Wikipedia talk:Disruptive editing/Archive 6

Add

Please add Wikipedia:WikiProject Delaware to the hatnotes. 71.146.20.62 (talk) 04:23, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

 Not done I believe this has been misplaced. Wikipedia:WikiProject Delaware does not redirect here nor does it seem related in anyway. Could you please elaborate as to the reasoning because I just removed a similar hatnote at the Canadian portal were you added Wikipedia:WikiProject California that again does not seem related nor is it redirected there in anyway. Is this because of the old shortcut abbreviations like WP:DE and WP:CA? Moxy (talk) 04:32, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Dealing with disruptive editing

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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In recent weeks I've seen several long-term content contributors being driven to frustration by disruptive editors - editors who may act with perfect civility but appear to have little to no understanding of basic WP policies and guidelines, especially WP:N, WP:V, WP:OR, and WP:RS. I spent hours dealing with an editor who insisted on modifying a template to include articles that had nothing to do with the topic. He wouldn't engage on template talk. When I brought the info to his user talk, he told me he thought these belonged and didn't really care what my sources said. An admin at the 3RR noticeboard refused to do anything because it was long term edit warring instead of 3 reverts in 24 hours. I finally opened a content RFC; the user created a content fork. Finally the editor moved on to disrupt another topic. The time I spent taking care of this would have been enough for me to bring another article to FA status. Instead, I managed to keep a template in a state it had been in for years and I'm left frustrated and not wanting to contribute as much. In the cases of some colleagues, weeks of disruption by other editors leads them to snap and be incivil, then the content expert is blocked and the disruptive editor gets a pass.

Disruptive editors - especially editors who blatantly ignore our policies on sourcing - are, in my opinion, given way too much leeway. The existing measures for dealing with this disruption do not work. A disruptive editor may leave a particular article alone, but they often move off to another topic with the same behaviors. How can we streamline this process to help content editors deal with disruption more effectively, while still not biting the newbies? Karanacs (talk) 18:57, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

There was a big to-do at ANI in the last 48 hours over an immature, novice editor who didn't understand our notability or sourcing policies, he got off scott free in the whole matter (with an ANI that focused on civility and ignored the content disruption), and he has, as we speak, moved on to edit warring in another content area. We must find a way to show the door to incompetent editors more quickly. Our current dispute resolution processes don't work and admins are too quick to enforce "civility" while not addressing content issues. IMO there are only two kinds of editors-- those who respect content policies and those who don't, and those who don't almost never change-- they just change articles or methods. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:06, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

• (ec with Sandy) Well, the blind are leading the blind on Talk:Paragliding--similar to what you're dealing with, though I care much less about this article than you cared about the template, and walked away. I have no answer, only frustration. I would note, though, that one should be able to find an admin who is willing to administer edit-warring blocks for long-term edit-warring (here's one), though admittedly that's not always an easy block to make (and it deals with only one minor aspect of your remarks). And, of course, you can always take it to ANI...with all the attendant drama, and often without bringing satisfactory results... It's sad, but often the best you can hope for is that the other party commits some kind of party foul, like vandalism or whatever--and that's obviously not the kind of thing you want to hope for. Drmies (talk) 19:37, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia. The problems I've encountered tend to fall into two categories: (1) dealing with irrational editors cannot understand reason and logic; and (2) dealing with POV editors that use WP:Tenditious editing to prolog debates, because they know policy does not support them. My idea to fix this is to strengthen the RfC process, to solicit input from several sensible editors when the RfC is initiated. Ideally, a handful of uninvolved editors can weigh in quickly, and steer the offending editor on the right course. Fortunately, there is a new process which sort of accomplishes that: Wikipedia:Feedback request service which helps bring uninvolved editors to newly created RfCs. It shows a lot of promise. --Noleander (talk) 19:11, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Well, thank you for the welcome-- I hope it makes Karanacs feel right at home like it does me! Like MastCell, I've never seen any DR process, or RFC, serve for much more than a runup to ArbCom, and productive editors might all be dead by the time our DR processes grind out the needed results to get disruptive and tenditious editors out the door. The point of this discussion is that we don't need another process or noticeboard-- we need to provide understanding, knowledge, incentives, and support for admins to be as active in enforcing content policies as they are in enforcing some others. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:24, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

• There is an approach that works, although it is not officially sanctioned: tag-teaming. If multiple editors cooperate in reverting disruption by a single editor, the single editor must either move on or rapidily be blocked. My approach when I encounter a determined disrupter is always to ask for help. One-against-one fights are the big time-wasters. Looie496 (talk) 19:21, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
  • Yep. Drmies (talk) 19:37, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

• There are starting to be more of "them" than "us"-- experienced editors are leaving in droves, and they are not being replaced by similar caliber editors. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:24, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
• I don't like the term "tag-teaming", because it has negative connotations. But the core principle is sound and acceptable. 99.9% of the time, if your edits are being reverted by multiple editors, it's not because you are being persecuted by the mighty and evil wiki-cabal, it's because you are making edits against consensus. The problem here just occurs when you have editors of the mindset that "I'm right and everyone else on the project is wrong." But that's where most of the problem disruptive editors come from. Trusilver 20:12, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

• I think that 0.1% might happen a little more frequently than that. Sometimes you're being reverted not because you are a policy-hating POV pusher, but because multiple editors have a worldview vastly distanced from reality. AIDS denialism is a good example that I believe MastCell has cited in the past. In reality, essentially everyone is going to agree that HIV causes AIDS. So they have no reason to show up at those pages. But Wikipedia is a great forum for AIDS denialists to push their point of view. All it takes is a few of them to show up at a particular page that isn't watched very often, and then the sane editors have to decide how much time they are willing to spend fixing the denialists' junk. NW (Talk) 21:03, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

• The editors above have made excellent points. If I might suggest another topic to look at: some editors cherrypick sources to suit their point of view instead of trying to use an unbiased selection of the highest quality secondary ones. I'm thinking of one particular dispute right now, but I definitely recall seeing it in other areas, and I have never really seen a solution to address the problem. Anyone have any suggestions? NW (Talk) 19:42, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
  • Well, WP:UNDUE sometimes functions successfully as a magic word, and in the cases where I've run into the problems you describe, it has worked--with the help of other editors who agreed (no intentional tag-teaming in my experience...). Drmies (talk) 19:45, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
    • It works as long as you have a good number of intelligent editors editing the general topic area AND interested in getting involved with your dispute when they can be doing other things more productively. If the other side has two or three editors, your second condition can vanish pretty quickly. It's bad even if you're working against one obstinate editor. NW (Talk) 19:48, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
      • Tag teaming works for POV pushers, too. In a POV article I've tried to correct for six years, there's a whole ton of them to maintain the hagiographic poorly sourced POV bio, and only one of me. And I have no intention of taking six months of my life to go through an arb case (and I note that of all the times this situation has come to ANI, NW (above) has been the only admin to even care). Another interesting tactic there is how the established guardians of the article take advantage of new editors to make sure they (themselves) can't be charged with POV editing or 3RR-- they egg on the new editors on talk so they don't have to make the edits themselves, and they revert any edits that disagree with their POV (even if well sourced), while letting poorly sourced edits that support their POV stand. No, we need admins who are willing to look at sources and deal with obvious disrupters. It has become too much for the content contributors, the tide has turned to where it's not manageable on most articles, and there aren't enough admins who truly understand and engage content issues. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:21, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
    • Undue works as an argument sometimes. In the egregious cases, it doesn't (I'm thinking of Catholic Church). I think we do not use the block button enough on people who refuse to follow content policies, and I'm all for blocking people who make a habit of this in the face of source-based arguments from others, but who/what determines that they are in fact cherry-picking? Karanacs (talk) 20:20, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
      • That's the problem, isn't it? The blocking admin generally isn't willing to do it, either because they're afraid they will be will accused of using the tools to push their own POV or because they think that isn't in the administrator's remit. But when one side is saying "look at this journal article I found from 1971 and this Google Scholar search" and the other is saying "here's a 2007 consensus statement from the National Cancer Institute and a selection of pages from Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine", there is clearly an issue. Maybe if multiple reviewing administrators come to the same conclusion, it is blockable? NW (Talk) 20:57, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
        • I'm very much against giving administrators even more excuses to block than they already have. We need to think outside the box, and not believe that blocking solves anything; in truth it almost certainly causes more problems than it solves, or at least that's been my experience. A determined disruptive editor will simply register a new account and carry on anyway. I'm wondering if a modified version of the pending changes abortion might work if it's applied to editors rather than to articles. It would at least take away the immediate positive reinforcement, but of course it would require a software change, so obviously completely impractical given the glacial pace of development. But the bottom line is that Wikipedia can't change human nature, no matter how hard it tries, and certainly not by introducing new punishments, so it must consider ways to make the rewards of disruption (whatever they may be) less attractive to those doing the disruption. Malleus Fatuorum 21:09, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
          • I'm not sure how well your pending changes analogue would work, but I understand your underlying point. I think that no matter what we do, as long as we have a system where anyone can sign up for an account and edit, we are always going to have some of these issues. For example, I think everyone on this page can agree that editors pushing the Steady State theory or trying to deny plate tectonics are bad editor. But it would be easy for such an editor to find respectable scientists and sources (if a bit dated) to back them. Assuming that these editors is perfectly civil, do not exceed one revert per day, and so on, is it still possible for us to devise a system that would be able to prevent this or at least allow us to stop it more quickly than we do? I'm not seeing any way with our current system than to allow admins more leeway to take content policy into consideration, but I am definitely open to specific ideas. NW (Talk) 01:08, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

