 3.

SWTPC6800 (talk) 04:27, 18 February 2009 (UTC)[]


Evidence presented by {your user name}

before using the last evidence template, please make a copy for the next person

{Write your assertion here}

Place argument and diffs which support your assertion; for example, your first assertion might be "So-and-so engages in edit warring", which should be the title of this section. Here you would show specific edits to specific articles which show So-and-so engaging in edit warring.

{Write your assertion here}

Place argument and diffs which support the second assertion; for example, your second assertion might be "So-and-so makes personal attacks", which should be the title of this section. Here you would show specific edits where So-and-so made personal attacks.

  1. ^ Dates should no longer be linked for the purpose of autoformatting, even though such links were previously considered desirable. This change was made on August 24, 2008 on the basis of this archived discussion, inter alia, and confirmed in December 2008 by two RfCs: Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)/Three proposals for change to MOSNUM and Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers)/Date_Linking_RFC.
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