---

This is long overdue. --Rschen7754 08:37, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@MastCell: I don't agree with that, having been a party to the road naming disputes long ago: it's the belief that "I'm right and you're wrong, and I'm going to raise hell until I get my way" on the part of at least one side; it can be both sides, but it only takes one side to create an intractable dispute. --Rschen7754 19:51, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Resolute: Exactly. --Rschen7754 22:27, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@NW: An old arbitration case that may be relevant: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pigsonthewing 2. --Rschen7754 18:17, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

While I'm aware of what this dispute is about and who it is between, though only in the most basic terms, most editors here will not. Far more context (or at least links? Something?) is needed. Nothing against you, Ched. :-) Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 08:42, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

As this is Ched's first RFAR filing, I ask that arbcom allow him sufficient time to put the RFAR together.PumpkinSky talk 11:34, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I am with Mastcell in that this and so many other wiki squabbles aren't about what they seem, they are about disliking others, power, and wikipolitics. I also agree with Bbb223--why on earth are the music projects special? Why are they unsuitable for music projects? What makes them so different? I also agree with Brian in the SP essay, infoboxes shouldn't be so long as to overtake the body of the article, but long enough to be useful. And where else do you see navboxes (not infoboxes) in the upper right? PumpkinSky talk 21:24, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This has gone on too long. I don't like the way you've dealt with content contributors, but this is causing the project to bleed. Get on with it.--Wehwalt (talk) 11:39, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@NYbrad: I think ArbCom could formulate rules of behavior, which if violated could bring sanctions. I would not support direct pro/con on infoboxes in the subject matter areas as beyond your remit.--Wehwalt (talk) 15:39, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This is about the long-standing battles at WikiProject Classical music (also WikiProject Opera) on the topic of whether infoboxes should be permitted to be included in biographical articles about composers and musicians. This recent ANI discussion is indicative of the nature and magnitude of the dispute: [1]. I cannot elucidate the dispute because I have not followed the battles, but it appears that the parties are unable to resolve it on their own, and I am sure that the ongoing disruption discourages some other prospective contributors from working on classical music and opera articles. I can testify that I learned that it would be best to stay away from the whole topic back in 2007 (six years ago) when my innocent efforts to maintain the infobox in an article about a singer were reverted for violating the rules of the Opera project (never mind that the singer also worked in musical theatre and film). --Orlady (talk) 13:57, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Giano, @Views of Eric Corbett - I suggest that you supply diffs. It's hard to tell which comments you are referring to. --Orlady (talk) 03:50, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The suggestion for an editorial board, made below by User:My very best wishes, seems like the best path toward peaceful resolution of this contention, as well as other perennial contentions over seemingly minor MOS-related matters such as dashes, use of capital letters in common names of species, and WP:USPLACE. --Orlady (talk) 14:57, 15 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

As I recall, the policy on infoboxes says its up to individual article consensus, and the policy on projects is that they can create and promote consensus on such individual article format matters. So, good luck, but it does not look like there is a sweet spot for you in current policy re this, so this case needs conduct diffs, and conduct policy breaches, and prior steps re conduct, etc. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:49, 12 July 2013 (UTC) Oh, and it also needs parties involved in the above other things it needs. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:52, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Lord Sjones23: In the discussion linked by EdChem below, you mention strategic mission of the Wikimedia Foundation, as playing a part in this? What is meant by that? Thanks. Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:30, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Like previous arbitration cases involving Manual of Style issues, this issue suffers from the wrong kind of attention from many editors. I've observed that infoboxes appear in and disappear from articles seemingly as a matter of personal preference and not as a matter of editorial judgement about the needs of our readers. The reason this is becoming an arbitration case is not because it's that difficult to determine whether an infobox would be beneficial to the reader on some given page. We don't need arbitration for that—it should be a matter of common sense and editorial judgement. We're here because some editors have behaved badly with regard to infoboxes. Those editors have expended energy on infoboxes because they feel passionate about them or have strong personal preferences about their presence or absence. There's nothing wrong with being passionate about what you do on Wikipedia per se. However, the behavior of editors who fall into these categories should be examined:

• Editors who have broken the WP:BRD cycle with infoboxes on any article.
• Editors who have added or removed infoboxes against consensus.
• Editors with a history of skirmishing with other editors about infoboxes.
• Editors who have expressed non-editorial reasons for adding or removing infoboxes, especially when editors with opposing views are named.

Again, this is not an editorial or content problem, it is a problem with disruptive behavior. The AN/I thread Orlady linked is a fantastic primer. --Laser brain (talk) 15:17, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

(disclaimer: I haven't followed this in detail and have no intention of reading all the pages of past discussions)

The division into "pro and anti infobox" camps is a strawman argument. The dispute is between a very small clique of hardliners on one hand who believe that every article should have a visible infobox regardless of whether an appropriate box exists, and another very small clique who believe that infoboxes oversimplify information and thus should be omitted from certain complex topics. The waters are muddied by small number of very vocal "Wikipedia is a database!" boosters of machine-readable data, who insist infoboxes are necessary on every article for metadata purposes. (FWIW, I find this utterly spurious—the data would be just as machine-readable if it were invisible to readers.)

This is not a content dispute; it's a user conduct issue. I'm sure nobody who was on Arbcom at the time of the Great Endash War has any desire for a rerun, and normally something like this would never make it to Arbcom without an RFC. However, at least one of the key actors in this dispute has a long, long history of disregarding any discussion that doesn't give their position a 100% endorsement and of outright bullying of anyone making comments with which they disagree, while at least four others (from both sides of the dispute) have a record for "well, it's not technically forbidden" weaselling to excuse deliberately provocative adding/removing of boxes, of blatant edit-warring, and of foul-tempered flareups towards anyone who disagrees with them. Given how much bad feeling has been caused by this, it's better for Arbcom to lance the boil now, and not to be afraid to ban people who think they're indispensable if they're not willing to admit that other peoples' opinions might have validity. Let the parties make their cases, pick a policy (it doesn't really matter all that much what it is), and make it clear that anyone breaching it will face nasty blocks or bans. – iridescent 18:38, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

User:Ched has given links that provide enough context for just about anyone to understand the history of this topic. Here is my take on this thread:

In order for this discussion to be productive, it should focus on the topic of the authority of WikiProjects. As far as I know, infoboxes are neither mandatory nor forbidden on Wikipedia. Thus, the chief issue that should be discussed here is: "How far should the authority of WikiProjects go? Can they disregard infobox guidelines, or even the MOS:, because their first hand experience with many articles of a similar kind led them to the conclusion that those articles, by their very nature, need to be organised differently than most other articles on Wikipedia? And if yes, then what to do with articles that are of interest to multiple WikiProjects?"

That's my perspective. Toccata quarta (talk) 18:49, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

User:Bbb23: Well, my idea was to discuss the possibility of changing the WikiProject-authority guidelines/policies. Toccata quarta (talk) 04:48, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I used to wonder how otherwise sane, talented, dedicated people—some of our best—could fight to the death over picayune issues like infoboxes, en-dashes, alt-text, capitalization, date formats, and road-naming conventions. But finally I had an epiphany. These editors aren't fighting about infoboxes. These editors are fighting because they don't like each other. But because of our ideas about "civility" and "comment on content, not the contributor", these personal animosities play out indirectly, in the form of sequential proxy wars over abstruse quasi-content issues. The implications are obvious. A solution which focuses narrowly on infoboxes won't address the underlying problem, just as the Korean Armistice didn't end the Cold War. These animosities will find another outlet.

Our community-specific definition of "civility" encourages people to nurture grievances under the cover of superficial pseudo-politeness. In any case, editors who are invested and passionate enough to fight to the death over infoboxes are just as capable of finding some other equally meaningless cause to fight for. Wikipedians are really, really bad at letting anything go, ever. That's probably a result of natural selection; content disputes on Wikipedia are generally won through tenacity, not through reason, common sense, or policy guidance. Over the years, we've selected for the ability to stake out a position and never budge no matter what.

The issues in this case illustrate the central sicknesses in the Wikipedia community: long-standing personal grievances play out in the form of a proxy war over a content issue; there's a pathological inability to ever concede an inch, no matter how insignificant the concession in the grand scheme of things; and the total failure of perspective and forest/tree discrimination. Seriously (leaping onto soapbox), if I could harness 1/100th of the outrage that people invest in infoboxes or en-dashes, and use it instead to help deal with Real Problems (e.g. the dangerous medical misinformation which floods this site every day), I think Wikipedia and the reading public would be the better for it. But what fun would that be? MastCell ^Talk 19:45, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think it might be best if this request was handled in the same way as this past one. In that case, Arbcom enacted a moratorium on changes and a 1RR restriction, and instructed the community to open a structured discussion on the issue. Mark Arsten (talk) 19:04, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"WikiProjects are not rule-making organizations. WikiProjects have no special rights or privileges compared to other editors and may not impose their preferences on articles." (WP:PROJ) Of course, I don't know what binding effect the WikiProject page has on the community, but assuming the statement is correct, there should be no need to clarify the authority (Toccata quarta) of Wikiprojects. Moreover, my understanding is that ArbCom generally enforces rather than creates policy, so I'm not sure how that would be in the scope of ArbCom's powers.

The projects may have no special rights in theory, but in practice, particularly with the bigger projects, that's not really so. My anecdotal experience is that if the projects take a position, it creates a presumption that other editors then have to rebut. That is problematic at best.

I don't know the statistics, but infoboxes are very common at Wikipedia, whether you like them or not. I generally only remove infoboxes if there's so little information in them as to not be, uh, informational. So, at bottom, why are classical composers, classical performers, and operas special? And I speak as an avowed, closenarrow-minded snob who almost never listens to any music other than classical and opera. But speaking as a Wikipedian, I still don't see why these articles should be treated differently. Someone above (I'm not going to hunt it down) said something about the articles being more complex. I don't see why an opera article is that much more complex than an article about a musical comedy. Nor do I see why an article about an opera singer is that much more complex than an article about a popular singer. And we won't even talk about cross-over.

Unfortunately, I have little to say in response to Newyorkbrad's request that we focus on solutions. Much harder than everything else. Mark's suggestion above me might be one way to go.--Bbb23 (talk) 19:11, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

What is the purpose of this proposed case? What is the ideal end goal that Ched would like to see? By Ched, I mean Ched, not every passer-by and commentator here?  Giano  21:27, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your reply [2]. But I want to know what is your ideal solution; what do you want Abcom to do, say and decree. In my view the worst of the problems are caused by the arrogant intransigence of one single editor,Andy Mabbitt. Every time I have been involved in a heated infobox debate his inability to compromise has been the root cause. Myself and other editors have bent over backwards to compromise, but he won't move a millimeter. It's my opinion that there is a little point having a case while he is still editing, unless Arbcom rule that he can run the info-box show which would cause great loss of valuable editors. So be careful what you wish for.  Giano  13:15, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I see the following issues here: 1) The question of if or when wikiproject consensus can override general guidelines or if general guidelines must always trump wikiproject consensus (particularly if general guidelines themselves are also in a state of flux) 2) When is "consensus" achieved, who achieves it and when it is "set" to not change versus when it can legitimately be changed. 3) An old and probably outdated "consensus" on a wikiproject that is being clung to by the oldtimers in defiance of all logic and reason. 4) Vicious personal attacks by the oldtimers on anyone challenging that "consensus" even when the challenge is made by a new person with no prior history in the project, who is acting in sincere good faith. (And, to be fair, some newer folks probably also not behaving ideally) 5) Some longstanding grudges and personality conflicts, which IMHO simply will be all-but-impossible to address. 6) What infoboxes are "for" anyway... which may also be a question beyond the scope of this particular RfC. To that end, I think the focus on #2 is where most of the heat is. Sending this back to the project will just generate another round of the same. This probably needs to go to the larger community and probably focus on whether this can be resolved by looking at items #1 and #2 to see if they can resolve the problem of #3. #4 is unsolvable here, though the individual parties may benefit from examination elsewhere. #5 also unsolvable here, though probably needs to be looked at elsewhere (I note it as a topic in the most recent Signpost, in fact). Montanabw^(talk) 21:36, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
@Giano, I am surprised to see Mabbitt singled out as virtually the "only" person who is a problem; it inevitably takes two sides to tango. The position of the classical music wikiproject "oldtimers" (for lack of a different word) to unite against infoboxes in all shapes and sizes is, in my view, the place where I see "arrogant intransigence". There are at least two currents here, 1) the view of some in the project that no infobox, ever should cross their scared threshold (which is, inherently, a pretty intransigent position) and then 2) the debate over what an infobox might contain, which is a different topic altogether and I don't think is really the core of this particular dispute. Montanabw^(talk) 20:24, 15 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
@Smerus, I am noticing what appears to be a complete inability on your part to see the incredible good faith attempts Gerda repeatedly is making here, I am troubled that you see malice in her every move. The nasty tone of your comments here and elsewhere really demonstrates part of the problem here as well. (Giano, per your comments about Mabbit, note Smerus. Tango definitely involved here!) When someone can't even make a suggestion ON THE TALK PAGE without being slammed with false accusations of evil motive, well, I find that rather scary. Montanabw^(talk) 20:24, 15 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
@Quiddity, Resolute, and others who are mostly uninvolved, a lack of compromise - on ALL sides - is part of the problem here. I think blocks and bans are generally a poor solution; the solution needs to be something that transcends personalities. People are in the classical music projects mostly because they have expertise and experience with the content. People like Mabbit do the technical stuff because they have the expertise and understanding to make these things work. Experts in both things are needed; the project is weaker without them. But folks in and out of the project also need to stop the food fight, reversion wars and feeding frenzy that occurs whenever someone gently and with good faith proposes to move the technical specifications of the project into the modern world. There is a need to have a balance between overall guidelines on infoboxes across projects and respect for WikiProject ability to set a standard for use of things like technical language, relevance of included data (particularly when infoboxes are addded), consistent style, layout, and so on. Montanabw^(talk) 20:24, 15 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Pretty much what Laser Brain said. The root of this issue is not whether or not infoboxes should be universal or whether certain classes of articles can do without them. This issue is about the behaviour of editors during such discussions. To that end, per the ANI thread linked somewhere above, Pigsonthewing (Andy Mabbett), Gerda Arendt and Nikkimaria should probably be parties to this case at the very least. Probably more, but I have not followed the composer infobox dispute closely. In terms of looking at behaviour of these parties specifically, I will not say much at this point due to personal bias. I have a very high level of respect for Nikkimaria, no interaction with Gerda and I have never had a good experience with Andy. I will state, however, that my disputes with Andy have always revolved around infoboxes, and invariably centred around his attempts to force his personal viewpoints into practise, regardless of whether he has consensus support. Resolute 22:17, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Gerda - I am happy you have worked well with both of the others. I do wish to clarify that I did not suggest adding you as a party because I am convinced that you have done anything untoward, but merely because the ANI revolved around the interactions of the three of you. It seemed a good place to start to help Ched and the arbs lend focus to this potential case. Resolute 23:21, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Re: Johnuniq's suggestion: Ordering a six month moratorium on the "infobox wars" seems like little more than sweeping the problem under the carpet. In the case of Andy Mabbett, he was already banned for a year in 2007 for his problems in this area, and here we are six years later with no change in behaviour. Another six months won't encourage him to walk away, and unless all involved editors move on, I don't expect any will. Resolute 21:36, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I noticed Ched's original posting and found this recent discussion at the Wagner talk page. An infobox was posted to the talk page after a suggestion from Brad. Smerus (talk · contribs) was the first to respond, commenting inter alia that "It is just one editor's idea, and not a very good one, imo, as it will encourage some smartass to put the ugly column you have created on the main page." That gave me the impression that maybe infobox discussions aren't models of collegial development of consensus about an editorial decision, an impression reinforced by the rest of the thread. It moves first through a debate on ad hominen comments to a debate on local / global consensus and the adequacy of content. Relevant topics don't get discussed long before the discussion devolves again: "visually ugly duplicate of the lead" (Toccata quarta (talk · contribs)), "redundant, awkward, confusing, uninformative" (Michael Bednarek (talk · contribs)) and "Trojan Horse" (Kleinzach (talk · contribs)). Accusations of canvassing and violations of talk page guidelines are then followed by bickering. This is one brief battle in a wider war, it seems, and it appears to me that there is plenty of poor behaviour for ArbCom to consider from a variety of pages (see this ANI "discussion" for a larger battle). A full case evidence page will, I suspect, allow clarification of which editors might need reminders and / or warnings, etc, and whether some stricter rules for getting collegisl discussions on infoboxes. ArbCom shouldn't (and I'm sure won't) rule on inclusion / exclusion of infoboxes but it can ban editors from discussions or restrict them to single on-topic posts without reflections on other editors on pain of blocks. It can establish RfC(s) if issues like WikiProject authority or local v. global consensus on Infoboxes seem in need of broader discussion from fresh eyes. It can empower admins to more forcefully keep infobox discussions on topic, and to ban editors from discussions where they aren't willing to collaborate but only dispute. It can sanction if excessive ad hominen accusations are common from individuals identified from the evidence page, or other consistent misbehaviour is shown. if needs be, it can remove the persistent editors who add only heat to discussions and try to make room for fresher editors with lesss baggage and fewer entrenched positions. My suggestion to ArbCom is to take the case and try to get to the source of these disputes, and failing that, to at least end this pointless series of fights. EdChem (talk) 00:16, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I've been following, and trying to occasionally provide a mediating/diplomatic/centrist influence on this dispute for many years. I have a large text file full of relevant guidelines, a few examples, and various attempts to explain the complexities, that I will attempt to condense and format appropriately.

Wikipedia's growth is based on a mix of archetypes (of the psychological kind, and of the wiki-philosophy kind), and balancing those different personalities/perspectives/motivations is crucial to our success.

I urge Arbcom to take the case, and to consider as possible remedies/suggestions:

• Recommend some specific changes to the documentation of infobox templates and wikiproject guidelines/styleguides/recommended-practices (Eg. reinforce that not all empty fields need to be added, and not all existing fields need to be filled in if there are disputes.)
• A formal request for acknowledgement from certain editors that some of the subjective and objective views of their opponents are valid (I'll elaborate in Evidence)
• A motion that certain arguments related to removing infoboxes are not valid (Eg. That infoboxes are redundant. Because clearly they are, and are intended to be so.)
• Editing-restrictions for certain editors and topic areas (Eg. Pigsonthewing is currently banned by the community from the FA of the day and any articles nominated or scheduled as FA of the day (Afaik. This might have changed since then.))

I do not believe blocks or bans would be at all helpful, as all editors involved are regularly beneficial contributors in most other regards. –Quiddity (talk) 02:45, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@PumpkinSky: Re: "where else do you see navboxes (not infoboxes) in the upper right?" - There are currently 44,674 transclusions of {{Sidebar}}, about 4–6000(?) of which are not in mainspace. Some are below infoboxes, some are in articles that don't use or need infoboxes. (See further details. I agree it is confusing, and they often overlap with footer navboxes. C'est la vie.) –Quiddity (talk) 02:55, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Simply need this to be fixed and thus the stooping of editors being bitten all over. Not sure what is being asked here - but the main problem is editor behavior - not our policies around infoboxes, Wikiprojects or ownership of articles . Not sure that anyone would think the isolation of editors and subsequent conflicts is a good idea. The editors involved need to see the bigger picture - that is the building and retention of editors over a style preference for a segment of articles. Editors involved need to be welcoming and attentive to editors who write and expand the articles they believe they own. It is at the point that people go out of there way to make sure some project(s) never learn about new articles (meaning not adding project talk page banner to relevant articles on purpose). As illustrated above by all the links provided by Kleinzach not even the project members agree on a position resulting in the loss of may editors that felt bullied by a small portion of project members. I am also sure that many are aware of the two editors that felt they had to change identities to get away from the stigma of being associated with these projects. Having a project adding hidden message on mass to articles telling editors they need permission to edit a page before hand is simply outrages. - -Moxy (talk) 03:08, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Please apply WP:IAR and use a motion to stop the infobox wars for at least six months. The editors involved are expert at being civil while relentlessly pushing their view, and resolving the matter by counting the number of times each editor has used less-than-optimum techniques would not assist the encyclopedia. I have watched this dispute with dismay for at least a year and it is obvious that the participants cannot make any progress without demolishing the other side. Please see my thoughts (addressed to one of the named parties) at my talk (permalink).

Most Arbitration cases involve a dispute which at least in principle could be resolved by assessing behavior modulo policy. However, infoboxes are not mandatory, and this case involves good editors on both sides who have become extremely emotionally involved in the issue—a resolution that favors one side will drive away good editors on the losing side. Content builders who have agreed to develop composer articles without infoboxes should not be dismissed as collateral damage by an imposed "solution" because the health of the community is more important than ensuring articles have a uniform style with respect to the top-right-hand corner.

There are plenty of links on aggregation pages like User:Kleinzach/Debates or on article talk pages like this, but apart from brief flare ups, there are no smoking-gun links to show that any particular editor should be blocked or banned. This case needs arbitration to find a way to allow both sides to continue developing the encyclopedia, and short of Arbcom mandating the presence or absence of infoboxes, the only effective solution would be a motion to impose a truce. Of course that is not a permanent solution, but sometimes perfection is not achievable, and no RfC can lead to a satisfactory outcome after all the bitterness in this debate. Johnuniq (talk) 03:53, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• In view of the below comment from User:Smerus, I should explain that by "The editors involved are expert at being civil" I mean that the editors are expert at following the rules written at WP:CIVIL. I fully agree that one of the named participants in particular has a style which is worse than uncivil, and I wrote "I saw more than a disagreement—it was a knock-down fuck-you argument, all to enforce a non-existent policy that each article must have an infobox" in the exchange at my talk. Here is a diff showing when I added that statement with summary "my strongest statement ever at Wikipedia". Johnuniq (talk) 07:49, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• @Resolute: Removing Andy Mabbett from Wikipedia would greatly improve collaboration in the community, and I would welcome that outcome. However, I suspect that previous bans have taught the editor how to operate under the radar. Johnuniq (talk) 09:16, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I have some involvement because of edits to articles about baroque music. I am ambivalent about infoboxes, e.g. for Bach cantatas. Some of the negative characterizations of Gerda Arendt's editing seem incorrect. My own feeling is that, in music, infoboxes do not contain much valuable information (e.g. when compared with analogous abbreviated summaries in original sources). In specific articles, my limited experience has been that she has not insisted on the use of infoboxes and has responded positively and constructively to feedback. In some cases infoboxes had been added to articles which were not well written. I pointed that out with Brich dem Hungrigen dein Brot, BWV 39. Gerda and friends significantly improved the article (and simplified the infobox which had previously dwarved the article itself). I am not at all sure about the all-purpose Mabbett-Arendt template for Bach compositions. As currently written, it would be of no use for Bach organ compositions or several other works published within Bach's lifetime.

Although disaffected editors claim every imaginable wikipedia article has already been written, that is far from true. There are no articles on Bach's celebrated trio sonatas for organ BWV 525–530 or Handel's Op. 3 concerti grossi or Op. 2 and Op. 5 trio sonatas, some of the few works published within his lifetime. That indicates that concentrating on infoboxes—and unnecessarily creating a divisive editing atmosphere—is somewhat missing the point. In mathematics, infoboxes are often useful in pointing to related topics. I think an infobox for Handel Operas could be quite good, as there are so many; but even better would be to improve the articles, sometimes little better than lists, using the books of Winton Dean (compare Rodelinda (opera) and Rinaldo (opera)).

MastCell correctly points out the petty nature of these MOS-type discussions compared with real problems of misinformation in medical articles. It is nevertheless pointless to have long discussions about infoboxes where there are serious quality problems with the content or when the content itself does not even exist. I have been surprised how tempers can flare on this topic. Possibly the arbitration committee could help. Mathsci (talk) 08:17, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Per Giano's question, "what is the purpose of this proposed case?" the issue here, while triggered by something risibly trivial, may be worth considering. The question that perhaps should be reviewed by arbcom is whether individual projects can assert via centralised discussion and subsequent consensus a "best practices" standard over the articles under their umbrella. (It seems to me highly unlikely that arbcom would weigh in on whether every article must have an infobox...).
As it stands, editors at WP:CM (and daughter projects) have a series of established conventions (e.g. naming), one of which is that articles should not ordinarily have an infobox, and we have (rightly or wrongly) used this, almost always amicably, as a de facto consensus over the articles within the project scope.
Fighting it out piecemeal, as has happened recently, is irksome. Arbcom may wish, then, to intervene to determine the big picture question of what, if any, degree of consensus-driven sovereignty concentrates within a project and how far, if at all, that sovereignty extends. Eusebeus (talk) 11:49, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It makes sense that productive and prolific editors in particular projects be able to interpret guidelines and determine what works or what does not work in regards to articles, infoboxes and other related matters within the purvey of that project. As best as I can figure - this longtime dispute should be dealt with...Modernist (talk) 12:24, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• @Infoboxes in general - I enjoy having a choice as to whether or not to include them - and sometimes I do include them; I do not enjoy having an infobox imposed on any and all articles; dumbing down content; interfering with primary editors work...Modernist (talk) 19:31, 15 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I do not see any single diff in the opening statement by Ched that clearly and unequivocally demonstrates problematic behavior by others. The actual problem is prolonged bickering and inability of sides to resolve content disputes. Actually, this is a perfect example how intractable and damaging content disputes can be, even in the most innocent subject areas that do not involve any politics, ethnic conflicts or COI. Yes, some people do not like each other, but this is only because they can not resolve their disputes. There are no efficient dispute resolution procedures in the project. This is the reason. The only really efficient method of dispute resolution is editorial boards. Unless we create editorial boards, such problems can not be resolved. I do not think opening an arbitration case would be very helpful, although one can always ban one or two people for WP:TE/WP:DE. My very best wishes (talk) 15:55, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

For example, looking at discussion of infobox for Sebastian_Bach, I am not sure how this can be resolved by Arbcom, given the large number of people voting "pro" and "contra". Of course looking from my perspective of a scientific writer, the arguments against infobox are ridiculous. Key point here: the majority of readers will not read the article, but only look at Figures, infobox and maybe Summary. This applies to any typical scientific publication: main idea of an article must be clear after quickly looking through the Summary, Figures and Tables (the "extended Summary" provided by many scientific journals), and the infobox is a key element of this in Wikipedia setting, even as a crude simplification (the Summary is also a simplification). My very best wishes (talk) 17:49, 15 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The views of Eric Corbett are being expressed here [3]. They are relevant and pertinent.  Giano  18:11, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I strongly support this request that the Arbitration Committee look at this issue. This is an issue which has persisted in WikiProject Classical Music for far too long. I see above some calls for another RfC; while RfCs are helpful, I feel an RfC on this yet again would be counterproductive and quite probably a waste of time and energy. There's been at least 2 discussions (I think) I'm aware of, but it seems to me that every time the issue resurfaces it eventually comes to another call for an RfC. For example, see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classical music/Archive 44#Infoboxes (yet again).. This discussion eventually led to calls for an RfC, which as far as I am aware, never occurred. In case it really matters, I used to be opposed to infoboxes on composer articles, but now have no opinion and would rather judge on an article-by-article basis, though this leaning shouldn't matter in my opinion, because as Andy (Pigsonthewing) says above, many users in the discussion have been using ad hominem arguments; judging users' comments should not be based on their personal leaning but the strength of their argument. Which brings me to the next point: the reason another centralized WikiProject discussion or even RfC will likely be ineffective is that many of the involved parties, in my opinion, have been using personal attacks (concealed or otherwise) in their arguments. I would suggest both sides of the argument have engaged in such practices: in many involved parties accuse one another of personal attacks and incivility, but do so in a less-than-civil manner themselves. The net result is that the discussion goes nowhere helpful as everybody basically digs in, and refuses to budge while mixing accusations, attacks, and heated arguments, which also has the effect of driving off those less involved in these issues (take, for example, me). In short, suggestions above for more discussion and RfCs are well-meaning but will likely lead ultimately to another impasse due to the tone that previous discussion have taken on, which tend to be not constructive, and drive off those less involved.