• The trouble is that "disruptive" is in the eye of the beholder. Personally, I've been called "disruptive" or "tendentious" an awful lot, recently. I don't think I am. So if we're talking about "disruptive editors", then what I want to know is, disruptive in whose opinion? If a behaviour's disruptive in the opinion of a panel of genuinely uninvolved editors without axes to grind, and talk page discussion and third opinion have both failed, then we ought to allow a WP:COMPETENCE block. But, there must be a mechanism to protect productive editors from being persecuted by the AN/I gadflies who never seem to get any actual editing done.

  A competence block is not appropriate for someone with thousands of mainspace edits—there should FairProcess for them. Any kind of FairProcess is going to be a longer and more complicated process.—S Marshall T/C 22:33, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

  • Not necessarily. The "fair" in "fair process" doesn't apply only to the accused disruptive editor. It's deeply unfair to good-faith, constructive editors to have to jump through an exhausting series of hoops to deal with obvious disruption. Right now, our processes consider fairness to the disruptive editor, but don't begin to consider fairness to those dealing with the disruptive editor. MastCell ^Talk 21:23, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Well said, MastCell. Just in the last day or so I've been reminded of a process in which determination to be fair to a disruptive pov pusher led to an extremely disruptive and unfair public trial of a well meaning if inexperienced admin who'd not followed procedures in an ideal way when dealing with the disruptive editor. Hence the current position where an admin with enough knowledge and interest to have edited in an area must not deal with anything more subtle than blatant vandalism in that area. Superficially fair, but damaging to the quality of the project which we thought we were here for. So it goes. . . dave souza, talk 22:18, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

I am not sure how this discussion is organized so I will repeat this at the bottom:as I understnad it the idea behind TE is to provide criteria to identify editors who should be blocked, when the evidence is not localizable to one article. In the heat of the moment most of us have been accused of being tendentious, at least i have been called an asshole a few times and I usually deserved it. In some cases I was even blocked for a day, and I deserved that too. But like most of us, I learned to come around and make contributions through consensus-building collaborative editing. The problem is not editors who have lost their cool once or twice and acted regretably. The problem is a pattern of behavior that extends over a period of time. We al have to be [atient at any one article, because it is only fair to give an editor a couple of chances to learn how to edit collaboratively. When there are fifteen edit differences that show a consistent patternm of abuse over weeks or months it is usually not that hard to find an admin willing to block. It is much harder when the disruptive pattern is only evident when looking at several articles.

In the end I see no substitute for or alternative to taking someone to AN/I. TE makes it clear that the evidence demonstrating a pattern can be across many articles. This is an important point, but I think this guideline (I think it should be a policy) makes it pretty effectively. It is not going to solve all our problems - in the end problems at WP are solved by good faith editors working collaboratively. All a guideline can do is provide a language for identifying a particular kind of problem. Slrubenstein | Talk 17:03, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Proposal

How about allowing the appointment (by some TBD, and revocable, method) of topic editors who have permission to go beyond 3RR for specified articles? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 19:59, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

• No, no, no!! Quite a few of us remember a certain admin who took it upon herself years ago to impose her own views on articles via her perception that she was enforcing arbitration cases-- she sanctioned editors unequally, which meant she generally sanctioned those who were upholding policy but didn't agree with her POV, and she was soft on POV pushers at the same time. No, we don't want to go down that path again. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:26, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

  I'm not proposing a general class of "topic editor"; I'm suggesting that, for example, Karanacs be allowed unlimited reverts on three or four specific articles related to Texas history. I'm not suggesting any other rights or authorization to block beyond current policy. How would this lead to the situation you've described? That editor would presumably not have received those rights. I would suggest giving those rights via a clear majority of editors involved in the talkpage (perhaps with an additional RfC to establish the rights) and removing them, if necessary, the same way. ArbCom could also assign and remove the right if they wanted to. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:24, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Karanacs, I sympathize with the difficulties you've just experienced (again, no doubt). I honestly think that what we need is more Category:Wikipedia administrators willing to make difficult blocks, and more of the rest of us choosing to support them in public when they do make difficult blocks.

Another editor and I went through months and months of hassle with an civil POV pusher: endless discussions, multiple efforts to involve extra eyes, an RFC/U—and the problem was only solved because Moreschi (talk · contribs) saw the request for ArbCom and said enough was really enough, and blocked him. That single action solved the problem. The blocked user now has his own website, where he vilifies me personally but has completely stopped harming Wikipedia.

I believe that the public support, BTW, is a key component. Difficult blocks are too often greeted with hand-wringing about how awful it is that the biased, hateful, power-tripping admin interfered with this person's human right to edit Wikipedia. Making a difficult block requires the admin to commit time to review the behaviors and to use good judgment. It is not something people do for fun. We need to show more support for our admin corps when they undertake these actions and less support for people who are wasting our most precious resource, which is the time and energy of productive editors.

This isn't difficult, and it doesn't require us to blindly support any admin action: it is the equivalent of remembering to express sympathy for crime victims before you say you're convinced that justice has been miscarried. But we have to remember to do it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:14, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

I totally agree with you, WhatamIdoing. I'm willing to support those admins, but I detest hanging about regularly in the much of ANI, where, much of the time, good editors are being dragged by the disruptive ones. So much noise, so little real action. Karanacs (talk) 20:20, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

• I would reluctantly disagree with this proposal. It's an earnest attempt to address a serious problem, but 3RR is already seen as an allowance rather than a bright line; I don't want to encourage that thinking. Plus, we'd need some method of figuring out who is a trusted editor and who isn't - much potential for drama - only to see a subset of the trusted ones use their 4RR or 5RR "allowance" in order to get their preferred content in the article when others disagree. bobrayner (talk) 16:45, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Proposal 1

Admins should be able to give short blocks to users who repeatedly make a change and repeatedly refuse to provide sources when asked. Although it's nice to see volunteers for participating in RfCs, I don't see the point of having an RfC when editor(s) are providing sources to back up existing text and the editor who wants to change refuses to engage by providing any reasons for the change. At that point, it's a blatant refusal to follow policy.

