Revision as of 04:52, 22 December 2006 editElonka (talk | contribs)Autopatrolled, Administrators70,960 edits →Controversial moves were causing disruption in many areas around Misplaced Pages: - clarified a couple sections← Previous edit | Revision as of 05:06, 22 December 2006 edit undoElonka (talk | contribs)Autopatrolled, Administrators70,960 edits →Admin Wknight94: - added elementNext edit → | ||
Line 401: | Line 401: | ||
====Admin Wknight94==== | ====Admin Wknight94==== | ||
* Claiming that incivility was proper as a response to "passive incivility" |
* Claiming that incivility was proper as a response to "passive incivility" | ||
* Incivility and personal attacks against other editors | * Incivility and personal attacks against other editors | ||
* Harassment (see ) | * Harassment (see ) | ||
* Accusing someone of disruption and violating ] for trying to run a fair poll, or for even trying to ''discuss'' a poll | * Accusing someone of disruption and violating ] for trying to run a fair poll, or for even trying to ''discuss'' a poll | ||
* Making hundreds of controversial page moves without going through ], and sometimes even in violation of a "no consensus" close (see section above) | * Making hundreds of controversial page moves without going through ], and sometimes even in violation of a "no consensus" close (see section above) | ||
* Encouraging {{user5|Yaksha}} to proceed with controversial page moves, despite requests from multiple users that the moves stop. | |||
* Issuing unjustified warnings | |||
====Admin Radiant!==== | ====Admin Radiant!==== |
Revision as of 05:06, 22 December 2006
Anyone, whether directly involved or not, may add evidence to this page. Please make a header for your evidence and sign your comments with your name.
When placing evidence here, please be considerate of the arbitrators and be concise. Long, rambling, or stream-of-conciousness rants are not helpful.
As such, it is extremely important that you use the prescribed format. Submitted evidence should include a link to the actual page diff; links to the page itself are not sufficient. For example, to cite the edit by Mennonot to the article Anomalous phenomenon adding a link to Hundredth Monkey use this form: .
This page is not for general discussion - for that, see talk page.
Please make a section for your evidence and add evidence only in your own section. Please limit your evidence to a maximum 1000 words and 100 diffs, a much shorter, concise presentation is more likely to be effective. Please focus on the issues raised in the complaint and answer and on diffs which illustrate behavior which relates to the issues.
If you disagree with some evidence you see here, please cite the evidence in your own section and provide counter-evidence, or an explanation of why the evidence is misleading. Do not edit within the evidence section of any other user.
Be aware that the Arbitrators may at times rework this page to try to make it more coherent. If you are a participant in the case or a third party, please don't try to refactor the page, let the Arbitrators do it. If you object to evidence which is inserted by other participants or third parties please cite the evidence and voice your objections within your own section of the page. It is especially important to not remove evidence presented by others. If something is put in the wrong place, please leave it for the arbitrators to move.
The 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 may edit /Proposed decision.
Evidence presented by Elonka
Yaksha has been engaging in non-consensus page moves
Throughout this process, Yaksha (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) (aka `/aksha) has been escalating tension by engaging in hundreds of page moves, the vast majority of which were without any attempt at RM procedures or any kind of prior notification on the affected pages.
Sockpuppetry concerns: The Yaksha account was being used almost entirely for page moves and engaging in naming discussions, with little other activity .
- November 10, ~50 moves
- November 11, ~90 moves
- November 13, ~70 moves
- November 14, ~65 moves
- November 17, ~45 moves
- November 18, ~100 moves
- November 19, ~95 moves
- November 20, ~95 moves
- November 21, ~30 moves
- November 22, ~60 moves
- December 6, ~55 moves
- December 11, ~25 moves
- December 20, ~50 moves
Reminders of procedure and requests to Yaksha to stop moving articles, from:
- November 11, Serge Issakov
- November 19, Elonka
- December 6, "cease and desist" from ^demon
- December 7, Jossi
- December 11, Thatcher131.
- December 20, Wizardry Dragon
Yaksha's replies, showing a fundamental misunderstanding of RM procedure:
- "A complaint doesn't make a move controversial."
- "I'm not planning to stop."
- "Not all page moves have to go through Requested Moves"
Other disputants who were actively encouraging Yaksha to continue with controversial moves:
- December 7, Administrator Radiant posted to Yaksha's talkpage during this process, saying, "Keep up the good work"
- December 7, Milo H Minderbinder encouraged Yaksha to continue to get the moves done as quickly as possible
- December 8, Wknight94 praised Yaksha as a potential "future administrator."
Administrator Wknight94 has been engaging in non-consensus page moves
Wknight94 (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) moved many articles, most without any type of RM, and some in direct contradiction of a "no consensus" close.
Timeline:
- September 10, I (Elonka) filed an RM to move Fire + Water to Fire + Water (Lost).
- September 17, Wknight94 participated in the RM discussion to strongly oppose the move, and threatened that he was "tempted to start going through undoing those unnecessarily disambiguated titles."
- Two days later, Wknight94 proceeded to engage in multiple such moves, without discussion or any attempt at RM:
- September 24, Administrator tariqabjotu closed the Fire + Water move discussion as "No consensus."
- September 25, despite how the RM had closed, Wknight94 moved many articles in the Lost category , citing in his edit summary, "per Talk:Fire + Water precedent", even though the RM at Talk:Fire + Water had been closed as "no consensus."
- Note that these moves were clearly controversial in other ways, as some of the pages had already been in move wars that week: Nohat's move, Ned Scott's revert, Wknight94's move, incorrectly citing the "no consensus" RM as justification
Wknight94 and Ned Scott were engaging in a pattern of harassment
Before this naming dispute, I (Elonka) had no areas where my edits and those of Wknight94 overlapped, and the only place where Ned Scott and I overlapped was in television articles. After the dispute at Misplaced Pages talk:Naming conventions (television) started on October 30, Wknight94 and Ned Scott began showing up at multiple places on my watchlist, sometimes with abusive behavior:
- November 2
- November 3
- 01:50 Wknight94 shows up at pages about my company's products
- 02:09 Wknight94 shows up at unrelated IGDA article:
- 02:12 Wknight94 shows up at a stub that I created several months ago:
- 02:18 Wknight94 shows up at my bio:
- 02:24 Ned Scott returns to Centauri's talk page
- 02:32 Wknight94 shows up at an unrelated AfD that I'd started on Different Spaces:
- 03:18, I post at Centauri's talkpage about what appears to be stalking.
- 03:34, Ned Scott deletes my post off Centauri's talkpage and moves it to User talk:Elonka.
- November 6
- Wknight94 issues a complaint that I hadn't issued a {{Prodwarning}} for the unrelated cohesiveFT article .
- November 7
- November 8
- Wknight94 deletes my Prod tag at unrelated CohesiveFT
- November 9
- Wknight94 deletes another of my prod tags at unrelated The Junior Varsity, this time with a less-than-civil edit summary
- November 13
- Wknight94 shows up at an unrelated AfD on Chiodos,
- Wknight94 removes an {{nn}} tag that I'd placed on a band's article
- 02:41, a {{spa}} account nominates my mother's article for deletion (note that this is an article that I've never edited) )
- 04:35, Ned Scott shows up as the first person to vote "Delete".
- 20:44, Wknight94 shows up.
- November 14
- Wknight94 says that I was "wasting everyone's valuable time," that I'd "whipped everyone up into a frenzy" and that I should, "Stop disrupting."