This is where I feel the Arbitration Committee can help. It's been asked below what ArbCom could do to resolve this issue. What I feel Arbcom can bring to this that other modes of dispute resolution cannot, is a set of experienced eyes, a balanced judgement of opinions from all parts of the community, and the ability to impose a binding motion on this issue, preferably as unequivocally as possible (it has been argued in past discussion that some parties are misinterpreting the results of past RfCs for example). Ultimately, I would like to see Arbcom judge the ideas of the entire community on this issue, then offer some sort of guideline which will unequivocally create a guideline for the inclusion of infoboxes on said articles, for example, with provisions like "Infoboxes should only be used on composer articles which are not stubs" (though stub would probably need to be defined), or "All further changes to the presence or lack thereof of an infobox on an article in such and such project must be brought to such-and-such centralized discussion place." (though this solution would likely lead to many interminable arguments over each separate article). Maybe you can think of better ideas than I can. I certainly hope so. This is an issue I feel would benefit greatly from finally being dealt with by the ArbCom. Brambleclawx 04:07, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This is an utterly intractable dispute that the community will never solve on its own. Textbook ArbCom territory. At the root of it is the interpretation of core parts of the collaborative development model, specifically the exact distinction between stewardship and ownership on one side, and of whether a supposed greater good can be imposed upon parts of the project against local resistance on the other. The same people (I'm one of them, as are rather a few commenters above outwith the named parties) have been talking over each other for a long time here and there's little if anything that the two sides can broadly be seen to agree upon in the long history of the debate. I'd hope that the committee come up with some strong measures to end this while at the same time avoiding over-personalising the nature of what's brought us here: slapping individual wrists (or cutting hands off) on either side of the matter is not in itself going to bring it to a close. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 13:32, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The core issue from some of what I read above is, basically, whether the closely held opinions of a comparatively small number of individual editors, many of whom have made contributions of some quality and extent that the project would have seriously suffered without them, should be able to, basically, determine the content of the pages with which they have been involved. So far as I can tell, the relevant page is WP:OWN and the answer is rather clearly "no." Not everyone who has been involved in developing certain topical content agrees on some of what are apparently being regarded as the apparent consensus conclusions, and it is to my eyes irrational to say that silence gives consent in this case. Having said that, their opinions are very relevant, given the depth of knowledge many of them have displayed over the years. If I were to have my own choice in this matter, I would probably argue for ArbCom taking the case, and if possible requesting some major, major discussion by as broad a base of editors, both those who have been involved directly with the related content and those who haven't, to see if we can reach some sort of compromise, which, like all compromises, would probably not be loved by most of the individuals involved, but might at least be something that could be tentatively agreed on and which would allow the community to go forward without continuing to have to deal with this apparently otherwise intractable problem. John Carter (talk) 21:58, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This dispute's had some poor behaviour on both sides. A lot has been made of certain writers, especially those who write about classical music articles, OWNing or stonewalling about infoboxes. There's some truth in that, to be sure. But what bugs me a lot is the fait accompli attitude held by those on the other side of the debate, effectively "infoboxes are a done deal; get out of the way already". There's no policy mandating infoboxes; only allowing them. Even the questions some people here are asking about "Why are classical music articles special?" implies that infoboxes are required by sitewide policy or at least suggested by guidelines. They aren't. Not having an infobox is not asking for any special dispensation; it's just asking for the ordinary latitude granted to writers. Consider the talk at Talk:Johann Sebastian Bach. Real arguments were given against the infobox. I really had no plans to comment until Antandrus's comments pushed me into action. That's exactly how consensus ought to work; people make convincing content-based arguments that bring others into agreement with them. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 00:49, 15 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It is my experience that infoboxes are contentious, not just in music. The basic problem is that infoboxes, by their nature, oversimplify. Sometimes subtleties can be better explained in the text of an article, complete with references, than in an infobox. As a result, edit wars break out over what is the "right" oversimplification. (A recent examples, not in music, had to do with the identification of the successor states of the former Soviet Union, on which there is disagreement even among scholars.) This can apply either to what information to put in an infobox when the various choices don't fit perfectly, or to what infobox template to use. My own opinion, and it may be a minority opinion, is that if there is no consensus as to what infobox template is needed, there should not be an infobox, and if there is no consensus as to what items to include in an infobox (e.g., the successor states of the Soviet Union), that information should be omitted, because it is better to say nothing that to have editors think that the "wrong oversimplification" has been used.

The filing party, Ched, hasn't requested a specific remedy from the ArbCom. One possibility would be to place infobox controversies in general under WP:Discretionary sanctions, at least as an intermediate-term measure, pending any policy clarification via a centralized RFC on infoboxes in general. Another remedy might be to state that, although in general Wikipedia projects have no binding status as policies or guidelines, Wikipedia project guidelines on infoboxes should not be ignored without consensus on the article talk page. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:52, 15 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The proposal has been made that some of the most aggressive infobox-pushers should be banned. I disagree with site-banning any infobox-pusher unless he or she is essentially a single-purpose account for infobox-pushing. Topic-banning infobox-pushers from proposing infoboxes, adding infoboxes to articles, and developing infobox templates would be a less extreme measure. Also, infobox controversies are the sort of general (area rather than subject) recurrent controversy for which WP:Discretionary sanctions would be in order. That would give uninvolved administrators the authority to block disruptive infobox-pushers or infobox-fighters without banning them, and, if necessary, to provide that new (not yet identified) infobox-pushers or infobox-fighters can be topic-banned. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:44, 15 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

There was a recent infobox controversy at The Rite of Spring. It had been a Featured Article without an infobox. Then User:Pigsonthewing showed up and said that the article needed an infobox. There was argument over which infobox (music or ballet) was in order. There was an 8-2 consensus that the article, which had been agreed without an infobox to be one of our best articles, still did not need an infobox. I mention this controversy in partial defense of an editor who is often said to be the worst infobox-pusher. He did abide by consensus. (The controversy at Soviet Union was worse, and Andy was not involved in it. To be sure, one of the editors in that controversy was a sock-puppet.) Robert McClenon (talk) 23:44, 15 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I probably won't have the time to get involved in this RFAR should it go ahead. I doubt if ArbCom can solve the infobox controversy, which is a content issue. As far as I'm aware infoboxes are still not mandatory and they still have to follow Wikipedia's policies regarding factual accuracy and undue weight, to take just two examples. Whether a page has an infobox or not should be decided by these policies plus local talk page consensus. I agree with the thoughtful points Robert McClenon has made above - some pages simply cannot have an infobox which complies with these core policies. Biographical articles in particular are difficult. Look at the Adolf Eichmann and Pol Pot infoboxes, for instance, and tell me whether they adequately summarise their articles or are grotesque exercises in missing the point. The absurdity here comes from sticking to the kind of facts that an infobox can deal with, i.e. the tail is wagging the dog. Good old-fashioned prose is much better at handling such things. If you make infoboxes mandatory, then you'll have plenty more of that kind of nonsense and drive plenty of decent content editors off.

If projects are not allowed to impose blanket bans on boxes, then it should be equally true that "travelling circus" teams of metadata fans should not be allowed to go round imposing infoboxes on every Wikipedia article against local consensus, especially when such metadatans - unless we are to believe they are some of the world's greatest polymaths (and the evidence is against this) - rarely show much understanding of the specific issues involved in every topic area.

What ArbCom can solve, as other editors on this page have suggested, is the problem of Andy Mabbett. I can't think of a single infobox discussion that wouldn't have benefitted from his absence. This is not simply about classical music, it concerns a wide variety of subject matter. Nothing has changed since the Pigsonthewing2 ArbCom. Last August, Andy Mabbett had an ANI community sanction imposed on him, banning him from Featured Article of the Day discussions [4], but even that limited prohibition has failed to have much effect. ArbCom needs to provide a remedy that has teeth. Stop Mabbett turning up to every infobox discussion with his can of gasoline and his box of matches and you'll massively reduce the heat these controversies cause. --Folantin (talk) 08:37, 15 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Numerous editors have posted substantive and convincing arguments against the use of infoboxes in various categories of articles. In summary, many human activities are not reducible to database entries—this is generally true of the activities of artists, whose notability is based on subjective criteria in a way that a planet's or a king's is not—and the attempt to force a square peg into the round hole of an attribute-value pair produces misleading and inaccurate information. The four arguments for infoboxes are that they emit metadata, they help google, they create a uniform look, and they provide a summary redundant to the lede. Opponents counter these four arguments by pointing out that metadata does not require an infobox; that Wikipedia's content editors have volunteered to build a free encyclopedia for the public, not to provide unpaid labor for a profitable corporation; that readers are better served by a credible encyclopedia than by uniform boxes filled with authoritative-looking inaccuracies; and that pointless redundancies are not usually considered a good thing. Their arguments in favor of infoboxes having been exhausted, the infobox team resorts to hectoring infobox opponents with accusations of WP:OWN, and exulting that the infobox juggernaut cannot be stopped by puny content editors. This leads to hard feelings. I'd recommend a policy deprecating infoboxes in all biographical articles unless a compelling reason for adding one exists; in articles where they're actually useful (professional athletes, for instance, whose career statistics and uniform numbers are well suited to infobox presentation) no objections would be likely. And this problem would be solved. Ewulp (talk) 11:01, 15 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

As Coucelles notes, this is a "kitchen sink" dispute. While nominally about the inclusion or exclusion of an infobox, it touches on many issues, which I will (irony noted) summarize. I'm troubled by the observation that many of these are outside the direct remit of ArbCom, but my hope is that the extremely caustic behavior issues will prompt ArbCom to insist on some community review of non-behavior issues, with some interim behavior restrictions
Content

• Should the default assumption be that an infobox is included or excluded?
• How long should an info box be?
• Should info boxes include subjective fields (e.g "influenced and influences")
• Should collapsible elements be included in an info box?
• Can meta-data be delivered without an infobox?

Philosophical

• To what extent are differences of opinion honestly different readings of inconsistent or unclear policies which could be remedied by clarification of guidelines?
• Is an imperfect field in an infobox a net improvement or net detriment to the project (deliberately using "project" not "article") (The obvious answer being "it depends" but the discussion might be illuminating)
• Are there identifiable classes of subjects for which infoboxes are inherently a bad idea?
• Does an info box serve the same purpose as the lead paragraph (cf.Wikipedia:Infobox "summary of the key facts", WP:LEAD "summary of its most important aspects")?
• How do we define "key", i.e. what is the process for determining the set of items belonging in an info box?
• Does our audience expect infoboxes, and if so, is this an argument for inclusion in an otherwise close call?
• Does an infobox "dumb down" an article? Is this bad?
• To what extent is our mission to serve our readers versus re-users?
• To what extent does an "original author" deserve a privileged position regarding content decisions?

Process

• Can local consensus override project-wide consensus?
• Does the answer to the question above change if the project-wide consensus doesn't give clear direction?
• Does inclusion of an infobox inhibit women editors and thus conflict with Wikimedia goals?
• How to determine consensus if the discussion on the talk page is non-existent or extremely limited

Behavior

• Highly respected, prolific editors have abandoned the project over this battle. How do we stop the behavior leading to the exodus?
• How do we draw the line between dissent and disruption?
• Would 1RR (applied to individuals or classes of articles) be sufficient to reduce the EW to an acceptable level?
• Would interaction bans be helpful?--SPhilbrick(Talk) 14:53, 15 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Judging from what I've seen elsewhere and what's invoked above, this a simple behaviour problem. There may be more than one problem editor, but there is definitely one. A carefully-drafted, comprehensive restriction on that editor will improve things enormously. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 16:59, 15 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Back in April of this year, I have diligently dug up evidence on Ched's RfC proposal above and over the past couple of years participated in quite a few debates on infoboxes as a member of the Classical Music and Composers WikiProjects, but I am mostly uninvolved. I think this is definitely a behavioral problem, ranging from editing restrictions, debates and proposals to well-respected editors like Tim riley (talk · contribs) being driven off the project way back in August 2012. Given the evidence about this infobox issue, I can clearly state that this is a serious problem that the Arbitration Committee needs to have a look at since I believe that all dispute venues have been tried and to make sure that the issue does not become a liability to the community. I also hope this case can resolve the issue that has been going on for years. Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 18:02, 15 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm largely uninvolved. The dispute has become increasingly poisonous and disruptive. This isn't conducive to other editors and, without intervention, risks losing good, experienced people, including some of the named individuals in the case. Hchc2009 (talk) 18:25, 15 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I have found myself getting caught up in these disputes in the past, perhaps especially in the Solti incident when an infobox was imposed on the very day the article appeared on the front page (in the absence of the contributor mainly responsible for taking the page to FA). FWIW, I find myself agreeing with Iridescent above when he points out that "the data would be just as machine-readable if it were invisible to readers." The longstanding conflict between metadata interests and readers' interests (viz. genuinely encyclopedic presentation of content) now seems to be coming to a head and needs to be resolved in the interests of everyone. Although the community hasn't been successful in solving the conundrum, I am not convinced that a disciplinary process here is the right approach to finding a solution. Certainly I could wish that individuals on certain projects were more friendly and considerate, but that is scarcely the key underlying issue here IMO. Metadata considerations are clearly of considerable relevance to Wikipedia as a whole and I suspect a technical solution for search-engine learning is needed that is separate from infoboxes. I think it's worth bearing in mind that relevant infobox concerns are not confined [5] to WP:CLASSICAL/WP:COMPOSERS. —MistyMorn (talk) 18:48, 16 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

---

Initiated by uninvolved Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) at 03:46, 12 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Case or decision affected

Infoboxes arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Infoboxes#Gerda Arendt restricted

List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:

• Gerda Arendt (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) Notified
• Neutralhomer (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) Notified

In expanding Quattro pezzi sacri from a stub, Gerda added an infobox.[6] Neutralhomer offered to add infoboxes to articles for Greda.[7] Is Gerda permitted to add infoboxes to articles she significantly expands? In cases where she is not permitted to add infoboxes is it OK for Neutralhomer to add them on her behalf? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 03:46, 12 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Per Jclemens below, I see that in Wikipedia:Banning policy, the section Edits by and on behalf of banned editors expressly allows others to edit on behalf of banned users. On the policy talk page I proposed changing from the present wording,

Wikipedians in turn are not permitted to post or edit material at the direction of a banned editor (sometimes called proxy editing or proxying) unless they are able to show that the changes are either verifiable or productive and they have independent reasons for making such edits.

to

Wikipedians in turn are not permitted to post or edit material at the direction of a banned editor (sometimes called proxy editing or proxying) without first establishing consensus at WP:AN or WP:ANI that doing so would be productive.

Only 2 editors commented, User:Kww and User:NE Ent. Both opposed my suggested change, Kww proposed an alternative change. --08:53, 22 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

As I said on the ANI thread, if Gerda needs an infobox placed on any of the numerous pages she edits, I volunteer myself to add it. There are instances (like DYKs and article updates) where the addition of an infobox is necessary and I feel uncontroversial. I also feel that an infobox is, in certain cases, a necessary addition to an article. My personal opinion is that a restriction put on one our more established and well-respected editors is silly and prevents her from editing and updating articles.

So, I ask that I be allowed to add infoboxes for Gerda. This way, articles are updated and expanded, Gerda wouldn't get in trouble and any issues/problems would fall onto me. I don't think this is an unfair request as it would help only the community and help create and expand articles, which is why we are all here (though I think some of us forget that sometimes).

I completely expect that this request will be shot down, but I live by the "it couldn't hurt to ask" philosophy. If ArbCom rules against this request, I will not fight it and will, albeit reluctantly, go with it. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 05:05, 12 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Per User:Mark Arsten's question below: I also believe that turning a redirect into an article is an article creation. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 02:40, 13 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• I support Drmies "redirect-become-articles and articles-become-DYKs" ideas. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 21:15, 15 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• I am under a restriction to only add infoboxes to new articles that I create. Being a DYK person, I believe expanding a stub more than 5* qualifies as new article creation, which is not equal to page creation. As this view was questioned, I asked others involved, Newyorkbrad and Mackensen. I ask you.

• I have not requested anybody to add an infobox on my behalf, nor will I. Neutralhomer and others who volunteered to do so (some per e-mail) are of course free to do it anyway, in the encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Thank you, Neutralhomer, for describing well above, what you and I are here for!

• If the restriction was indeed as narrow as some interpret it, I would question that it is valid at all. It would cement ownership of articles, no? You "create" a one-line stub and have it "protected" from an infobox for ever? - If that is the thinking, I should create a few one-line stubs with an infobox.

• I would have loved to celebrate Verdi's birthday by adding an infobox to his article and all his operas, because I think that would have been a good service to our readers. Under the restriction, I didn't even think of an identitybox, the compromise found for L'Arianna. Instead, I at least brought the venerable maestro pictured on the Main page and am quite proud of it. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:25, 12 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Learning again. I need to understand more, language or intentions or both. The latest Signpost review quoted Worm That Turned: "The decision to include an infobox in an article is a content decision". Guided by that statement, I read my restriction as: I can make this content decision for an infobox where I created the content. It made sense.

Now I am told that this is not true. Even if I created 99% of the content of an article, I didn't "create" the article. Then who did that? Who created the present state of BWV 49? Who can make that content decision for an infobox? Does the decision rest on the arbitrary fact that someone else thought first of creating a stub (then no) or not (then yes)? That does not make sense. - If it is important to leave the decision for or against an infobox with the content creator (as I read much of the discussion during the case), please find a way to make that real, not only for those who are against an infobox. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:50, 13 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Carcharoth: You mention an article in question, but I don't know which one you mean. As explained above, I did not intend to breach the restriction. What I added to these articles made me their principal author and the addition of an infobox uncontentious. I can in the future avoid it for expanded articles, even if it doesn't make sense. - Please don't misunderstand what I said about Verdi. "I would have loved" doesn't mean I would have done it, even unrestricted. Remember, I left project opera. I still would have loved it ;) Te Deum laudamus, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:07, 13 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Final statement: I will obey the restrictions in the narrow sense of "article they create" pointed out here from now on even if they don't make sense and go against my quality standards. I love opera. We celebrate Verdi. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:50, 14 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

ps: "see also", written to Smerus 22 August 2013 --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:57, 14 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I would have thought the concept of "creating an article" is pretty clear-cut. If an article already exists, then you can't create it. Any messing around with the interpretation of this restriction is likely to cause problems. This seems like a breaching experiment to me. --Folantin (talk) 11:57, 12 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Also, it goes without saying that an editor acting as proxy for another to allow them to evade restrictions is totally unacceptable. --Folantin (talk) 13:34, 12 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Update (FWIW) It's very easy to find out which articles you have created. You just go to your "Contributions" page, look at the bottom, click "Articles created" and you will get a list. Those are the pages encompassed under the heading "[they may ]include infoboxes in new articles which they create."

Here is a list of articles created by Gerda Arendt [8]. --Folantin (talk) 14:57, 13 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I won't opine as to whether it would be a good or bad thing to relax Gerda's restriction with respect to significant expansion of an article, but article expansion is unquestionably not article creation. In either case, Neutralhomer should not be offering to act as a proxy to circumvent anyone's restriction. Especially in an area where doing so could reignite this little war. Resolute 17:42, 12 October 2013 (UTC) @Smeat - Montanabw's assertion is not correct. DYK allows two types of content: New (provided it meets minimum thresholds) and expanded (provided it meets an entirely different set of thresholds). But they are not the same thing, and she's engaging in false equivalency. Resolute 03:18, 13 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Another editor has left this comment on Gerda's talk page [9] "The DYK standard is considered the equivalent to new article creation. This is a distinction without a difference." May I request clarification if this is correct? In other words, is bringing an article to "DYK standard" the "equivalent to new article creation" in terms of the restrictions?. Thanks Smeat75 (talk) 21:24, 12 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The original proposal by ArbCom did not include allowing Gerda to add infoboxes to anything, then Roger Davies added the exemption that she could "include infoboxes in new articles which they [sic] create". Roger mentioned this phrase was added after Gerda posted on his talk page. On his talk page he wrote to Gerda "On your other point, I've copyedited the remedy to add "and include infoboxes in new articles which they create" as infoboxes in brand new articles is rarely controversial." diff. I think the phrases "new articles which they create" and "brand new articles" make his intention clear - expansion is not creation, nor is an expanded article "brand new". Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 22:40, 12 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I would also consider turning a redirect into an article to be article creation. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 00:59, 13 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

If a redirect exists and Gerda turns it into an article, is she free to add an infobox to that? Is that a creation or an expansion? I would generally consider the person who turns a redirect into an article to be the article's creator, although the software doesn't recognize them as such. While this may seem like a silly question, it might be good to have some clarification for this, since these grey areas inevitably come up in disputed areas. Mark Arsten (talk) 23:50, 12 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I have made you a template:

The concept "on their behalf even if not requested" sounds good in pixels, but it's one of those things that in the long term tends to prolong, rather than bring to an end, a dispute. The NE Ent-created Charlie Morgan has no infobox yet Carly Foulkes does. Who knows if I like infoboxes or not? If I edit an article Gerda has touched, am I doing it on my own volition or 'cause I like Gerda? That type of statement -- "even if not requested" -- thrusts AE admins into the untenable position of having to be mind readers to effectivity perform the task they've volunteered for.

Of course turning a redirect into an article should count as creation--even if there was content which was turned into a redirect and subsequently turned into a real article: substance matters, and I draw that substantive from below. AGK: "In my view, 'create' refers to the process of writing the first substantive revision of an article, not the technical process of setting up a page redirect". I couldn't agree more. Note that I carefully left off the second part of their sentence, since in my opinion this "substantive" article work ("'creation'"--note the quotes within quotes) applies to DYK as well, an area where Gerda is one of our most prolific editors. In a nutshell, let her add infoboxes if she likes to redirect-become-articles and articles-become-DYKs. Drmies (talk) 15:56, 15 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• And I will add that I don't think that Homer or anyone else should in any way do this for her, or on her behalf. That's editing by proxy. The restrictions are there, for better or for worse; clarifying and/or amending them is one thing, but this would be quite another. Drmies (talk) 15:59, 15 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• @Smeat75: "The DYK standard is considered the equivalent to new article creation"--I don't agree with that statement, since it implies a kind of policy or guideline. I agree with the spirit of the thought, as I said above, but not with the "is considered" part. (I say this is a kind of DYK junkie myself, and with due deference to Montanabw.) Drmies (talk) 16:01, 15 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I support Drmies idea of " In a nutshell, let her add infoboxes if she likes to redirect-become-articles and articles-become-DYKs. " We don't need to get involved with a blanket policy here, but I think it makes perfect sense that long-abandoned articles should be treated as new for the purpose of Gerda being allowed to add an infobox. I'd say if she significantly expands an article in a way that meets the DYK criteria (and if there is a dispute, submit it to DYK, obviously, which Gerda usually does anyway), then she should be allowed to add an infobox. Ditto making a redirect into a new article. I would also note that if she begins an expansion and someone else (who might be stalking her edits, gee no one here does that, right?) suddenly jumps in the minute she appears, adds more material before she's done, then claims they did the expansion so she can't add the infobox without penalty, that person should be slapped for baiting. Montanabw^(talk) 17:09, 15 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The issue of what is "proxy editing" is now an even bigger problem. I really am concerned about ideas such as Silk Tork's "For example, tracking Gerda's edits for the purpose of adding infoboxes to articles she edits would be inappropriate." So, let's say that (for the sake of argument) User:Nikkimaria, who is publicly known by everyone here to track Gerda's edits, adds an infobox because she noticed Gerda is working on an article and Nikki decided that it needed an inbobox. Do we sanction Nikki? (This, by the way, has happened, though Gerda's 5x expansion edits occurred long before the current drama.) Or what if a public post on Gerda's talk page like, "gee this article about Foo has no infobox," and someone adds the infobox? Are they going to be slapped? Are they proxy editing just because Gerda mentioned it? This is becoming a bit ridiculous, I think NE Ent is onto something here.— Shall we have a rule that if Gerda touches an article, no matter how obscure and forgotten, then it can NEVER have an infobox unless Folantin, Smerus, and Kleinzach all agree first? And if one of them adds it, are they proxy editing? I can also see someone (can't think who, but in theory) could go through the catalogue of the works of major classical composers and create dozens of one-line stubs, just to be mean to Gerda so she can't add an infobox. That would be total crap. Montanabw^(talk) 17:09, 15 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Of course, an appropriate and logical solution to all of this relies on an outbreak of common sense, so I'm not holding my breath. Montanabw^(talk) 17:09, 15 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The statement "When any user is restricted or banned, then they may not get others to edit for them, nor may others act on their behalf even if not requested." is not consistent with established policy, as codified in WP:PROXYING which currently reads "Wikipedians in turn are not permitted to post or edit material at the direction of a banned editor (sometimes called proxy editing or proxying) unless they are able to show that the changes are either verifiable or productive and they have independent reasons for making such edits." I'll note that the committee has, in the past, specifically authorized certain sitebanned users to contribute content work via proxy editing using this clause. Cheers, Jclemens (talk) 07:33, 21 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Where a literal sanction has absurd consequences, it is reasonable to question the sanction.