Caveat: Discussion MUST be attempted first. If not already in the article, sources should be provided to back up the existing text. Karanacs (talk) 19:30, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Question(s) - Wouldn't a user who was making such changes end up reported for 3RR or end up reported at AIV for repeatedly adding unsourced information in any case? If not, should they? And if they should and they aren't, doesn't that suggest that the issue may be that problems are not being reported when they should be? As a non-admin, I'm just looking at this in terms of how I'd approach it... Doniago (talk) 19:43, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes and no. In a lot of situations like this, you don't have an editor who is repeatedly violating 3RR, but rather someone who shows up every few days and adds their unsourced POV to an article. These slow edit wars are much less likely to result in blocks, and the blocks themselves less effective because of the slower nature of the edit war. A 24, 48 or 72 hour block means little to someone who only shows up once every few days anyway. That, and the persistent disruptors often get good at avoiding the appearance of edit warring by attempting different routes to get their information into the article. Creating new sections, changing around the place where they insert their edits, creating POV-fork articles, etc... Trusilver 20:16, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

The vast majority of the time, if I make a report at 3RR on slow edit-warring, the admin who reviews it dismisses the complaint because "they didn't revert 3 times in 24 hours". Occasionally an admin who is also a content editor looks at my reports and blocks the person I reported. I think most of the admins who patrol that page are sticklers for the "24 piece" and don't see long-term edit warring as edit-warring at all. Karanacs (talk) 20:25, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm a little rushed for time at this point, but if that's the issue then I think those admins need to be reminded that that board isn't just for reporting 3 reverts within 24 hours. I've always understood that that board's scope is larger than that. Doniago (talk) 20:29, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

• support - I like the idea that putting contested and unsourced edits into an article could result in escalating warnings and blocks. I see the potential for abuse, though. Such a policy could easily result in a large number of warnings along the lines of "Please stop! If you continue to make edits I don't agree with....." But I feel that even consideration of such a proposal is a step in the right direction. Trusilver 20:20, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm a little confused, only because there's already warning templates out there that can be given to users adding unsourced material...I use them rather frequently, in fact. If a user managed to make it up to level 4/final without taking the hint, I'd report them at WP:AIV for it, though that's rarely been the case. Doniago (talk) 21:29, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Do you give those types of warnings to experienced editors? I mostly see them with people adding really random stuff. Karanacs (talk) 21:37, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Well, no, but then, in my (possibly limited) experience, experienced editors don't usually go around adding unsourced material...though I did have a delightful discussion about the suitability of primary sources for Animal Farm in popular culture which can be seen at its Talk page. Doniago (talk) 21:41, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

True, but under current common practice, you RARELY see anyone giving escalated warning for unsourced edits, and even less frequently see blocks because of them, even when they are warranted. Trusilver 21:55, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Proposal 2

I think we should remove this part of the instructions

If mediation is rejected, unsuccessful, and/or the problems continue:

Notify the editor you find disruptive, on their user talkpage.

Include diffs of the problematic behavior. Use a section name and/or edit summary to clearly indicate that you view their behavior as disruptive, but avoid being unnecessarily provocative. Remember, you're still trying to de-escalate the situation. If other editors are involved, they should post their own comments too, to make it clear that the community disapproves of the tendentious behavior.

I've never seen a case where this is effective in de-escalating a situation or of causing change in a user, especially when used after content RfCs, etc. It almost always makes the editor defensive and they behave worse. Karanacs (talk) 19:40, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

• Remove That's pretty bad advice. That is, the intention is doubtless good, but we are not supplying the users with useful advice how to walk the very fine line between clear communication and being unnecessarily provocative, and any editor who needs to be told how to do this (nearly all of us) is likely to screw it up if they simply follow these poorly written directions. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:19, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Proposal 3

Either create a new noticeboard or change the attitude at WP:3rr so that we can better enforce restrictions against long-term edit-warring. Karanacs (talk) 19:41, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Sorry to interject again, but I haven't had a great deal of interaction with WP:3RR, and feel obligated to ask - what is the perceived attitude? Doniago (talk) 19:45, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

I've had the same experience as Karanacs-- I suspect many admins won't block for slow edit warring because they're afraid drama will ensue. There are too few of them willing to do it, and as a result, I spent months cleaning up after one editor on a medical article who insisted on misusing primary sources. And who also flaunted in my face that I supposedly had filed a mistaken 3RR on him, which left him feeling quite empowered to keep doing same. The admin who denied the 3RR did the Wiki a disfavor, and empowered that editor to continue (eventually sanity prevailed there, but it costed many of us a couple months of work). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:29, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring should be used for quick, obvious violations of the "bright-line" revert rules. We should create a sub-noticeboard called Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Slow edit warring to address the issue that Karanacs brings up. Two very different sets of administrator skills are required for the two boards, namely counting and thinking respectively. All administrators can do the former, but...not everyone can do the latter. NW (Talk) 19:46, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

I think I might support this, especially if as a side-effect it increased response time at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring. Doniago (talk) 19:51, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

But aren't there already a large number of noticeboards? Also, one was created recently Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard which is sort of aimed at what is being discussed here. --Noleander (talk) 20:05, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

I looked at the DRN. I see several instances where the filing party is being told "you're right, the sources support you, the other party won't engage, we can't do anything". Same-old, same-old. I also see three-week-old disputes still unresolved. I can waste 3 weeks doing other steps. Karanacs (talk) 20:29, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

I filed a report at DRN once upon a time that I believe went completely ignored and got archived without any action being taken, which was pretty disheartening. In their defense I think DRN is still figuring itself out, but they seem to effectively be a forum for mediation rather than, necessarily, resolution. If parties involved in a dispute won't play ball, nothing gets done aside from a big waste of time and demoralization. I'm really not trying to make DRN look bad, just...it has its limitations. Doniago (talk) 20:33, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

<--I don't have much of an opinion on the proposal, but I want to support what NW said: to be an admin and step into the 3R pool is like wading among snakes. Bright-line, that's easy--for the dumb asses who keep putting the same vandalism in an article, mostly. But most of the cases are much more difficult: they develop slowly, multiple edits are involved to undo a single one, SPI-ing may happen (it took me forever to get shit straight on Clan of Xymox, and that's before I had a big stick), often there are content issues (and thus first the competency curve, and next the involvement accusation). 3R is a minefield.

It's odd. As much as I agree with Malleus about how at least some admins are likely to overstep their boundaries and even lack intellectual competency, here is an area where I'd like to see a lot more trigger-happy admins. My pipe dream is to see a 3R report by an editor whose word I can take to the bank, and block on sight--but that never happens. The easy cases go to AIV, the difficult cases take a lot of time and usually, as Robert Cray said, you're going to come up muddy when you're playing in the dirt. Drmies (talk) 00:14, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

A lot of people seem to think that DRN is useless. Why not give DRN teeth? Make its decisions binding. Make refusal to participate a blockable offense. Do something. --NYKevin @197, i.e. 03:43, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Think about what you're saying. You think that a random editor with 500 edits and a complete lack of knowledge about NPOV should be able to show up at DRN and make a binding content decision? NW (Talk) 04:55, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

NW, I'm going to have nightmares now! Karanacs (talk) 18:36, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Never mind the newbies. Some of our most problematic disputes often include multiple people on each side along with some apparently-uninvolved editors who suddenly pop up at when a crucial !vote is going the wrong way. If DRV had teeth, instead of getting an email saying "please contribute to this poll", those apparently-uninvolved editors would be getting emails inviting them to make binding content decisions... bobrayner (talk) 16:52, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm suggesting that a strong consensus for a particular resolution should be binding. I don't think random people should be able to make decisions, but if there is consensus, it should be binding. --NYKevin @703, i.e. 15:52, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

NW, DRN has been a 100% hands off where we try to get both disputants to come to a mediated consensus. In the rare cases where we couldn't get a consensus we've referred the dispute to one of the more binding boards (MedCab,MedCom, ArbCom, RfC, RfC/U) because some editors just aren't going to be helpful and willing to compromise on their position. Hasteur (talk) 21:33, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

I think it is clear we are not talking about 3RR - that is and should remain over a 24 hr. period, and specifically for editors who lose their heads temporarily and can benefit from some cooling-off time, because these are not problem editors. SOmetimes conflicts just over-hear

But I am not sure whether what people are talking about here is DE either. We need to distinguish between long-term edit wars at one article, or closely related set of articles, involving a number of people, versus long-term disruptive behavior across many different artciles. This guideline should address the latter, and I am all for any improvement.

There can I admit be an overlap between the former (an edit war that lasts a long time) and the latter (DE). If an edit war continues because of one person against a consensus of more than three editors, DE may well apply to the one person. But we still need to distinguish DE from long-term edit wars. Long-term edit wars can tire people out and are frustrating, but they will not all be cured by this guideline. The fundamental problem that WP has is: it never developed effective means for mediating conflicts. ArbCom was designed to be the mediator of last resort and a long time ago there was a more robust MedCom. We have grown, so we can predict that edit conflict will grow, but with long-term conflicts one solution is effective mediation and we lack that. I think many people behind this proposal would do better trying to reform or overhaul our mediation process.