- In another post, Wknight94 says, "She's accused me and others of sockpuppetry, stalking, admin status abuse, personal attacks, harrassment, poll tampering, and incivility (I probably left out a few) and called almost everyone on that page a "madhouse" - all while returning only long enough to post one inflammatory comment per day and ignore everyone's responses. All of this after moving pages and intentionally blocking move reverting with minor edits... but me calling all of that disruptive is the problem you hone in on?".
- November 15
- Wknight94 removes my {{db-bio}} tag at unrelated Elvira Arellano.
- November 21
- Wknight94 shows up at unrelated AfDs that I'd started on Westfield Tuggerah and Westfield Bondi Junction.
- Wknight94 pops up to disagree with me in unrelated conversations about shopping malls.
- November 22
- In a "stir the pot" post, Wknight94 posts a diff to Radiant's talkpage , implying that I was talking about Radiant at Misplaced Pages talk:Protection policy
- In an example of great irony, Wknight94 posts at Yaksha's talkpage, accusing other people of stalking.
- November 24
- A few minutes after I post, Wknight94 shows up at Rebecca's talk page. Note that he tries to cover his behavior with the comment, "I don't know how this got on my watchlist"
- When I proposed new poll wording at the Naming conventions page, Wknight94 said it would be disruptive and a violation of WP:POINT to ask a question which had "already been covered." . When I told him at his talkpage that repeated accusations towards me could be considered a personal attack, he responded by posting a personal attack warning at my talk page, with the edit summary, "I did not attack therefore your attack is an attack."
- November 25
- Wknight94 shows up at another unrelated AfD on Westfield Glenfield.
- November 27
- Wknight94 removes another of my {{db-spam}} tags
- November 29
- Wknight94 continues to argue with me about shopping malls, now threatening that he might be adding {{unref}} tags to all the Lost articles unless I change my stance.
- December 1
- December 4
- Wknight94 accuses me of "blatant lies." . In this post he also incorrectly stated that Jimbo had removed a great deal of info from one of my articles, but I would point out that I never edited that article.
- December 5
- Wknight94 shows up at another unrelated AfD: Fatlabs
- Wknight94 gives me a 3RR warning (he issued no such warning to others involved in the same dispute, such as Ace Class Shadow). And yeah, I'm not proud of doing three reverts, but I think a certain amount of frustration at this point is understandable.
Argash's October 30 poll at Misplaced Pages talk:Naming conventions (television) was rendered invalid
The results of a poll have been cited quite often as "proof of consensus." However, both the wording of the poll, and its results, were heavily manipulated. "Votes" were deleted and copy/pasted, the poll's wording was changed multiple times, the number of options was changed back and forth, and multiple complaints were generated that it was changed into a "stacked deck":
October 30
- October 30, 14:37, RfC started by Argash. It was in good faith, but without prior agreement on wording.
- 19:49, Argash's RfC changed into a "vote" structure by Izzy Dot.
- 20:02, Ned Scott indicates confusion and asks for changes
- 20:14, Elonka makes adjustments
- 20:53, TobyRush adds to the poll's list of pro's and con's
- 22:49 Wknight94 refers to the poll as a "binding vote"
- 23:24 Nohat adds several more pro's and con's
- 23:49 Elonka adds to the pro's and con's
- 23:51 Nohat posts a comment in the middle of the pro's and con's
- 23:57 Izzy Dot deletes some "oppose" comments
October 31
- October 31, 00:02 Izzy Dot calls it, "Excessive, wimpy, flip-flop and otherwise bad voting" and suggests that options in the poll be merged.
- 00:23 Nohat adds more "con's", and posts comments to disagree with more of the "pro's".
- 00:29 TobyRush comments that Nohat's additions seem to be questionable
- 00:37 PKtm (who has not participated in the poll) posts that it seems to be becoming slanted, with a "stacked deck" appearance
- 00:46 Izzy Dot completely removes all the pro's and con's, calling it "deck stacking bias"
- 00:49 Josiah Rowe rephrases one of the poll options
- 00:51 Nohat protests the removal of the pro's & con's list
- 00:55 Argash indicates support to merge some of the poll options
- 01:00 Elonka recommends that we "stick with the poll as it's structured, rather than making quick course changes"
- 02:11 Ned Scott changes the wording of the poll options
- 03:17 SigmaEpsilon posts, and asks in his edit summary, "Please leave time for other editors who can't check WP every hour."
- 07:59 Izzy Dot completely reworks the poll, deleting several votes, and switching it from three options to two, with the edit summary, "this has gotten out of fucking hand!" He says that he has "removed the stupid votes for multiple policies and 'opposition'".
- 08:07 Ace Class Shadow changes the poll wording (adding the word "always")
- 08:39 Peregrinefisher protests the way that votes are being moved around
- 08:43 Ned Scott reverts to an earlier version of the poll, with edit summary, "rv, what the hell?"
- 08:55 Ned Scott restores a vote by MatthewFenton which Izzy Dot had removed
- 10:54 Shannernanner pastes in other people's "oppose" votes
- 18:19 Nohat switches his "oppose" to "support"
November 1
- November 1, 00:37 Elonka adds examples and tries to clarify section headers by re-adding the numbers that were used at the beginning of the poll
- 00:46 Josiah Rowe changes poll wording (adding the word "always")
- 02:29 Chuq protests that his vote is now under an option that he didn't want to vote for
- 05:28 Ned Scott changes poll wording again, apparently in an attempt to revert to an earlier version. He also removes several "oppose" votes, and then accuses Elonka of being the one to change the poll . He says that if anyone feels strongly enough, "we should restart the whole thing."
- 06:42 Josiah Rowe admits to possibly adding to the confusion
- 08:09 Ace Class Shadow tries to untangle how the poll is supposed to be working
- 08:40 Nohat adds more poll wording to "clarify" what support and oppose votes mean.
- 16:33 Josiah Rowe indicates his opinion "based on recent clarification"
- 16:48 Argash posts that he is confused about the poll, and recommends that it be re-started because changes have been "scewing the vote" on a poll which was "started prematurely anyway before the options were fully discussed"
- 17:41 TobyRush attempts to clarify the poll wording, and agrees that we "started the poll a little soon"
- 17:49 Shannernanner agrees that it would have been good to clarify a format for the poll and stuck with it, "instead of changing it so many times, muddling the consistency of the votes. I believe several of the votes for the disambig appendages are meant as oppose votes for the first option."
- 18:04 Nohat tries to untangle who voted for what and when
- 20:19 Elonka tries to revert the poll to wording from an earlier version
- 20:36 Jay32183 complains about the "new" wording
- 20:56 Ned Scott reverts to an earlier version of the poll
- 21:00 Ned Scott says there's a "clear consensus."
- 21:16 Wknight94 objects to restarting the poll, and makes an accusation of a "stalling tactic"
- 22:47 Nohat reverts the poll wording
November 2
- November 2, 00:13 Elonka posts that the poll at this point is FUBAR.
- 03:00 Ned Scott says to leave the poll open
November 3
- 17:57, Wknight94 starts a section entitled "Consensus?" and suggests concluding the discussion (note that this is only 3 days after the poll was started)
- 20:52 Josiah Rowe claims "broad consensus", and that the only dissenters are Elonka and Matthew
- 21:04 Netoholic indicates that he is not comfortable with this being a recommendation for all episode articles
November 6
- 21:10 Wknight94 starts quoting the poll numbers, saying that the situation is "already resolved 24-7"
- 21:27 Josiah says that there is broad agreement, with a few vocal opponents "who have not sufficiently justified their arguments" or provided "fully reasoned objections"
November 7
- 07:07 Elonka suggests archiving the old poll and starting fresh.