The concept that "if an editor makes an edit even where not in any way solicited by a banned editor but the banned editor might approve of the edit, that such an edit is improper" is quite sufficiently absurd. Where an editor has substantially altered an article from a prior state into an encyclopedic state, that qualifies, IMHO, as being as much an act of creation as the fact that a composer may take a traditional melody and create a piece of music, or that an editor may take a bare mention of a topic and create an actual article on it. [10] was the "article at issue" before the added material. It consisted of six lines total. 87 words in toto. It now has three dozen sentences, and over 1100 words. To treat this as other than substantially a creation of an article makes a mockery of the English language, and those who try parsing exact "letter of the law" are not doing Wikipedia any favour in either the short run nor the long run. Make it a strongly worded sanction -- and say "the editor must have increased the article content by at least a factor of ten" and this would still not be a violation. Cheers. Collect (talk) 23:04, 21 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'd say that for all practical purposes, Gerda created the current article. Courcelles' metrics below look like a reasonable shot at guidelines for handling this question. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 00:35, 24 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

• Recuse from this and all future requests involving this case. --Rschen7754 04:17, 12 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Gerda can add infoboxes to articles she creates, but not to articles she expands. When any user is restricted or banned, then they may not get others to edit for them, nor may others act on their behalf even if not requested. For example, tracking Gerda's edits for the purpose of adding infoboxes to articles she edits would be inappropriate. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 18:19, 12 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I notice some concerns regarding acting on behalf of a restricted user. If an unrestricted editor independently decides that an article is better off with an infobox, even if that article were created by a restricted user, I can't see anyone sanctioning them. However, if that editor is observed to have added infoboxes to a series of articles by a restricted user, then it would be appropriate to discuss the matter with that editor and advise them that their editing pattern could be read as proxying. The aim of sanction enforcement is to prevent disruption, not to prevent normal editing. Someone setting out to deliberately proxy edit for a restricted user is likely to create disruption. I can't see a reason for concern over normal editing procedures. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 12:16, 25 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• I echo SilkTork's comments. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 23:16, 12 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• If the argument is going to be made (as it has been above) that those mostly responsible for the content of an article also take the decisions about infoboxes, then that works both ways. If a stub has an infobox and is expanded by someone else, then arguably that person who is responsible for most of the content can take a decision to remove the infobox. And those who have never edited an article shouldn't turn up and add an infobox without discussion first. But that is not how things work around here. The way things really work is that in the first instance, anyone can add or remove infoboxes, but if an infobox is disputed, then (as in all content disputes) it needs to be discussed on the talk page of the article. The restrictions on adding or removing infoboxes are not because the articles should or shouldn't have infoboxes, but because the editors given those restrictions have demonstrated poor judgement over the amount of discussion needed (both too little and too much) and how to carry out those discussions.

  As for redirects, it depends on the editing history. If it was created as a redirect and was never an article, then turning it into an article would be creating an article. If it was an an article at some point before it was redirected, then you may need to consider things some more. This is why the 'articles created' link isn't always accurate. If someone turns a redirect you created into an article, you are credited as the creator when you are not. An example of this sort of thing from my own editing history is Lady Franklin Bay Expedition. See also Category:Redirects with possibilities. Carcharoth (talk) 18:00, 13 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  To clarify, by adding the infobox to the article in question, Gerda did, IMO, breach her sanction. I wouldn't be adverse to at some future point relaxing the restriction to allow Gerda to add infoboxes to articles she has expanded for DYK, but the comment about adding infoboxes to 'celebrate Verdi's birthday' doesn't convince me that this point has been reached yet. Carcharoth (talk) 20:30, 13 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  Having thought about this, and after some discussion among arbitrators, I am coming to the conclusion that this sanction is unworkable. It may be best to modify it to a straight out ban on this editor adding infoboxes to any articles (regardless of whether they created the article or not), coupled with a reminder that this whole matter is not about any single editor. It should be about encouraging thoughtful discussion of infoboxes and what their role is and how editors should discuss them where their use is disputed. I am sure Gerda would be quite willing to not add infoboxes to any articles for the next six months if that meant that people's attention would be diverted from her editing and towards discussion of the larger picture. Carcharoth (talk) 00:10, 22 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Fully agreed with SilkTork. I would deny this request to proxy for Gerda. AGK [•] 19:54, 13 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Mark, it's actually a good question. In my view, 'create' refers to the process of writing the first substantive revision of an article, not the technical process of setting up a page redirect. For example, if Gerda wrote a few paragraphs, and used them to create an article (simultaneously overriding an existing redirect to a larger article), Gerda would for our purposes have 'created' the article even if the page already existed as a redirect. AGK [•] 20:07, 13 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• I'd concur with SilkTork and AGK. Gerda did breach her restriction here. Gerda, my comment which was quoted in the signpost was my opinion on the general case, with a view to improving infobox discussions in the future. In your specific case, you have been given a restriction which takes precedent. If you do not create the article (including creation from a redirect per AGK), then you may not add an infobox. Worm^TT(talk) 07:42, 14 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Turning a redirect into an article is, at least to me, obviously an article that Gerda has created and can add an infobox if she likes. This is one of the rare, and I mean RARE cases I could get behind a numerical definition for an arbitration restriction. A rule like "Gerda may add an infobox to any article that never has had more than 30 words of readable prose, after she has expanded to at least 200 words of readable prose" might be workable, and the hard numbers would keep drama down on all sides. Note that the "redirect to article" scenario would be covered clearly under that wording. Courcelles 21:31, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• A distinction could, I suppose, be made between creating pages and creating articles, though I'm unclear why the need to turn redirects into articles is so pressing. (In any event, this could probably be archived now as it's not really going anywhere.)  Roger Davies ^talk13:10, 28 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

---

Initiated by RexxS (talk) at 22:43, 28 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Case or decision affected

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Infoboxes#Editors reminded

List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:

• RexxS (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (initiator)
• Dr. Blofeld (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• notification

I seek clarification of the remedy Editors reminded

• 5) All editors are reminded to maintain decorum and civility when engaged in discussions about infoboxes, and to avoid turning discussions about a single article's infobox into a discussion about infoboxes in general.

Passed 10 to 0 at 00:18, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Is this remedy meant to have effect? Today, following > discussion on the talk page, I restored an infobox to Deepika Padukone with an edit summary explaining my edit:

• infobox provides quick overview of key facts in a predictable position, microformats and structured data - see talk

With no further discussion, Dr. Blofeld reverted my edit with edit summary:

• bullshit Undid revision 588111954 by RexxS (talk))

And followed that up with utterly inapropriate comments at the talk page.:

• "Neither of the article authors want an infobox. Take your infobox Nazism somewhere else"

Apart from the blatant OWNERSHIP, this behaviour directly contravenes the remedy, requiring editors to "maintain decorum and civility when engaged in discussions about infoboxes". Is the remedy meant to be taken seriously? If so, then why should I have to be subjected to these sort of remarks? It remains impossible to discuss infoboxes in a civilised manner with these people - just as I explained during the case.

I also seek guidance: If there is no means to enforce the ArbCom remedy, then the case has merely emboldened those who dislike infoboxes and given them licence to attack good-faith editors with impunity, rendering discussion futile once more. --RexxS (talk) 22:43, 28 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Salvio Giuliano: What exactly was hypothetical about the violation of the remedy? If these sort of remedies have no function, then I must ask what is the point of having them?

To the general point, I am not seeking to see Dr. Blofeld sanctioned; I don't believe that sanctioning adults who are long-term editors produces much more than resentment. What I am seeking is merely to find myself in a position where I can edit in a civil and collegiate atmosphere, where differences can be discussed and consensus sought. ArbCom spent a lot of time on this case and I spent a lot of time explaining this very problem six months ago. The least I should be able to expect is that all that effort was not for naught, but I can't say I'm exactly encouraged by Dr. Blofeld's response. --RexxS (talk) 17:48, 29 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Carcharoth: At 19:14 UTC when you made your comment, the talk page looked like > this. Anyone can read that and see how far off the mark you are. Once sensible discussion had begun, it focussed on the reasons why that specific article should or should not have an infobox. Subsequently, a broader discussion with several other contributors has continued in a positive atmosphere. Because I complain about egregiously poor behaviour, you think that I need to be sanctioned as well? The problem here is solely that Blofeld attempted to derail discussion from the start. I find it very disturbing that you mischaracterise my good-faith contributions so badly and once again are falling back on stifling contributions as your sole means of resolving problems. You can do better. Do you want to reconsider your view? --RexxS (talk) 20:21, 29 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Dr. Blofeld: I'm sorry, I appreciate the work you've done, but it's not "your FA" and you're not even in the top 5 contributors. Who are these "us editors agreeing on no infobox"? and where was the agreement made? what happened to consensus? Who are these "people like Rexx"? I'm an editor in good standing who has written featured content, as well as contributed to many technical aspects of editing. Does that somehow disqualify me from editing articles that you own? If you don't understand that you can't have a veto over all the content, then you need to learn why we have WP:OWN as a policy. My edit was a good-faith attempt to improve the article and the summary was accurate (quoted above). Your mischaracterisation of it as false is beneath contempt. The infobox contains much that isn't in the lead and you might learn what if you deigned to engage in discussion instead of painfully inaccurate hyperbole: "This cult to force an infobox on every article" indeed! Check my contributions: the number of infoboxes I've added can be counted on the fingers of one hand. --RexxS (talk) 20:50, 29 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Dr. Blofeld: You're wrong again. I really wish that I didn't have to keep correcting the spin you put on my actions, but I came to the article from Wikipedia:Today's featured article/January 2014, read the talk page, saw two other editors asking about the missing infobox and checked the archive. I found no discussion on the talk page about removing the infobox, but eventually I found the FAC where one reviewer was in favour of the infobox and one was against. You have imposed your preference on the article without seeking consensus. Not only that but you fobbed off one editor on the talk page by claiming that the infobox contained nothing that was not in the lead, which we know is not true. I commented on the talk page that you were wrong and then added the infobox to demonstrate what an infobox could bring to the article. My edit summary on the article refers to my previous post at the talk page, and you can see from the diff values (588111923 and 588111954) that my talk page contribution preceded the addition of the infobox. Is that clear now? Strike your mistake and we can move on - there's no need to apologise. --RexxS (talk) 20:28, 30 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Carcharoth: I'm sorry but you have formed far too simplistic a view of "metadata". There are many different forms of metadata, but our infoboxes also provide microformats for some (but not all) fields. Different infoboxes provide different microformats and even the same infobox may have different fields and hence different microformats on different articles. You simply cannot consider the value of an infobox to a given article with a generic argument, for example I wouldn't say that an infobox improved an article if it only emitted the name of the subject. Nevertheless, it is often the case that I have to explain the general principle before I can explain the specifics, because there is so much misinformation and lack of understanding out there. Without wishing to be rude, you demonstrate exactly the problem I may face when trying to help other editors evaluate the pros and cons of an infobox on a given article. In extremis, it is possible that I may have to actually create an infobox to demonstrate the value, as I did on Deepika Padukone. It is a pity that it was reverted in a knee-jerk reaction only an hour later before being of any use in the discussion. There is, and was, no consensus on that article to remove the infobox, and good-faith editors with some knowledge of the issues need to be free to edit without being subjected to unacceptable behaviour. --RexxS (talk) 20:28, 30 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Look folks, this request of mine has now reached the point where it's generating more heat than light. These sort of procedings bring out the worst in me and I apologise to Blofeld and Carcharoth for being far too blunt in my replies to them.

I have now seen many more opinions on the general issue of being able to discuss infoboxes in a calm and collegial atmosphere and I am encouraged at last.

As for specifics:

• The Talk:Deepika Padukone page now has several other editors contributing and the discussion is progressing peacefully;
• Dr. Blofeld has kindly struck the remark I most objected to;
• Blofeld and I are productively discussing our differences by email.

Could we wrap this up now and spare a few more innocent electrons? Please? --RexxS (talk) 21:18, 30 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

New ArbCom should look at this. Dr Blofeld's statement is utterly unacceptable. I don't care who he's friends with, there's no excuse for that. I think this should be dealt with summarily and harshly.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:58, 28 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Sandstein: I think the question is, whether the remedy cited by Rexss can be used to justify an AE sanction, and that I think ArbCom needs to clarify. That seems to be important here as glancing at Dr Blofeld's block log, I see he's yet to serve out a block. --Wehwalt (talk) 00:04, 29 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Dr. You have a point, as little is served by blocking long term contributors, certainly not ones as active as you. I don't know what's to be done, but you can't spout off that way. Also, I don't have any rules on infoboxes, and have stubbornly resisted efforts by all and sundry to draw me into the fray. I'm fine with infoboxes, but they aren't appropriate for all articles. Perhaps you could strike the offensive language?--Wehwalt (talk) 10:27, 30 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Given Dr. Blofeld's statement, I am inclined to consider this a regrettable one-off incident.--Wehwalt (talk) 12:16, 30 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Dr: that's fine. I don't care to get in to the rights and wrongs of infoboxes and the proper etiquette, my concern is big-picture, that this has caused huge problems in the FA area over the past two years. ArbCom's attempt at settling the matter did not, very clearly.--Wehwalt (talk) 13:51, 30 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Dr. One more question. He added an infobox and did not discuss it to your satisfaction, I get that. But why did you assume that he was an "infobox enforcing regular", I don't quite understand that?--Wehwalt (talk) 22:41, 30 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Dr. That's fine, if you've worked it out, I can ask no more.--Wehwalt (talk) 11:09, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't followed the original case or the ongoing discussions (if any) about this topic, but those who have may want to submit evidence about whether this is an isolated case, or whether incidents of this sort are a recurring occurrence among multiple editors. If the latter is the case, then the Committee may want to consider authorizing discretionary sanctions for this topic, as they already have for pages relating to the manual of style and the article titles policy (in WP:ARBATC).

As to the edits reported here, I agree with Wehwalt that they are unacceptable and should result in a rapid sanction. I'd issue a block myself under normal admin authority, but I am not sure whether I am preempted from doing so by the fact that the Committee has now been seized of this request for clarification.  Sandstein  23:14, 28 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

If you view the history of the Peter Sellers (here) and John Le Mesurier talk pages you'll see why infobox pushers highly frustrate me and this recent action on another of my FAs is really making me fed up with this website. Perhaps my reaction was strong if you look at it without understanding my previous battles with fighting infobox pushers but I'm fed up of writing FA articles and us editors agreeing on no infobox and then people like Rexx coming along and providing false edit summaries as if the infobox contains masses of useful data. At 18:21 on 28 December 2013 I stated "We decided that it had nothing of value and looked better without it. Infoboxes are not compulsory you know." on the talk page. Just 2 hours 12 m later, innocent Rexx comes along and imposes an infobox ignoring clear consensus and obviously being aware of the discussion, violating what you decided here. My edit summary reverting him, "bullshit", I take as meaning "nonsense" in response to his claim that the infobox was full of useful data for mobile readers when in reality its virtually empty. My response on the talk page did not contain personal attacks, rather an expression of contempt at the Nazi-like cult which exists on the website trying to force infoboxes on every article and told him to do something more useful. I very rarely add or revert infoboxes and care little for the nonsense associated with them so I really don't see the point in pursuing this further. I apologise if Rexx was upset with what I said, but I feel I was more than justified given the circumstances and my history with dealing with infobox pushers.

response to RexxS 20:50, 29 December 2013 comment " What I am seeking is merely to find myself in a position where I can edit in a civil and collegiate atmosphere, where differences can be discussed and consensus sought." Magic, that was quick, you've got it, see the Padakone talk page. If you'd refrained from ignoring the talk page discussion from the outset and joined in you'd have got the civil, collegiate atmosphere you desire, in fact it would have been amicable. You're really oblivious to what is going on on here? Please check the history of the Peter Sellers talk page, you view the recent archive. From your perspective, if as you say is true and you're not a regular infobox forcer my reaction was rude and unnecessary, if you view it from my perspective you'd more than understand what I've had to put up with for basically half a year and how your attempt to add an infobox against consensus between Krimuk and myself and the FA reviewers is yet another bloody chapter in this ongoing saga. It was your timing of adding the infobox. On the talk page Krimuk and I explicitly said we agreed on no infobox yet you ignored what was said and add it. If you expect me to believe that you, somebody who rarely adds infoboxes just happened to add it by coincidence I don't believe you. Had you joined in the conversation I would have maintained "decorum and civility" in discussing infoboxes.The fact that you thought this was worth bringing to arb is another example of the gross time wasting which goes on on this website.If my reaction was completely unnecessary, so was your bringing this here and wasting time. Mark my words, nothing positive is going to come from this arb case, if anything it will result in both of us having action sanctioned against us which are completely pointless given that neither of us regularly add or remove infoboxes and by the looks of it you're going to get me blocked... ♦ Dr. Blofeld 20:57, 29 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Response to Wehwalt: Harshly? And the point of that would be? It would achieve what exactly? If you're to block/ban me for dismissing an edit summary which implies that something is of great benefit which is in violation of your "civilty" rules as "bullshit" as if that's a gross personal attack or something, then Rexx is equally guilty of violating your rules on infobox enforcement and blatantly ignoring the consensus on the talk page. It would be double standards wouldn't it? Blocking me or banning me from infoboxes will not stop uncivil discussions taking place over infoboxes. I've been civil in the actual discussions about infoboxes aside from my initial explanation of annoyance over the matter and have tried to make some constructive suggestions on how to include an infobox which has more value. The real issue lies much deeper and it's one I believe/hope will be resolved at some point with infoboxes being controlled by wiki data.♦ Dr. Blofeld 10:24, 30 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Response to Wehwalt, you mean my comparison of infobox enforcement to Nazism? Yes I'll strike that, I personally wouldn't find it offensive but I can see how some might. My point was that there seems to be some sort of obsession with adding infoboxes and editors seem intent on brutally enforcing them upon every article even when editors agree on not wanting them. I assumed that Rexx was one of the infobox enforcing regulars. It seems he isn't, but that doesn't change the fact that he ignored what we stated was agreed on the talk page and turned up and tried to enforce an infobox. If he wanted a collegiate atmosphere and to be treated amicably he should have simply joined in the discussion first and should have avoided what he surely would have known would be a controversial change... ♦ Dr. Blofeld 13:47, 30 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@David Fuchs. Ownership? Editors who naturally put in hours/day/weeks of hard toil on articles, take them to GA and then FA and bother to promote them are naturally going to feel that they have had more input that most others editors and feel protective of them. That doesn't mean that we'll revert every edit made to it. Don't confuse claims of authorship with ownership.♦ Dr. Blofeld 14:16, 30 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Response to Wehwalt:My perception of the situation was that like with the Sellers article the infobox "enforcers" have sort of like a cell operation on here and are often aware of where disputes are taking place. You'll get people turning up trying to force infoboxes during disputes and them being reverted. I assumed that Rexx had read my "infoboxes are not compulsory and we agreed that no infobox looks better given the lack of info" and purposefully come along and added an infobox to assert that infoboxes are a necessity and override the preferences of the article editors. I think it was the fact he came along just 2 hours after I said that and added one I assumed him to be some infobox Nazi. I found it disrespectful that my assertion on the talk page of the situation was directly overridden in such a short space of time and in my revert or comment being ultra nice and respectful to him given the circumstances wasn't exactly my first thought. As Rexx says though we've spoken by email and we both agree that it isn't constructive to continue this arb case and won't get to the root of the problem and that discussion in a civil fashion should continue elsewhere.

My biggest concern overall is that this infobox issue has become a major site problem with the disputes and time wasting which can cause unnecessary inflammation and actions. I agree with what the arb decided on infobox issues but in practice this often doesn't work. The majority seem to support infoboxes, however seemingly empty they are and seem to see it as an essential piece of furniture, and as with the Sellers article and other, infoboxes typically end up being added regardless of whether the people who wrote the whole article want one. Given the basic cleanup work which is needed in most articles it's a time sink which is causing editors to leave or storm out in despair, zapping any energy or enthusiasm for the project they have left. I have a feeling that at some point infobox data will be controlled by wikidata and there'll be an option of whether to hide them or not and such disputes will become history at some point, but it might be too late and we'll lose more valuable editors in the meantime.♦ Dr. Blofeld 10:52, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

• Awaiting a statement, including hopefully an apology, from Dr Blofield. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:16, 28 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Merely a procedural comment which does not depend on Dr. Blofeld's reply: reminders, just like admonishments, cannot be enforced directly; it's, of course, possible to ask for an amendment to the original case so that either an editor can be placed under a remedy which *would* then be enforceable or discretionary sanctions are authorised, but rebus sic stantibus hypothetical violations of the "editors reminded" remedy cannot lead to restrictions under our delegated authority, though it's certainly possible for an individual admin or the community to exercise their power to restrict users editing disruptively. Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 11:57, 29 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • You know, I'm often accused, with justification, of using too many legalisms on this page, but I guarantee that more than 99% of the readers here had to either look up "rebus sic stantibus" or skip over it. And even having looked it up, I am still not quite sure what it means in the context of what you were saying. It might be helpful if you could clarify. Newyorkbrad (talk) 20:31, 30 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • Since we are discussing this, I take the opportunity to apologise if I sometimes use weird expressions; most of the times, it's just a sort of déformation professionelle; in this case, I used "rebus sic stantibus" to mean, literally, "with things being as they currently are". Also, RexxS, my use of "hypothetical" here was not meant to imply that using "infobox Nazism" is not a violation of our civility standards; as I wrote, I was merely trying to provide a comment concerning procedure, one that should have been valid, even in future, regardless of the circumstances of the case being examined. Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 20:58, 30 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• My view here is that both editors (RexxS and Dr. Blofeld) have acted against the spirit of the remedy in question. Dr. Blofeld by the incivility he displayed, and RexxS and Dr. Blofeld by both turning the discussion in question into one about infoboxes in general, rather than about whether that specific article should or should not have an infobox. Nearly all the reasons given at the (very short) talk page discussion apply to infoboxes in general, so the discussion was clearly going to end up as a rehash of the same discussions had many times before on other articles. What both editors here need to do is focus more on remedy six: "The Arbitration Committee recommends that a well-publicized community discussion be held to address whether to adopt a policy or guideline addressing what factors should weigh in favor of or against including an infobox in a given article." To encourage this, I am considering proposing a motion here to restrict both RexxS and Dr. Blofeld from adding or removing infoboxes from articles until such a time as a widespread community discussion has been held on the issue. They would both be encouraged to help set up and participate in such a discussion. Carcharoth (talk) 19:14, 29 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • @RexxS. That is bizarre. The talk page does now have lots more discussion that wasn't on the page or page version I was reading earlier. Presumably I ended up in some earlier version of the page history. I remember Blofeld's 10:34, 29 December 2013 comment being there, but not the comment you complained about. I can't locate the exact page version in question, but clearly what I suggested is no longer appropriate and I apologise for that (I won't strike the suggestion, as it may be needed at some future date). I did, during the case, suggest that what was needed was a list of examples of best practice, of collegial infobox discussions that focused on the needs of the specific articles, and examples of discussions where consensus was reached on the one hand for addition and on the other hand for removal of infoboxes. Is this discussion on this article's talk page going to end up being a good example to show people in future? My experience is that it is articles on people that often cause problems, as people (covering a vast proportion of Wikipedia's articles) are less easy to summarise in infobox form than, say, technical or scientific subjects. Also, to be clear, I see the arguments that infoboxes provide microformats as a generic argument that can apply to any article, so repeating that in every article infobox discussion is repetitive. It would be better to point to a Wikipedia-space essay that summarises the generic benefits of infoboxes, rather than repeating them every time. Ditto for the generic arguments used to argue for the removal of infoboxes. It is the repetition of such arguments across multiple article talk pages that was identified in the case as a problem. Carcharoth (talk) 22:36, 29 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• I would support a restrictive motion, but to me a more concerning point here is the appearance of ownership Blofeld is applying to "his" articles. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 14:04, 30 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

---

Initiated by --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:27, 5 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Case affected : Infoboxes arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)

Clauses to which an amendment is requested

1. Pigsonthewing and infoboxes

List of users affected by or involved in this amendment

• Gerda Arendt (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (initiator)
• Pigsonthewing (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) Andy

Confirmation that the above users are aware of this request

• Andy notified

Information about amendment request

• "Pigsonthewing is indefinitely banned from adding, or discussing the addition or removal of, infoboxes."

As already stated while the case was open, this puts Andy in the position not being able to add infoboxes to articles which he creates. A proposal to change that, Include infoboxes in new articles which they create, was then supported by ColonelHenry, Johnbod, Crisco 1492, Montanabw, improved wording requested by Philosopher, Mackensen and SchroCat. The proposal was opposed by Giano and Folantin, and was discussed.

Today we saw one of Andy's articles as lead DYK on the Main page: Magistrate of Brussels. I ask to add a clause that ends the restriction on his newly created articles: he is in no conflict with any other user, responsible for the content of an article he creates, and is not in conflict with the interests of Wikipedia adding an infobox for a painting, a street or a military person. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:27, 5 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

{{Infobox Bach composition/sandbox
| title = {{lang|de|Ich muss weg}}
| bwv = 999
| type = [[List of Bach cantatas|Secular cantata]]
| image = 
| image_size = 160px
}}

Did you know that I enjoyed amicable discussion and collaboration on an infobox template, {{infobox Bach composition}}, resulting in a good compromise (pictured), shown on more than 100 classical music articles (example), by Nikkimaria, Andy, RexxS and myself?

Assume good faith, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:59, 17 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I wasn't aware of Gerda's plans to make this request, but I thank her for it and endorse it (I had intended to make such a request at a later date). I wish to include infoboxes in articles I create, and there appears to be no cogent reason why I should not. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:04, 8 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

If the restriction was to be removed from articles he recently created (which should be classified both by (a) article age and (b) number of edits by other editors), then I would also recommend that he be allowed to defend his reasoning to include said infoboxes at the appropriate places. Without this, editors could unilaterally remove boxes from Andy's recently-created articles and he would not be able to do a thing about it. I doubt it will come up often, but I at this point don't see harm also granting him this capability. - Penwhale | ^{dance in the air and follow his steps} 00:10, 9 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Thryduulf: I like your ideas, save for the first one - I would amend it so that if specific article(s) have/has few or no other contributors, he would be given a bit more leeway with the infoboxes in such article(s). Call it the someone's got to keep an eye on it clause. I also would support a revision count instead or in addition to the article age (since creation) for definition of such articles.- Penwhale | ^{dance in the air and follow his steps} 03:44, 9 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

If the committee is going to allow an exemption for articles Andy has recently created, please could they define what they mean by "recently". Doing so would remove the potential for much argument that could very easily lead to more work at AE and/or another amendment/clarification request down the line. I also endorse Penwhales's comments about discussion.