And let's be frank: the biggest reason why we have long term edit wars is because we still do not have enough well-informed editors who are also committed to our core policies. Wikipedia is at its core a Wiki and the stability of articles depends on their being produced by enough well-informed (by background, or because they are willing to go to a library and do the hard research) editors working together. I have never seen a major edit conflict that could not be resolved through research and careful application of core policies. This is very easy to achieve with an article that has twenty editors, is quite achievable with ten editors, and much harder to achieve with only three editors. The fewer the number of editors, the easier it is for one person to disrupt consensus for obvious reasons. Unfortunately, the articles that often require the most expertise require far too much research than one or even a few colunteer editors can do ... yet, attract the fewest number of editors. When WP has a million active registered editors who are equally distributed across interests and expertise we will see the creation of better and more stable articles and edit wars will quickly be put out. An encyclopedia "anyone can edit any time" by design will only function well when large numbers are working on all articles. Slrubenstein | Talk 21:01, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Proposal 4

Thinking aloud, brainstorming sorta thing. The path to cleaning up a lot of medical articles was in writing WP:MEDRS, which helps explain why we don't (typically) use primary sources in medicine, and how to find high-quality secondary reviews. If all articles required serious scholarship, as MEDRS does, wouldn't it be much easier to be done with the non-serious and disruptive editors who usually have no interest in doing the real work of correctly sourcing articles? Perhaps our problem lies somewhere in the realm of too many editors who think they can add something to Wikipedia because they found it somewhere on the internet but they've never been to a library and don't know how to do serious research. Maybe doing something to strengthen WP:V or WP:RS would help show the disrupters the door more quickly. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:47, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

• This is Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy—but, I believe we need to make the RS standards firm one field at a time. HISTRS will look different from LITRS. And I've encountered serious resistance to HISTRS standards equivalent to MEDRS. Fifelfoo (talk) 00:04, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
  • Actually, if we gave some of the RS/N experts wiffle bats, and RS/N became a space where broadly scoped sanctions could be enacted... Fifelfoo (talk) 01:08, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
• Just take a look at what happened at WP:SCIRS when someone tried to propose something along those lines. Admittedly, that was during The Great Climate Change Arbitration Case of 2010, but as much as I would like to see what you are proposing, I'm not hopeful. NW (Talk) 00:35, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
• I think what made MEDRS possible (noting that its first drafts were before my time) is that there was a team of good editors behind it. If you've got a dozen good, active history editors, then you might be able to produce a HISTRS and make it be both useful (addressing practical problems) and get it in front of people often enough that it will actually "stick". A lot of Wikipedia runs on oral tradition, so making a separate guideline be accepted and actually used requires a dozen people referring to it, until its existence and contents are just part of the "always been there" cultural background. There's a substantial time lag in advice-page work: MEDRS was started just less than five years ago. Two years ago, we still had editors complaining about its existence. Now it's widely accepted. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:48, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
• Fifelfoo, do you have anything written up about history guidelines? Karanacs (talk) 18:38, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

there is enormously more likely to be some degree of consensus among secondary sources in most fields of medicine than in most fields of history. this is partially because medicine is a practical profession in the end, and all such professions tend to be very conservative. (the reasons are not altogether clear to me, though part of is the need for protection from one's colleagues in the case of unsatisfactory results, which can only be obtained by not doing things that do not have a considerable degree of consensus. Another is the--elated--inherent desire that if you are going to do something, you want it to work, and professional status is the result of success in doing this; unlike a speculative subject where the actual effectiveness or truth of what you are saying does not matter, and professional status is often the result of promulgating something distinctive and extraordinary.). DGG ( talk ) 23:48, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

WP:HISTRS exists as a placeholder from the last time I got frustrated, it reflects actual binding practice by linking to WP:MILMOS#SOURCES (that I believe is way too lose about allowing primary interpretation) and an essay I wrote years ago. I could expand it, but I have strong views regarding historical epistemology and haven't wanted to work on it without a second set of eyes to correct against my views. Fifelfoo (talk) 00:12, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

I have recently expanded WP:HISTRS on the basis of the concept of an ordered list of high quality reliable sources, and, with advice about which sources to use for which purpose in article authoring. I'll be working on it further. Fifelfoo (talk) 23:56, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

The value of stricter sourcing requirements is not in articles where the truth is obvious, but in cases where the truth is uncertain or disputed or controversial. The nature of controversies varies greatly between fields. MEDRS is a great way to prevent some lone quack (or small group) giving undue emphasis to their preferred panacea, but (for instance) historical controversies are often associated with longrunning rivalry between large national (or ethnic or religious) groups and it's possible for each group to hold a contradictory position which is backed by multiple books and journal articles. It would be helpful to understand what the nature of the problem is in each field before copy & pasting a solution from medicine (although it worked very well there and I'm sure it would be good in other places too). bobrayner (talk) 17:00, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

I do not think this is related to DE. I do think that we could benefit from better guidance with the use of sources, but in the end the principles are always the same: verifiability through a reliable source is the threshold for inclusion, it is a minimal standard, because what is the best source and how it should most appropriately be used depends on the articles. We need editors who understand this, and when one editor does understand this and some yabo deletes content because it is not supported with a direct quotation, or someother yabo adds content simply because it is on google books, the problem is all the other editors who let the yabos dictate content through their narrow and off-kilter reading of policy. No policy is a substitute for the good judgment of editors working collaboratively. Editors need to be able to discuss: is this the best source? What are other important sources? Are we using the source appropriately? Are we presenting a view out of context? These questions will keep coming up and just have to be answered by editors willing to do research. We need to recruit more such editors. But beling lazy - which I think is often the case with editors Sandy Georgia refers to - is not the same thing as being disruptive. It is a different kind of problem. Slrubenstein | Talk 21:08, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Proposal 5

If an editor who places a dispute template (POV, unsourced, etc.) on an article does not start a talk page discussion that includes an intelligent treatment of source material (either sourcing in the article or sourcing that has not yet been accessed) within an hour, it can be removed. If the editor who placed the template on the article does it again without discussing valid reliable sources,

• s/he may be blocked for disruptive editing
• any admin, including one involved in writing the article, can protect the article. --Moni3 (talk) 23:46, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

POV, sure. {{unsourced}} is a little different—I think that articles that don't have references, should, at the very least, be categorized as such. NW (Talk) 00:36, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. I'm unclear on how it's harmful to label statements, sections or articles as needing citations if, in fact, they need citations, nor do I see why it should be necessary to start a Talk thread on the subject; in my experience those tags generally speak for themselves. How would one define an "intelligent treatment" in any case? I also don't see why locating sources should fall on an editor who did not insert the unsourced material to begin with; this would seem to be a clear conflict with WP:BURDEN. Are there examples available of misuses of the pertinent templates? I've never seen such a thing, and if I did I'd remove the template. Doniago (talk) 03:27, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Support. When someone adds a dispute template, the onus is on them to justify their actions and not be a TagSlacker; it would be great if the blocking policy could reflect that. That said, in my (limited) experience with agenda-driven editors misusing {{POV}} etc, this rule wouldn't have helped. The dispute had been about what prominence the article should give to misdeeds committed by a company to which they were sympathetic (Talk:Tagged/Archive 3, if anyone's curious). As that's a matter of editorial discretion, it could not easily be resolved just by discussing sources. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 00:49, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Good, but only one side of the equation. I've been involved in a POV article for six years, I provide boatloads of reliable sources over and over and have documented the POV dozens of times, anything I write is rejected simply because there's more of them than me (oh, and there are plenty of editors wanting to neutralize the article on talk, but none of them edit effectively-- they just fill the talk page with rants, and even if the rants are right, that's not helpful), so I can't improve the article alone, but as soon as I turn my back for a minute, the POV tag is removed. Removing a POV tag when nothing in the article has changed, and the POV is documented on talk with reliable sources, applies as well. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:01, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Sandy, twice I tagged an article I overhauled because other editors were inserting information that they made up. We did the BRD thing, and after I pointed out more than once the issues of POV and OR, more fantasy info was inserted in the article.

Ideally, the way a template should be placed is:

• You come across a WTF?? in an article and post a WTF?? question on the talk page, saying Source A and B say something significantly different--or the Source X used in the article doesn't say what is in the article at all.
• If you get no response or a lackluster one, up goes the template. Discussion ensues with you and all other parties using sources as your guide.

If you're referring to Venezuela or Chavez-related articles, clearly there's a genuine dispute there between those who believe Chavez and the rest of the world. This isn't intended to address such contentious articles as Israel-Palestine, Armenian genocide, or Scientology. It's meant to force editors to buck up and do some work and stop using templates as bricks to the head of well-written and sourced articles. Even the well-written and sourced articles can be improved. If editors wish to improve them, they need to become familiar with the sources and engage in a meaningful manner on the talk page. --Moni3 (talk) 14:02, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

"Unsourced" isn't in Category:Dispute templates; it's a routine clean-up template. There's really nothing disruptive about accurately indicating that an article needs to be cleaned up, even if you don't leave a message on the talk page. An editor might realize that an article really needs to be fixed, but doesn't have the skills or knowledge to do it.