- 07:39 Ned Scott calls the idea "absurd", and says that the poll's results are valid
- 11:00 Anþony calls the debate "a question of endurance" and claims supermajority
- 12:27, Wknight94 supports the poll results and calls Elonka "disingenuous"
- 17:06 Josiah disagrees with the idea of a new poll, saying, "Discussions have been made, opinions have been stated, and all but two active participants have agreed on a solution"
November 9
- 19:10 Elonka again recommends getting rid of the old poll, and creating a new poll with wording that's agreed on beforehand.
- 19:49 Peregrinefisher agrees that a new poll that's not confusing is a good idea
- 20:11 Wknight94 objects to removing the old poll, but says it's okay to start a new poll with new questions
- 20:43 Chuq disagrees with proposed wording for new poll
- 21:15 Josiah Rowe thinks a new poll is a waste of time
November 10
- 09:23 Argash tries to get caught up, and comments that the discussion has "exploded".
Editors who called for a new poll
- Elonka: "Let's agree on wording, open a clean poll, and move forward"
- Matthewfenton: "proceed with this"
- Englishrose: "the poll does need to be redone"
- Peregrinefisher: "Let's redo it"
- PKtm: "I think this wording is clear enough, and I'd like to (again) encourage that we proceed."
- Argash: "Start the poll over"
- Josiah Rowe: "A new poll is not necessary, but is preferable to continued mudslinging."
- Oggleboppiter: "I think having a new poll is a fantastic idea."
- Riverbend: "There should be a new, clean, well-advertised discussion since this seems to be such a hot issue."
List of involved parties
Though only a few names were listed in the ArbCom request, the actual list of involved parties is much longer. As a very rough breakdown of their stands on the naming issue:
- The "enforce WP:DAB at all costs" group
- They tend to post rapidly and multiple times per day, are against any kind of compromise, are mostly against mediation , and against running a new poll. They want to "enforce" WP:DAB guidelines to the point of moving thousands of articles, usually without any attempt at RM procedures, and without acknowledging the objections of other editors. They generally refuse to negotiate in good faith, have routinely escalated the conflict with incivility, personal attacks, and non-consensus moves, and argue about nearly every single detail, even disputing whether or not there is a dispute:
- The "prefer WP:DAB" group.
- They feel that disambiguation guidelines should be followed, but are generally able to present their opinions in a civil manner, and in most cases have tended not to engage in the unethical tactics of the above group:
- Anþony, Brian Olsen, Josiah Rowe, Chuq, Radiant!, Nohat, Shannernanner, Wikipedical, Fru1tbat
- The "Let the WikiProjects decide their own guidelines" group:
- This group believes that each television series WikiProject (or other group of interested editors in a centralized location) should be able to choose a naming system which makes the most sense for their set of articles.
Note that the above is not a comprehensive list of all editors who have participated in the discussion, and there is probably room for debate as to which group that a few of the names should be in. I have also left off several names (on both sides of the debate) who had only minor participation. But it does give a rough idea of who the major players have been.
Editors who supported alternative methods of naming episode articles
The following is a list of the editors who indicated a preference for either consistent suffixes on television episode articles, or a method whereby WikiProjects should be trusted to make the decisions on what works best for their articles.
This list disproves the claim that there was a "clear consensus" to force all episode articles into strict adherence with WP:DAB.
This list also disproves the claim that "there were only two people objecting."
- Argash
- Cburnett
- DJChair
- EEMeltonIV
- Elonka
- EnsRedShirt
- Huntster
- InnerCityBlues
- JeffStickney
- JohnnyBGood
- Kmsiever
- Marky1981
- MatthewFenton
- Mnemeson
- Netoholic
- Oggleboppiter
- PeregrineFisher
- Riverbend
- SigmaEpsilon
- Tango
- Tedius Zanarukando
- TobyRush
Controversial moves were causing disruption in many areas around Misplaced Pages
The hundreds of non-consensus moves in many different categories were a violation of WP:POINT, and caused edit wars, move wars, and general disruption in several different areas.
(diffs being gathered)
- Dozens of TMNT-1987 episodes moved without RM, in contradiction of consensus guidelines at List of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987) episodes.
- Guidelines at TMNT-1987 pages changed without consensus
- Dispute over TMNT-1987 episodes:
- Dispute at List of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003) episodes
- Guidelines at TMNT-2003 changed without consensus
- Dozens of "Buffy" and "Angel" pages moved without RM, in contradiction of consensus guidelines at Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Buffy/Episodes
- Dispute over "The Wire" episodes:
- Dispute over "Lost" episodes:
- Dispute over "Buffy" episodes: Talk:List of Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes#Moving articles
- Ned Scott claiming that the moves weren't disruptive, but that the people complaining about the moves were the disruptive ones
- Dispute at Talk:List of Heroes episodes#Links to Episodes
- Dispute at Talk:Hiros#Article title
Editors who have been opposed to the page moves
In addition to the list of editors above who were in support of alternate naming conventions, these editors expressed specific opposition to page moves. These disprove the claim that "no one complained about the moves."
- Elonka
- Huntster (Charmed)
- InnerCityBlues
- JeffStickney (The Wire)
- JohnnyBGood (TMNT)
- MatthewFenton
- Riverbend
Television series which had written guidelines for naming conventions
The following series had specific written guidelines on how their related episodes are to use a consistent naming system. In nearly all cases, these guidelines were ignored, rejected or simply deleted without discussion by those who have been pushing through with controversial page moves:
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer (multiple series)
- Lost (Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Lost/Episode guidelines page currently protected due to edit wars)
- Star Trek (multiple series)
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987) (page subjected to edit wars)
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003) (page subjected to edit wars)
Television series which were using suffixes
The following areas of Misplaced Pages, as broken down by television series, were to one degree or another following a method of "consistent suffixes" before this dispute started. Most of these have had their articles moved to other titles at this point, generally without notification or any attempt at WP:RM.
- 4400
- 8 Simple Rules
- Battlestar Galactica
- Ben 10
- Big Love
- Blackadder
- Charmed
- Code Lyoko
- CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
- Desperate Housewives
- Entourage (TV series)
- Eureka (TV series)
- Firefly (TV series)
- Forever Knight
- Frasier
- Fullmetal Alchemist
- Harsh Realm
- House (TV series)
- InuYasha
- Jericho (TV series)
- Langt fra Las Vegas
- Law & Order: Criminal Intent
- LEXX
- Lost (TV series)
- M*A*S*H
- Mortal Combat
- My Name Is Earl
- Naruto
- Ōban Star-Racers
- Oz (TV series)
- Planetes
- Prison Break
- Roswell (TV series)
- Sex and the City
- Six Feet Under
- Sliders
- Stargate
- Star Trek (multiple series)
- Strangers with Candy
- Supernatural (TV series)
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987 TV series)
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003 TV series)
- That '70s Show
- The O.C.
- The Outer Limits (multiple series)
- The Prisoner
- The Sopranos
- The Wire (TV series)
- The X-Files
- Weeds (TV series)
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer (multiple series)
- X-Men
Improper behavior by administrators (section in process)
Misplaced Pages admins are expected to set a good example of behavior. They are also expected to take actions to de-escalate disputes, rather than intensify them. However, a few admins in this dispute exhibited very questionable judgment, with routine violations of WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA, and threats to abuse their admin access to advance their position in the dispute. Some of them also exhibited profound misunderstandings of Misplaced Pages procedure.
(diffs are in the process of being gathered)
Admin Wknight94
- Claiming that incivility was proper as a response to "passive incivility"
- Incivility and personal attacks against other editors
- Harassment (see Wknight94 section above)
- Accusing someone of disruption and violating WP:POINT for trying to run a fair poll, or for even trying to discuss a poll
- Making hundreds of controversial page moves without going through WP:RM, and sometimes even in violation of a "no consensus" close (see Wknight94 section above)
- Encouraging Yaksha (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) to proceed with controversial page moves, despite requests from multiple users that the moves stop.