As your starter for 10, how about:

• Andy may add infoboxes to articles created in the past 3 calendar months where he is unambiguously the creator and/or only significant author.
• He may participate in any discussion, started by any other user, about infoboxes on individual articles meeting the above criteria.
• He may initiate a discussion about the undiscussed removal of an infobox from an article meeting the above criteria but he may not reinstate the infobox without consensus, except he may:
  • revert obvious vandalism that removed the infobox (e.g. page or section blanking)
  • revert or fix obvious error that unintentionally stopped an infobox from apearing. He may discuss an infobox with an editor to the extent required to understand their intent.
  • revert the removal of an infobox on one of these articles if the removing editor has not offered an explanation after 1 week and no other user has commented in support of the removal.
• Any user apparently stalking Andy's edits or otherwise systematically removing infoboxes added by Andy may be blocked by an uninvolved adminstrator for up to a week (first offence) or up to a year (third and subsequent offences) following consensus at WP:AE. Andy may initiate and/or comment in any such AE discussion.

Hopefully something like that should be acceptable to all parties and leave no significant grey areas. Thryduulf (talk) 02:20, 9 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

PS: I plucked the time period out the air, but it seems a recent definition of "recent" to me for this context. I intend that the time period is a rolling one of three months from $current_day not three months from the date an ammendment is past.

@Folantin: if you want to accuse Andy of sockpuppetry you should make a formal presentation of the evidence at WP:SPI. If you don't, you should withdrawn the insinuations you've made here. Thryduulf (talk) 01:26, 11 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

An SPI case was submitted. It was closed without action by clerk Reaper Eternal who was "not convinced" by the behavioural evidence presented and concluded "There's no real evidence to support sock puppetry" The case has now been archived to Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Pigsonthewing/Archive. Thryduulf (talk) 00:42, 13 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@NE Ent and EatsShootsAndLeaves: I agree absolutely about the disservice WP:OWN does to the encyclopaedia. However, if you read the case pages you will see that last year's committee approved principles and findings of fact that endorsed WP:OWNership of articles by those opposed to infoboxes, despite repeated comments by myself and others (RexxS and Gerda Arendt included) on the talk pages about how bad this would be. So officially now any author can legitimately object to an infobox on "their" article on the grounds of "I don't like it". Thryduulf (talk) 13:29, 16 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• 80% of the articles created by Andy since the case closed, including the one with which Gerda opened this request, have infoboxes—most added by either editors who supported Andy during the case or a Birmingham public library IP, and then developed by Andy. Indeed, this pattern holds true also for a number of articles not created by Andy.
• In an earlier clarification request, the committee concluded that "acting on behalf of a restricted user to breach a restriction...is not permitted". In the discussions that resulted in this remedy, a number of arbs stated that Andy "does need to take time away from infoboxes". Neither seems to have been heeded.

Under such conditions, and given that the subject has consistently regarded "authorial choice" in excluding a box from an article one creates as "ownership"....why is this request here? Nikkimaria (talk) 04:47, 9 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@WTT: I would be (pleasantly) surprised to see Andy support that statement. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:01, 10 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Since late September 2013 (i.e. just after the ArbCom sanctions passed), a Birmingham IP 80.249.48.109 (talk · contribs) has taken a sudden interest in infoboxes. Funnily enough, this has tended to occur around the same time Andy Mabbett has contributed to many of the same articles.--Folantin (talk) 11:46, 10 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know whether this is socking, meat puppetry or something else, but there are more than enough WP:DUCK grounds for suspicion here. According to Nikkimaria,several of these IPs have been behaving in the same way [11][12][13]. All Birmingham educational addresses. According to his own Wikipedia user page, Andy Mabbett lives in Birmingham and works in education.

Examples: The only users to edit the Birmingham Union workhouse article are Pigsonthewing and an anonymous infobox-adding IP: [14]. Almost exactly the same thing happens with Sir Richard Ranulph FitzHerbert, 9th Baronet [15]: the only edit the IP makes is to add an infobox, while all other edits to the article (barring a minor fix) are by Andy Mabbett. On Denville Hall, the only edit [16] an anonymous IP makes to the page is to add an infobox right among a bunch of edits by Pigsonthewing [17]. An IP manages to produce a fully formatted infobox in its sixth ever edit to Wikipedia [18], again right in the middle of a bunch of Andy Mabbett's contributions to the same article.

This is well beyond coincidence. --Folantin (talk) 09:53, 11 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

More evidence collected here [19]. I could request an SPI but I don't think it's necessary per the duck test. The behavioural evidence that these IPs and Pigsonthewing are connected goes well beyond reasonable doubt. --Folantin (talk) 13:19, 11 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Update I've now gone ahead and asked for an SPI per Arbitrator Beeblebrox's request. The evidence is here [20]. --Folantin (talk) 14:34, 11 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It is exactly this sort of adversity by innuendo that make editors like Folantin so poisonous to the collaborative environment we should be striving to create on Wikipedia. There are 1 million people in Birmingham city and 2 million people in the surrounding urban area, including both Andy and myself. I live as close to the city centre as Andy does and have far more links with education than he does now, or ever had. Why not accuse me of being the IPs? A look at the geolocation for the IPs that Folantin lists shows that they are mainly school addresses. Here's the homepage for Birmingham Grid for Learning: http://www.bgfl.org/ - see for yourself that it's part of the National Grid for Learning (which connects schools to the internet) and you can quickly click through from the homepage to the directory of schools, http://services.bgfl.org/cfpages/schools/default.cfm where you'll find that Birmingham has hundreds of schools connected to BGfL. Is Folantin now claiming that Andy is getting into schools and using their computers to edit Wikipedia pages? I'm afraid that it's far more likely that there are many Wikipedia editors in Birmingham schools who may add infoboxes, considering the majority of articles on the English Wikipedia have one (at least 2.4 million out of 4.4 million). I suppose the next step will be Folantin blaming Andy for all of those as well? --RexxS (talk) 14:38, 11 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Newyorkbrad: It's far more likely that I'd boldly add an infobox to the article using the {{Infobox controversy}} template, only to be reverted with the edit summary "rv,fmt". Cheers --RexxS (talk) 20:04, 14 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@NE Ent: The proposals at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Kafziel/Proposed decision #Ownership and stewardship merely show the lack of understanding by the Arbs of WP:STEWARDSHIP - that there are responsibilities associated with that concept. Although the Arbs seem capable of recognising when "a core group of editors will have worked to build the article up to its present state, and will revert edits that they find detrimental in order, they believe, to preserve the quality of the encyclopedia. Such reversion does not necessarily constitute ownership ..." they are completely blind to the qualification "...and will normally be supported by an explanatory edit summary referring to Wikipedia policies and guidelines, previous reviews and discussions, or specific grammar or prose problems introduced by the edit." The ArbCom has given carte blanche to owners of articles to blindly revert good-faith edits, without even a pretence of explanation beyond "we say so". Until that behaviour is recognised and tackled, conflict will ensue and we'll lose good contributors until we're only left with the article owners. Yes, you can reduce "disruption" by banning one entire side of a content dispute, but taking sides in that manner will not be ultimately conducive to the development of a multimedia, online encyclopedia that anyone is supposed to be able to edit. --RexxS (talk) 12:23, 27 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Carcharoth, GorillaWarfare, and LFaraone: If your concern is with "preparing the ground for future discussions", then you ought to think through the consequences of your actions. You have created a situation where anybody opposed to infoboxes can remove an infobox without discussion and insult anyone who objects with impunity. Why would the infobox opposers want to change that situation? "Future discussions" will just weaken their grip on the articles they own. On the other hand, you have removed one - and are in the process of removing another - of the most prominent proponents of infoboxes from the issue. You've even threatened to remove me from discussions on infoboxes unless I stop complaining when I'm treated like a POS by the anti-infobox crowd. So who's left to "prepare the ground"? Are you going to do it? --RexxS (talk) 19:52, 29 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@LFaraone: It's disappointing that you only take that from my comment. You're going to find that ArbCom has collective cabinet responsibility for its decisions once they are made. The opportunity is there for you to persuade your colleagues of the folly of removing one entire side of a content dispute, but simply echoing Carcharoth's misguided, albeit good-faith, preoccupation with forcing unwilling/unable participants to solve a problem that half of them don't want to be solved won't do anything to improve the encyclopedia. --RexxS (talk) 21:12, 29 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Carcharoth: You make the clear distinction between type (i) "specific" contributions and type (ii) "general" contributions. I already agreed with your categorisation - as you may remember from when I explained to you that discussion of metadata was often article-specific type (i), not always general type (ii), as you had assumed. To the point: are you telling me that you are opposing Motion 1 - which only modifies Andy's ability to make "specific" contributions - because it doesn't advance "general" contributions? I hope you'll forgive me for characterising that as cock-eyed logic. If you want to give Andy the ability to contribute to "general" discussions, then propose an amendment to the first part of that motion that excludes him from "discussing the addition or removal of, infoboxes." - which of course includes "general" discussions on the issue.

As for "those able to calmly and dispassionately discuss the issues", I don't recognise to whom you are referring. Kleinzach? Smerus? Nikki? You gave them everything they wanted in the original decision - why would they need any further discussion? The only other two parties were Andy and Gerda, and you've banned then from the discussions. Nobody would find it surprising that no progress has been made on remedy 6 "Community discussion recommended". --RexxS (talk) 03:11, 30 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• I don't care much about infoboxes one way on the other. Carly Foulkes has one cause the other model articles did, Charley Morgan doesn't.
• I've prior contact / interaction with Gerda / Nikkimaria /POTW : all are clearly positive contributors to the encylopedia; this case made me sad more than anything else.
• It says here; I've got 2000 WP:ANI edits, 1000 WP:WQA, 700 WP:AN and around 250 WP:AC (group). (I was an editor, of sorts, for a couple years before a watchlist notice requesters WQA volunteers led to WP:DR participation.) Since I read more than I comment on, the numbers probably underestimate the number of conflicts observed.
• One of the most common threads I see underlying conflict is the "ownership" concept. It's toxic and the antithesis of Wikipedia should be. You've all seen these hundreds or thousands of times, but I'm going to repeat it: Work submitted to Wikipedia can be edited, used, and redistributed—by anyone
• Although Arbcom is not GovCom, decisions made are influential in community discussion and thinking.
• As much as I'd like Andy to be able to add infoboxes -- especially if it could do so without annoying Nikkimaria -- the encyclopedia as a whole is more important to me, and therefore I urge ya'll not to pass any remedies based on nebulous "ownership" criteria. In the long run, as it opens the door for more "that's mine" spats, it is not in the best interests of the encyclopedia.
• Alternative modifications, such as allowing allowing single insertions, with 0rr if another editor removes the box, and perhaps a limit of a single talk page argument for the addition of the box, would prevent the benefit of allowing Andy to add boxes to articles he provides the initial writing off without ensconcing the "ownership" concept in the decision. NE Ent 03:26, 15 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

{{Infobox bradjoke
|name = Brad
|diff = [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AArbitration%2FRequests%2FClarification_and_Amendment&diff=590705223&oldid=590704935]
|context= arbcom amendment request
|self-reference = yes
|type = irony, dramatic; wry; sardonic
|based in truth=yes
|funny = disputed
}}

Please see also Finding on Ownership and stewardship. NE Ent 00:37, 27 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

For the life of me, I cannot understand what the kerfluffle is. All articles should have infoboxes. Really. They're a quick, immediately visible summary of the subject. We don't get to determine whether it has one or not based on who created it, or has the most edits - that would be WP:OWN. This is one thing NOT WORTH FIGHTING ABOUT ES&L 09:59, 15 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I've stayed out of this until now, but I must strenuously object to the proposal below to tighten Gerda's restrictions. She came here in good faith to ask that Andy be allowed the same level of activity that she currently enjoys, and now ArbCom wants to slap her down for simply asking? What an absurd result this is! This is not an "obsession," onthe part of Gerda, it is a legitimate question being raised. Many of us have a "STF?" reaction to the anti-infobox "obsession" of a few very strongly-opposed editors of classical music articles. It was their very harsh and bullying manner that led to the case that boomeranged and created this whole mess. Given that well over half of all wikipedia articles - and undoubtably, an even higher percentage of those that are B-Class and higher - currently include an infobox, this idea to sanction Gerda for just asking a restriction on another user to be softened is one of the most ill-conceived notions I've seen! Within many projects the infobox is standard (with assorted "drahmahz" over content, but not existence). I urge the members below to reconsider their actions. Montanabw^(talk) 19:54, 24 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@ESL, RexxS, NE Ent, I agree 100%. Montanabw^(talk) 20:02, 24 January 2014 (UTC) @ Worm That Turned, I have to admit shock that you have even proposed this draconian sanction. Until this, I have had considerable respect for you, but I am dumbfounded that you think that running off a top notch contributor from an area of interest will solve the infobox wars. Montanabw^(talk) 20:02, 24 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

1. I'm all for loosening the restrictions to allow Andy to add boxes to articles he creates (and I would even support such to include articles he significantly expands - perhaps we can revisit this request in the near future if things go well).
2. Motion 2 .. HUH? WTF? During the case it was suggested that a wider discussion on this topic should be held - I started one, and was promptly told 'NOT NOW' (paraphrased). Has Gerda violated the "2 comment rule" (or any other rule) somewhere? Can someone link to it please?
   1. At the conclusion of a long case (which at times begged the question of how much the committee was actually listening and reading) Gerda was told: They may participate in wider policy discussions regarding infoboxes with no restriction, and include infoboxes in new articles which they create. She does so and you slap her with a more restrictive sanction? This makes absolutely NO sense to me. Simply amazing.

• Disclaimer: I have not been very active on wiki - and certainly not around any more of the dreaded "infobox" issues; so if I have missed a significant violation of rules, please feel free to link me to it and I will strike the parts of my statement which are shown to be in error.
• I'm almost getting the impression that the committee wants the community to talk this out, but they don't want those who are familiar with the topic to be involved if they are "pro" infobox, they don't want to be asked for any input, or know anything about any discussions. Is there some sort of plausible deniability clause in your job description? — ChedZILLA 20:40, 24 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• @Thryduulf: Re ownership – That's unfortunately part and parcel of the way things work around here. In the absence on a community decision one way or another on a matter, things are usually up for grabs by local warlords. Here, we have a pitch battle, Classical Music Warlords versus the Metadata Warlords. The factions will put up stiff fights at policy pages where necessary, and often manage to block consensus from forming. And when a dispute comes to a head, Arbcom usually restricts/blocks/bans a number of editors from each side of the trench but otherwise make no pronunciation on the disputed territory, leaving untouched the void to be filled. It's in the system, so how do you propose to change that? -- Ohc ^¡digame! 04:11, 30 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• @Folantin: Despite Birmingham being a big place and many work in education, I would say that the sudden "coincidental" appearance of IP editors from Brum, doing things apparently in support of infoboxes, would well warrant investigation. The trenches are too deep to dismiss existence of possible socking. -- Ohc ^¡digame! 04:20, 30 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• @Arbs: Whilst I have no personal preference for infoboxes one way or another (many of my article creations have them and many do not), I feel that some topics do lend themselves better to being summarised in infoboxes. However, there is a risk of disruption if we allow the amendment without excluding the mass creation of stub boilerplated articles that all contain infoboxes. -- Ohc ^¡digame! 04:33, 30 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This section is for administrative notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

• Before proceeding further, we should wait for a response from Andy (Pigsonthewing) as to whether he wants this amendment request to be made or not, and if he does, he should then make a statement and Gerda should step back and let matters proceed from there. Carcharoth (talk) 02:55, 6 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Now that Andy has 'taken over' this request that was initially made by Gerda, my inclination would be to deny the amendment request. The reason is that both this proposed amendment, and the remedy that was passed for Gerda, are taking the wrong approach. Whether an article does or does not have an infobox should not depend on the initial author or creator. It is the article topic and content that should determine whether it has an infobox (well-thought out infoboxes are, by design, intended to be applied to an easily definable and finite series of articles - as opposed to an overly broad and open-ended category). If it is an article that fits within a defined series (e.g. planets, chemical elements, and so on), then there should be no problem. If it is a disputed area (e.g. people - not all articles on people are amenable to being presented in infobox form) then there should be a discussion. If there is any doubt, leave it off and/or raise the matter on the talk page for discussion.

    On a wider point, what those who participated in the infobox case should be doing is preparing the ground for a discussion to help address ways to include the data contained in infoboxes in ways that do not force articles to have infoboxes, and to address the wider question of why when 'boxes' in general were first created, infoboxes gravitated to the top right-hand corner, and other boxes (e.g. navboxes and succession boxes) gravitated to the bottom of articles (series boxes ended up in-between). If categories were displayed at the top of articles, they would get argued over a lot more. It is the location of infoboxes in 'prime territory' right up front that causes much of the dissension IMO. Find some way of resolving that tension and people might argue less over them. Also tackle the issue of 'narrow' vs 'broad' infoboxes. But all these issues can only be addressed if the wider community actually has those discussions. Carcharoth (talk) 01:32, 10 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    • RexxS, the distinction that should be drawn here is between: (i) edits, actions and discussions specific to an article or narrow class of articles, or a single infobox (call this 'specific' discussion - your earlier clarification request was a good example of that); and (ii) over-arching general discussion of the function of infoboxes and how to approach discussion of them and how to allow flexibility in their use and how to encourage best practice and manage disagreements (call this 'general' discussion - it would be limited to discussion and guideline pages set up for the purpose). The case specifically tried to make this distinction, but I don't think it sunk in. What I would propose is that no-one would be banned from type (ii) discussion (the general sort, trying to find an overall approach to infoboxes that works better than the current impasse), but the current topic bans would be converted to only apply to type (i) discussions. The current motions don't achieve this, which is why I am opposing them. My hope had been that those able to calmly and dispassionately discuss the issues would by now have made some progress on a document (intended for community discussion) that lays out the relevant arguments and available options. The ideal outcome would be a document that provides guidance on how to discuss infoboxes and diplomatically handle the disagreements that sometimes arise. Has any progress been made on that? Carcharoth (talk) 02:10, 30 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Agree with Carcharoth - this should be coming from Andy, not you Gerda. Worm^TT(talk) 11:27, 7 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

  I'd certainly support Andy being allowed to add infoboxes to articles he has created, though as Beeblebrox suggests, if others remove it, he will be topic banned from the subsequent discussion.

  @Nikkimaria:, allowing Andy to add infoboxes to articles he creates and only those articles does give a clear sign that authorship has weight. I have seen no evidence that Andy is asking other users to put infoboxes on the articles he creates, nor that he has not heeded the topic ban in the short period since the case. Worm^TT(talk) 07:46, 9 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Now that Andy has spoken up about this I think I would support allowing such an amendment, provided that it is made clear that this applies only to articles Andy has recently created. If others come along later and object to or remove said infobox, the TBAN would still apply. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:08, 8 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Folantin: Thrydulff is quite right, either proffer your evidence at WP:SPI or do not make such accusations. "Put up or shut up" is pretty much standard procedure for accusations of socking, which can be extremely damaging to a user even if they have not actually done it. Please either show us the SPI case page with relevant evidence or strike your remarks. Thanks. Beeblebrox (talk) 04:41, 11 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think it would be fairly easy to word an amendment so as to avoid the any wiki-lawyering about the definition of "recent". Something along the lines of "Pigsonthewing is permitted to add infoboxes to articles to which he is unambiguously the initial creator, provided that he does so with his first edit when initially creating the article, and at no time afterwards. If any other user should make any edit whatsoever related to that infobox the topic ban still applies. This exemption is valid only for articles created after this amendment has passed. If any user should appear to be using this exemption to harass Pigsonthewing by repeatedly removing infoboxes he has placed in articles, Pigsonthewing is instructed to email the arbitration committee rather than commenting on-wiki. If the matter appears to have merit it will be referred to Arbitration enforcement for review. If Pigsonthewing is found to have violated these conditions the exemption will be rescinded and the full topic ban considered still in force." That draws pretty clear lines around what the exemption is and what Andy's means of recourse is should someone decide to exploit it to harass. If he wants an infobox in an article he creates it has to be there from the get go. This can be done easily enough through drafting elsewhere and copying it when ready to go live. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:33, 14 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• I have no objection to this amendment as applied to articles of which Andy Mabbett is clearly and unambiguously the creator. If there is room for doubt (e.g. the situation that arose last fall with an article that had been drafted in AfC space and that Andy published into mainspace), steer clear or ask first. I will add that although Gerda Arendt's raising an infobox-related issue may work out okay in this instance, in general she would be very well served to take the strong advice that she was given here. Newyorkbrad (talk) 00:06, 9 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• In my opinion this request should be denied. In the past, when dealing with infoboxes, Andy's approach has often been problematic and, for that, he had to be removed from the playing field. I don't think it's wise to allow him back now, even in part and, on top of that, since, as Nikkimaria mentions, 80% of the articles created by Andy since the case closed have infoboxes, I also see no reason to relax the restriction, which might lead to wikilawyering and endless AE threads (examples may include: he created the article three months and a day ago, he was not the only significant author and so on). In my opinion, when a sanction becomes necessary, it's best for it to be plain, simple and clear. A sanction, in short, that does not allow for many exceptions of grey areas, which in this case, is a restriction preventing Andy from making any edits concerning infoboxes tout court. I'd also like to add that Gerda would do well to choose to stay away from this topic for a bit, because her behaviour since the case has closed has done nothing but convince me that the sanction we imposed on her should be changed to match Andy's. Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 11:14, 9 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• My thoughts on this mirror Salvio's. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 16:58, 9 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• I also agree with Salvio's exposition,  Roger Davies ^talk 00:37, 13 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• My heart tells me "per NYB". My head tells me "per Salvio". The actual effective difference between the two is small enough that I'll go with my heart this time. I suggest Andy be allowed to add infoboxes to articles he unambiguously has "created", but if that is opposed for any reason then the topic ban continues to apply. I wish I could wave a magic wand and make everyone on the project, pro-, con-, or indifferent, care one to two orders of magnitude less about infoboxes than they do now. --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:53, 13 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Someday this dispute will drag on to the point that we wind up having the mainspace article [[English Wikipedia infobox controversy]]. On the talkpage, someone will open a thread about whether that article should have an infobox or not..... Newyorkbrad (talk) 19:13, 14 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• I agree with Salvio. T. Canens (talk) 19:52, 20 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• I agree with Floq in this case. I don't think it's about authorship having "weight" so much as that Andy can't cause disruption by adding an infobox to an article he just minted. If any non-bot edits have been made to the article by anyone but Andy, anyone has objected to an infobox in the article, or anyone has removed it, Andy would be barred from placing or reinstating an infobox and from discussing the matter. (And may NYBrad's proposed scenario never come to occur.) Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 05:39, 24 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• @RexxS: re and are in the process of removing another: no, the three people you pinged all opposed motion two, a motion which would have removed Gerda Arendt (talk · contribs) from the discussion entirely. LFaraone 20:39, 29 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

For there are 13 active arbitrators. 7 support or oppose votes are a majority.

Majority reference

Abstentions	Support votes needed for majority
0–1	7
2–3	6
4–5	5

For reference, the relevant remedy relating to Pigsonthewing (talk · contribs) is:

Proposed:

In the Infoboxes case, remedy 1.1 is modified with immediate effect to the following text:

• Pigsonthewing is indefinitely banned from adding, or discussing the addition or removal of, infoboxes. He may include infoboxes in new articles which he creates.

to be enacted on the passing of this motion.

Support

1. Proposed, copyedits welcome. Whether you want to look at this from a "he can't cause disruption whilst he's creating articles" perspective or from an authorship having "weight" point of view, Andy should be able include an infobox as part of the article creation. If another user removes the infobox, Andy would remain banned from re-adding it. Worm^TT(talk) 11:16, 24 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Roger Davies ^talk 12:08, 24 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

2. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 13:55, 24 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
3. With a strong understanding that this privilege should be used conservatively and only when it will not cause contention or disruption, else it will be removed. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 17:30, 24 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
4. With caveats per WTT and Seraphimeblade. --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:19, 26 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
5. I sincerely hope Andy, and his detractors, will take this as no more and no less than it is and that both the committee and the broader community will not need to deal with more infobox related drama. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:17, 26 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm willing to AGF here, but I still have concerns about drama down the road. I agree with NYB it will likely not be problematic, and in that spirit I'll support it (with the thought that if it creates a drain on resources, we quickly rescind). NativeForeigner ^Talk 08:03, 30 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

1. Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 11:33, 24 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
2. On second thoughts, I'm opposing. We spend too much time attempting to accommodate requests that will in all likelihood result in drains on community resources and the exhaustion of community patience.  Roger Davies ^talk 12:27, 24 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
3. T. Canens (talk) 18:36, 24 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
4. Per my earlier comments. And I repeat: what those who participated in the infobox case should be doing is preparing the ground for future discussions. This fiddling with and modifying the current editor-specific remedies does nothing at all to aid resolution of the wider issues. It would be better to either lift all restrictions, or impose blanket bans that don't depend on who created an article - it really should not matter who created an article. Whether an article should have an infobox or not should depend on the article not the author of the article. Carcharoth (talk) 01:50, 28 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
5. Per Carcharoth. GorillaWarfare (talk) 15:09, 28 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
6. RD and Carcharoth articulate my thoughts here well. While I agree with NYB's thoughts that this motion would probably not result in disruption, past experience shows that these participants have generated a large drain on community resources in this matter. This limited modification does not appear to serve a clear project benefit, nor does the restriction seem to be an impediment in practice for the inclusion infoboxes as others have noted. LFaraone 03:05, 29 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
7. While I still largely agree with the above, on further thought Carcharoth's arguments are very strong to me on the matter. Also Ohconfucius is apt when he points out how it could be disruptive. NativeForeigner ^Talk 08:23, 30 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Abstain

Comments by arbitrators

For there are 11 active arbitrators, not counting 2 recused. 6 support or oppose votes are a majority.

