The courtesy blank, I think, is the full page blanked (as far as I know, I was not instructed otherwise; other arbitrators have mentioned that full-page blanked may be actions that needed to be taken). However, as they did not vote on that, I cannot perform that action without explicitly given instructions to do so. - Penwhale | Blast him / Follow his steps11:14, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
OK, your edit summary implied that if I read this statement my edit wouldn't have occurred. Obviously I wasn't editing the page to enforce an arb ruling or any dictate from an individual arb. I'm not a clerk. ;) Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 11:19, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think we were confused the first time around. :3 What NYB suggested is that instead of removing your comments and leave a diff, you add a note saying that you made the comment while it was named at the previous location. The courtesy blanking would apply to all the pages instead, not just your comments. I try not to change the meaning of the motions that are passed, however. (I don't want to have to judge accuracy so I C&P and fix minor things if needed) :3 - Penwhale | Blast him / Follow his steps11:23, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I found NYB's comments confusing I should say, and he didn't explain when I asked him to elaborate (although you tried to, and thanks). I don't understand why people would kick up a fuss about removing a statement and then courtesy blank the whole page anyway. Well, I prolly do understand, but it doesn't make sense. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 11:28, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe you get some wikirule book I don't, but as far as I can tell there is no clear process or transparent rules for adding someone to a case. The guy who initially added me did so because he wanted me to participate. I did, then I withdrew because of some unfortunate comments. As there is no authoritive process for adding participants, I don't see why I'd have to initiate a tedious high attention process for reversing it. In reality there wouldn't be a problem if you had just left it (no evidence is directed against me and I'm not remedied or praised in the findings). and this is just pettiness. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 09:39, 4 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
In reality, once a case is opened the parties are "frozen" and any removal needs to go through ArbCom permission. In this case, the removal of you from the list of parties made it impossible for us to alert you that the case closed (depending on who the clerk is he may or may not notify people not on the party list for closure). There are various precedents where people are named as party but no sanctions against them. - Penwhale | Blast him / Follow his steps13:17, 4 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Pettiness. You're making rules up as you're going along here. Obviously the parties aren't frozen if I removed myself. I brought this up with an arb (NYB); I'm hoping he'll help sort nonsense like this out, though I ain't holding my breath. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 13:36, 4 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The first sentence on a case page is "Please do not edit this page directly unless you are either 1) an Arbitrator, 2) an Arbitration Clerk, or 3) adding yourself to this case." — Rlevse • Talk • 20:35, 4 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Threat?
I think your action there was a bit... poorly thought out.
If I *were* grandstanding and threatening ArbCom, your action would be like throwing petrol on a fire, it'd hardly get me to calm down. And other than that, it doesn't seem to be any attempt to resolve the situation. Even if you do feel I'm threatening ArbCom, your comment was hardly the best way to address that, and came off as a passive-aggressive demand to 'shut up'.