- Issuing unjustified warnings
Admin Radiant!
- Engaging in controversial moves without going through WP:RM
- After responding to a request at the Village Pump to offer an opinion, and being an active participant in the discussion , then tried to make a claim of being an informal (and neutral) mediator
- Using admin tools to protect/unprotect a page where the admin was actively involved in the discussion
- Deleting an RfC off of a page
- Trying to make direct changes to the Misplaced Pages:Consensus guideline to support his position in both the Naming Convention dispute, and this ArbCom case. , while stating that he's not involved with this ArbCom case
- Giving a "keep up the good work" barnstar to Yaksha, an editor who was engaging in hundreds of controversial moves (note that the only thing that editor was doing was engaging in moves: Yaksha (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log), so it cannot have been in reference to any other activities. See also Yaksha section above)
Admin Josiah Rowe
- Violations of WP:CIVIL.
- Putting heavy reliance on a poll that was clearly flawed, rather than just scrapping it and running a clean poll
- Accusing an editor of trying to "sabotage" a mediation because they hadn't signed up, even though the page was only three hours old.
Examples of incivility
(section in-process)
- Izzy Dot (talk · contribs)
- "This has gotten out of fucking hand!" "I've removed the stupid votes for multiple policies and "opposition".
- "Excessive, wimpy, flip-flop and otherwise bad voting"
Evidence presented by Wknight94
Minority engaged in passive incivility (fueling active incivility)
While Elonka's claim of incivility may be true in some cases, it was often caused by passive incivility where she and MatthewFenton (talk · contribs) would flatly ignore well thought out suggestions and counterarguments. A chronological example:
- Josiah Rowe (talk · contribs) makes a very nice post summarizing the overall argument for making convention exceptions and why each is flawed .
- Numerous people commend Josiah for capturing the essence of the dispute and make further comments .
- As can be seen here, neither Elonka nor MatthewFenton make a single comment in the section. It is ignored.
- Instead, the only posts from Elonka over the next several days allege disruption , call for a new poll and deny consensus .
- Her call for a new poll is again refuted .
- Again, the refuting arguments are ignored and discussion drifts into other matters.
- Suddenly Elonka reappears and goes past suggesting a new poll and actually proposes wording for the poll as though no one had argued with her in the first place .
- Maintaining extreme patience, Serge Issakov (talk · contribs) asked for evidence that a new poll was needed , Josiah Rowe pointed out that discussion made a new poll unnecessary , Ned Scott agreed with Josiah , I suggest actively looking for people who feel they were misrepresented , Ace Class Shadow (talk · contribs) says he contacted some of them already but got little response .
- Elonka replied to Serge's call for evidence but nothing else. No reply to Josiah or to my suggestion for how to prove her point. Instead she repeated that the old poll was bad and a new one should be run.
- Still ignoring everyone else, Elonka appealed to Serge directly to stop moving pages .
- It should not be surprising that Serge lost his patience at this point , two weeks after the RFC. It immediately became an incivility accusation .
- I directly repeated my suggestion for proving her case and Serge agreed .
- We're both ignored. I repeated my suggestion several days later . Again ignored.
This cycle has been repeated in other forms for the last six weeks. Even the MedCab advisor has stated that consensus was reached long ago but has been thoroughly ignored by Elonka and MatthewFenton.
Lost episode naming guideline was not by consensus and claims otherwise were not retracted
Claims that Lost titles with (Lost) dab tag were the "agreed-upon title, per unanimous mediation..." (also ) have proven false. There is no verbiage at Misplaced Pages:Requests for mediation/Lost episodes regarding episode article names. The lack of discussion is confirmed by the mediator there as well as an editor that agreed with her points in the mediation but disagrees that the episode naming convention was discussed .
Despite this, the false claims of consensus have not been retracted.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles episode naming guideline was not by consensus and claims otherwise were not retracted
Despite multiple claims that multiple editors went through multiple iterations to reach the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle episode naming guideline, the evidence shows that a single editor had a preference and made a single edit to indicate the preference with no discussion. Request for confirmation by the consensus claimant has not been answered to date.
Despite this, the false claims of consensus have not been retracted. Instead, the claim at WP:ANI was made just seven minutes after the lack of consensus was known to the claimant .
Elonka and MatthewFenton intentionally blocked return moves
Sysop privileges will be needed to see this since the move blocking history has since been deleted
Elonka and MatthewFenton (talk · contribs) were engaged in move wars over Lost articles. For several of the moves, they intentionally made inconsequential edits to the resulting redirect to prevent the moves from being reverted. Worse, some of these are dated after 2006-11-02 when Ned Scott (talk · contribs) brought up the move blocking issue (Ned also blocked page moves but admitted to it without provocation):
- Not in Portland - Elonka's revisions of 2006-10-29
- Further Instructions - Elonka 2006-10-29
- The Glass Ballerina - Elonka 2006-10-29
- Live Together, Die Alone - Elonka 2006-10-29
- Whatever the Case May Be - MatthewFenton 2006-10-29 and 2006-11-18
- Raised by Another - Elonka 2006-10-17
- ...And Found - Elonka 2006-10-16, MatthewFenton 2006-11-17
- Everybody Hates Hugo - Elonka 2006-10-16
Although Elonka's second edits could be construed as legitimate, they appear to be the only examples where she made a second edit that merely added a template. This includes a move done two days earlier and every move since.
MatthewFenton was less subtle about the move blocking making the intention of both very clear. His second edit in Special:Undelete/Whatever the Case May Be from 2006-10-29 was a useless white space change and his two edits to the same page on 2006-11-18 did not include a move so two edits weren't necessary at all. Since then, MatthewFenton has blocked other moves - even some not related to Lost - but I cannot find examples before October so it was apparently learned from Elonka.
Elonka misunderstands harassment guideline (rebuttal)
Elonka's harassment section here is pointless. I readily admit to checking her contributions from time to time. First, she moved the current dispute to so many locations (as Josiah mentioned ) that everyone had to watch her contributions so they could keep up (I was often last to catch up so I'm not sure why I'm being singled out). Second, the harassment guideline says:
This does not include checking up on an editor to fix errors or violations of Misplaced Pages policy
...and her edits above show me pointing out various lapses in etiquette and policy on her part and others', WP:NOR (as previously pointed out by Jimbo Wales (talk · contribs)) , WP:CSD (not even referring to her) , WP:NPA , WP:HA (again not even referring to her) , WP:3RR , WP:PROD , {{PRODWarning}} (she has subsequently passed on that knowledge to other users ), WP:RS , as well as blatant misrepresentation , unfounded allegations , and making intimidating threats of blocking ... Frankly, someone claiming they want to be an admin some day showing so many lapses in Misplaced Pages etiquette, guidelines, and policy in such a short time is quite shocking. Comments made at her RFA, etc. show further issues related to WP:COI, WP:AUTO, and WP:V (re: blatant vanity article on Simple ). She's drawn the ire of Danny (talk · contribs), longstanding admins Rebecca (talk · contribs) and Radiant! (talk · contribs) , and I'm willing to bet Jimbo Wales (talk · contribs) removing references at Elonka's mother's article isn't a chance encounter. She has even been briefly indefinitely blocked so I would think she'd welcome some guidance. MatthewFenton has also been blocked numerous times for disruption and edit warring so someone may want to assist him as well.