As for {{POV}}, the template's own documentation says that anyone can remove the tag in the absence of an active discussion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:57, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

I've watched the Chavez article from a distance for years. It's disgusting that the people of Venezuela are forced to pay civil servants to do his bidding. Use that article as a model with which to develop a better system for countering the systemic-bias brand of disruptive editing, and I'll support. Perhaps part of the bloat on this page is caused by the fact that there needs to be a bulleted list of the basic forms of disruptive editing. You can't solve all types with a single process. Tony (talk) 09:58, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

It generally isn't a great idea to raise a specific instance of politicised information when trying to form policy; as people who agree with the need to use scholarly analyses of politicised information, may feel offended if their own politics is in the least analogous to those of the politicisers of information you criticise, and disagree with you because of some petty political offence. This is true whether it is the deputy chairman of the local RSL sub-branch, or a governing politician commonly identified with a particular ideology. I certainly agree with your point about the disruptive use of primary and/or involved sources. I have had a couple-of-year discussion emerging out of an RS/N discussion that non-published diplomatic advice from a US government unit is necessarily a primary source and the conclusions drawn from such are original research. Some people simply prefer primary government material to HQRS, and don't respond to source disputes by escalating sourcing quality. Fifelfoo (talk) 10:08, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Proposal 6

Thinking aloud here. Administrators Noticeboard/Incidents doesn't want to touch content disputes and the Arbitration Committee is the very slow, deliberate venue for massive content disputes. Various other noticeboards seem little trafficked and essentially powerless. There needs to be an intermediate content authority — binding content mediation with teeth. What is needed are elected "Mediation Committees" — one for science, one for mathematics, one for history, one for current affairs, one for popular culture, one for Biographies of Living People. Something like that. More or less failed institutions like the Reliable Sources Noticeboard could be liquidated once the new Mediation Committees are established. Carrite (talk) 15:14, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Like MedCom? (But then again, we all know how successful that has been in resolving disputes.) –MuZemike 20:29, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

I still think this is the kind of route to go down. MedCom, I think (though I haven't had much personal experience of it), lacks the teeth that ArbCom has. We need mediators who really can (and I mean "can" both in terms of the powers we give them, and in terms of personal ability) focus discussion on the issues that matter encyclopedia-writing-wise, identifying and stamping out any disruption at an early stage. We don't need arbitrators posing as a court, handing out punishments based on vague gossip and months late.--Kotniski (talk) 20:50, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

This basically sounds like the existing RFC system, only with volunteers who actually show up and help people resolve the disputes. The problem isn't really a lack of opportunities or noticeboards; it's an unwillingness among our volunteers to do the hard and unpleasant work of showing up at disputes in articles they personally don't care about. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:49, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

It would be great to create a series of content mediation committees. But as WhatamIdoing says, the difficulty is in finding volunteers to read and understand long content disputes that they may have no interest in. If people really wanted to try this, someone could set up just one subject committee as an experiment, and see what happens. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 20:32, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

I have little interest in mediating content disputes in my area of expertise where this means a voluntary process; "mediating personalities in dispute;" where the result is a non-binding mediation because personalities refuse to adhere to an agreement grounded in the content-encyclopaedic principles of wikipedia; and where personalities refuse to accept results that do not gel with their own belief regarding content—why mediate with crunchy nut bars? I have more interest in arbitrating disputes where I can make a binding ruling regarding content; based on V RS HQRS OR SYNTH WEIGHT FRINGE; and, where content rulings allow for restrictive sanctions on people whose conduct violates the ruling. Similarly, I'd rather trust some kind of content magistrate who draws bright (if reviewable, or periodically reviewed) lines; than a talking circle who lets crazy Jack's screaming parrot run the show. For the latter, RS/N works perfectly, as a scholarly reference desk that gets hijacked regularly by insane parrots. Fifelfoo (talk) 04:29, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

To a certain extent that's the purpose of DRN, to hear lower level disputed and attempt to negotiate a solution that all sides can live with. In some cases it turns out quite well, in other cases the situation is so far gone already that we refer it to one of the more specialized areas (Med*, ArbCom) when we can't get the parties to a consensus. Hasteur (talk) 21:41, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree with this proposal in general but I'm not sure how well it will work in practice. There are a lot of editors who don't understand the policies as well as they think they do (or at least as well as I think they should!). A lot of those who do understand the policies don't want to get into someone else's dispute. Karanacs (talk) 18:42, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Discussion of problems currently on this page

Look at Wikipedia:Disruptive editing#Dealing with disruptive editors-- the length of that section demonstrates the problem. By the time one has gone through all of that dozens of times a week on dozens of articles, there's little incentive, time, motivation, inclination left to get any content work done. Even in obvious cases, if you go to ANI, you'll end up in an off-topic discussion, dealing with smartaleck or uninformed responses from those who haven't investigated thoroughly or don't know sourcing policies themselves, or engaging the gadflies, rather than getting some attention based on knowledge of sourcing and content policies. I don't know how we can get this to change if we can't find a way to focus admin attention on the fact tht we also have content policies, policing civility is not the only reason ANI exists, and for that to change, we need more admins who have had to write top content and defend if from the deterioration resulting from editors who either don't use or misuse sources. When a content matter goes to ANI, unless it's a pretty clear BLP or COI or some other obvious issue, it doesn't typically get admin attention, and if someone said "fuck" or "arse" somewhere in the discussions, Katie bar the doors, because then admins have an excuse to ignore the content issues and go on long rants about civility. Civility discussions are oh-so-much-more-drama, lend themselves to pontification (you don't have to know content editing or read sources), and even in discussions where the content policy violations should have been discussed and dealt with at ANI, we see the content policy violators getting away with no sanction.

We just don't have enough admins who understand or will take the time to deal with the content policies and their violations, but it's really easy to go on a rant when you see the word "fuck" or "arse".

That entire section needs to be rewritten-- it's pretty bad. That so many steps are required to deal with disruptive editors is the problem-- the disruption is all too often blatant, and ANI should be better equipped to deal with these content policy violations beyond the average obvious BLP violation. The page is horribly written-- can it not be strengthened in ways that will help admins begin to understand that civility is not the only pillar or policy of Wikipedia, and help ANI be more effective in dealing with content policies? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:30, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

You are of course quite right, but another problem here is the confusion between "civility" and "personal attacks". And of course placing civility as one the five pillars, which quite frankly look to me like something written by someone high on cannabis. Malleus Fatuorum 02:51, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Just as in the real world, I am under no obligation to be civil to you or anyone else, but I am constrained from calling you a "nigger lover", a "gollywog", a "holocaust denier", or a member of the KKK. (Not that I believe you to be any of those things of course.) Malleus Fatuorum 03:03, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

What works

• Tag team reverting definitely works, low-level irritation on the bird project (persistent little tweaks from the "diet of frogs" vandal) have been kept under control.
• You have several admins regularly haunting FAC, including me, who understand content disputes, and are prepared to take action. I tend to resolve content disputes by the trigger-happy technique of threatening everyone concerned with a block (in a civil way, of course), protecting the page if necessary, and carrying out the threat if the problems doesn't go away. Don't waste time with endless debates here or elsewhere, just contact one of your friendly neighbourhood admins (sorry Malleus, we do have our uses). Do we need a easy list of admin regulars? Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:48, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
• WP:AE? Seems more orderly than most other venues, although I'm sure mistakes happen there too once in a while. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 18:44, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Memes, nonsense, and other frequently stated misunderstandings

The page needs a total rewrite. It goes on at length about our Dispute resolution processes, which are broken and always have been, and doesn't spend enough time describing disruptive editors and how they work, or giving teeth to admins so they can block the nimwits. They don't use reliable sources, they abuse of sources, they DONTHEARTHAT, they edit war, they display lack of competence, they perseverate, they don't respond to direct talk queries, they demonstrate no knowledge of policy or willngnes to learn it, etcetera, etcetera. This page needs more teeth-- sending editors to DR is of no use, and educating admins about how bad this problem is should be central to this page.

What isn't useful-- in all of these discussions-- is the amount of nonsense that gets thrown around every time we have these discussions.