Majority reference

Abstentions	Support votes needed for majority
0–1	6
2–3	5
4–5	4

For reference, the relevant remedy relating to Gerda Arendt (talk · contribs) is:

Proposed:

In the Infoboxes case, remedy 3.2 is vacated with immediate effect and replaced with the following remedy:

• Gerda Arendt is indefinitely topic banned from the subject of infoboxes, both at specific articles and in wider discussions. She may include infoboxes in new articles which she creates.

to be enacted on the passing of this motion.

Support

Proposed, copyedits welcome. As much as I feel Gerda is one of the most positive personalities on the encyclopedia, infoboxes seem to be her blind spot. Having watched her behaviour with respect to infoboxes since the close of the case, I feel it has turned into rather a pre-occupation for her and I believe that restricting her from all discussions on infoboxes would be the best solution. Worm^TT(talk) 11:16, 24 January 2014 (UTC) Moving to oppose, detailed explanation there. Worm^TT(talk) 10:59, 30 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

1. Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 11:34, 24 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
2.  Roger Davies ^talk 12:06, 24 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
3. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 13:55, 24 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
4. T. Canens (talk) 18:36, 24 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

1. Per my earlier comments. And I repeat: what those who participated in the infobox case should be doing is preparing the ground for future discussions. This fiddling with and modifying the current editor-specific remedies does nothing at all to aid resolution of the wider issues. It would be better to either lift all restrictions, or impose blanket bans that don't depend on who created an article - it really should not matter who created an article. Whether an article should have an infobox or not should depend on the article not the author of the article. Carcharoth (talk) 01:52, 28 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
2. Per Carcharoth. GorillaWarfare (talk) 15:14, 28 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
3. LFaraone 03:06, 29 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
4. I've been reviewing but don't see sufficient cause for this at this time. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 04:47, 30 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
5. Per Carcharoth. And also, I would urge Gerda to not become too embattled over the issue. She means well but this whole area is so tangled in drama further actions only tend to stoke the fire. NativeForeigner ^Talk 08:03, 30 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
6. I'm moving to oppose (effectively withdrawing this motion). There's a number of reasons for this, I've been mulling it over since this statement by Gerda[21] that 2014 was about new beginnings. It does imply that she is trying to move on. I would have switched then, but for the fact that she raised this very amendment request in 2014. Having read through some of her recent editting, I do agree that her actions in 2014 have been less focussed on the infobox case. On top of that, Floquenbeam's comments do ring true, this request is more "for her own good" than preventing active disruption. Worm^TT(talk) 10:59, 30 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Abstain

1. per below. --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:35, 26 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
2. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:19, 26 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by arbitrators

1. If the outcome of this didn't look obvious, I'd say (and have said before) that I think this would be a really good idea for Gerda to consider on her own. I think Risker and NYB have said something similar. As a recommendation (and I think Gerda respects my opinion even when she disagrees), I'm convinced it would make her happier to let it go on her own. I doubt it will make her happier to be forced to let it go, and I'm not convinced there's any real problem this is solving. I honestly don't believe she's actually disrupting things, and in the absence of disruption, it's not really our place to tell her how to live her life. If I didn't consider Gerda a friend, and thus feel obliged to abstain, I'd oppose, but I do ask those supporting to make sure they believe they're actually preventing significant disruption, and not just forcing her to take their "advice". --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:35, 26 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

---

Initiated by RexxS (talk) at 19:21, 8 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Decision affected

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Infoboxes #Use of infoboxes

List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:

• RexxS (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (initiator)
• Dr. Blofeld (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Confirmation of notification

I am dismayed at finding myself asking once again for clarification of the decision made last September in the Infoboxes case. I am again confronted by Dr. Blofeld taking what I believe to be an utterly inappropriate interpretation of one of your decisions:

• In this comment, he states It's just everytime we have an article on the main page this "why doesn't it have an infobox" argument breaks out, when all 10 arbitrators have decided it's up to the article writers to decide and they're not compulsory.

I believe this to be entirely inaccurate as I cannot see that the Arbitrators would advance a policy of restricting content decisions to just those editors who self-identify as "the article writers". For comparison, the text of the finding of fact is:

• The use of infoboxes is neither required nor prohibited for any article by site policies or guidelines. Whether to include an infobox, which infobox to include, and which parts of the infobox to use, is determined through discussion and consensus among the editors at each individual article.

It is this finding of fact that I wish to see clarified, precisely to identify who were intended by the wording "the editors at each individual article".

Several editors had questioned on the Talk:Hattie Jacques page the absence of an infobox, and Dr. Blofeld is now using his interpretation of your decision to deny new editors any say in the decision concerning infoboxes. His comment was made immediately after that of MrDannyDoodah, who will now be left with the impression that his views cannot carry any weight on that talk page. I have asked Dr. Blofeld to reverse his opinion and make that clear, but he has declined to do so and insists that you would acknowledge his interpretation. Consequently I wish to settle this issue completely by an unambiguous statement from ArbCom on who may take part in a decision to add an infobox to an article. --RexxS (talk) 19:21, 8 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Blofeld: I do not see how the words "all 10 arbitrators have decided it's up to the article writers to decide" are capable of any misinterpretation. The context is clear: your edit followed a few minutes after that of another editor who suggested that "... mainstream subjects, such as biographies of entertainers, use them to meet the needs of a wider audience." You were involved in a back-and-forth with that editor and attempted to shut down the discussion by telling him that "it's up to the article writers to decide". All your wriggling here bears no resemblance to what you wrote on that talk page. Anyone can read it and see for themselves that there's no hint of what you've written here. I have asked you to correct yourself and your response, once more, is to descend to invective. I should not have to put up with being called a "troublemaker" and accused of "crying to arb" when I've done no more than civilly raised an issue with you, and sought the clarification that we all should be entitled to.

As for the question of TFA, I've had an article that I took through FA on the main page and I sympathise with the stress of stewardship while it is there. But that is not sufficient to overturn the principle of encouraging readers to edit; and if numerous editors come to the talk page to ask about an infobox, then it ought to be a hint to you that there is some opinion in favour of an infobox and you need to recognise it and work with those editors to seek a broader consensus, rather than telling them that ArbCom has gifted the decision to your small group. --RexxS (talk) 20:45, 8 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Victoriaearle: Is it your contention that only those who have edited an article should be allowed to comment on the talkpage? If not, what's your point? I do have some expertise in templates (my most recent diff) and I wrote a module to help import Wikidata into infoboxes. Should that be a disqualification from correcting misinformation on technical aspects? When you attempted to get another editor sanctioned by falsely claiming that they had caused another editor to stop editing, you should have expected to be called a liar. Tell me, just what have I done to deserve Blofeld calling me a "troublemaker"? --RexxS (talk) 00:03, 9 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Blofeld: That's your usual hyperbole. Unlike you, I am an editor in good standing with a clean block log. I have brought exactly two matters to ArbCom in my six years editing here. Both have centred on you because of your behaviour. Need I remind everyone that the previous concern occurred because you refused to engage in debate at the talk page and made this comment: Neither of the article authors want an infobox. Take your infobox Nazism somewhere else? You got away with that by blubbing to me that you didn't want to be blocked. I stepped back from that request as a gesture of goodwill to you and this is how you respond. On this occasion you have falsely stated that ArbCom has "decided it's up to the article writers to decide" on infoboxes. I challenged your assertion on your talk page but you chose to defend your indefensible statement. I have received further insults from you on that same page for taking the time to inform you that I was seeking clarification. You have had plenty of time to correct your blatant falsehood on Talk:Hattie Jacques, but have chosen not to. We are here for a second time because of your actions and solely because of them. You need to learn that when you screw up, you stop blaming everyone else and fix the problem you've caused yourself. --RexxS (talk) 19:21, 9 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Bencherlite: When was the last time that an editor uninvolved with the infobox debates turned up at a TFA and suggested that the infobox be removed? It never happens. It is however commonplace for editors to ask why a TFA doesn't have an infobox. That should tell you something. Your proposal goes against the basic principles of wiki-editing which depends on discussion and consensus among as many contributors as possible. On the very day that an article gets its maximum exposure to other editors, you want to shut down discussion on the talk page? You'll have my opposition to that elitist idea for as long as I'm able to edit. --RexxS (talk) 17:39, 11 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Cassianto: I like you too, and I've been an admirer of your prolific content work ever since we bumped into one another. It saddens me that you think I've tried to force an infobox onto Hattie Jacques. I hope that if you re-read my contributions on the talk page, you'll see that my aim throughout has been to encourage debate of the issue, because other quite independent editors had raised it. Those editors deserve to have an equal opportunity to express their views; and they deserve to have a chance to understand the issues as they apply to that article. That's why it's so important that Blofeld is not allowed to shut down debate by falsely claiming that ArbCom has given a small group the sole right to decide whether there's an infobox or not - speaking as if he were one of the principal authors of the article (he's not). I'm sorry that you may find it tiresome to debate the issue of whether an infobox is appropriate or not for an article that you have substantially written, but that debate is healthy as it involves more people in the article. Isn't it better to give some respect to those who are interested enough to ask - whether they be experienced editors like Giant Snowman, or newcomers like Simonfreeman or MrDannyDoodah or even IPs? We build articles and our editing community by encouraging debate, not shutting it down. At the heart of it, that's what's at stake here, and ArbCom needs to defend that, not give silent approval to those who want to ring-fence articles to the detriment of the encyclopedia. --RexxS (talk) 17:39, 11 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Blofeld: Of course you're shutting down discussion. It's plain for anyone to see who clicks on the revision of 21:26, 7 February 2014 that you had no interest in discussing the points that MrDannyDoodah raises - you had already mocked his "To be honest it makes the page look misleadingly incomplete" with your "one of the funniest statements I've read for quite some time on here"; and Danny's "it's a mistake to think that every user wants to read, or even skim, the full article, however much we would like them to ... perhaps with more scholarly subjects not using infoboxes, as presumably their target audience wouldn't need them, whilst mainstream subjects, such as biographies of entertainers, use them to meet the needs of a wider audience" drew your response of "all 10 arbitrators have decided it's up to the article writers to decide". Either you're being disingenuous or you really can't see how offensive it is to other good-faith editors to dismiss their views so thoughtlessly, particularly when you arrogantly claim the authority of ArbCom to tell others they don't get a say. And let's get this clear: are you "an editor in good standing with a clean block log"? Answer: No. --RexxS (talk) 01:24, 12 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Bencherlite: So you think the editors who take articles to FA are paramount in making any decisions for the article. When you use words like "hassle" and "defend", you're already in a battlefield mentality and completely ignoring the possibility that other editors' opinions are worth considering. You're really advocating that Giant Snowman, Simonfreeman and MrDannyDoodah would be liable for sanctions if they asked why the article didn't have an infobox near TFA day. Are you going to tell all of them that they can't raise the issues precisely because some principal authors are saying "we've decided not to have one"? Ok, you want a Wikipedia hierarchy where some of the editors who write the best content are top of the pile and those below who gnome or add references or sort the technical issues out are second-class contributors. At least you're honest about your position and the rest of us know where we stand. --RexxS (talk) 01:15, 12 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Bencherlite: As you ask, I don't think that's an inappropriate comment and I am dismayed that you do. MrDannyDoodah is entitled to his opinion (for that is what it is) and whether I agree with it or not, I'll defend his ability to express that opinion. What a dull world you would have us live in where everybody's opinion had to be identical and differing views had to be repressed. If there's a problem with those you call "TFA authors" feeling obliged "to justify or defend their position", then a better solution would be to change the system where a small group of editors feel their own position is threatened whenever somebody suggests something different from the decisions they have made for the article. At some point that risks tipping over into ownership. Lasting solutions on Wikipedia work by involving more people, not less. --RexxS (talk) 21:52, 12 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@NativeForeigner: Yet another member of ArbCom taking sides on content disputes. The decision on this case was made last September and that's over five months ago. I'm sure you'd like it all to go away for another six months, but ArbCom failed to address the issues last time and of course those issues still exist. I made it clear in the case that it was impossible for anyone to even raise the question of infoboxes on some articles without being patronised, insulted or both. Yet ArbCom did nothing about that. Since then we have had more of the same: completely uninvolved editors have asked a question in good faith and been dismissed or fed a load of cock-and-bull stories about the owners of a featured article having the only say on decisions like that. And now we have Bencherlite suggesting that we enshrine a principle of first and second class editors, by trying to remove the ability of other editors to raise issues at the very time that an article has its maximum exposure to those editors. It's disgraceful elitism and has no place on our encyclopedia. You "smile" on such proposals; I'd spit on them. It's about time Arbitrators worked out what the principles are that this project is based on - they start with "anyone can edit" and you need a bloody good reason to move away from that. Such good reasons don't include some editors being fed up with answering reasonable questions. --RexxS (talk) 15:49, 18 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Carcharoth: You are saying that ArbCom is unable or unwilling to make clear what it intended by the phrase "through discussion and consensus among the editors at each individual article" when that is the verbatim text of an ArbCom Finding of Fact, and are suggesting that I seek from the community clarification of an ArbCom finding. Well, it's an interesting precedent to set and I'm astonished that you're comfortable with that course. It does however cast some light on the pure folly of basing an ArbCom decision on a Finding of Fact that even ArbCom doesn't understand. --RexxS (talk) 16:44, 21 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Rexx has once again misinterpreted me and is looking for little more than support and to try to prove me wrong by bringing this here and wasting your time. I'm not mistaken in my interpretation, I believe the arbitrators have stated that consensus is to be reached by anybody interested in the article who may turn up at the talk page and want to discuss infoboxes, not just among those who've written the article. My message on the talk page about article writers deciding was how he mistook what I meant I think. Potentially several hundred people could comment on having an infobox issue to come to a true consensus, but my point in saying what I said was that in practice the decision to use an infobox really is typically and generally decided by discussion and consensus between a small group people who have written the article in question provided that nobody objects to it and I'm sure the arbitrators here would acknowledge this. However, should anybody turn up and make an issue of an infobox then I believe what was agreed here is that the editors who made the original agreement not to use an infobox must be open to new input and strive to gain a new consensus. It isn't practical to request dozens or even hundreds of editors to comment on one infobox in every article. The three of us as normal came to the decision not to use an infobox in Hattie Jacques, that was a consensus, just not wider consensus which seems is now needed. But this process every time one of our articles hits TFA has become disruptive and disrespectful to editors who bother to promote articles and have to deal with controversy over them. It's reached the point that we're being put off wanting to promote articles to FA and dreading the day a article hits the main page because it's inevitable that we'll again have to argue over them for hours. That's not right.

If anything I would ask the arb to look into a new clause which prevents editors discussing infobox issues while the article is on the main page and to encourage editors to try to come to a consensus afterwards if people are still concerned about the issue. I approached User talk:Floquenbeam to ask whether this was practical or not. Above all, arbitrators you decided that infoboxes are not compulsory, but in practice the way discussions end up, they end up eventually being forced and passed off as if they are indeed essential. I think this needs a revision and reassessment as, consensus or no consensus, they're treated as compulsory by editors who turn up on the talk pages in practice. The problem we're getting is that articles which wouldn't normally attract much attention over infoboxes are becoming war grounds for infobox disputes purely because editors have spotted them on the main page and this is immediately going to counteract any original consensus agreed on by the article writers which would have remained intact if the article wasn't featured and open to the scrutiny of thousands of people on the main page. Unless this case here can progress into something really constructive in terms of how to nip TFA infobox disputes in the bud then I'm afraid Rexx is wasting all of your time asking you to simply clarify as I know that generally you mean all editors have a right to discuss infoboxes, not just article writers, and he's simply misunderstood what I was getting at and has once again jumped the gun in running here. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 19:38, 8 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Rexx. You keep running and whining to arb everytime anybody disagrees with you. That's troublesome. This is the second time you've done this with me and again you've misunderstood the situation and are wasting the arbitrators valuable time. If you're not willing to engage in active discussion with other editors, don't comment. You misquoted me here and mistook it as an argument for why an infobox shouldn't be included rather than a general statement which stated that infoboxes are not compulsory and that the arb have stated that it is up to the article writers to decide by consensus. What I meant by that as explained above is article writers and anybody else who shows an interest in infoboxes in articles. I have a point though that if most of these articles weren't TFAs, the attention they've likely to attract over infoboxes is likely to be low. So I'm arguing that articles without infoboxes are becoming breeding grounds for disputes when they're featured on the main page and this has to stop as it's a drain on the editors involved. You're unlikely to get a true consensus on the day of the FA and it comes across as forcing editors to add an infobox just to avoid disputes. The fact that you repeatedly come to arb to back you up I think is troublesome and causes unnecessary heartache and I dare say that eventually the arbitrators are going to get fed up with you and ban you from infobox discussions. I personally would accept a ban on myself from infobox disputes if you're also banned from them and running here during one, and that the arb pass something which will advise against infobox disputes during a TFA. Frankly I don't care that much about infoboxes, it just concerns me that we keep going through the same process every time one of our articles hits the main page and I hate to see our time being wasted which is why I comment.♦ Dr. Blofeld 11:07, 9 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Rexx So if I screwed up, why is it you who is requesting arb to waste their time clarifying everything? You'd simply accept I was so obviously wrong (with what you thought I was trying to say) and move on wouldn't you? Your statement contradicts why you decided to come here. If it was I who screwed up why would you need to come here? You're the one I'm afraid who has taken what I said a little too literally and seriously. It isn't right to bring this here. I'm following the advice of Beeb and Vic on this and am walking away from this as I don't think it's worth my time. If anybody here would like me to respond to a question ping me and I'll respectfully respond, thanks.♦ Dr. Blofeld 19:45, 9 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Montanbw The thing is I haven't overreacted or responded madly arguing against "nefarious infobox pushers". I simply quietly said that the arb decided that infoboxes are not compulsory and are to be decided upon by the people who write the articles as they're writing it. Rexx misinterpreted what I said and thought it necessary to come running here which I see an unnecessary and troublesome. If he'd simply accepted my argument and quietly thought "you're wrong" instead of causing a big song and dance about asking me to correct myself and coming here things would still be amicable. Even if he has the best of intentions the frequent infobox discussion everytime an article hits TFA does become wearisome for the contributors, and its time something was resolved to stop it happening every week or two.♦ Dr. Blofeld 22:17, 9 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Montanbw You're right about that and it's what I've said above. In principle it is up to anybody to decide. But take your New Forest pony for instance. I'd imagine that it was your choice and anybody else who contributed to the article to use an infobox based on an understanding of what is typically used for such article and your preference to include one. The notion that the wider community are to decide the infobox issue on each and every article like this really isn't what happens in practice. If I, Schrod, Cass, Tim etc came along on the day of the TFA and started kicking up a fuss that the infobox looks ugly and arguing that it degrades the article as the article writer you'd surely stand your ground and object and argue that there was a consensus between you and whoever else wrote it to include one. You'd be miffed wouldn't you that editors who have absolutely nothing to do with the horses project snicking their nose in and trying to force a "new consensus" and try to prove that more people don't want the infobox than do. You'd surely be even more astounded if you found yourself swiftly in front of the arb over it wouldn't you? I personally have no problems with the infobox of course and don't think that, but I would never dream of coming along on your TFA and causing a fuss over it, even if I detested it. It is disrespectful to the editors who've bothered to write the article and their decision to use/not use an infobox. Obviously technically anybody can comment, but I do think people should be less forceful in their approach and at least be more accepting of what the people who've bothered to write the article and promote it to FA feel on the matter. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 11:14, 10 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Rexx, you keep saying that I "shut down the debate" but I did no such thing. I have no authority to "close" a debate and it wasn't as if what I said came anywhere near resembling it. I simply quietly said that the arb made the decision that infoboxes are not compulsory above all. I didn't say "thou must not ever inquire about the adding of an infobox, never mention it again, this conversation is final" sort of thing did I? That's why I found your demands on my talk page so preposterous. Even if you disagree with what I said in the exact wording, simply ignore it and continue to argue your point. As for me not being an editor in good standing, I'm sure even the people who are on good terms with you are shaking their heads at that one too. You're digging a hole for yourself and I can see you continuing to worry about infoboxes in the future to the point you're going to end up being banned from discussing them. I'm very disappointed in your overreaction over this, you seemed a thoroughly decent and reasonable fella in emails a while back. You've got to take a look at how you yourself reacted. If you'd simply said on the talk page "the arb didn't mean just the article writers and you know that, we have a right to discuss them" I'd not have battered an eyelid and things would still be amicable.♦ Dr. Blofeld 22:34, 11 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think the committee should ignore this request, otherwise this situation will go on and on. RexxS comments frequently about infoboxes, as shown in the following very few and selective diffs, none of which come from articles RexxS has edited to my knowledge (I could be wrong!): March 2013, March 2013, May 2013, August 2013, December 2013. Furthermore, in terms of not having to "put up with being called a "troublemaker"" - being called a liar wasn't much fun either, [22]. In my view, everyone who posted to any of the case pages (myself included), should take a long step back and ignore infoboxes for at least six months. There are plenty of other things to do here. Victoria (tk) 22:09, 8 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Obviously, there's no need for clarification as the committee already cited current policy Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Infoboxes#Use_of_infoboxes and does not make policy, so any new policy for mainpage / FA infoboxes should come from the community -- as requested by the committee in their findings Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Infoboxes#Community_discussion_recommended. NE Ent 23:10, 8 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I've posted a suggestion at Wikipedia_talk:Today's_featured_article#infobox_suggestion. NE Ent 13:03, 9 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Another "clarification"? And on something that's not really an issue? This continuance of the infobox thing isn't helping anyone, and I can only support, cheer and echo Victoria's good advice above. I'm now so sick and tired of the infobox nonsense that, with apologies to @Bencherlite:, I'm not going to put any further articles up for TFA, as they end up being involved in the same old endlessly dreary arguments about the damned boxes: mostly about the general concept of boxes (the one-size-fits-all mantra), rather than whether a specific individual article needs a box. Sadly people seem to be unwilling to make the distinction between the general and the specific, and between the policy-led approach against the "I like them, so we need one" approach. - SchroCat (talk) 23:12, 8 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Montanabw: Thankfully the site-wide consensus, as expressed by the MoS, differs from your personal opinion. - SchroCat (talk) 22:35, 9 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Montanabw, There was no "snark" intended, and I'm sorry if you read it as such. I will correct a few errors you may seem to be labouring under, but firstly, could you please drop the overly-emotive language and try and assume at least some good faith? Calling editors whose opinion you disagree with "bullies" is unlikely to help matters, and neither is describing someone's actions as "Evil reptilian kitten-eater from another planet behaviour", so perhaps we could deal with the issues, rather than drop into name calling? As to the substance of your comments.

1. "The consensus is hardly "site-wide" As my point related to the MoS, I'm not sure why you think the MoS is not a reflection of the site-wide consensus of all editors? (rather than just "bullies")
2. "person in good faith adds an infobox, another person throws a conniption fit" I suggest you try reversing it too, just to see the opposing point of view. I've seen an editor accused of vandalism for the good faith removal of an IB that was inserted against a long-standing consensus: the conniption fits are happily shared around all-comers here.
3. "the debate SHOULD be about design and content, not whether infoboxes exist" Why? The MoS is inherently flexible on the point of use ("The use of infoboxes is neither required nor prohibited for any article"), and reflects the fact that one-size-does-not-fit-all. Like the majority of people who are flexible in relation to IBs, I that sometimes they can be good, sometimes they can be essential. And sometimes they are an abomination. Our policy has flexibility in the approach, which is where the problems can arise—and it's not just about the design and content.

— SchroCat (talk) 08:37, 10 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

OK, after noting for the record that I have had positive interactions with both RexxS and Blofeld, you are both good editors, and I really wish the two of you would just sit down, have a beer, and bury this hatchet, my thoughts: We're here again because are still anti-AGF behavior going on. If people would just live and let live, the guideline that the people who actually care about INDIVIDUAL articles (or, for that matter, individual SUBJECTS, such as opera or even TFAs) could decide by consensus would work. But, "teh dreaded infoboxen" issue is turning into a damn witchhunt. One person in good faith adds an infobox, another person throws a conniption fit about it and begins to accuse the pro-infoboxer of all sorts of nefarious motives. I have long held the view that any article that is part of a project that has gone to the trouble of creating an infobox really should consider using them as a default for consistency within the subject and the conveyance of needed data available at a glance; back in the Stone Age, my old set of World Book Encyclopedias had a standardized summary format box (predecessor to "teh infoboxen") in most of the major biographies or geography or science articles, and wiki is, at root, an encyclopedia. This issue is (in my view) mostly a graphic design element (though I get the metadata argument and think metadata is useful, though I know squat about programming it to happen), just like the wikipedia logo that's on every page on wiki. Not everyone is going to like every element, but the debate SHOULD be about design and content, not whether infoboxes exist. That train left a long time ago -- well over half of all wikipedia articles have infoboxes, an overwhelming majority in the sciences, and especially FA and GA-class articles. These dramas SHOULD be about what goes into an infobox, how the layout looks, etc., not whether they are included. Let's just ratchet down this Evil reptilian kitten-eater from another planet behavior. Montanabw^(talk) 21:57, 9 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Schrocat, your snark above is precisely the problem. The consensus is hardly "site-wide," it is merely the people who showed up, mostly the bullies. Montanabw^(talk) 04:40, 10 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Schrocat, the truth is the truth, I am not "overly-emotive," I am merely descriptive of what is already there, including some of your own comments. It may be difficult to see your own actions mirrored back at you, but that is precisely what I think needs to be ratcheted down. Montanabw^(talk) 20:57, 10 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Blofeld, I suspect "people who write the articles as they're writing it" is the rub, I believe that the actual arbcom decision was something more like "editors" - not specified as to whether these are just the lead editors or also the wikignomes and wikifairies. Hence why we are here Montanabw^(talk) 04:40, 10 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Bencherlite, I like your proposal a). I think that the three day rule is probably something everyone could live with. I strongly dislike your c) as this would be a temptation for someone to nom a FA for TFA just to shut down such discussions. That said, raising an infobox discussion should be a talk page issue and not a TFA issue, so if it's raised at a TFA proposal, it should just be summarily dispatched back to the article and not be an issue for TFA in either direction. I am leaning against your b), for the same reasons as c); no harm in having a discussion about the issue, but it isn't relevant to TFA or not TFA. Montanabw^(talk) 02:30, 11 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Bencherlite, not sure you read my above clearly; I can see your argument for a 3-day moratorium on massive changes (though not discussion), it's the rest I have issues with. Montanabw^(talk) 05:00, 12 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Dr. Blofeld, you make a point about articles WITH infoboxes, but I think RexxS is correct that never in the history of WP TFA has someone come in and demanded an infobox in a "stable" (horse pun intended) article be removed. Again, infoboxes are the future, and those opposing them are drawing a Maginot Line that, like all anachronisms, will not be easily defended down the road... Montanabw^(talk) 05:07, 12 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

How sad that we find ourselves here. I was a co-author for Hattie Jacques and I felt compelled to write here, although I have been very brief in the discussions on the talk page. TFA is a very bitter sweet experience for me owing to the same old infobox arguments which occur during, and in the days after TFA. Now, I like RexxS; I find him to be a very knowledgable and approachable fellow and he has helped me out on many, many occasions with my many technical issues. However, I am dismayed with his his attempts to force the infobox issue onto yet another article that chooses not to have one and then run off to the arbitrators when things don't go his way. This behaviour seems indicative of someone who is trying to force infoboxes onto an article that choose not to have one.