In future, try to be more cautious when you make clerk actions like that. It makes everyone else's jobs harder when extra people wade in and try to heat up debate more. Clerks should clerk, your comment wasn't an action that could be accepted as a clerking duty, but seems to be an attempt to join in the debate. --Barberio (talk) 22:02, 4 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If my comments came out as trying to join the debate, I apologize, as lately there have been enough issues surrounding ArbCom as well as the clerks that I'm slightly annoyed. That being said, asking the ArbCom to do something within a deadline almost never works was what I tried to say. - Penwhale | Blast him / Follow his steps07:26, 5 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That is, unfortunately, an issue with ArbCom. Asking for something to be investigated, which the majority all seem to agree should be investigates, and asking for it to be investigated within three months, should not be considered an imposition, let alone a threat. --Barberio (talk) 14:12, 5 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Of course this opinion may be biased, but I think posting a request asking them to do something with a deadline on the 1st day of the official transition won't help with winning other people over. :P - Penwhale | Blast him / Follow his steps17:49, 5 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe they should have taken a whole lot more time 'off' for transition then, rather than saying they'd be ready to work on 'day one'? --Barberio (talk) 22:22, 5 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't have read-access to arbcom-l, so I cannot tell you anything about what goes on in that discussion. Not to mention, there were a few people that didn't put on their arbitrator hat until Jan 1st and made no comments otherwise... - Penwhale | Blast him / Follow his steps00:35, 6 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Request
Hiya, I recently posted a notification of the ArbCom enforcement case at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Martinphi-ScienceApologist. However, a couple editors are disagreeing with the notification, and edit-warring about it. The most recent change is this one.[1] I don't want to get into a lot of back and forth here, so could you please take a look at it? Thanks, --Elonka17:31, 17 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Forum shopping so you're not guilty of edit warring is unimpressive, Elonka. How dare you accuse me of edit warring. I was quite clear in my one and only edit, which was to remove your "rationale" which is highly questionable and poisons the well. I have no intention of edit warring over that, but stand by my opinion that you should remove that yourself, as you are far too involved to be taking on yourself the role of ArbCom enforcer. KillerChihuahua?!?17:52, 17 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
She asked me for my opinion because of the fact that the page that you are edit warring over is an RFAR page. KC, your edit actually removed the notification LINK which are required to be present on all notifications and logs. THEN I looked at the revert-warring that you guys had and made a decision that he is qualified for the notification-- which, as you very well know of, is not a restriction. I'll say this here: I independently endorse the notification. That enough for you, KC? - Penwhale | Blast him / Follow his steps18:06, 17 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Removing the link was an error on my part; thank you for correcting it. Perhaps you have misunderstood. There are two issues, neither of which is OrangeMarlin being notified. One is that Elonka is not appropriate person to notify, as she is heavily involved. The second is her decision to place her "rationale" or reasons or what-have-you. While this is not something to which I would generally object per se, plese note that no other admin leaves these little notes about their rationale; they content themselves with listing the notice. It is poisoning the well to add that. I am perfectly willing to accept that you disagree. However, my removal - once - of her biased opinion of an editor with whom she has been in conflict for some time now does not by any stretch of the imagination constitute an edit war. You somehow have managed to lump me in with "you guys" and decided that I'm edit warring. I object, most sincerely and strongly, to your characterization of me thusly. I hope this clarifies matters. If not, reply here - I do watch pages where I have recently posted. KillerChihuahua?!?19:29, 17 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, I appreciate your comments. I am not certain what you mean by "dispute" - I am not involved in the dispute about the pseudoscience stuff - I have not edited there. My disagreement with Elonka is one I share with several others[2] and it is simply that she is far too involved in the content disputes on pseudoscience articles to be in any way "uninvolved". KillerChihuahua?!?19:39, 17 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It's based on a false premises. If Elonka had a case, she'd go to ANI or Arbcom for support. It's insulting, and I consider it a personal, uncivil attack by an involved administrator. I suggest you read everyone's opinion her vendetta. It's pretty widespread what everyone thinks of her attack on me. OrangeMarlinTalk•Contributions18:26, 17 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I independently looked at some of the diffs she provided me, and I agreed with her on the notification itself, without commenting on other actions of Elonka. I'd like to remind you that it is by no means a restriction. There are several cases where all editors are under notification, if I believe, but that by no means hinders it. I commend you in your work, but some of the methods do seem a little aggressive, OM. - Penwhale | Blast him / Follow his steps18:46, 17 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
From what I gather, it seems to revolve around the supposed unreliability of a source I used. ".
Can you go to "http://book.jqcq.com/product/30157.html", affirm this book is actually a chinese history book, and then go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration and make a comment, to the effect whether it is a chinese history book or not(which from what I gather is the argument: it's not a chinese history book). This would help the dispute a lot. Thank you.
An illustrative example of Chinese bridge construction.