1. Content contributors believe they have a free pass at incivility.

   Bullroar. Inevitably, when top content contributors end up in a tussel with someone who has displayed no evidence of any understanding of Wikipedia's sourcing, NPOV, or other content policies, it is typically the content contributor who is sanctioned, blocked, upbraided or reprimanded for civility, while the content violator gets off scott free. This is apparently because admins usually understand and police civility better than they do content.

2. Content contributors are a gang who stand together to defend uncivil behavior in their ranks.

   Nonsense. We/they don't typically support uncivil behavior-- we/they just want symmetrical blocks of both parties (instead of just the top content contributor), and equal attention to content disruption as behavioral issues.

3. I think that FA writers sometimes forget that as long as articles provide the information people are looking for (i.e. Wikipedia being used as a reference work), and people treat that information with due caution, it doesn't matter hugely whether said articles are featured or not. Carcharoth (talk) 01:12, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

   Now this is a big fat problem, and I'm surprised to see Carcharoth put this forward as if it's A Good Thing. One of Wikipedia's worst defects is that anything gets equal google time, even if it's crap, even if it's unvetted. FA writers do get some credit for being willing to run the gauntlet, expose their prose and sourcing to peers, expose themselves to the vagueries of the ever-changing MOS and those who perseverate on it, expose their work to the mainpage where every Tom Dick and Harry and Randy from Boise gets to detroy it with crap edits, open themselves to being on the plague list of someone who has never written an FA but loves to target those who have, and so on. This notion that there is a whole lot of content out there that is FA worthy but whose authors don't want to run the gauntlet is nonsense. Sure, there are some editors (Giano, for example) who became disgusted at being targeted, ending up FAR, having to do the MOS nitpicks, etc who have given up on FAC, but the rule more than the exception is that those who don't bring their aricles to FAC often have something to hide-- generally poor sourcing or POV that they don't want to have to change because of being subjected to the intense scrutiny of FAC. They know they can get equal attention on Google without correcting their article deficiencies, and they know they can get their articles run on In the News or On this day. Frequently, once their POV or poor use of sources is pointed out at FAC, they withdraw rather than correct the issues, because they prefer to keep their POV and their google hits.

[redacted] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:44, 31 October 2011 (UTC) To be continued, I'd rather starch my sheets than keep beating this dead horse, I suggest the only way for FA writers to be able to defend top content is a user space page where we can notify others when issues are occurring, because I'm not seeing any progress on this page. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:35, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Responding just to the point where you quoted me, I wasn't referring to FA-level articles not being submitted to FAC, I was referring to how sub-FA and even sub-GA articles are used and read every day by readers of Wikipedia. Some are stung by incorrect information, some don't realise what they are reading is incorrect, but I would hope that a large majority find whatever they were looking for and go away satisfied (or can use the article as a starting point to conducting their own search if the information they were looking for is not there). They in all probability didn't come to Wikipedia looking for featured articles, they came in the hope that some nugget of information they were looking for could be found and verified through Wikipedia, and also probably to gain a bit of background information. That is what I, as a reader (not editor) of Wikipedia mostly use this site for, for many years, from long before I became an editor. It is nice and all that, when an article is featured, but not essential, as those who use Wikipedia properly know the need to verify things in the sources (if any are provided), and know that absence of sources is a red flag (I do this even for featured articles as the quality is so variable). If everything except the GAs and FAs disappeared tomorrow. The readers would howl in protest. I think some have forgotten what it means to be a reader of Wikipedia, rather than an editor. In other words, Wikipedia as a whole is an active, living reference work, not a collection of brilliant and engaging prose for armchair/bedtime reading. Much as I enjoy reading featured articles, much of what I read every day on Wikipedia is not featured, and yet somehow it serves its purpose. That is the only point I was trying to make there. By all means defend FA content, but don't elevate that content to the level where defending it has a chilling effect on the rest of the project. Carcharoth (talk) 20:54, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Sandy, let's talk about your #2, with the obvious example in mind. You say that symmetrical blocks are wanted. What I saw (maybe I missed something?) was one (1) editor using profanity in a difficult discussion, and getting blocked for it—and promptly being unblocked by a friend.

Now if we actually wanted symmetrical blocks, wouldn't blocking the other guy have been the way to achieve a symmetrical block?

And exactly what grounds would you have blocked the other editor on? Having been involved in a dispute in which, through no fault of the second editor, the first editor freely chose to start cussing? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:38, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

In that particular case, I would have blocked the other editor for baiting and for tendentious editing. Karanacs (talk) 18:45, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

I might not have blocked either of them, but if you're blocking for a behavior that's only being displayed by one side, then a symmetrical block seems inappropriate, even if the offender is a "content contributor". WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:35, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

The quality of FA articles with respect to their contents rather than their formatting is rather overstated in my experience. (See User talk:Looie496/Analysis of FAC.) ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 17:50, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

I certainly object to "this article is a FA" as being anywhere near a reasonable rationale for rejecting changes. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 18:48, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Proposal 7

A page that keeps track of long term disruptions and disputes (somewhat similar to Wikipedia:Long-term abuse). It will be in the form of list with a link to a subpage for each item. Each subpage should include a brief documentation of each dispute explaining the problem, the desired outcome, the rationale and the track of edit wars there. Each subpage should track one specific problem (possibly in multiple articles) but not more than one problem in one article. This way uninvolved editors could learn quickly about disputes and disruptive editors know they are been watched. Sole Soul (talk) 09:01, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Better would be a page perhaps managed by a bot that keeps a record of people who have been blocked or warned at more than one article x number of times. I basically like this idea but it will work better if editors use warnings more deliberately, and if a bot can keep a record of how often a user has been blocked or warned across all pages. Slrubenstein | Talk 17:05, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Good idea. Both ideas could coexist, though. The aim is to summarize and document long term disputes in an easy to read way. I recently saw this page also. Sole Soul (talk) 17:50, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Proposal 8

A informal noticeboard for reporting vandals (and other nuisances), and we can action it based on its own merits, so bans, blocks and other things can be done to stop. We would also have LTA to keep the record. ~~Ebe123~~ → report on my contribs. 11:40, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Some kind of noticeboard for incidents requiring administrative action? Fifelfoo (talk) 11:49, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Isn't this what AN/I is for? I think that what we really need is an administrator's page where usernames appear when the user has received x number of warnings on her talk page. I would think that this could be automated. Slrubenstein | Talk 14:45, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

WP:AIV. It's not automated, though. — This, that, and the other (talk) 08:59, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Disruptive cite tagging

This article mentions disruptive cite tagging but I wondered if there was any policy anywhere that defines what level of cite tagging is acceptable and when it is viewed as disruptive. Obviously we expect featured articles to be fully sourced, but how necessary is it to tag every section and every sentence in developing articles? Is there a limit as to how many such templates can be added to an article? Dahliarose (talk) 23:34, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Application of this guideline

The behavioral guideline WP:Disruptive editing does not make clear whether it applies to Talk pages, or is only about Main pages. In particular, do the remarks about failure to get the point apply to the Talk page? Brews ohare (talk) 17:26, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Hypothetical situation

Here is a hypothetical situation where I'd like to know how Disruptive editing is meant to apply: An expert editor (for the sake of this argument, a real expert) with some knowledge of a topic suggests on the article Talk page that WP has some incorrect article statements. The expert points out the problems on the Talk page and suggests some sources. However, those interested in this topic do not agree that changes are needed. They suggest on the Talk page that the distinctions constitute undue weight, that the purpose of WP is to present facts, not to teach a subject, that the expert has a fringe view, and so forth. The expert editor provides more detail on the Talk page, attempting to educate those present in the intricacies of the topic and to explain how thought on this topic has evolved over the years, making the WP statements and sources old thinking.

As we all have experienced, heels dig in. The discussion begins to go in circles. The expert's arguments are not directly addressed, the discussion spins off into abstract arguments over WP policy implications, and the whole matter is going no-where. At some point the page editors invoke the notion of failure to get the point and go to AN/I.

The expert, of course, finds AN/I a poor venue to discuss details of a subject that no-one really is interested in. The subject becomes conduct, not content. The matter becomes one of Admin judgment (perhaps not described as "counting noses", but pretty close to that) to see if there is "community consensus" and the expert is disciplined.

Is this a correct use of Disruptive editing? Shouldn't an editor be allowed to go on indefinitely on a Talk page? After all, no-one has to join the thread - people can just "walk on by" and leave the expert talking alone. There is no disruption in that. Is there?