For other lapses in judgment, note Elonka's removal of an AFD tag , edit warring at mediation removing Radiant!'s name ; at WP:TV-NC re: Star Trek exception ; at WP:TV-NC re: dispute tag (with MatthewFenton) ; at WP:CON claiming the barely-related addition by Radiant! was calculated to relate to this dispute ; at WT:TV-NC re: unarchiving an inflammatory unhelpful section that she herself had just archived ; also marking an extremely notable band as non-notable .
Considering most of her evidence is focused on me when numerous other people were involved in "her articles" (not even counting user talk pages), I wonder if the WP:HA arrow is pointing in the wrong direction. For a better example of WP:HA violation, specifically the "User space harassment" portion, note Elonka's propensity for leaving frivolous warning templates on people's talk pages .
Followup to Yaksha's sockpuppetry evidence
Per #Elonka has been engaging in disruptive and stalling behaviour and other statements (including some borderline harrasing ones and alluding to "backchannel requests for a checkuser" ), Elonka and MatthewFenton have made unfounded sockpuppetry claims. Additionally, I advised her to simply check my user creation log which is public record which shows that I'm not hiding a secondary account. Despite that, she made the same mistake with Yaksha shortly thereafter even though his user creation log shows his secondary account as well.
List of editors who support the current TV-NC guideline (rebuttal to Elonka's "Editors who supported alternative methods of naming episode articles")
(just started)
- 26 people gave support at the original poll.
- 18 other supporters of following WP:D:
- 4 people which Elonka listed as agreeing with her but actually are either questionable or are more in the WP:D camp:
Suddenly Elonka's score of 20-0 in her favor becomes a list closer to 44-16 in the other direction.
Evidence presented by BlueSquadronRaven
Elonka provides summary of discussion showing insufficient support.
Elonka provided a summary of the discussion and the positions of those participating. The positions stated show, at best, a consensus to not disambiguate episode article titles needlessly, or at worst, no consensus for going against WP:D, even as an exception granted to a WikiProject. This summary was posted after the supposedly tainted original poll.
Elonka continues to push for a new poll
Despite being well aware of the views held by those in the discussion, Elonka continues to push for a new poll to determine final consensus. ,,
Elonka recruits others to participate in a new poll
Elonka actively recruits those who share her opinions to try and sway any discussions or new poll that comes about, over and above the discussion. ,
List of involved parties (rebuttal)
In response to Elonka's description of me above, I would challenge her to point out where I have enagged in non-consensus page moves. Also, I object to it being said I am against compromise, as I have actively sought out rational, in depth explanations for the opposing point of view.
Furthermore, in response to the moves alluded to of various episode articles related to Battlestar Galactica, I would point out that all were done long before this dispute got out of hand, before Elonka started talking about "non-consensus page moves", and after I had both consulted the existing wording of WP:TV-NC (to which I was referred when I was challenged on my article naming) and WP:TVE (which is quoted as a guideline for starting articles on episodes and the poll which showed a more than clear direction on how to proceed on all series, except, apparently, Lost. Almost all moved articles of Battlestar Galactica episodes were created by me, and moved after an aforementioned challenge to my use of incorrect naming conventions, and the wording of three different guidelines, all of which said essentially the same thing.
Elonka's evidence constitutes incivility.
By painting a swath of editors with a large brush in saying they "refuse to negotiate in good faith", bth here and on her talk page , this follows counter to WP:AGF.
Evidence presented by Yaksha
All page moves made to remove unneeded disambiguation were supported by consensus
This poll clearly shows 80% supermajority for disambiguating only when needed.
The following three Request Move show consensus for actively moving articles to correct their naming:
- moving 3 LOST articles - this resulted in 15 support vs. 3 oppose.
- moving 19 articles from the series "The Wire" - this has been open for 7 days, and currently has 18 Supports vs. 3 Oppose
- a single episode article from TMNT - this has been open for 5 days, and currently has 12 Supports vs. 3 oppose
Nearly a dozen editors in this dispute have helped with the article moving at some point, while there are 2-3 editors (including Elonka) who keeps insisting there is no consensus, and even engaging in reverts.
Independant individuals who edit the affected articles have supported the moves . Outside parties have also shown up at WT:TV-NC with expressing similar views . This shows the consensus is not just amoung those involved in this dispute, but that the "Disamgibuate only when needed" is something that is sidespread across wikipedia.
A summary compiled by Elonka herself also supports the existence of this consensus.
The results of the initial poll conducted in the RfC were valid (rebuttal)
The intial poll conducted in the RfC showed an 80% supermajority support for "disambiguate only when needed".
The poll was altered a few times when it was run, leading Elonka to claim that the poll was invalid.
This claim is not true. Wknight94 contacted the other 25 people who voted "support" on the poll , and asked them to come and confirm their vote. Almost everyone came and posted onto this talk page section, not a single person said they believed their vote was mis represented. Meaning we did indeed have 26 people voting "support" for "disambiguate only when needed" in the poll.
Claims that there was 'consensus' to deliberately ignore naming conventions have been false
Elonka makes a lot of claims to show her point of view is correct, however, upon further investigation, these claims often turn out to be misleading and/or just incorrect.
- Elonka claimed "In the case of Star Trek, this is something that's been debated among the Star Trek editors, and they came up with their naming system. I've read their discussions, and I am prepared to respect the decisions that they made" . After some investigation, it turned out the entire Star Trek naming convention of always disambiguating was started by one individual . This one individual later explained his reasoning as "Basically, the majority of episodes do not exist and episode lists have been plagued with pointing to incorrect articles. To save from constantly having to care/worry that a link will point to the wrong article, I posed the naming convention above. This way, the probability of hitting a wrong article is extremely near zero" and "If an article for an episode exists, then I don't have a problem with moving it to remove the "(TLA episode)" provided the redirect stays put so "TITLE (TLA episode)" is still a valid link" ().
- Elonka claimed that in the case of TMNT episodes, "The naming system for TMNT episodes has gone through multiple iterations, and the editors here arrived at a consensus for the current "consistent suffix" system" . This turned out to be false. The naming system was in fact just one guy who made one edit back in Feb.
- Elonka claims always disambiguating the LOST episodes was something that was agreed on in the LOST mediation case earlier this year . However, other individuals involved in the LOST mediation have disputed this claim . The mediator himself later confirmed that such a consensus never existed, and the topic of article naming was never even discussed as part of the mediation.
Elonka has been engaging in disruptive and stalling behaviour
Elonka seems to have been attempting to 'stall' by accusing other editors of breaking policies. Almost all of these accusations have been baseless.
- Elonka asked for me to be blocked for making moves without going through Request Moves. However, after i did take an article move to Request Moves , Elonka demanded a speey close .
- Elonka has been actively reverted edits and moves on the claim that they're been made without consensus, and that we're not respecting the wishes/opinions of the local editors on the articles. This is against WP:OWN. Also, the 'local editors' on the articles have been more often than not supportive of the page moves
- Elonka has been making claims of sockpupptery against a number of individuals in this dispute . This claims have all turned out to be without evidence. For example, her claim against me is based on the fact that "nearly all of your wiki-time has been spent on moving articles and participating in the Naming Discussions issue" . This claim is very misleading, and i'd say Elonka herself knows it. Only a few hundred of my nearly 5000 edits is involved this naming dispute, and i'd already had several thousand edits before this entire dispute begun.
- She has also been directly threatening people with blocks , and has not responded nicely when asked to stop
- She has been accusing individals of stalking and harrasment , even though it's very reasonable for someone involved in the dispute to have all pages relating to the dispute on their watchlist, and would therefore be actively reading them
- She takes comments out of context and quotes them in misleading ways. This went so far that a member of the MedCom had to personally post onto Elonka's talk page to clarify his comments (which really didn't need any clarification in the first place) .