The infobox debate is as old as the hills and to have it discussed everytime an infoboxless article appears on TFA is a pain in the backside. I am not completely opposed to them; they can be helpful on political, geographical, sporting and film articles, but I find them utterly useless on Classical music and theatrical biographies as well as art and architecture pages. I am sick to the back teeth of the same old arguments after TFA. I really can't be bothered to spend my many months writing FAs, frequently at my own expense, only to have people who haven't had any prior interest in the article to come along and force an infobox on them after TFA. Cassianto^Talk 11:41, 10 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

As TFA coordinator, I get very worried whenever I see writers of FAs say that they do not want their articles to appear on the main page for whatever reason. Some dislike dealing with the vandalism. Some dislike dealing with the low-quality edits (inaccurate content, bad grammar, poor style, unreferenced nonsense and trivia) that goes with the territory of being "Today's featured flypaper article". And now we see users, new and not so new, think that TFA day is a great time to mention adding an infobox to an article. While there is no rule that prevents this from happening, it is hardly tactful timing and it appears to be adding a new worry for some editors. Perhaps to avoid this, I should refuse to schedule any FA that does not have an infobox (to avoid unfortunate discussions about adding one) as well as any FA that does have an infobox (to avoid unfortunate discussions about removing it). Only half-joking on this point...

Now, helping bring an article to featured status does not absolve you from having to discuss infoboxes if someone raises the issue (and, frankly, for all that some arbs might wish that particular editors dropped the subject for six months, even if that wish came true the problem still won't go away). But I do think that issues such as infobox discussions should not be allowed to impair the TFA experience. Infoboxes can of course be discussed before, during and after the whole FA nomination process, but a time-out zone for TFA would help remove one area of particular tension.

Someone can probably find links or diffs to prove me right or wrong, but I have a recollection that someone was previously topic-banned from adding infoboxes / raising infobox issues on articles that were, or were about to be, at TFA. What I would like to suggest is this:

1. There is a moratorium on all discussions about adding or removing infoboxes on any article that is (a) Today's Featured Artice (including the three days immediately following when it is still linked from the main page); (b) scheduled to be Today's Featured Article; or (c) under discussion at WP:Today's featured article/requests.
2. Any uninvolved editor may summarily close any discussion started in breach of this.
3. Enforcement in whatever the usual way is for such things.

This idea would not make everyone happy but it may be an interim solution of sorts. For the avoidance of doubt, I am neither in the pro-infobox nor the anti-infobox camp, although I am probably not alone in belonging to the are-these-boxes-really-worth-so-much-time-one-way-or-the-other camp. Bencherlite^Talk 23:44, 10 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Montanabw: I've found the link I was thinking of [23] although it was a community decision not an Arbcom one, and was for all edits to TFAs not just infoboxes. NB the decision was to ban the individual from all articles nominated or scheduled as TFA, not just the TFA - if FA writers are inhibited from having their articles at TFA because of boredom with repeated infobox discussions precipitated solely by the article appearing at TFA, the moratorium has to cover the run-up to TFA day, not just TFA day. Anyway, if Arbcom says that this proposal is not within their remit, it can be discussed elsewhere later. Bencherlite^Talk 13:06, 11 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Rexxs: "It is however commonplace for editors to ask why a TFA doesn't have an infobox. That should tell you something." Yes, it tells me that when certain writers of FAs feel that they cannot put up with the additional discussion of infoboxes on top of all the other crap that having an article at TFA brings, they're probably justified in feeling that way since even you say that these discussions are "commonplace". I'm not asking for all FAs to be immune from infobox-related discussions for all time - just that in the period running up to TFA day editors should be spared the hassle of having to defend the decision not to have an infobox. Dennis Brown said in the topic ban discussion I mentioned "The debate over info boxes is a valid debate, but it is a matter of timing. ... And I tend to be in favor of infoboxes in general, but not in favor of choosing the worst possible time to make a stand on them." Similarly Franamax said "I can imagine how demoralizing it must be for an editor who has sweated and slaved to get every detail right for FAC, it goes to the main page, then someone shows up simply because they feel the need to make a point. Yes, we are encouraged to be bold and try to improve articles. No, that is not the right place to do it." Those commments were made in 2012, and here we are in 2014 with TFA authors still feeling demoralized because other editors use TFA day to raise an issue that is obviously not going to result in the principal authors saying "Of course! Why didn't we think of it earlier? Let's add one straightaway!" Bencherlite^Talk 22:57, 11 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@RexxS: Please stop putting words in my mouth or misrepresenting my attitude - I am trying to look after TFA authors during the TFA experience, not say that their views are unchallengeable for all time. And I'm not saying that editors raising the question should be sanctioned simply for raising a question when (hypothetically for these purposes) there is consensus not to allow such questions to be raised during TFA, merely that such discussions should be stopped until the article is off the main page. This latest issue arose because some TFA authors had to respond to comments such as "To be honest it makes the page look misleadingly incomplete to not have one there, giving people the initial impression that the whole article may not be that complete" (Talk:Hattie Jacques). That is not an appropriate way to discuss the issue, particularly not when having an article at TFA brings enough stresses anyway. That is "hassle" - or perhaps you think it's an appropriate comment? That is an approach of some (not all) on the pro-infobox side that requires TFA authors to justify or defend their position. If I'm wrong, perhaps you could show me the last time that an infobox discussion at a TFA led to the uncontroversial addition of an infobox. This whole infobox issue is poisoning some FA authors' attitudes to TFA, and that's why I made my suggestion, because TFA is my area of especial concern – otherwise I would simply have stayed away from the whole bloody issue. I do not want to have any more unwilling participants at TFA – I have enough of those already... ;-) Bencherlite^Talk 11:22, 12 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note: I have no idea what the present dispute is

It amazes me how different policy becomes whenever it's inside a little black border. WP:LINKSPAM is so out of control that people routinely delete lists of unused references from the See Also sections of half-written articles, yet we have infoboxes like Template:The Beatles that spam 200 links to each of 200 articles, so people on Google can't look up what two songs have in common without getting 200 spam hits from Wikipedia that link both articles. Or for BLP -- if I wrote in the lede section of Stop Islamization of America that those people had something to do with the Srebrenica massacre purely on account of their condemnation of Islam, I'd be lucky not to get blocked. But put it over in the black box under an icon (the only illustration in that article) that has no particular relevance to their group, and you're golden. ArbCom and other admins should look for ways to have a more consistent policy, inside and outside the box. Wnt (talk) 22:13, 14 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I have just read this request, and I have to wonder whether I've read the same page as the arbitrators who have commented on it? RexxS asked the committee for a very simple clarification of one of its decisions about which there has been a disagreement. If the committee is not prepared to clarify the meaning of its decisions it should close this page and personally deal with the fallout from its ambiguous wording.

Personally I think giving clarification when asked for in good faith is a core part of being arbitrator in the exactly same way, and for exactly the same reasons, that giving clarification and explanation of your actions when requested in good faith is a core requirement of being an administrator.

So, to cut to the chase, which of the following statements is the intended meaning of the word "editors" in the sentence: "Whether to include an infobox, which infobox to include, and which parts of the infobox to use, is determined through discussion and consensus among the editors at each individual article."

1. The editor or editors who started the article
2. The editor or editors who have put the most work into the article
3. All editors who have made significant contributions to the article
4. All editors who have made significant contributions to this or other similar articles
5. All editors who have contributed to the article
6. All interested editors

Each of A-F is a reasonable interpretation of a statement made by one or more people who have commented here. Thryduulf (talk) 22:13, 18 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, Dr. Blofeld, for your beautiful addition to my latest infobox, and thank you, arbitrators, for clarification of the questions just above, as soon as possible. I still hope that in the encyclopedia that anyone can edit, all interested editors may speak up at all times, but if that needs to be restricted, please precisely so. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:50, 23 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@LFaraone: I didn't bring the case up at the election, I asked only one specific question about one diff, to see for whom I could vote. The majority of the candidates who dared to look (including you) looked at it my way. The two editors who helped each other in that uncontroversial Planyavsky case, Andy and I, were restricted, the discussions go on. I fail to see how the difference between two version of an Indian actress can cause so much heated emotion, - I came to the topic late and regard myself as cool, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:22, 24 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

More praise to Dr. Blofeld for this preserving edit, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:59, 24 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Clapping also for Brianboulton (for an identibox in a TFA) and Voceditenore (for an infobox in an opera), da capo! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:57, 25 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

• I think NE Ent hit the nail on the head with his statement. What I am seeing here is that this is a disagreement about the meaning of something Blofeld said, not about what the committee said. That being the case I see no need to clarify the committee's previous stated position. I also strongly agree with the portion of Victoria's statement pertaining to walking away. I wasn't involved in the original case but this petty bickering reflects poorly on everyone involved and the project would be better served if they personally avoided both discussions of infoboxes and one another. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:45, 9 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Wnt, you may have a point about the policies involved, but arbcom does not make and cannot make or alter content policies. Only the community may do that. Beeblebrox (talk) 01:53, 15 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• There is nothing for us to do here, because we may not make policy. However, I'd like to invite all editors involved to voluntarily step away from the topic of infoboxes, regardless of their opinion on the matter, for six months. Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 11:07, 10 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Briefly commenting here to point out that whether or not Wnt's comments are valid they are nothing to do with this case and the dispute in question. This case and this dispute was/is about infoboxes (there is a help page, a MoS page, and WikiProject page, but bizarrely no WP namespace page on infoboxes). These are different from the boxes Wnt is referring to, which are navboxes, which can be footers or sidebars. They perform completely different functions and shouldn't be confused. Will try and return to the substance of this request in a few days time. Carcharoth (talk) 00:31, 17 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • To answer Thryduulf and User:RexxS, you should be asking those questions of the community of editors that cares enough about infoboxes to determine community policy on them. That discussion should not take place at the Manual of Style talk page (infoboxes combine elements of content and style, but the decision whether to have them or not is presumably a content issue, not a style issue - though maybe it is deep down an aesthetic style issue of how to present the information and whether to present it in this style or not). It should also not take place at the Help talk page, as help pages are meant to help with technical matters of how to do something, not whether to do something. It should also not take place at the WikiProject talk page, as WikiProjects are just meant to co-ordinate, not to set policy. I have no idea why Wikipedia:Infobox redirects to the WikiProject page. The rather bizarre conclusion (was this discrepancy not noted in the arbitration case?) is that there is no current policy or standalone guideline page on infoboxes (existing examples are Wikipedia:Article titles and Wikipedia:Categorization, which are a policy and guideline separate from the related style guidelines). The suggested community discussions should be aimed at looking at existing practices and best practices (probably already documented on the three existing pages: help, WikiProject and MoS) and coming up with a policy or standalone guideline on infoboxes that has widespread consensus (hint: not just the views of those active in the case). If you need ArbCom to pass another motion to tell you that (again), you are missing the point. Carcharoth (talk) 08:49, 19 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• I'd smile upon such a proposal such as the one put forth by Bencherlite, but I'm not sure that falls under the direct remit of the committee and it's not something I'd be willing to propose. I wish people would just step back from the issue, for six months at minimum. NativeForeigner ^Talk 02:36, 18 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• @RexxS: My core argument is will those both for and against infoboxes please take a step back, cool off, and approach this all in a civil manner rather than attempting to bring up the issue as much as possible in every available venue. To be honest, I don't give a damm if an article has an infobox or not, and in my naivety thought perhaps Bencherlite's proposal would help to disengage the area, but judging by your response I find it unlikely. In any case, there is little more to be said regarding this request for clarification that would be productive. NativeForeigner ^Talk 16:58, 18 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Further community discussion along some of the lines opened above would be welcome, but no action is needed on the clarification request. Newyorkbrad (talk) 18:33, 18 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• The finding of fact is a reflection of community policy, not an establishment of new policy. The continuance of requests here in this matter is discouraging; I concur with NativeForeigner (talk · contribs) on all points. I admit to having not reviewed the case before Gerda brought it up during WP:ACE2013, however since then it has become my go-to case for when I'm explaining what ArbCom handles to a non-Wikipedian. LFaraone 00:41, 24 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• I agree that what's needed here is a clarification of the policy itself, not the finding of fact. I'd encourage the community to discuss this further, but the issue does not fall within the Committee's remit. GorillaWarfare (talk) 02:09, 24 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

---

---

Initiated by Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits at 12:50, 24 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Case affected

Infoboxes arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)

Clauses to which an amendment is requested

1. "Pigsonthewing is indefinitely banned from adding, or discussing the addition or removal of, infoboxes."

List of users affected by or involved in this amendment

• Pigsonthewing (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (Andy Mabbett; initiator)

Confirmation that the above users are aware of this request

• n/a

Information about amendment request

I request a relaxation of the above restriction, so that I can include an infobox in each of a limited, specific, set of new articles, as described below.

My GLAM collaboration work with the BBC is well-known and has resulted in much positive publicity for Wikipedia, and the creation and donation of valuable content, including the first-ever broadcast material released by the BBC under open licence (281 files uploaded, so far, of a planned 1,000). As part of this project, I plan, over the next few weeks, to create articles for many of the 160 (approx) red links for notable people in the sub pages of List of Desert Island Discs episodes (a BBC show). I wish to include an infobox in each of these.

Should anyone remove one of the infoboxes, I will neither restore nor discuss it (unless asked a question directly).

I invite suggestions as to how to deal with the unlikely case of someone stalking my edits to remove the infoboxes en mass; or to pre-emptively mass-create the articles described. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits at 12:50, 24 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Worm That Turned: You mean "last week's infobox upsets" in which I was found not only to have done nothing wrong, but to have been relentlessly stalked by another editor? This request - made over a year after the original case opened - has been in hand for a while before last week (as RexxS, with whom I discussed a draft will confirm), and is timed to coincide with a long-planned mass-creation of articles. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:15, 29 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Worm That Turned: Well, you yourself said "Seems pretty clear that there was an infobox there. Just because it didn't use the infobox template doesn't mean it wasn't an infobox." (you'll recall that the issue hinged on a false accusation that I had inserted an infobox where none had exited previously); and the request for enforcement was closed as "No action taken; no violation.". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:25, 29 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm a complete outsider to all of this, but the creation of these articles is a positive thing for the project. I think this request is a little premature - I would focus on making sure those articles are well written, broad in coverage and factually accurate above and beyond any forms of presentation. If you have already created a large (say, over 100) corpus of new articles, and you can't find anyone else who wants to put an infobox in, that would be the time to consider this. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 15:43, 24 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

No, just no. You've recently tested the margins regarding infoboxes and (rightly) got away with it. This is an attempt to extend those margins too far. You have a strong view regarding infoboxes that is not necessarily shared by others and allowing your proposal will almost inevitably result in another edit war spanning multiple articles even if you do not war yourself. You're are asking for permission to fire the first shot and, because you are seen as something of a standard-bearer for the pro-infobox faction, this request is likely to be the start of something nasty. If anyone else chooses to add infoboxes to your new articles and take the risk by association that goes with their action then more fool them, but there is no deadline and they are entitled to try.

PotW, like it or not, anything involving infoboxes and you is akin to a honeypot. I'd strongly advise that you do not even string the letters together for the foreseeable future, anywhere on-wiki. There is much other stuff that you can do and it seems that you are doing it. - Sitush (talk) 09:14, 26 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Did you know that the so-called infobox war was over in 2012? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:09, 29 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Did you know ... that soprano Ada Cherry Kearton was married to wildlife photographer Cherry Kearton and recounted their travels in her autobiography On Safari?

This is on the Main Page right now, one of the articles from the list in question, the infobox added by Voceditenore.

The other articles will also get infoboxes because such articles normally have infoboxes in Wikipedia. If a restriction is in the way of improving the project, something seems wrong. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:30, 5 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

A recent edit was described above and below as "testing" and "grey area", - it was not. "no foul. play on.", thank you for seeing that clearly, Floquenbeam, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:12, 5 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This section is for administrative notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

• It's a "definitely not" from me. Aside from being almost banned over the infobox dispute, you were recently testing the borders of your restriction; so, as far as I'm concerned this request is much too soon. Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 15:54, 24 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• I more or less agree with Salvio. I was not on the committee during the original case, but I know it has been an incredible time sink and that there was good reason for the topic ban put in place. Also the request as framed seems to be putting the cart rather far in front of the horse. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:17, 25 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Definitely not for now from me too, for the reasons articulated above,  Roger Davies ^talk 09:27, 27 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• I am afraid it is a no from me too. Decline. AGK [•] 23:12, 27 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Decline. GorillaWarfare (talk) 02:56, 28 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• We've already got more than enough trouble surrounding infoboxes. I can't support risking more at this time. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 06:26, 28 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Given last week's infobox upsets, this is pretty dire timing Andy. I have to agree with my colleagues, that a relaxation should not be happening at this time. Worm^TT(talk) 08:12, 29 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

  Andy, I wouldn't agree that you'd been found to have done "nothing wrong". The edit was in the grey area, otherwise there would not have been discussion of it. Yes, the committee agreed that you had not violated your restriction - but "nothing wrong" is a step beyond. I don't see that you needed to make this request now, before the dust settled, it was inherently poor timing. Worm^TT(talk) 12:56, 29 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

---

---

Initiated by Francis Schonken (talk) at 21:51, 22 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Case affected

Infoboxes arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)

Clauses to which an amendment is requested

1. Remedy 3.2 Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Infoboxes#Gerda Arendt restricted

List of users affected by or involved in this amendment

• Francis Schonken (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (initiator)
• Gerda Arendt (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Confirmation that the above users are aware of this request

• Gerda Arendt (diff of notification of this thread on Username2's talk page)

Information about amendment request

• Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Infoboxes#Gerda Arendt restricted
  • "Gerda Arendt is indefinitely restricted from: adding or deleting infoboxes; restoring an infobox that has been deleted... They may ... include infoboxes in new articles which they create." doesn't work very well. It leads to illogical split-offs, for the purpose of creation of infoboxes, with a lot of cleanup left to others. Let me take you step by step through an example:
    1. BWV 243 and BWV 243a used to be on a single page named Magnificat (Bach)
    2. (Gerda) preparing split [24] (moving existing Magnificat article to BWV 243)
    3. (Gerda) Starting BWV 243a article with infobox.
    4. (Gerda) in BWV 243a article adding a lot of content with references to sources that only speak about BWV 243.
    5. (Francis) cleaning up on BWV 243a [25] and moving BWV 243 related content to BWV 243 [26]
    6. (Gerda) speaking about "merg(ing) the (BWV 243 and BWV 243a) articles (back) to Magnificat (Bach), or separate the movements to a third (i.e. splitting one more off)" [27], suggesting she gets more recognition for her work that is now in the other article [28] while not wanting to contribute to that article [29]
    7. (Francis) obliging and working out the "partial inclusion" solution with updates of the content appearing in the BWV 243 article while technically only editing the BWV 243a article. [30] [31] - while this involved removing refs to sources not related to the BWV 243a article, putting up an {{original research}} template.
    8. Despite promises by Gerda [32] she has not found time to add references for the description in the BWV 243a article (which was well-referenced as long as it was in the BWV 243 article)

See step-by-step above:

• A lot of unnecessary counterproductive work not tailored on the optimal path to improve the encyclopedia, but jumping through hoops (also by those not by far ever involved in the infobox case) in order to have an infobox without infringing the 3.2 remedy of the infoboxes case.
• What I'd propose would more look like Talk:Rondo in C minor (Bruckner)#Survey on infobox or Talk:Magnificat in D major, BWV 243#Infobox on an article-by-article base, where once there is consensus on yes-or-no an infobox for the concerned article it doesn't matter who adds or removes it. Also, no longer a who created the article "owns" the infobox decision reasoning, which in the long run is only counterproductive.
• So I'd move to replace the 3.2 remedy of the infoboxes case by "Gerda Arendt is indefinitely restricted from: adding or deleting infoboxes unless as a consequence of a clear talk page consensus; restoring an infobox that has been deleted unless as a consequence of a clear talk page consensus; or making more than two comments in discussing the inclusion or exclusion of an infobox on a given article. They may participate in wider policy discussions regarding infoboxes with no restriction, and include infoboxes in new articles which they create."
• Note that I have more examples of somewhat ill-advised splittings, with retrospect also probably only for the same reason of creating infoboxes on the splits, and not in the interest of better (or more even) quality of the encyclopedia as a whole. Above I rather chose to elaborate one example than bore you all with multiple examples of the same (I was thinking e.g. of the Missa (Bach) split-offs).
• For Gerda I hope also if such improvement of her editing conditions were possible, she'd feel less restricted in editing for the wider benefit of the encyclopedia as a whole, not only for the articles on which she can leave a more prominent mark. --Francis Schonken (talk) 21:51, 22 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Replies by Francis

• @Thryduulf: I'm largely indifferent on whether infoboxes are improvements to articles or not. But you did catch nicely what this is about:
  • current system is not in the best interest of the encyclopedia
  • requires a lot of work by others not in the least interested in infoboxes
  • the inherent ownership issues with the current situation are not tenable. There's no reproach to what happened in the infoboxes case: I think arbitrators did the best they could under the given circumstances. Just looking for a way to improve.
  • what I'm suggesting is neither a mitigation nor an expansion of the 3.2 remedy of the infoboxes case, only adjusting it so that it is more workable for uninvolved parties, and Wikipedia's content benefits from the adjustment.
• Re. Thryduulf's procedural suggestions on determining consensus in the article-by-article scenario: I'd keep it as low profile as possible, with a WP:CCC attitude. From the two examples I gave above the first was rather high-brow (see WP:ANRFC#Talk:Rondo in C minor (Bruckner)#Survey on infobox), the second (Talk:Magnificat in D major, BWV 243#Infobox) not. Both work for me. If someone wants to re-open the discussion, they should feel free (without lifting the "two edits per infobox discussion" of remedy 3.2).
• @Beeblebrox: as an initiator I ask an improvement of my situation. I ask an improvement for Wikipedia's overal quality situation. Whether Gerda likes it or not is not the main concern here. If the amendement would be implemented and after that Gerda would still not be interested in pulling two related articles (like BWV 243 and BWV 243a) to a comparable level of quality that's her loss, but at least some red tape for others who are interested in that would be lifted. See also my first reply to Thryduulf above.
• @Gerda Arendt — I'm not interested in what plays there: liking the role of a victim? Stockholm syndrome? Seeking an anchor for periodically "proving" that Wikipedia is a bad system? Really, I'm not interested. The situation for Wikipedia is not optimal, and whether you, personally, are interested in optimization of the situation for Wikipedia, or not, should not play a role in the deliberation I'm suggesting.

--Francis Schonken (talk) 05:48, 23 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• @Thryduulf, AGK — see also [33] — I've quite had it with Gerda's antics, and that was even before she went WP:FORUMSHOP, see [34]. Apparently AGK hadn't even read the section title. It's an amendment request, not a clarification request. --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:50, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Re. "more diffs" suggestion by NativeForeigner

• Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/Rondo in C minor (Bruckner) and Intermezzo in D minor (Bruckner)

--Francis Schonken (talk) 06:05, 23 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Also, Talk:Magnificat in E-flat major, BWV 243a#WP:PRIMARY concerns, most prominently halfway through that section starting from "Related issues with the Bärenreiter score reference (used several times): it is the D-dur version (so not 243a)..." to the end of that talk page section illustrates the "jumping through hoops" red tape, burdoning those not involved in the infoboxes debate.
• This talk page section https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3AGerda_Arendt&diff=629548317&oldid=629548022#Hint illustrates more of the unnecessary complications that can be linked to the same.

Anyway, thanks for looking at this. --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:27, 23 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding Gerda's second reply

[35]

Not sure what Gerda tries to say... The over-all impression remains that she's not interested in seeing what benefits a streamlined "remedy 3.2" could bring her, the encyclopedia and myself. I'd rather like a situation where Gerda and I work together on BWV 243, than me doing a lot of unneccessary extra work, and then getting a compliment from Gerda for that at the end: I don't care very much for the compliment, but at least I seriously object to the unnecessary extra work: it is not in the best interest of the encyclopedia.

But as said, whether or not Gerda is only successful in looking at it from her own situation and/or from the situation of the encyclopedia as a whole, should be immaterial to the decision I'm petitioning here. So I'm really not sure what she's trying to prove.

Again I'm not interested in "why" Gerda apparently feels comfortable in a situation she describes as kafkaesque ("I came to love my restrictions, kafkaesque as they are" [36]). Neither the fact that she appears to feel comfortable in that situation, nor, even less, the "why" of that should have any influence on the outcome of this amendement proposal, imho. So I hope we can leave that part of the discussion behind. --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:15, 23 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Re. "Surely, if there's a clear talk page consensus, someone else who's not topic-banned could go about making the actual edit?"

Well, Gerda isn't topic-banned is she? Please see content of remedy 3.2. Gerda is not disallowed from the topic, not in mainspace, not in discussions, there's only a limited set of edits w.r.t. the topic she cannot do.

Its about creating the conditions that allow Gerda to edit in mainspace on the topic (in the current ruling: always on articles she created; never on other articles) that throw the complexities to deal with (also) on others. Apart from the splitting, merging, creating issues that others need to clean up,... (already discussed), and the initiatives on trying to find consensus on infoboxes I'm not interested in, which I undertook nonetheless as an extra task, there's still more work proposed... (and for something Gerda is very good in and I'm not). Then when I messed up on the infobox layout after Gerda has used up her two tokens to discuss it for that article a new unworkable situation is created...