Insistence on disciplinary action to curtail Talk-page discussion appears to be contrary to the health of WP. Brews ohare (talk) 15:58, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Example

A cautionary experience by an expert is detailed in Timothy Messer-Kruse (Feb 17, 2012). "The 'Undue Weight' of Truth on Wikipedia". Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved 2012-02-14. concerning the treatment on WP of the 1886 trials related to the Haymarket riot. In this case the expert simply gave up, having concluded that AN/I was forthcoming, and not wishing to go there. That was not a good thing for the accuracy of WP. Brews ohare (talk) 16:12, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Comments

It apples to both main and talk pages and describes both. It mentions e.g. that some disruptive editors devote much of their editing to talk pages, and so avoid being sanctioned because of breaching 3RR or other content editing guidelines. But it also mentions "An example is repeated deletion of reliable sources posted by other editors", i.e. editing of main pages. Disruptive editing can occur on main pages, talk pages, or both. It does take many forms so is described in many ways, but is usually fairly easy to identify given Wikipedia's process. Wikipedia works by consensus so an editor who repeatedly ignores or tries to circumvent consensus is often being disruptive.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 17:59, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

John, you mention 3RR, deletion of sources, and other Main page issues. Regarding Talk page conduct, you have brought up the example of disrupting the achievement Talk-page consensus. I'd guess that an expert's effort to persuade the unversed editors that their consensus is misplaced might be viewed that way. Is that your point? Are you in favor of curtailing such efforts? Brews ohare (talk) 18:11, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

It looks like some elaboration of circumstance might be helpful to this policy to separate deliberate obstruction from patient explanation. Brews ohare (talk) 18:17, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

If an expert is disruptive then this article covers their behaviour as much as any other editor. If they find they cannot persuade other editors there are many things they can do: bring better arguments for example, or recruit other experts (at the relevant project page). But they should not be disruptive even if they think themselves right and others wrong. After all their are many self appointed 'experts' on WP, often with their own important research they want to share with the world. Because there's no way of telling them apart from real experts the guidelines apply to everyone, experts or not.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 18:20, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

John, the issues are two: (i) does this guideline apply to Talk pages. You have argued that it does insofar as disruption of Talk pages is concerned. That seemingly rules out its application beyond this circumstance. (ii) how is disruption of a Talk page to be identified? This is, as you say, not a question of separating experts from pseudo-experts. However, I'd say that explanation of a point of view is not disruption even if it taxes the patience of some other editors. If some are not amused, they can drop out of the discussion thread, and do not have to spin off into policy debates and pejorative usage of WP:Fringe, WP:OR, WP:POV, and WP:Soap, etc. ending up with an AN/I action against the explaining party. Do you agree? Brews ohare (talk) 18:29, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Well, one sign of a disruptive editor is one that drives away other editors. So it's not a solution for editors to leave a disruptive editor alone: that might cause them to think they had 'won' the discussion, by outlasting the other participants, though one sign of disruption is refusing to give up even though the argument is clearly lost. As to how to identify disruptive editing, this guideline is a guide to that, though like many behaviour guidelines it requires common sense to use, and should be used with caution and bearing in mind other guidelines such as assume good faith and don't bite the newbies.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 18:44, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

John: It doesn't matter that the explaining editor might think that "had 'won' the discussion" or that they are "refusing to give up even though the argument is clearly lost". So long as their actions are confined to the Talk page, my view is that no harm is done. If they proceed to edit the Main page without persuading the rest, they'll end up in an edit war and discipline is inevitable.

On the other hand, if the Talk page discussion is curtailed just because the majority doesn't want to appear to 'lose' the argument, that face-saving is bought at the expense of a policy that limits discussion needlessly in some cases, at the expense of discouraging the editor stepped upon and poisoning the atmosphere of collaboration. That is particularly true when the majority resorts to pejorative usage of WP:Fringe, WP:OR, WP:POV, and WP:Soap, etc. ending up with an AN/I action against the explaining party. Brews ohare (talk) 19:02, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

More comments

Editors can be disruptive on a talk page, and one of the main ways they can do so is by repeatedly making the same arguments, even after their points have been answered and there is a clear consensus against them. The harm done is wasting other editors' time. As already noted it's not a solution for other editors to leave the disruptive editor to themselves, as they may then think they have 'won' and start editing the article to reflect their 'winning' argument. The solution is for an editor who fails to persuade other editors to accept they've lost and move on, unless they can find better arguments.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 19:14, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

John, here is a question: Won't an obtuse editor take the view that the explaining editor is "repeating the same arguments" even though, in fact, the argument is not the same? There are those among us who want their conclusion, and any argument leading to another conclusion is the "same" argument, that is, a wolf in sheep's clothing. Why not let the Talk page run its course, and if difficulties arise for the Main page, then take action based upon that? Main page sanctions are very clear, such as WP:3R. Brews ohare (talk) 19:22, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

There is no "wasting of other editors' time". If they think the argument is settled to their satisfaction, they can drop the thread and go on to other things. They are not obliged to engage with an editor whose explanations seem lame. Brews ohare (talk) 19:30, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

There are no "obtuse editors"; really, that's just a straw man. As for letting a talk page "run its course" the problem again is wasting editors' time. No-one is served by a discussion on the same point going on forever, and after a time when it's clear that consensus has been reached the discussion should end. This might involve a formal process, such as an RfC, or a straw poll, but neither is necessary. Wikipedia works by consensus, and all editors should respect that, even if they think themselves correct and the consensus view wrong.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 19:41, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi John: Well, you're blessed to have not encountered "obtuse editors". Consensus should involve exchange and evolution of views: it is a process. "Winning" an argument by short-circuiting discussion using an AN/I action is a way of enforcing "consensus", not exactly my idea of arriving at consensus. Brews ohare (talk) 20:08, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

BTW, do you have any comments regarding the Example? Brews ohare (talk) 21:17, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

We've covered that above I think, though I'm not familiar with the Haymarket affair I've read about it here, which concludes

Since Messer-Kruse wrote his piece in The Chronicle, the Wikipedia article has been fixed and a reflective and serious conversation has taken place on the article's "talk" page. This is all to Wikipedia's enormous credit. Wikipedia is and will always be a work in progress. But this is the case not because the effort is fundamentally broken, but because the work of historians is also a messy one, and Wikipedia reflects that. With the work of both Wikipedians and historians like Messer-Kruse, over time the record is set straight.

I.e. the process works. Even after an expert 'quits' their ideas can be incorporated into an article, even if they are novel and challenge conventional wisdom, providing they are well supported by reliable sources. Quitting then writing a scholarly article about WP is one way of highlighting your ideas but not the only one.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 21:42, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

It's very soothing to say that this matter now is fixed, and so everything is fine with the process. In other words, nothing has to be learned or changed. Just pat Messer-Kruse on the head, and pat WP on the back. Brews ohare (talk) 01:31, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Well, User:MesserKruse seems happy with it, judging by his only comment on it this year. More generally the normal process of collaboration and consensus building has worked, and no-one has been disruptive. So it's not an especially useful example.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 02:24, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

John, in this case Messer-Kruse followed normal WP procedure unsuccessfully at first, then published a book on the subject and still was refused his changes to the article, and then wrote an article about this silly misapplication of WP policies in The Chronicle of Higher Education. Only then was some action to fix the article allowed by WP. The fact that Messer-Kruse has subsequently written a gracious note to WP doesn't exculpate the process or suggest everything is OK. The fact is that the threat of AN/I dissuaded this contributor from pursuing a reasonable and accurate change to WP content, which remained inaccurate until an embarrassing article appeared in a prominent publication detailing the idiocy permitted by WP policies. Brews ohare (talk) 14:45, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Still more comments

Comment: We need to distinguish cases better. An “expert” might be accused of disruptive editing (failure to get the point), and be taken off to AN/I. But whether actual disruption has taken place, or if the accusation is invalid, is a matter for consensus. The content of the page WP:Disruptive editing has to be taken into account, but it is the actual circumstances which pertain on the talk page in question which ought to determine what consensus is formed and thus what action is appropriate to take. Just in general, I would think that no viewpoint ought to be suppressed, but clearly continuing a course of TLDR posts, say, is not going to be productive. I am not sure what would need to be done in such a situation, it still comes down to consensus, in theory. NewbyG ( talk) 22:00, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Newbyguesses: I don't know what TLDR posts are. Guessing from context it has something to do with continuing a discussion on a Talk page to the point other editors have lost interest. It appears you are suggesting that when other editors have had enough of a thread, rather than simply ignoring it they should rally about and advise the prolix editor as a group that if they do not desist, a consensus for AN/I action will be forthcoming. Is that your suggestion? Brews ohare (talk) 14:33, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