No evidence page moves were disruptive (rebuttal to Elonka)
Elonka claims that the page moves "caused edit wars, move wars, and general disruption in several different areas."
To back up this claim, she cites three pieces of (flawed) evidence:
1. The discussion about TMNT articles - this was indeed a long discussion. However, a closer look shows that 30 out of the 36 edits made to this discussion were from people ALREADY INVOLVED in this disbate. Of the three people not from this debate - one did the initial moving, another changed their mind after reading the discussion on WP:TV-NC, and the third basically said he didn't care and tried to diffuse the situation by explaining that it really wasn't important. Elonka started the only edit war here, she also started the only move war (the page she move-reverted was placed in Request Moves, which resulted in supermajority support for move). I see no general disruption. The huge long discussion was...between the same bunch of people who are now here.
2. Discussion about WIRE articles - I don't even know how this is an example of disruptive behaviour. There where no move wars or edit wars. Instead, we had one long Request Move, which resulted in six times as many support votes as oppose votes. The closing admin then came and moved the pages. The debate on that page is once again, started by Elonka, and joined by me, wknight, milo and anþony.
3. Discussion about LOST articles - this is a great example of how Elonka likes to mislead people by taking evidence out of context. This discussion about LOST articles occured BEFORE our current dispute. It therefore shows NOTHING about the effects of the page moves, which occured AFTER this discussion.
Not to mention, this is all against very solid evidence that the page moves have been helpful , and that they've been supported by outside editos on affected articles .
Evidence presented by Ned Scott
Despite poll changes, valid information was taken from it
I went step by step through the edit history of the TV-NC poll and presented the results in an attempt to better understand the poll. This gives a basic idea of what the poll looked like when people voted for it, and if they were aware of changes made. Despite confusion, valid and clear data was able to be taken from the poll.
WikiProjects who did or did not have previous consensus
- Early on in the discussion it was claimed by Elonka that the episode titling was apart of the mediation case, and that it was backed by a consensus. However, this is not so, as seen in the discussion at Misplaced Pages:Requests for mediation/Lost episodes and then confirmed by another party of the mediation case and the mediator himself . Josiah Rowe also looked in the discussion history and could not find where it was discussed.
- What did happen was Elonka copied the mediation results to a sub-page of WP:LOST (Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Lost/Episode guidelines) . When Elonka did this she added a section on episode titles, and then rationalized that when everyone agreed with the mediation results they also agreed with her addition.
- Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Stargate was a WikiProject who previously decided to disambig always. When it was brought up in discussion, participants of the project agreed to change to comply with WP:TV-NC No major objections were raised, and other participants even helped out in the page moves.
Evidence presented by MatthewFenton
Wknight, Yaksha, misc, engage in unilateral disruptive moving without going through the Requested moves process
I've presented an example of 1 page move below per user to illustrate.
Assumptions of bad faith made by Wknight
Throughout the discussions lots of bad faith has been thrown around, I've even seen it towards me at this ArbCom.
- An example of that is me removing speedy deletion tags, these pages where tagged as CSD G6 (Non-controversial maintenance tasks such as temporarily deleting a page in order to merge page histories, performing a non-controversial page move like reversing a redirect, or removing a disambiguation page that only points to a single article.) - it is controversial and hence did not qualify under CSD G6.
- Highly rude messages:
thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 14:38, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
- Updated: 23:04, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
Evidence presented by Josiah Rowe
The discussion following the poll resulted in a consensus
Although it is very tempting to point to the 80% majority in the poll as consensus (a trap into which I myself have occasionally fallen), the poll itself did not determine the consensus. It merely indicated that there was fairly widespread support for the guideline. (The much-discussed flaws in the poll are really irrelevant, as pointed out by Yaksha and Ned Scott above.)
The key to the consensus came in the discussion that followed the poll, in particular the discussion of November 2–3. I believe that a close examination of these two days will show that a consensus was in fact reached.
On November 2, Cburnett (talk · contribs) (the originator of the Star Trek episode article naming pattern ) made a very intelligent compromise solution: encourage redirects at disambiguated titles, whether the disambiguation is strictly needed or not, but place the actual articles at titles in keeping with WP:DAB.. Cburnett was one of the seven "oppose" votes in the initial poll; soon afterwards, Argash, another of the "oppose" votes, said, "This would be a perfect solution." The proposal also gained support from many of the "support" voters who had been active in the conversation, including myself:, etc. Elonka was the only editor who did not find this compromise satisfactory; however, her argument was unclear and appeared to be based more on her past conflict with Ned Scott than on Misplaced Pages policies and guidelines. At this point, her most frequent argument (seen in the diff above) was that the Star Trek article naming pattern looked "clean and professional". This argument was rejected as based solely on aesthetics, not Misplaced Pages guidelines. The discussion was muddied by personal remarks between Elonka and Ned Scott, but apart from Elonka there seemed to be fairly wide support for disambiguating only when necessary, if redirects are created at the disambiguated title.
On November 3, Netoholic (talk · contribs) amended the guideline page ; he was reverted by TobyRush (talk · contribs), and Netaholic restored his changes saying "(rvt, I read consensus for this addition on talk)". Attempting to forestall an edit war, wknight94 (talk · contribs) started a new section asking whether consensus had in fact been reached.. (The next comment was a rather bizarre comment by MatthewFenton (talk · contribs) which everyone ignored — I mention it here only because it is an early indication of a pattern of strange contrary-to-fact comments by Matthew which have been less than helpful to the situation — in each case, the situation is exactly contrary to what Matthew implies.]) At this point, TobyRush (talk · contribs) made a summary of the arguments to date which Elonka endorsed. Toby's summary indicated what the article naming solution must do, what it would be preferable for it to do, and what would be nice for it to do; he concluded that Cburnett's proposal met all but the "it would be nice" criteria. I stress again that Elonka agreed with this assessment. There was some discussion at this point about the nature of "common sense" exceptions to guidelines, which appeared to me to be resolved when Toby Rush pointed out that any exceptions should themselves be justified by a consensus of Misplaced Pages editors, not limited to members of a WikiProject: "In other words, if the Star Trek folks feel that they have a rationale for not following TV:NC, a consensus-building discussion should take place there. And since this is Misplaced Pages, we're all invited. :)".
At this point, I suggested that Cburnett's suggestion had a broad consensus of support, and added it to the page . Many editors then participated in some tweaking of my initial phrasing , but the support for the guideline was clear. However, Elonka disagreed that a consensus had been reached. I replied, saying "My reading of the discussion is that there is a broad consensus for Cburnett's suggestion, with only a few dissenters (notably, yourself and Matthew Fenton). There comes a time in any policy-building process when one must fish or cut bait; I judged that time to have come." These two comments, I believe, represent the moment from which all the subsequent dispute of "is there a consensus" sprang, and I take responsibility for my part in it. As I acknowledged at the time, the judgement of consensus having been achieved may have been premature, but I believe that it has ultimately been proven correct.
Misplaced Pages:Consensus#Consensus vs. supermajority says:
In fact WP's standard way of operating is a rather good illustration of what does mean: a mixture across the community of those who are largely agreed, some who disagree but 'agree to disagree' without disaffection, those who don't agree but give low priority to the given issue, those who disagree strongly but concede that there is a community view and respect it on that level, some vocal and unreconciled folk, some who operate 'outside the law'. You find out whether you have consensus, if not unanimity, when you try to build on it.