My proposal is about creating more workable conditions for all, maintaining the partial topic ban idea of remedy 3.2, but with less difficult to manage side-effects. --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:06, 23 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Re. "Leave it alone or lift Gerda's sanctions altogether" line of arguments

Really, not helping. People still enclosed in their own arguments at the time of the ArbCom case are not likely to see the wider benefit of the amendment I propose. I kindly ask ArbCom members to put such arguments aside and give no attention to them. --Francis Schonken (talk) 05:42, 25 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Re. "You think Gerda creates aticles ONLY to add an infobox?"

Yes, that is a fact. Gerda does. Nikkimaria does (with the sole objective to avoid the infobox). There's no secret about that, both are clear on their motives in that respect. Others get caught in the fire. I'm thinking for instance about a nemcomer like Meneerke Bloem here, clueless about what is going on (see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classical music/Archive 52#Please arbitrate). All of this is very counterproductive, and makes Wikipedia an unwelcoming place for newcomers. --Francis Schonken (talk) 05:55, 25 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Oops, misjudged that one apparently, Gerda prefers the sanctimonious approach now. Gerda created BWV 243a (which is the history of BWV 243, there is no "difference in history"), and apart from adding the infobox:

• Gerda added history to the BWV 243a article, which is the history of BWV 243 too;
• Gerda added an elaborate description of the work to the BWV 243a article, which happened to be a description of BWV 243, not of BWV 243a (she didn't even have/use a source on 243a for writing that description: the minor differences in orchestration etc were overrun and the description was written as if BWV 243a was the same as BWV 243 in that respect)

Gerda did not collaborate on descriptions specific for BWV 243a, e.g. Magnificat in E-flat major, BWV 243a#The four Christmas hymns

The publication history section Gerda created for BWV 243a was incorrect for that article: it was the publication history of BWV 243. It incorrectly listed publications that were only applicable to BWV 243 [37]

Gerda suggested to merge the two articles back again after that, which is not what she says now.

Gerda refused to collaborate on the BWV 243 article after I had moved the BWV 243 description there from the BWV 243a article, reason for that refusal explicitly stated by Gerda: because BWV 243 had no infobox.

So really the creation of BWV 243a was only about the infobox, all the other content Gerda contributed on Bach's Magnificat could as well, or even better, have been placed in the BWV 243 (or the pre-split) article. And about an undercurrent of ownership which was somewhat cemented by the current wording of the 3.2 remedy of the infoboxes case. --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:45, 25 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This is not about "making errors". Everyone does. This is about an environment that creates less error-prone and "leave the cleanup to others" conditions. These others are volunteers too, and the cleanup they do is out of free will too. It is about creating conditions that reduce the surplus work for all involved. --Francis Schonken (talk) 09:42, 25 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You see, I got myself involved in this very time-consuming amendment request, still I believe that when it passes the amount of time gained later in avoiding unneccessary cleanup situations will be more than a marginal net benefit, and not only for myself. --Francis Schonken (talk) 09:47, 25 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding the effectiveness of the proposed amendment

Although, theoretically, "consensus" is impossible (as RexxS argues), the article-by-article treatment (without prior rights for the creator of the article), as proposed by the amendment, shows little practical problems to reach an agreement for the articles where this approach has been tested:

• Talk:Rondo in C minor (Bruckner)#Survey on infobox
• Talk:Magnificat in D major, BWV 243#Infobox

No turmoil or drama, just editors coming to an agreement on the best solution for the article in question. So yes, the proposed amendment would be effective in solving problems. --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:23, 25 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think this is a waste of time. I came to love my restrictions, kafkaesque as they are, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:26, 22 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

In 2011, I wrote He was despised, because Messiah (Handel), then up for FA, had no room for the music. I wrote four supporting articles, including Messiah Part II. They have infoboxes, the main article not. Mind the dates, Messiah was TFA on 23 March 2013. - In a similar way, I worked on other composition articles, compare Mass in B minor to Mass in B minor structure, most recently Bach's Magnificat, the only difference being that the article on the music was not called Magnificat structure. I am rather proud of BWV 243a already (going to be improved) and happy that BWV 243 was improved as well (mostly by you, Francis, the way to include the details in both articles is admirable, and I didn't know it), - this was the starting point. - I am on vacation. Don't expect anything from me until November. I feel that I have to improve the Bach cantatas for Reformation date in my limited time. One has an infobox (BWV 48), two not (BWV 5, BWV 56), because although I wrote most of their content but didn't start them. I don't know what our readers think. - Victim? The victim of the infoboxes case was Andy, not me, but yes, you typically find me defending the victim (17 June 2013). If you all can improve the situation without me, that would be wonderful ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:19, 23 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

No, I don't create articles to have an infobox, I create articles to inform readers. Normally, I do that in place, look at Locus iste (compare the start and today). For the Bach Magnificat, the two versions have different history, key, scoring and recordings, therefore (!) I started a different one, and still believe that two separate articles are better than one, but if others disagree, they could be merged to one Magnificat (Bach). All this is content, nothing for arbcom. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:48, 25 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

BWV 243a is a work in progress, and I make errors, sorry. The Christmas elements are planned for Christmas, the sourcing of the structure for next week, unless someone steps in to add sooner. This is a project based on voluntary effort, right? - To see the term "comfortable" applied to a kakfaesque situation is quite amusing. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:29, 25 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Should I have marked "love" above with a sarcasm icon? - Last, a bit of article history. I came across Bach's Magnificat when I wrote about Rutter's, wanted to compare to Bach's treatment, and found there was nothing to compare, and some of the little bit about Bach's Meisterwerk was wrong. I fixed what was wrong and started the new one, planned to be TFA on 2 July 1717. I am going to sing Rutter's today. Magnificat! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:56, 25 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Singing was great. A bit more of history: BWV 120 was created in 2010 to cover all articles with the general number, also BWV 120a and BWV 120b which were redirects then. Nikkimaria split them to individual articles, which I think was a good idea! (There are several more of the kind.) Francis made individuals articles BWV 233 to BWV 236 back to redirects today which I think is not a good idea. Every BWV number deserves its own article even if that is a stub first, and BWV 233 wasn't even a stub. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:58, 26 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Having to add Missa, BWV 232a, which is certainly no stub, but was also redirected. I reverted that one, will leave the others for, I have better things to do on a Sunday. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:04, 26 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Peaceful talk resumed on (now) Missa in B minor (Bach).

Locus iste --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:24, 29 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It was prophesied that the way the Committee handled the infoboxes case would just lead to it coming back here in some other form sooner or later. I've lost count of how many times now it has done, and each time the Committee has refused to do the necessary nettle-grasping to sort out the mess they've left the topic in, particularly regarding the endorsed (and arguably required) WP:OWNERSHIP and the battleground it produces.

On this occasion @Beeblebrox: has missed the point of the request. This is not about lifting Gerda's restrictions for her sake, it is about amending Gerda's restrictions to avoid disrupting the encyclopaedia. I have not looked at the evidence presented, but if the allegations are correct then Gerda has found a way to remain within her restrictions while adding infoboxes to existing articles (which is a long-term benefit to the encyclopaedia) she did not create (which is against he restrictions). The method she has allegedly employed to do this disrupts Wikipedia in the short term (excessive necessary splitting/forking/duplication of content) and creates work for others to fix.

It is a perverse situation whereby someone must disrupt the project in order to improve it, but it is one entirely of Arbcom's own making. The suggested amendments to the restrictions would go part way to removing this disruption, but without also removing the ownership advantages of the anti-infobox users and making and enforcing a requirement that all such talk page discussions be:

• Publicly and neutrally advertised (I forget which article now, but I did see an article where an infobox had been removed based on a discussion that was not-unlikely canvassed and closed after ~3 days by its initiator);
• Be confined to discussing the specific infobox for the specific article; and
• Closed by an uninvolved user

then there will just be more removals of infoboxes to the detriment of the encyclopaedia.

ArbCom made this mess and now it needs to clean it up. Thryduulf (talk) 01:25, 23 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@AGK: Because this is not about Gerda. As explained =by myself, the initiator, RexxS and others, this is about the restrictions placed on Gerda harming Wikipedia. Please actually read all the statements, not just Gerda's. Thryduulf (talk) 10:34, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@AGK: You've seriously requested this to be archived? Seriously? I'm not sure I've seen such a blatant abdication of responsibility from arbcom before. There is no way on earth this ammendment request has run its course - basically everybody except Gerda is saying the arbcom needs to take action - so please take some action. Arbcom is supposed to be about resolving disputes that are getting the way of the encyclopaedia rather than facilitating them and then burrying its head in the sand about the consequences. I object in the strongest possible terms to this being archived without action. Thryduulf (talk) 14:22, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I have no knowledge of this topic area, but BWV 243 and BWV 243a look like near copies of each other. It forces me to ask why these were split in the first place. On the surface, I can see no reason to do this other than to force an infobox into the new fork. Unless there is a good reason for this that I am not seeing, I am inclined to support Francis' position that a change to the restriction is needed, though I'm not sure the one he proposes would be of benefit. Resolute 15:00, 23 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The articles themselves are created to allow expansion on a topic where the main topic cannot encompass all that detail. Clearly if they re short or have some repetitive material WP:DONOTDEMOLISH applies. Otherwise, if there is an issue with them being a POV fork, then a merge recommendation, or in an extreme case AfD, is the solution, not a run to this dramaboard crying that Gerda created an article. Really? You think Gerda creates aticles ONLY to add an infobox? Oh PUH-LEESE. Get a grip! Truly, ArbCom has far greater things to worry about than this. This whole thing is crap. Frankly, my opinion is that Gerda's restrictions on adding infoboxes should be lifted altogether, and the restrictions on edit-warring to add or remove should be made to apply to everyone. Montanabw^(talk) 17:42, 24 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Surely it's obvious that the very problems ArbCom failed to solve last year will inevitably return, because their solution to the disruption caused by edit-warring over infoboxes was to ban one side of the argument - and nothing else. It's all very well writing platitudes about "clear consensus on the talk page", but frankly that's nonsense. There can be no consensus about the existence of an infobox in an article, because it's a binary decision: there's either a box or there isn't. That leaves no room for a compromise solution that everybody can live with - the very definition of consensus on Wikipedia. The current ArbCom sanctions are what is causing the forks of articles because we have Nikkimaria on the one hand creating stubby forks to ensure that they don't have infoboxes; and Gerda on the other hand doing the same to ensure that they do have infoboxes. I hope somebody on ArbCom can now understand that giving the decision to the creator of the article is a stupid idea that generates this sort of race to see who can think of the most forks.

Having said that, it's also clear that the forks are seeing development and allowing greater detailed exploration of the parent articles. This is a good thing, but we're arriving at it from quite the wrong direction. Isn't it simply crazy that a contributor of Gerda's quality feels that the restrictions have helped her create more content? How much more content could she now make if she wasn't in a race to become the creator of an article before someone else does? That sort of situation is anathema to the collaborative process on which we so strongly depend and it's your fault, ArbCom. Mackensen warned you at the time that taking sides in a content dispute was likely to end badly, but you went ahead anyway. Your problem, you sort it. --RexxS (talk) 21:06, 24 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The arbitration decision on info boxes clearly delineated two groups and penalized one. I don't see how a fair consensus can be reached on any infobox discussion when there are clearly two sides and one of those sides has more implied power than the other. I felt strongly the arbs made mistakes on the infobox arbitration and seeing Gerda an incredibly productive and mild mannered editor dragged here and there by those with out sanctions, however well meaning, often in efforts to curtail her further only increases my unease with that decision. As said above, this is not a level playing field so why would we expect fair play. If we want fair play and the productive editing and discussion that brings lift the sanctions on Gerda and let her edit freely. If she doesn't want the sanctions lifted or has, and to her great credit, learned to operate productively with in them then let's leave her alone to do the job she's here for. This is again, time wasted.(Littleolive oil (talk) 21:56, 24 October 2014 (UTC))[reply]

It seems clear that the proliferation of rules and special cases is a bad idea, leading to confusion and sup-optimal results. Moreover this case is long in the past. While it can be fun on one level to "work within Kafkaesque rule sets" it is also frustrating and leads to the few editors that are prepared to do it, rather than simply leave, experiencing more stress and being less effective.

For this reason it is perhaps wise to consider whether the sanctions in place (some of which seem to be supported by uncritical acceptance of other protaganists' claims) should be at least suspended, partially or fully. Gerda and Andy can of course, if they wish, continue to abide by the sanctions to the letter.

I would see this approach as very useful when applied to some of our ancient cases. Is it really necessary to keep all these areas under discretionary sanctions, for instance?

So, Gerda's restriction stays because she likes it. Bravo ArbCom, bravo. What was the other reason? And, Beeblebrox, do you understand the concept of Kafkaesque, and how it applies to Gerda's 'love' of her restriction? Somehow I think not. And this entire ArbCom request is because Gerda undid a redirect, so now it's about infoboxes?[38] Please. I think RexxS states the underlying problem very well, interesting to see an ArbCom restriction used by others in such a manner as RexxS describes, "Oooo, I'll create lots of stubs and redirects so Gerda can't add an infobox." Clever. Dreadstar ☥ 20:19, 27 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This section is for administrative notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

• This is a perfect example of why we generally have very little interest in appeals by third parties. Gerda isn't interested in having the restrictions lifted, so I see no reason to discuss the matter at all. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:48, 23 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• I'll need to review more than the provided diffs to get a view of this. If this is the case as framed, it could be problematic. However, I'm not immediately seeing it. NativeForeigner ^Talk 05:31, 23 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• I'm just going through contribs, I want to get a more complete story than 'just diffs'. But thank you, nonetheless. NativeForeigner ^Talk 06:32, 23 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Decline. Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 09:06, 23 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• This does seem needless complexity, but I'm not sure about the proposed change. Surely, if there's a clear talk page consensus, someone else who's not topic-banned could go about making the actual edit? Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 14:20, 23 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• After serving on this Committee since 2008, I have two months and four days left as an arbitrator. I do not plan to spend even five minutes of one of those days thinking about infoboxes. Abstain. Newyorkbrad (talk) 15:47, 28 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• "Statement by Gerda: I think this is a waste of time" – speedily decline, and I must question why a clarification request of this nature was raised without the subject's consent. AGK [•] 23:30, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • This request has now certainly ran its course. I've asked the clerks to archive. AGK [•] 12:30, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

---

---

Initiated by Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) at 01:11, 20 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Case affected

Infoboxes arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)

Clauses to which an amendment is requested

1. Remedy 1.1 - Pigsonthewing and infoboxes

List of users affected by or involved in this amendment

• Callanecc (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) (initiator)
• Pigsonthewing (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Confirmation that the above users are aware of this request

• Pigsonthewing

Information about amendment request

• Remedy 1.1 - Pigsonthewing and infoboxes
• Add "for articles" to the end of the remedy.

I know it's another Infoboxes request, but bear with me, this one will (hopefully) be easy and uncontroversial.

There was an AE request filed which requested enforcement against Pigsonthewing requesting and discussing deletion of infoboxes at WP:TfD. The consensus among admins was there was an implication that the restriction applies to articles only however as this is not clear in the provision there would continue to be misunderstanding and possibly further AE requests closed without action being possible. So this request (as an uninvolved admin carrying out the close of the request) is for a motion with the following wording:

Remedy 1.1 of the Infoboxes arbitration case is amended to read:

@AGK: The original remedy has been interpreted as discussing the removal of an infobox template, as they are used in articles the interpretation as far as enforcement goes was the remedy applied to articles. If that is incorrect then enforcing admins have interpreted it outside it's intention so it needs to be clarified. Something like adding "in all namespaces, including {all discussions/requests for deletion} at WP:Templates for discussion and similar discussions at other venues" to the end of the remedy.

@Courcelles: I'd suggest dropping "to improve their functionality" as leaving it would require admins to decide whether an edit improved it or not (unless that was the attention). Other than that it sounds good to me. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 12:22, 30 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Disagree with Callanecc's proposal. Here we see Pigsonthewing going in denial about an unresolved issue regarding infoboxes, removing the link to where the discussion of that issue was taking place: unnecessary & unhelpful – if it is qualified as "unhelpful" to try resolve an actual infoboxes issue the resulting impression remains that many months after the conclusion of the Infoboxes case at least some infoboxes proponents prefer to go largely in denial about the issues at hand.

If anything, an amendment to the Infoboxes case should imho further restrict PotW's actions regarding infoboxes. --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:39, 20 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

"...I'd be in favour of a gordian solution: let's simply ban Andy from anything infobox-related across all namespaces" [40] is the one I like best. Failing a compromise on that, I suppose "...discard the invented interpretation that this restriction applies only to the mainspace..." [41] would do best. Courcelles' rewrite attempts appear to be going nowhere: they add complexity, and thus confusion, so, no more than fertilizer to future distraction. --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:50, 1 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

On a related note, this edit by PotW seems to attract controversy – indeed it would have been better to talk to involved parties first, before cluttering many main namespace pages with a rather technical in-crowd notice. --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:55, 7 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Francis: "Comments here should be directed only at the above proposed amendment." - We are not discussing here your bold change to a project page of a project of which you are not even a member, claiming that it is a "disadvantage" of infoboxes that a certain program extracting a PDF fails to render the image. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:14, 20 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@AussieLegend, who said that "Andy does nominate a lot of infoboxes for deletion or merging". This is true, and this is good for the project. Look for example at {{infobox hymn}} (specialised, old-fashioned, with camel-case parameter names and no room for an image), nominated to be merged to the more general flexible {{infobox musical composition}}. It seems desirable to have only few, well maintained infobox templates, - I use {{infobox person}} for all people. Thank you, Andy, for the unrewarded cleanup work in the field. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:18, 29 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@CT Cooper: You say: "What is in dispute is the way in which Andy goes about doing these things." I say: It is not, the dispute is if the restriction is worded precisely enough and nothing else. (Not if it's a good restriction, and not in which way Andy goes about things). In the example above, he didn't talk first to users - and how would you find out which editors use infobox hymn? Seems kind of not practical, on top of being unrelated to the question here. I was pleased about his initiative to merge, - I would have been to lazy to try it myself.

See also "honourable mention", and enjoy a happy and peaceful 2015! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:01, 31 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@AussieLegend: the phrase "testing his boundaries" was used related to an edit which was brought to arbitration enforcement: formatting a malformed infobox. Instead of a simple "thank you" for helping a new user who wanted an infobox but didn't know how to code it, the edit received attention on three noticeboards. I asked the candidates for arbitration about it, they said "no foul, play on". I add "playful" to my wishes for 2015 ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:26, 31 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Ched's question: no, thank you --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:39, 31 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@DGG: You made the effort of adding a statement, generally addressing experts "who are not willing to follow community norms". Please name one specific incidence as an example of what you mean. I rather see certain projects not willing to follow community norms, at least back then in 2013. However, the ice seems to be breaking. Compare the discussions in the archive of Rigoletto talk and what you see today. I joined project opera again. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:05, 4 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@HJ Mitchell: You demand evidence of disruption now? No evidence of disruption was provided in the arb case, to my knowledge. I like the phrase "the fact that a discussion turned contentious does not necessarily mean it should never have been started" by Seraphimblade, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 23:25, 10 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Review means looking back. Can we please look forward instead?

@Doncram: thank you for demonstrating what editors who want to simplify templates have to face. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:15, 18 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Floq: perhaps we agree more than you think ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:15, 18 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Bach's cantata for today translates to "My God, how long, ah, how long?" - his titles are so useful, this one could refer to the length of some contribution as to the waiting for peace --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:15, 18 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

If that was, or reasonably seems to be, the intention of the original wording, then the amendment should be made without cavil. And I would say that it clearly is the substantive intention. Any desire to extend the sanction should be the subject of a different process.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 15:27, 20 December 2014 (UTC).

Note I'm commenting here as an involved editor, not as an incoming arbitrator

I fully support this, as this matches how the restriction has been interpreted on multiple occasions at AE. Indeed, I would go further and explicitly add a second sentence "Pigsonthewing may nominate and discuss infobox templates at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion." to fully avoid any ambiguity. Thryduulf (talk) 19:31, 20 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Salvio giuliano: Please can you give some evidence of Andy testing the boundaries? There have been several cases where people have tried to get Andy in trouble, but on every occasion the community as agreed that Andy has done nothing wrong and has not breached the restriction, which does not prohibit him discussing the changing of infoboxes that are on articles by consensus of other people. Gordian knot solutions are only suitable as a last resort when nothing else can work, but in this case there is a very simple amendment that can be made to achieve the same ends with no disruption going forward. It is completely inappropriate to penalise an editor when they are following the restrictions because other people are confused by it. Thryduulf (talk) 13:31, 28 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@AGK: The interpreation that this applies only to article space has been the one made by the community every time it has been asked, and has been upheld every time its been before the committee. Doing nothing now only guarantees more disruption. Thryduulf (talk) 13:31, 28 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Courcelles: I think your proposal is a good start, but I'd word it as:

"Pigsonthewing is prohibited from adding an infobox to any article, or participating in discussions related to whether an article or group of articles should include an infobox. He is explicitly allowed to:

• Edit infobox templates
• Change the type of infobox used on an article
• Add, remove or change the information displayed in an infobox
• Nominate and discuss specific infobox templates at templates for discussion or other appropriate venue (including template talk and wikiproject talk pages)."

This incorporates your response to Rich Farmbrough and Callanecc's proposed change. It also explicitly permits nominating infobox templates at TfD for any reason (to avoid any wikilawyering about whether nominating something for e.g. deletion is nominating it for "discussion"), participating in discussions other than at TfD (e.g. he can discus a template on it's talk page and partipate in a WikiProject's discussion of an infobox relevant to their project. I've included the word "specific" to make it clear this isn't permission to discuss the merits or otherwise of infoboxes as a concept) changing the type of infobox (per previous clarification requests, and which not all participants in this discussion are apparently aware of) and changing the information in an infobox that already exists (I'm not aware this has been controversial yet, but given the nature of this topic it's better to be explicit and prevent that). The bullets are just my preference for long lists of simple items over short lists of more complex ones. Thryduulf (talk) 10:36, 2 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I feel I should make it explicit that the topic ban remains unchanged in this proposal, the bullets are simply clarifications to the scope (which have been proven required) not exceptions to it. Thryduulf (talk) 12:36, 2 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@DGG: Please can you provide some evidence of disruption at TfD actually caused by Andy rather than other people disrupting TfD's Andy has opened? If a discussion is closed as "no, because X needs to be done first" it is not disruptive to nominate the same template again when X has been done. Thryduulf (talk) 10:40, 3 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Courcelles: That motion is very good, although it leaves things ambiguous about whether he may participate in other discussions about infoboxes at TfD, and whether he may discuss templates at venues other than TfD (e.g. template talk pages). Sadly the history this dispute has shown that people will use these ambiguities to wikilawyer and harass Andy. Thryduulf (talk) 00:29, 9 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Delta Quad and Euryalus: This motion does not change the scope of the restriction at all, it simply clarifies that it applies to article space only. The second part exists only to prevent the disruption caused by other editors using ambiguities to harass Andy, and there is plenty of evidence presented that this is necessary. As HJ Mitchell notes, evidence has been presented of other people using Andy's discussions to cause disruption but none presented that actually shows Andy being disruptive at TfD or elsewhere. Perhaps this could be clarified by changing the start of the second sentence to "For the avoidance of doubt, this restriction does not apply to any editing outside the article or article talk namespace and explicitly does not prohibit:..." Thryduulf (talk) 11:36, 12 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Doncram: Whatever the merits or otherwise of those deletions, they are entirely irrelevant to Andy's restrictions regarding infoboxes. There has never been any restriction on his nomination articles for deletion, for any reason, nor does it bear any relation to the rest of this discussion (which is about nominating infobox templates at TfD). That you even bring it up here is evidence of how much the current wording is not fit for purpose Thryduulf (talk) 21:09, 13 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Doncram: Andy is allowed to convert one type of infobox to another, and to edit infoboxes on articles by, in the first case, explicit decision of last year's arbcom, and in the second case by AE admins repeatedly declining to sanction him for this. He is not allowed to discuss whether an article should or should not have an infobox, and he may not change the status of an article from one to the other. Whether he is allowed to discuss the content of an infobox is not something that I can recall having been clarified (the usual recommendation in such cases is that if you are not sure if an edit breaches a topic ban do not make it), which is another example of this remedy causing as many problems as it solves. No restrictions at all were placed on Andy's activities at AfD and so he may nominate any article for deletion he wishes just like any other unrestricted editor on the project, whether he can discuss it if he has been accused of what you are accusing him of is again undefined as far as I am aware. Thryduulf (talk) 22:18, 18 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

AGK although personally I agree with you -- as discussed on the linked AE thread -- this is clarification and amendment. Given the requesters have a good faith question about the scope of the sanction, a comment indicating your interpretation would be helpful. NE Ent 23:40, 27 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

(Note: Andy is a personal friend of mine IRL so, although I have no strong feelings about infoboxes, I don't claim to be 'uninvolved'.)

This is silly. The locus of the dispute was around the addition of infoboxes to articles. The dispute was between Andy et al and members of the classical music project over whether or not articles in that project's scope should have infoboxes, and all other infobox-related disruption that led to the original arbitration case was spillover from the resulting interpersonal disputes. Essentially the project members adamantly refused to entertain the idea of infoboxes on their articles, Andy attempted to force the issue (resulting in edit wars and other disruption), the project members were very rude to Andy, Andy was equally charming in return and the whole thing deteriorated to a point where nothing could be achieved. The ban on adding/discussing infoboxes on articles was a proportionate (if grossly one-sided) remedy. Andy's participation at TfD was never part of the original dispute and his contributions regarding the technical implementation of infoboxes was never problematic. Indeed, the only disruption related to his participation at TfD has been the repeated misinterpretation (or indeed malinterpretation) of the remedy and its use as a stick to beat Andy for otherwise unproblematic edits.