'TLDR' == 'too long, did not read'. It's used sometimes when replying as shorthand for "I did not read everything written but...", generally implying that the content being replied to or commented on could be much shorter. So it indicates whatever's there is excessively verbose. It's one sign of a disruptive editor that rather than accept they have lost the argument they restate their case, but reworded more verbosely with cherry-picked examples or sources, leading questions and tangential asides to try and dress up their arguments as something new, asking other editors to wade through and refute their 'new' points.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 14:49, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

John, that is a fascinating acronym. I suspect that it applies very generally to Talk pages even when not actually mentioned. It is a seeming justification for conducting a Talk page like an episode of the Jerry Springer Show or The McLaughlin Group, where nobody listens and everybody tries to shout louder than the rest. Brews ohare (talk) 15:17, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Well what do you know, there's a page for it, WP:TLDR! It's not used generally in polite conversation/discussion as not everyone knows it and it can seem pejorative, but it's a handy shortcut for some contributions and conversations.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 15:55, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

• Comment: I'll try to summarize where things stand at this point in the hope of focusing this discussion. The RfC raises the question:

Does the behavioral policy WP:Disruptive editing apply to Talk pages?

I believe the discussion so far concludes that the answer is: Yes, it does apply to Talk pages. However, an interesting point is raised, namely, that much of the policy WP:Disruptive editing is about disruption, and not so much about disruptive editing of content.

The RfC raises a second question:

Do the remarks about failure to get the point apply to the Talk page?

One opinion has been expressed that it does indeed apply to Talk pages. The implication is that an extended analysis of content on the Talk page is a form of disruption once the majority of editors find their patience has ended, and so such prolix discussion is expected to lead to an AN/I complaint and possible sanction. I'd say that this view is consistent with present procedure on WP. The issue arises, however, whether this approach to Talk page control is advisable, because it does stifle discussion.

Whether this approach to handling Talk pages should be made clearer in this guideline still is open to discussion. IMO, whether AN/I control of Talk pages is advisable or not, it should be clearly stated what the policy actually is. It should not be left to opinion. Brews ohare (talk) 16:51, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

I have added commentary to the guideline stating that AN/I intervention is policy; although I don't think this is good policy, I think it is what is actually practiced at the moment. Brews ohare (talk) 17:27, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

But that is wrong: there's far more to dealing with disruptive editors than that, and the various options are outlined further down. Your other added comment was also wrong: it's not just about editing 'Main' (i.e. article) or 'Talk' pages but a edits across all of Wikipedia, so including policy pages, process pages, user pages etc.. The focus is on the style or pattern of editing, not on where the edits take place and certainly not limited to just those pages in the main namespace.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 17:38, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I see the point that application of this guideline extends all across WP. I am not satisfied that all areas of WP are exposed to the same kind of disruption, nor that the treatment of a given form of disruption should be the same in all areas. Supposing there are differences, the blanket nature of this policy is a problem. Brews ohare (talk) 19:16, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Disruption happens wherever it happens. For example sometimes deletion discussions can be disrupted by problem editors, so it certainly applies to process pages like AfD. Some especially disruptive editors, being unhappy with how policy was used to close a discussion, seek to question or change the policy. Another very disruptive form of editing is forum shopping, where an editor unhappy with the consensus on an article talk page restarts it in another venue or (very often) venues, such as a project talk page, user talk pages as well as guideline and process pages.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 19:30, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

And the point is? Perhaps this inventory of different forms of disruption is meant to agree with the view that the guideline is too vague in treating all forms and venues without distinction? Brews ohare (talk) 20:12, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Link to wp:rehash here

• Comment: In response to the question, Does "failure to get the point" apply on talk pages, I offer a tentative yes. One of my pet peeves is when editors refuse to acknowledge each other's points, instead trying to talk over each other, repeating their own points ad nauseam, in a battle of endurance. I see these prolonged battles as being damaging to the community, and they often end with both sides believing they were right and resenting the other. As a side note, I'd love to see a link to WP:REHASH in the section on failure to get the point. ~Adjwilley (talk) 00:16, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Adjwilley: I agree that battles are damaging. What can be done about that? One way to handle the matter, which you apparently favor, is to have an axe in the background that can be used to cut any exchange on a Talk page short simply by having AN/I raised with a charge of WP:Disruptive editing. In my opinion this policy is the present practice on WP. It is also my opinion that this practice is widely misused as a tactic of intimidation. I believe the Messer-Kruse experience in which his reasonable proposals for correcting an article were refused until his publication of an exposé in The Chronicle of Higher Education is only one example of how this practice can impede evolution of an article.

I am inclined to advocate a more careful exposition in this guideline to distinguish real dialog from dispute. Brews ohare (talk) 12:57, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

As part of such an exposition, it might be policy that interruption of a thread in which several editors are constructively engaged by outside scoffers intending only to pooh-pooh their efforts should result in the intruders being sent to AN/I, not the prolix editors. As part of such an exposition it might be policy that responses employing WP:OR, WP:Fringe, WP:VS as pejorative catcalls without accompanying solid supporting facts should result in AN/I for the sneering, not for the prolix editors. And so forth. Brews ohare (talk) 13:08, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Do you have any examples of this "interruption" of constructive editors by "intruders"? I cannot think of any. Certainly User:MesserKruse's experiences aren't one or relevant: no-one was disruptive and the process worked.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 14:14, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

You have misconstrued the use of this example, which is an illustration not of intrusion, but of the accusation of vandalism to discourage further attempts at fixing an article. The failure to bring Messer-Kruse to AN/I because he desisted from his efforts in the face of intimidation hardly can be extrapolated to conclude that "the process worked". Brews ohare (talk) 15:17, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

This is the talk page for Wikipedia:Disruptive editing. Unless it's an example of disruptive editing or of this policy being mis-applied it's irrelevant.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 15:38, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

John, when this policy underlies an inappropriate threat of AN/I, the wording of this policy that permits its abuse in this fashion is relevant. The question here is whether this policy can be elaborated to avoid its mistaken application to interfere with productive discussion, either by intimidation or by actually taking editors to AN/I. Brews ohare (talk) 16:09, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Brews, I don't have a lot of experience with AN/I, but I don't think that talking past each other and not getting the point is enough to qualify for an intervention there. I also think there's a difference between using the same argument over and over after it has been disproved (Rehash), and explaining an argument in different ways for "opponents" who just don't get it. On the other hand, sometimes the opponents are actually refusing to "get the point" so yes, you end up repeating the same argument over and over.

As for how to exit the cycle, I think whoever comes up with the solution deserves a medal. I do have one idea, which I've only tried once. I had entered into a discussion with another editor, and I could tell that heels were starting to dig in, and he was ignoring the points I was trying to make, and making other points (which I agreed with mostly) that I didn't think were applicable. When I realized that we were just talking past each other, I got the idea to try to find some common ground: some points that both of us agree on that we could build upon to reach a consensus. I made a table with several statements, and asked him to indicate his agreement or disagreement with each statement. (It had statements like, "I agree with so and so definition of such and such word..." "I agree with the Wikipedia policy that...") Anyway, my "opponent", who had previously seemed ready to fight to the death, dropped out of the discussion. Obviously I don't count that as a victory, and it would have been more helpful if he had completed the table, but it did put an abrupt end to the cycle. (By the way, I suspect he dropped out because he would have had to indicate opposition to WP guidelines in order to keep up his argument, but I have no evidence of that.)

Anyway, if you're interested, the discussion is here, and the table I made is here. The other user who completed the table hadn't participated much in the discussion.

I'd be interested to know your thoughts on this... I'm kind of looking forward to trying this out again somewhere else. Perhaps we should take the thread elsewhere if we decide to continue it. ~Adjwilley (talk) 17:07, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Adjwilley: It's nice to see some ingenuity applied to settling differences. I'd guess where differences arise from genuine misunderstanding there is room to hope policies and guidelines aren't really necessary. Where differences stem from different methodology or mission, it is harder. Where they stem from macho image, strutting, and old scores to settle, not easy at all. Brews ohare (talk) 23:06, 12 March 2012 (UTC)