It is true that Elonka and Matthew are not the only editors who disagree with the application of "disambiguate only when necessary". Most of the others, I will assert, fall into the categories "disagree but 'agree to disagree' without disaffection" or "don't agree but give low priority to the given issue". Elonka and Matthew appear to be in the category of "vocal and unreconciled folk" or, on occasion, those who "operate 'outside the law'." No one except Matthew has supported Elonka's arguments with any consistency, and all the moves that have gone through WP:RM since demonstrate that these two have no significant support. (See Yaksha's evidence above.)
It is not always possible to reach unanimous support for a guideline. However, if it is clear that the overwhelming support is on one side of the issue and there is no significant support for the arguments being used by the minority, there comes a time when it is appropriate for that minority to yield to the supermajority. That point was passed long ago in this dispute. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 22:32, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Rebuttal of Elonka's allegations of incivility
Elonka suggests that I have been incivil during this debate. I will accept the judgment of my fellow editors on this; however, I would like to provide some context for each of the diffs Elonka objects to.
- A satirical song
- — this was merely an attempt to lighten the mood on the TV-NC discussion page with a little humor. Wknight94 had sent out a message to the participants in the poll under the heading "Tainted poll?". The discussion at TV-NC had become quite acrimonious, and I felt that the intensity of emotion on display was disproportionate to the importance of the issue. "Tainted poll" made me think of the Soft Cell song Tainted Love, and I wrote a little satire of the situation, in which I made gentle fun of the entire debate. I intended to satirize myself as much as anyone, and when Elonka complained I told her as much . That she's bringing this trivial matter up in the arbitration even after I explained my motives shows her failure to assume good faith, as well as her lack of perspective.
- A frustrated response to Matthew
- — This comment, I admit, comes from a place of frustration, but it also comes from the honest bafflement I indicate in the comment itself. After the extensive discussion of this matter on WT:TV-NC and elsewhere, I was flabbergasted that MatthewFenton would say something as outrageous as "What case?". The tone of my questions betrays my astonishment, but I maintain that the comment is not a violation of WP:CIVIL or WP:NPA — indeed, the two alternatives I present (misplaced humor or obtuseness) still seem like the most likely options to explain Matthew's comment (which might itself be considered incivil, but did not provoke a WP:CIVIL warning from Elonka). I also point the arbitrators to this comment by the uninvolved editor Leflyman, and the discussion which followed on Elonka's talk page at User talk:Elonka#Re: NPA claim against Josiah Rowe.
- An attempt to encourage civility(!)
- — This comment was a response to some overly combative and dismissive comments by Ace Class Shadow at WT:TV-NC. My comment about Mattthew's "snide remarks" was descriptive of the behavior mentioned above; "pulling an Elonka" was a description of Elonka's self-admitted tendency to "distribute civility and NPA warnings on the spot" at the slightest provocation, a tendency to which I and others have objected.
- The "sabotage" comment
- — I had filed a request for mediation in an effort to resolve the situation. In the first hour after the filing, Elonka edited the RfM page six times. (One of these edits () was to the "issues to be mediated" section, even though Misplaced Pages:Requests for mediation/Guide to filing a Request for Mediation says, "Do not, under any circumstances, edit the "Issues to mediate" section unless you are the party who filed the request. If you feel that an issue has been incorrectly stated, restate it in your section with a simple note at the end of the line such as "(Restatement of second issue by User:Example).") She also made several edits indicating that she was following edits to the RfM page closely. Given that level of attention, I thought that it was peculiar that Elonka had not signed on to the mediation herself. Indeed, she continued to edit the RfM page , including removing other editors' comments, all without agreeing to the mediation. Although "sabotage" may have been a poor choice of words, I think in this context the sentiment behind my comment was fair.
- Elonka's edits to the RfM page included the removal of the line "Informal mediation by Radiant!": Ned Scott restored the line, Elonka removed it again, Radiant! himself restored it, Elonka removed it again, Wknight94 restored it and Elonka removed it again. Any experienced Wikipedian would describe this sequence of action as an edit war, and ^demon, a MedCom member, agreed and had the page protected . While the page was protected, there was extensive bickering on the RfM talk page, which meant that by the time the page was unprotected, some parties were no longer willing to participate in mediation, and the mediation request was rejected.
- In the comment to which Elonka objects, I intimated that she was more interested in framing the argument "her way" than in actually pursuing the dispute resolution process. Her edit warring on the RfM page, which indirectly led to the mediation being rejected, would seem to indicate that my fears were well-founded. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 05:18, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
Addendum
After I posted the above, Elonka added this as another diff of my supposed incivility. I'm not even certain what in that diff she's objecting to, unless it's my use of the word "fetishize".
Once again, let me point out the context. This is just about my first comment on TV-NC. I had followed an RfC to Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Lost/Episode guidelines, where I found comments like this:
It looks terrible (IMHO) to have a list-of-epiodes page with ABC (Lost), DEF (Lost), XYZ. The non-suffix articles break the pattern and create inconsistency, which looks terrible. In the interest of keeping the professional appearance of Misplaced Pages intact, I believe it is highly important to keep things consistent.
It was in response to that comment that I said, "Let's not fetishize consistency". Around this time, I followed a link from Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Lost/Episode guidelines to TV-NC, where I found the wider discussion, largely dominated (at that point) by participants in the Lost debate.
At this point in the discussion, the "consistency" argument was one of the most prominent (e.g. Elonka saying "it looks "cleaner" to have everything consistent." This was an aesthetic judgement without support in Misplaced Pages guidelines or policy. Wiktionary gives as one definition of "fetish", "an irrational, or abnormal, fixation or preoccupation." Since the focus on "consistency" did not appear to have any rational basis, "fetish" was an appropriate word to use. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 04:19, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
Elonka's list of editors is misleading
I trust that the arbitrators will examine all the evidence for themselves, and not rely on the interpretations being placed on it by parties here. I believe, for example, that Elonka's list of #Editors who supported alternative methods of naming episode articles is quite misleading. To take a few examples at random:
- Cburnett — In this edit, Cburnett says, "Always having "Title (series episode)" whether it is the actual article or a redirect is the best choice from the perspective of a reader. ... So, as long as "Title (series episode)" gets me to the correct article...I don't care what is decided above." His suggestion of redirects was incorporated into the guideline.
Many of the other names in that list are of editors who expressed their opinion in one or two edits and then disappeared. I don't call that significant opposition.
It's also worth noting that when Elonka refers to 'the claim that "there were only two people objecting." ', she is putting up a straw man. If anyone ever said that, it was shorthand for saying that there were only two people who have consistently objected to the guideline. Passing comments unsupported by any argument other than "I prefer it this way" are not meaningful objections.