Thank you for exercising thoughtful judgment in a difficult-to-parse situation. May I join you in hoping that your participation becomes the kind of sturdy bridge which this dispute might need? --Tenmei (talk) 00:59, 30 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Investigating what "screened" means or implies
As you may or may not know, Teeninvestor has appeared to accord great weight to your imprimatur in the context of a minor ArbCom case.
"I have provided the source, with full bibliographic information, and a link which demonstrates what I said it would be- a Chinese history book. This was confirmed by user:Penwhale."
In the context created by these two sentences, I am obliged to ask you to clarify, please.
1. Question: Am I correct in identifying the Statement by uninvolved Penwhale as the one and only substantive contribution you identify in the context of this ArbCom case?
If there something else which I have over-looked, please provide the link which will enable me to rectify my mistake.
"In addition, the source has been screened by the two above users and the information as well, and they have shown the information to be perfectly correct as well as the history book being what I said it is: a history book .... The above two users have stated the information of the source is correct and the source was presented with correct bibliographic information as to allow the reader to verify the source ...."
In the context created by these few sentences, I am obliged to ask you to clarify, please.
2. Question: Teeninvestor states that "... the source has been screened [by Penwhale] ...." Did you, in fact, "screen" the book? If so, what did the term "screen" mean specifically in that context?
3. Question: Teeninvestor states that "... the information [has been screened by Penwhale] ...." Did you, in fact, "screen" the information? If so, what did the term "screen" mean specifically in that context?
4. Question: Teeninvestor states that "... [Penwhale has] shown the information to be perfectly correct ...." Did you, in fact, "evaluate" the information? If so, what did the phrase "shown the information to be perfectly correct" mean specifically in that context?
5. Question: Teeninvestor states that "... [Penwhale has shown] the history book being what I said it is: a history book." Did you, in fact, "evaluate" the book? If so, what did the phrase "[shown] the history book being what I said it is: a history book" mean specifically in that context?
With all due respect, I believe you are only able respond to Question 1 and Question 5. I would guess that your inability to respond similarly to Questions 2, 3 and 4 will demonstrate that these are examples of over-reaching.
In this context, I would appreciate any constructive comments you might be willing to offer.
I shall try to answer your questions one at a time.
1. The statement you linked above is the only edit that I contributed to the case. (I probably will cross-post this over to the case page later, though.)
2. I did not screen the book in any way. What I did was merely translated the page linked at the time. The page is a description from a Chinese on-line bookstore.
3. My statement posted needs to be taken as literally as possible; the information I provided was merely information gained from translating the description of the on-line bookstore.
4. And to be specific: I did not look at any text of the book itself; I cannot judge whether it is actually a history book without actually looking at the book.
"The source itself is a history book published in China from a reputable publisher in that country. Its authors have published several similar books before(this is is an annual renewal/publication, I have the 1998 version)."
My superficial efforts to find out more about this book and its authors/editors were not inconclusive. A cursory effort to discover general information about the publisher revealed sufficient details to create a very minimal stub article -- see Inner Mongolia People's Publishing House. I did not encounter the kind of critical information which would help me or anyone else assess the credibility of the claim that this book was published by a "reputable publisher" in China.
My guess is that this diff was intended to be provocative in some way; but I don't quite get the point. My inclination is simply to ignore whatever it was that Teeninvestor had in mind when deciding to post links in Chinese.
I wonder if you can discern anything in these links which may have something to do with proving that the Inner Mongolia People's Publishing House is a "reputable publisher"? If so, then I would guess that this kind of information could be helpful in the ArbCom case.
Unrelated to ArbCom, Teeninvestor apparently sees a glaring mistake in this stub article. If you can help correct whatever flaws are obvious in this stub, that trivial edit would be helping to improve the quality of our encyclopedia-making project.