I could make up a list of all the editors who have expressed support for the guideline, but doing so would miss the point. Misplaced Pages guidelines are not formed by numbers — they're formed by discussion, supported by arguments and reason. The small minority opposing the TV-NC guideline have not presented arguments that have been convincing to the supermajority; indeed, all of their arguments have been shown to be faulty and/or unsupported. This, not the poll or the number of supporters, is the reason why the TV-NC guideline has a consensus. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 04:43, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
Evidence presented by Peregrinefisher
The process was not handled correctly
The poll wasn't handled correctly, and then people used its results to run roughshod over the discsussion that followed. I don't really feel like pointing out all the individual edits that caused this, but they happened soon after the poll finished, or maybe during one of its versions. I'm not even sure which Naming conventions (television)/Archive has the original, becuase the whole thing is so convoluted. We should have started over then, and this whole thing would have been resolved long ago. - Peregrinefisher 21:05, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
Evidence presented by Wikizach
Findings from Mediator and Compromise Request
After much review of your statements and your links to historic events in this long-ranging dispute, I believe the first poll that was conducted reached consensus under the policy of when consensus is reached-. I believe that since the first vote had a large precentage in the affirmative and while it seems only Elonka wishes to continue this dispute, the poll should be the factor here. While a few others also oppose the poll, another poll would not work, unless...Unless it could be under strict scrutiny of a mediator (not myself). A compromise in this dispute seems very difficult to reach, but it seems that at this level of mediation, we must reach one. And therefore I offer to Elonka and the others who oppose consensus that was reached (note that polls are evil ) that since you are in the minority, you cannot proceed this further. All must agree to the consensus, but, but! But if this dispute rages on for another week (which it most likely will) I ask that you allow me to sumbit the following to a mediator I am friends with:
Dear ----, there is currently a dispute that I have dealt with, they wish for an informal mediator to review a Survey that wish to produce. You may find the link here ---,
Cheers, Wikizach WikieZach| talk 22:51, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
Evidence presented by Serge Issakov
Elonka is masterful at WikiLawyering
I've been involved with Misplaced Pages for over a year now and have probably had more than my share of conflicts, but Elonka takes the cake for her ability to engage in highly disruptive WikiLawyering. I have never encountered anyone who comes even close to her in this respect. I think her statement on this matter and the way she presents the evidence to support it here alone speaks for itself. If time permits I will add a specific list of examples here, but, much of what she has written here and has posted at WT:NC-TV on this issue arguably qualifies as evidence of this assertion. At this point anyone reading this already sees this, or probably never will. --Serge 21:17, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
- Any one bullet in Josiah's Rebuttal of Elonka's allegations of incivility section above on this page is substantial evidence of this allegation being true. It needs to be made clear to Elonka, and to anyone who ever engages in similar antics, in no uncertain terms, that this kind of wikilawyering behavor is highly disruptive to, and unacceptable in, Misplaced Pages. The amount of time and energy so many people are pouring into this is very disruptive. --Serge 17:21, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
Misplaced Pages naming convention guidelines with respect to Use the most common name are conflicted and cause conflict
The root of this dispute lies in the lack of clarity given by the guidelines. After all, this is all about whether a specific guideline that applies to a particular group of articles (episodes of TV series) can override the Use the most common name guideline/convention. (to be continued) --Serge 17:27, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
Evidence presented by Anþony
Parties were not "mostly against mediation" (rebuttal to Elonka)
Elonka claims in her evidence that certain editors are "mostly against mediation". This obscures their reasoning for opposing the mediation and implies that they refused to engage in mediation at all or were unwilling to try to resolve the dispute. In fact, all of the editors who ended up opposing the mediation originally supported it. Multiple parties decided to pull out after Elonka attempted to use the existence of the mediation itself as reason to mark the guideline disputed or not applicable and made it clear that she intended to pursue a binding remedy beyond mediation.
Another party to the mediation, Riverbend (talk · contribs) also stated that he intended to oppose page moves because mediation was taking place. In my response to Riverbend, I noted frustration that the dispute resolution process was being used as an excuse not to engage in substantive dicussion and that I was well on my way to pulling out of mediation. However, I was strongly for mediation as soon as it was proposed, because I had hoped it would further a substantitive discussion on fair terms. Instead, it simply gave us more irrelevant issues of procedure to fight over, even resulting in an edit war requiring the mediation page to be protected.
Evidence presented by Radiant
Elonka is a tendentious editor
She easily meets the four criteria for a tendentious editor, as explained on WP:DE. I'm linking to other sections of the evidence page here; I think this is clearer than copy/pasting the diffs.
- Continues editing in pursuit of a certain point for an extended time despite opposition. She has been wikilawyering and filibustering to get her way, despite consensus to the contrary (here). The seemingly-trivial issue of episode naming has lasted several months; debate on WT:NC-TV (not including talk elsewhere) fills 750 kb, about the length of a Charles Dickens novel.
- Fails to cite sources, or misrepresents sources. She has been unable to back up many of her claims, e.g. of earlier consensus about naming TMNT, Star Trek or Lost episodes; these have since been shown to be false (here, here and here). Elonka misquotes other people to make it seem they support her view when in fact they don't; e.g. her list of people "supporting a new poll" contains several who oppose it .
- Rejects community input, moderation, and opposing consensus from impartial editors. After the first poll, rather than joining in discussion, Elonka kept demanding a second poll, even after discussion found consensus (). She keeps asking more outside opinion whenever an outsider opinion disagrees with her (here). She has been "forum shopping" when she doesn't get her way on one page (, , , , ).
- Driving away other contributors through incivility, personal attacks or ownership. She has accused people of harassment (here), sockpuppetry (here) and disruption (here), and threatened people with blocks . She has used both mediation and arbitration as a filibuster.
Elonka has a history of being disruptive
In the past, Elonka has been the center of several controversies, escalating relatively minor issues by blowing them way out of proportion.
- The "Dreamguy dispute", which started here; after Dreamguy said that Elonka lies, she started multiple lengthy debates to demand an apology or sanction on Dreamguy , , , and mostly this. It is well-described by Bishonen.
- The lengthy "Polish Cabal" case, described in this RFM, where Elonka accused people on the Polish WP Noticeboard of nationalistic campaigning. She accused Piotrus, of POV-pushing, hipocrisy and personal attacks, and demanded his desysopping.
- Her extensive involvement in editing articles about herself, her family ( ) and her company's products (), which many people called a conflict of interest. When Danny nominated one of these for deletion, she accused him of bad faith, and later said "If such a thing happened again, 'd probably handle it the same way" here.
- Edit warring over articles on shopping malls; when someone objects to her "cleanup" tag, she responds by tagging articles as {{db-spam}} (, , ). She has started multiple debates on the topic (here, here and here). Elonka does not stop her apparently-controversial actions while debate is ongoing () - but does demand this of others in this arbitration case.
Elonka posts false evidence
Aside from the fact that I fail to see why Elonka thinks that attacking me helps to resolve the NC dispute, most of the "evidence" she posted about me is misleading or downright false.
- The allegation that I engaged in controversial moves is false. The moves I made relate to the series Battlestar Galactica, The Outer Limits and Fullmetal Alchemist, conforming with WP:DAB. There has not been any controversy about those series; the controversy is about Star Trek and Lost. A dispute in one area does not lock down all of Misplaced Pages until it's resolved.
- The allegation about abusing the protection button is also false. The NC page was protected over an edit war (involving Elonka; ) about the {{disputedpolicy}} tag. I was not involved in this, and have not edited that page at all during this entire year. Protection to end edit wars is quite common.
- The allegation that I deleted an RFC is similarly false. There were two RFCs about this. One was added on Oct 30th by Argash, and archived Dec 5th by Centrx. The other was added Oct 29th by Ned Scott, and removed Nov 13th by Ned Scott. Elonka requested comment on the village pump, which was archived by a bot.
- The allegation that I claimed to be a mediator is once more false; I have never claimed to be part of the MedCom or MedCab. Josiah Rowe stated that I attempted informal mediation here (by which he apparently meant giving outside perspective) which I did at Elonka's own request. Elonka removed my statement about this, and revert warred ( ) on the mediation page over this, which led page protection and to rejection of the mediation case.
- The statement about edits to WP:CON is silly. Elonka claims that WP:CON may not be edited while this case is ongoing ( ); this is either an overly bureaucratic approach, or a filibuster.
- Since giving barnstars isn't even remotely disruptive, it is very silly to cite that as evidence here.
Evidence presented by {your user name}
{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.
Evidence presented by {your user name}
{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.