In conclusion, if there was some kind of assistance Teeninvestor and I should have sought from you as an "uninvolved Chinese-literate editor," please consider this a formal request for your appropriate contribution to the dispute resolution process ...? --Tenmei (talk) 23:59, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Teeninvestor is right in this perspective that you do indeed have mixed up the two publishers. The URL to nmgrmcbs.com is the correct address for the publisher. According to the website, it was the first established publisher in Inner Mongolia in 1951. If I have to make a call on this, it's about as reputable as Random House as I would imagine. The stub needs to be changed.. I just am in the midst of finals and do not have too much time to correct it. - Penwhale | Blast him / Follow his steps01:07, 8 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I obviously have no objections against closing that thread on the clerks noticeboard, which indeed wasn't likely to lead anywhere useful. I strongly object against your dismissive and arrogant tone there though. You are mistaken if you think I have a "dispute" with Ikip. I'm doing my job as an admin here, which in this case happens to involve making sure Ikip doesn't get to hound JM, and I would appreciate if I could do my job unhindered by snide remarks from the peanut gallery.
As for acting as an administrator on Arbcom-related pages, if what you are trying to say is that Arbcom pages are off-limit to normal disciplinary enforcement by admins, I disagree: Arbcom pages are not outside the normal wiki-world, and you clerks have no monopoly on watching conduct there. If user A is caught engaging in disruptive behaviour X somewhere else and gets warned off with a block warning for it by admin B, and then goes to an unrelated Arbcom page (where B is uninvolved) to continue behaviour X there, admin B will block him for it. I would think twice about it if it was in a case where A is himself a party or defendant, but that wasn't the case here – it was just a motion which had nothing to do with Ikip himself, and I can hardly imagine Arbcom would have taken that as an opportunity to take the scrutiny of Ikip's behaviour in its own hands. Fut.Perf.☼07:04, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding your last point, there have been several rare cases (which I can't name off my head right now) that editors not named as parties were sanctioned. Of course, this is a different case. Keeping in mind that I have not (and cannot currently) look into the matter of the dispute at hand. The problem lies in a few places:
Ikip believes that your warning is overboard. Looking at the ANI thread that you formally warned Ikip, I bring to your attention that he was not the initiator of that thread (and I note that there is no intervening comments on that thread between the posts by you two.)
Ikip brings this matter to ArbCom clerks, as it affects his intention of joining discussion here. Without looking at the merit of your warning, this isn't a situation that we clerks can normally resolve dispute. (The warning, which I personally consider to be effectively a topic ban, is normally only given out by community and/or ArbCom.) As such, the best appeal situation for Ikip is definitely not the Clerks' noticeboard; he needs to go to AN(/I) or ArbCom directly.
Of course, the fact that Ikip does not keep discussion threads open on his talk page makes it difficult for a substantive discussion to be going on there either.
I know you're trying to do your admin job here - we all are (remember clerks don't really have any more power than other admins apart from arbitration processes). I personally think, though, that your warning may have been overboard without a formal discussion on it (what I'm looking for is evidence that majority of community agrees with the fact that he needs to be diverted away from J.M). I personally feel that decisions related to restricting participation in any kind dispute resolution should only be done via community input (or ArbCom dictation), and as such I unfortunately cannot agree with you restraining him on the motions page. Keeping in mind that ArbCom normally prefers evidence transparency, so I really think that part of the restriction would be hard to enforce and that portion makes the situation worse than it should be. Regarding your point in the second paragraph: normally only case clerks monitor conduct issues on particular cases; for a motion like this there isn't any - i.e. ArbCom has the final say on those pages.
(refactored) Penwhale, thank you for taking the time to review this.
As you know, since the arcom !voting is now almost complete, you no longer have to be involved in this dispute as an arbcom clerk.
Wikipedia is a big place. I sincerely, deeply hope this other editor at issue and I do not cross paths again, so I will never have any reason to comment about this editor again.
Thank you again. I hope you have a good week.
Last week was wonderful for us. We just got pre-authorization on our first home this weekend, with a big back yard for our rat terrier and 20 pound cat, so we are estatic. Ikip (talk) 15:38, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, sorry I was not clear, when I said "voting", I was refering to the Jack Merridew arbcom about continuing his mentorship. Ikip (talk) 15:48, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