The consensus at AE has at least twice been that Andy's participation at TfD is not within the scope of the remedy, so making this amendment would merely codify what is already practice and prevent further misguided enforcement requests—given the precedent, it is vanishingly unlikely that another AE thread would conclude that Andy's participation at TfD was a violation of the remedy, especially as that participation is not disruptive in and of itself. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 14:12, 28 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Courcelles: With Callan's caveat (removing "to improve their functionality", because it's better for all concerned not to leave things open to interpretation), I wholeheartedly endorse your proposed wording. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 12:40, 30 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• @Rschen7754: Are you honestly trying to tell us that re-opening a discussion that reaches no consensus three years later (almost to the day!) is disruptive editing? Or is it just disruptive if the nominator is called Andy Mabbett? Or if the template is one that you're interested in? HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 23:12, 10 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• @Salvio giuliano: Based on...? I see no evidence presented that Andy's TfD nominations are disruptive, and only a small amount of evidence of other people causing disruption on Andy's nominations. It is disingenuous to suggest that TfD nominations are covered by the remedy as written, as Andy's participation at TfD was never the locus of the original case; indeed it was never even discussed in the case. You are making sweeping assertions without citing any evidence; editors who do that at AE or in arbitration cases get sanctioned. Are you of the opinion that arbitrators should be held to a different standard? HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 23:12, 10 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I have been a part-observer/part-participant in the recent infobox controversies involving Eurovision related articles, an area in which I am active.

I presently accept, as does Wesley Mouse (talk · contribs) who raised the issue with him, that the remedy concerned does not cover his participation in TfDs. However, it is my view that editors should respond to restrictions by finding an entirely new area to edit, and not edit around them, regardless of whether it's permissible or not, as doing so often only causes further trouble. Recent events have only re-enforced this viewpoint in my eyes, as the behaviour of Andy at the TfDs and in related discussions was problematic and managed to cause a lot of completely avoidable infobox drama – one thing the remedy was supposed to put a stop to. I criticised him as an involved editor for some of his remarks (1, 2, 3), and he was admonished by an uninvolved administrator for a separate remark (4); an admonishment that Andy appears to have rejected (5). I'm not saying that all other editors in these discussions behaved perfectly, but this discussion is not about them.

As it stands, I will not support any amendment that endorses or otherwise encourages Andy to continue to edit in this area, but I will accept the proposed amendment as a simple clarification of the existing restrictions as they are currently interpreted. However, if the proposed amendment goes through and this behaviour from Andy continues, I believe it is only a matter of time before the Arbitration Committee will be asked to review this remedy again. CT Cooper · talk 18:37, 28 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@AGK: I disagree, the remedy is not clear at all. A person could reasonably interpret "adding, or discussing the addition or removal of, infoboxes" as covering TfDs as such discussion do often result in the addition or removal of infoboxes. Arbitrators seem to be giving us a variety of different answers here on what the restriction is intended to cover, which in my view is evidence in itself that the remedy doesn't work as currently worded. CT Cooper · talk 18:46, 28 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Gerda Arendt: Many of the TfD nominations were justified; that is not in dispute as far as I'm concerned. What is in dispute is the way in which Andy goes about doing these things.

@RexxS: In the case of Eurovision template there were already plans in motion to merge some redundant templates, but they weren't gong anywhere fast, so the effect of Andy's actions was a lot of unnecessary drama and the templates being panic merged in a poor fashion, which later had to be fixed by outside parties. I cannot speak about the details of other cases, but it is not true that Andy is the only person on the project which merges templates. As for this remedy being unrelated, well it clearly isn't that unrelated – the remedy was about infoboxes; this discussion is about infoboxes. Claims that they are unrelated hinge entirely on the current interpretation of the remedy, which given arbitrators' comments so far, may still be up for debate after all. CT Cooper · talk 17:49, 29 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Montanabw: No, the remedy is not clear that relates only to articles which is why this amendment has been proposed, and the merging/deletion of infoboxes inherently involves articles anyway. Actually, he has been admonished by an uninvolved admin at least once for incivility, which was name-calling, as was clearly indicated in my original statement. I took the courtesy of reading all prior statements before making my own, and I would appreciate it if other editors did the same. CT Cooper · talk 20:09, 29 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Fæ: Thank you for your input. If I had my way, this particular case would have never ended-up in front of ArbCom. On the Eurovision templates, I did attempt to informally mediate the situation by pointing out errors in the actions of both sides and noting that there was actually agreement that some templates needed to be merged; it was tragically only drama over how it was done that was getting in the way. Unfortunately however, the issue spiralled out of control very quickly, and so here we are. If the proposed amendment goes through or no further action is taken by ArbCom, I would welcome an uninvolved administrator to come in and mediate should Andy choose to continue to be involved in Eurovision templates. CT Cooper · talk 21:55, 29 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@RexxS: In my statement I have clearly stated that I accept the motion as proposed; said motion is not "trying to remove just Andy from template discussions". Yes other editors have not behaved well at times, that is undeniable, but Andy is the one that got himself subject to ArbCom sanctions and so this discussion is about him and him alone – I know some people are unhappy about that, but that is the reality of the situation. Actions against other editors are for another venue such as WP:ANI.

I have already presented clear evidence (I am the only person here to have actually presented diffs), which clearly shows problematic behaviour from Andy. My area of contact with Andy is limited to Eurovision templates, and there maybe kernels of truth that Andy has been unjustly criticised elsewhere, which is why I have no quarrel with some statements supportive of Andy, even if they present things from a different perspective from my own. What I take exception to it people appearing to turn-up to engage in cheer-leading and to simplistically declare that anyone who dares have a grievance against Andy is somehow on an template ownership driven witch-hunt, without taking the time to review what the grievances against Andy actually are, let alone reviewing the full facts of the matter before commenting.

I could present more evidence or elaborate in much more detail on why Andy's behaviour was at times unacceptable, but my main motive here is not to get Andy "punished" or further restricted. What I'm interested in ensuring that the sanctions are properly defined and that Andy refrains from further problematic behaviour so this doesn't need to come in front of ArbCom again. On the latter, I view coming to ArbCom as an absolute last resort and I've stated clearly that I'm open to options which are far more favourable to Andy. TfD discussions inherently involve adding and removing infoboxes from articles, and the remedy covered discussions on such matters, so yes they are related, though whether they are covered by the sanction or not is a matter for ArbCom to decide. I hope they do so soon. In the meantime, I will present more evidence if and when ArbCom requests it; I don't answer to anyone else on that subject. CT Cooper · talk 14:51, 30 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Courcelles: A think a complete re-wording is a good idea, and something along those lines is acceptable to me. However, as I alluded to in my opening statement, there needs to be a change of behaviour from Andy for this to be a workable resolution. CT Cooper · talk 15:18, 30 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@RexxS: I think I was clear that I'm happy to accept the current interpretation (in fact, I said so in the second sentence of my statement), with my support for the motion being motivated by a desire to help set the current interpretation in stone. Any comments from me which stated the interpretation was up for debate again were in a response to some arbitrators appearing to want to review this, though I will let them speak for themselves on that. It remains my view that people should respond to restrictions by finding completely new areas to edit, rather than editing around them, though I accept that nobody is obliged to follow this advice and I have not at any point actively pushed for the current interpretation of the remedy to be altered. If in the future I reach the conclusion that stronger sanctions are needed, I will ask for new sanctions at an appropriate venue, not for re-interpretations of existing ones.

The merging of templates sometimes does involve removing existing templates from articles – such as when merging multiple templates together into a new one, as was carried out with Eurovision templates recently, but I won't quibble over such technicalities and a completely revised wording should resolve this. I agree that merging little used templates is generally a good thing, and I don't think anyone is suggesting that such activities are in themselves a problem. What is the problem is the way Andy sometimes goes about doing this, as highlighted in my evidence. Does that justify new sanctions at this point? Probably not, but if the problematic behaviour continues, that situation might change. Certainly I think lifting all the sanctions is out of the question at this point, at least until Andy proves he is ready for it. CT Cooper · talk 19:42, 30 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Gerda Arendt: I disagree, as rightly or wrongly, it was ultimately Andy's behaviour that led to this coming back to ArbCom, starting with an enforcement request, which has now been followed by this request for clarification and amendment. Myself and other editors at WikiProject Eurovision didn't even know Andy was under an ArbCom restriction to start with, and it could have easily stayed that way. I'm afraid I'm not following the rest of your points, though I've been familiar with Andy's highly positive contributions in various areas for a good while, which if I'm honest, is one reason I was as actually quite shocked to find out that he did have such a long history with ArbCom. A happy New Year to you too! CT Cooper · talk 14:56, 31 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Littleolive oil: When quoting my comments, please give proper attribution and proper context. That is my view based on experience with similar situations to this one, but I have also made clear that I have given my support to clarifying the current sanctions, rather than to expanding them. CT Cooper · talk 11:51, 3 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

There really does need to be greater clarification regarding this, since much of the problem involves Andy's participation at TfDs, especially when he nominates and then sometimes re-nominates the same templates without attempting to involve himself in discussion with end users or maintainers of the template. Quite often we see "Redundant to....." as the rationale, when in fact this is not the case. An example is {{Infobox Ireland station}} which, along with {{Infobox NI station}}, Andy nominated last year. The result of the discussion was that Infobox Ireland station was kept and Infobox NI station was merged into it. Not satisfied with the result, as has happened before, Andy has now re-nominated Infobox Ireland station today. Forcing the community to go through the same process over and over until he achieves the desired result can be seen to be disruptive, and this is what forces people to file AE Requests, especially since deletion of an infobox can be interpreted as removing it from an article, even if it is replaced by another. If the restriction placed on Andy is only applicable to articles, then this needs to be set in stone. If this isn't done, then more AE Requests are likely to be filed as Andy does nominate a lot of infoboxes for deletion or merging. --AussieLegend (✉) 13:32, 29 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Gerda Arendt: - Yes, reducing the number of templates can be beneficial but that's not always the case. For example, Andy has now nominated {{Infobox Rome episode}} for deletion (again). In the process, and regardless of the outcome of the TfD, he has removed code from the template that now opens the way for somebody to justifiably create two additional templates regardless of the TfD outcome. Andy has a narrow focus when it comes to templates and doesn't always look at the big picture. --AussieLegend (✉) 15:24, 29 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Courcelles: - The wording is an improvement, but I don't think it is enough. One of the things that I've been complaining about for some time is that Andy almost never (99.9% of the time) seems to engage in discussion with template maintainers or end users before nominating infoboxes for deletion or merging. The restriction would seem to encourage him not to engage in discussion which, to me at least, seems counterproductive. An example is the nomination for {{Infobox Australian road}}, which was specifically kept after extended discussion, including an RfC attended by members of the Highways and Australian Roads projects. If Andy had discussed this first, the TfD might not have happened. I feel Andy's restriction should require that he engage in discussion before nominating infoboxes. At the very least it should encourage such discussion but, as it stands, it encourages him to nominate and sort it out at TfD, which can be a combative venue, and Andy seems to be taking advantage of this based on his recent nominations. --AussieLegend (✉) 09:35, 31 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Thryduulf: Does replacing one infobox with another in an article qualify as "Andy testing the boundaries". There has been no consensus for this change. --AussieLegend (✉) 11:28, 31 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Or this. --AussieLegend (✉) 11:35, 31 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@RexxS: I really don't appreciate your accusations of mud-slinging. It's been said here that Andy's restriction extends only to article space and here we have two edits in article space where he has effectively added an infobox. The restriction does not make it clear that changing is not part of the restriction. The change he made doesn't make sense when all of the related articles use a different infobox and his change removed content from display. He made that change specifically as a test. He could have easily created the example in his user space or at Template:Infobox Rome episode/testcases where there is a side by side comparison.

You want Andy to search around for all the people who edit your templates or use them before being allowed to start a discussion at Templates for Discussion? No, it's simply common courtesy to discuss use of a template with the end users first. Andy avoids that at all costs. He doesn't have to "search around for all the people", it's usually just a matter of going to the template's talk page to identify the end user project and opening a discussion on the project's talk page. Andy is so inconsiderate that he won't even leave a simple note, leaving others to do it for him.[42] He refuses to even add |type=infobox to TfD notices because the option is not available in Twinkle,[43] which regularly upsets other users.[44] Andy selectively forgets that Wikipedia is supposed to be a collaborative effort and it's that attitude that has resulted in an extremely long block log and sanctions. His negative interactions with so many editors necessitates making the wording of those sanctions very clear because not everyone can find the long discussions that lead to those sanctions. --AussieLegend (✉) 23:22, 31 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@HJ Mitchell and Rschen7754: Rschen7754's posts haven't really explained the extent of the issue with {{Infobox Australian road}}. The timeline of the discussions is as follows:

• 22 August 2010 - start of a lengthy discussion at Template talk:Infobox Australian road about converting Australian articles to use {{Infobox road}}
• 13 September 2010 - TfD after the nominator failed to achieve his aims at Template talk:Infobox Australian road. TfD was withdrawn by nom after significant opposition and ongoing discussion on template's talk page. Nomination at this time was polarising given the ongoing discussion that was not complete.
• 31 December 2011 - Nominated at TfD by Pigsonthewing. Lengthy discussion and significant opposition to the merge resulted in TfD being closed as "no consensus".
• May 2013 - RfC proposal that Infobox Australian road be merged with Infobox road. At the beginning of the proposal there was some merit in the proposal but significant improvements to the infobox resulted in the RfC, which was attended by members of both the Highways and Australian roads projects (with a visit from Pigsonthewing), being abandoned quite amicably. Discussion on this even extended to IRC.
• May 2013 - present - ongoing improvements to infobox

Andy is well of the history of this infobox, and the differences of opinions, and still chose to take it to TfD instead of starting a discussion with the two projects, whose relationship has been more or less harmonious until now. His actions in this case are disruptive. Ironically, while Rschen7754 and I are on opposite sides regarding merging, we seem to agree regarding his attitude, which extends to other templates, as evidenced by the various discussions at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2014 December 29 and Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2014 December 30. --AussieLegend (✉) 07:46, 11 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Montanabw: "he's salvaged infobox templates for me on several occasions, the project benefits from his expertise" - He's also damaged templates and his expertise has also caused detriment to the project. He tends to think from a coder's point of view, making arbitrary decisions about what templates should or should not contain, without considering the effect on end users who have to use the templates. As a recent example, he recently made a change to {{Infobox Rome episode}}, which he's nominated for merging, and that change opens the way for two more templates to be quite legitimately created, regardless of whether or not the template is merged. His nominations are not always consistent with best practice. --AussieLegend (✉) 14:51, 23 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Andy is well-known for his technical abilities, especially related to templates such as infoboxes. It is therefore not unexpected that he should be regularly involved with clean-up of the vast proliferation of templates that perform near-identical functions. This request was sparked off by Andy asking that {{Infobox Ireland disused station}} (used 314 times) and {{Infobox Ireland station}} (used 187 times) be merged into {{Infobox station}} (used 16,002 times) as it is easier to maintain and use one template than three. In this case the generic template can specify the country and could have the date when the station stopped being used. It is perfectly reasonable to have these sort of debates and that is the purpose of TfD. Look at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2014 December 29 #Template:Infobox Ireland station and see if you think asking for a debate is unreasonable.

What is unacceptable here is some editors' attempts to stifle debate by using an unrelated ArbCom decision to remove an "opponent" from nominating templates that they OWN. Andy does nominate a lot of templates for merge and deletion, but that's is not disruptive, per se - for heaven's sake there are thousands of templates that are only used in a handful of articles where a more generic and widely-used template is already available. Andy is one of the few people who is willing to spend time rationalising this sort of proliferation and - inconvenient as it may be to the OWNers - he performs a valuable job in this field. --RexxS (talk) 14:48, 29 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@CT Cooper: You accept that other editors have caused problems yet you are trying to remove just Andy from template discussions. So what if "there were already plans in motion to merge some redundant templates"? you can't be the sole arbiter of who participates in those discussions and Andy is not only entitled to do so, but is a useful catalyst in moving forward such discussions. If templates were merged in a poor fashion, the answer is to FIXIT, not blame the person who pointed out the problem. As Humphrey Appleby would say 'to be bold' is one of those irregular verbs: "I edit boldly; you edit problematically; he/she edits disruptively". As for unrelated - yes TfD is utterly unrelated to adding or removing infoxes from articles. If you want to make a case for sanctions concerning TfD, then file a case; you'll need diffs, of course, not this sort of "guilt by mud-slinging" that some have been engaged in here.

@ArbCom: Here's yet another confirming instance that your faulty decision last year has done nothing but paint a target on some of the participants: you sanction someone for one thing and it's open season on them every time they get into a disagreement with other editors. Isn't it time you realised you screwed up by taking sides in a content dispute? or do you intend to repeat the same mistakes again and again? --RexxS (talk) 02:17, 30 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@CT Cooper: Andy's track record at TfD shows that he is concerned with merging little-used templates into more generic ones. In most cases this is a good thing. The effect of a successful merge is normally that one template becomes a redirect to the other. This clearly does not result in the removal or addition of a template to any article. It was never an issue at the Infobox RfArb case that there was a problem with Andy replacing one infobox with another - and we've even had this argument at Clarification and it was clearly agreed that this was not part of his restriction. So no, asking for a template to be merged into another really, really doesn't have any relationship to the sanctions imposed on Andy and I worry that you're asking for an already answered question to be re-litigated.

@Courcelles: Yes, it would require a lot more wordsmithing because "prohibited from ... discussions concerning whether an infobox should be added [to] or removed from ... [a] group of articles" would include project pages (is that your intention?) as well as directly contradicting "allowed ... to nominate infobox templates for discussion at templates for discussion. since the former is one of the things that people discuss at TfD. Even though Andy has never, to my knowledge, suggested at TfD that a template should be removed (he is always looking to merge them into more common ones), your wording would prevent him from taking part in debating one of his nominations as soon as someone suggested deleting the template. I seriously hope that wasn't your intention, either. --RexxS (talk) 19:13, 30 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@AussieLegend: No. Replacing one infobox with another is definitely not part of Andy's restrictions and that question has already been asked and answered in the negative as part of a previous Clarification Request. We already know it's not testing any boundaries and your suggestion amounts to mud-slinging at Andy in the hope that some of it sticks. Do your homework before trying to extend sanctions by the back-door. Replacing {{Infobox Rome episode}} by {{Infobox television episode}} is an utterly sensible improvement to an article - do you advocate a template for each and every television series in existence? He doesn't need your permission before editing; and suggesting that editors have to seek consensus before making an uncontroversial edit is just the usual trick of OWNers who don't want outsiders messing with their precious articles. "Engage in discussion with template maintainers or end users before nominating infoboxes for deletion or merging" over my dead body: you just want to put obstacles in the way of any editor who dares to edit your articles. You want Andy to search around for all the people who edit your templates or use them before being allowed to start a discussion at Templates for Discussion? ridiculous. You also need to understand what is meant by "Templates for Discussion": it's the place where templates are discussed. You want to have that discussion on the pages of a WikiProject, rather than on the pages where we are meant to discuss templates. TfD is the correct venue because it brings together members of Wikiprojects and other editors who may have a different view to have the discussion. That's healthy, and requiring a pre-discussion on the pages of what may be a moribund Wikiproject is not a sensible option. --RexxS (talk) 15:36, 31 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The arbcom decision was clear that it related to articles. Andy is doing helpful wikignoming with his TfDs and this is simply a witchhunt. His efforts are beneficial to the project as he largely is finding long-abandoned templates or those with few transclusions. He defends his actions and is remaining remarkably civil in his responses (which are at times a bit pointed, but he's yet to resort to name-calling; something that cannot be said about other editors who oppose him). There is an OWNership problem here and a serious lack of goodwill. This needs to be closed with a clarification that only articles are subject to this sanction, and frankly, given Andy's use to the project (I asked him to repair infobox horseracing personality not long ago), I think it is time his restrictions are lifted altogether. If the project wants to avoid drama, then avoid setting people up as scapegoats. Montanabw^(talk) 18:31, 29 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I find the people crying "off with his head" to be quite troubling. Per WP:BAIT, I think Andy has been remarkably civil. And per WP:BOOMERANG, I strongly suggest that people in glass houses of ownership and rude, incivil behavior (Francis and DePiep, for example) should not be throwing stones! Montanabw^(talk) 00:45, 2 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@DGG: and others: I am very troubled that a legitimate content contributor with actual expertise in the area is being considered for a ban in that very area of expertise. This is a misguided attempt to boomerang on what the original filing party @Callanecc: wanted to accomplish, which was to clarify the parameters of the restriction. I have found Andy very helpful and quite willing to be collaborative and cooperative in genuine attempts to improve content. Andy is an individual who has been given awards for his work by WMF by none other than Jimbo, Andy is an individual who is a wikipedian in residence in his home country, with a wealth of knowledge to contribute to the project. It just seems beyond the pale that a small herd of disgruntled individuals who want to preserve their WP:OWN little Balkanized domain are trying to run him off for things like suggesting at TfD that we don't really need separate infoboxes for each of the hundreds of mass transit systems throughout the world where one will do. In the face of people calling him incompetent, trolling his every TfD to !vote oppose with the same ill-will-biased personal attacks every time, I am really quite impressed that he has consistently replied with fair arguments, a modicum of basic civility, and just the slightest touch of snark. He hasn't even called anyone a "c--t". (Which recently has - appropriately - been deemed a forgivable misstep once the totality of the circumstances were considered) These bullies can dish it out, but they sure can't take it. Montanabw^(talk) 02:20, 3 January 2015 (UTC) ::perhaps it is precisely those experts in a field who are not willing to follow community norms in that field who can sometimes be most effctively disruptive, more so than people working in a field they know little about. DGG ( talk ) 06:02, 3 January 2015 (UTC) As I've recused from the issue, I'm moving my comment. DGG ( talk ) 05:59, 4 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I have known Andy for a few years, and neatly cooperated on a couple of projects without making a big hooha; however I only know of this request due to preparing my own amendment for a different matter. CT Cooper above raises a reasonable point of distance, however if there is a problem with working collegiately then this does not need Arbcom's authority to resolve, the conventional civility and dispute resolution procedures are sufficient.

Speaking as an editor "haunted" and occasionally gibed by a past Arbcom case, I can well believe the views expressed here that the prior case involving Andy may be used inappropriately. This does not benefit the encyclopedia in the long run, and as Arbcom has often stated, normal collegiate resolution processes with any action within the capability of administrators should be preferred and exhausted before resorting to the supreme device of the Arbcom stick. --Fæ (talk) 21:34, 29 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Salvio giuliano: "everything related to infoboxes" would be unhelpful as Andy would have to worry that any edit to an article with an infobox could end up being a block discussion. I expect the committee is wise enough based on the history of past problem cases, to stick to well defined and constrained motions to avoid the unintended consequence of driving editors off Wikipedia altogether, with phrases such as "widely construed" being used literally as a form of Russell's paradox by overly keen wikilawyers. --Fæ (talk) 09:53, 10 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

IMO the editors who were restricted well over a year ago here have more than followed their sanctions. Andy has avoided the article end of adding and removing infoboxes, and has still remained dedicated to improving the project through his technical skills. It appears to me that even though Arbcom (of that day) did not place the all so common "broadly construed" to its remedy, the bulk of disruption comes from those looking for a thread with which to create a noose. While the continual drag ya back to AE/ARCA is entertaining from a soap opera point of view, it seems to me that the elephant in the room is: Remove the restrictions, and you remove the drama mongers out looking for a lynching party. — Ched :  ?  17:01, 30 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Question. Many if not most arb cases contain a clause stating that after a certain amount of time (often 12 months/1 year) editors are able to appeal their restrictions. I wasn't able to find that provision in the infobox case, can someone tell me why that is? The facts are plain that it was those who favored the inclusion of an infobox who were sanctioned, those who opposed them were "reminded and/or admonished" - and that's fine, evidence/findings etc. I get that. I know that as a 3rd party that I can't request the lifting of restrictions - but I am wondering ... just how long does the committee intend to impose restrictions on those who favor having infoboxes in articles? Just wondering. — Ched :  ?  12:47, 31 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• @DGG. With respect sir, I am somewhat confused. Per your comment "What I personally would do is simple: I have definite opinions on the subject of infoboxes, that they are useless if not uniform, and I would have recused from the entire case." which you made here, I must ask if you are now un-recusing with regard to this topic? — Ched :  ?  14:22, 3 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The arbitration refers to articles. If wording needs to be explicit for those confused by the arbitration wording that seems fine. However, this should not be an opportunity nor is this the appropriate place to rewrite the arbitration and expand restrictions, and is it not a place to implement further restrictions based on opinion as for example, here, "However, it is my view that editors should respond to restrictions by finding an entirely new area to edit, and not edit around them, regardless of whether it's permissible or not." This was a simple request; perhaps it is best on multiple levels to keep it that way.(Littleolive oil (talk) 11:30, 3 January 2015 (UTC))[reply]

I'm commenting as an editor, not an arb. I consider myself recused on this issue

As a general statement, perhaps it is precisely those experts in a field who are not willing to follow community norms in that field who can sometimes be most effctively disruptive, more so than people working in a field they know little about. I'm therefore not sure that expertise with infoboxes is relevant to this request.

As a specific comment, I agree the wording could ideally be more precise, but I don't see how to do this without causing other ambiguities, so perhaps the existing general statement is best. DGG ( talk ) 06:02, 3 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This following this is why the motion is not a good idea. --Rschen7754 06:39, 10 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@HJ Mitchell: The funny thing is, I do think the templates should be merged and would share Andy's opinion, but his renomination only served to further polarize the matter and upset people. He shouldn't have been the one to do it, just like I will never bring that template to TFD either, except because of the past drama regarding him and infoboxes, it's even worse. --Rschen7754 23:24, 10 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

In statements above there is a call or two for other examples of Pigsonthewing's pushing the boundaries of sanctions. Here's one: Pigsonthewing pursuing an article deletion campaign during 2014 at least on articles using custom infoboxes (i.e. using generic {{infobox}} applied to a custom situation) or using lesser-used other infoboxes, working from a worklist of articles having such infoboxes. I don't know whether or not it amounts to Pigsonthewing's having directly violated the sanction terms, or not. But it was pushing the boundaries around templates and in my opinion it caused widespread damage in Wikipedia.

I noted during 2014 that Pigsonthewing pursued a campaign to delete numerous articles by AFDs, in which he nominated mostly older articles in various topic areas, but was obstinate in not explaining what was his motivation and what was the commonality, when asked directly by editors in good faith concerned about the damage being done. AFDs by their nature are negative experiences to the article developers. In my view this campaign was damaging to a swath of Wikipedia editors and to content development in seemingly random areas; one specific consequence was that an editor User:ScottHW developing content about community gardens in Omaha, Nebraska, was treated badly and I believe was turned off from contributing. PigsontheWing would not explain the reasons why he nominated specific articles for deletion, would not respond to reasonable questions about whether he performed wp:BEFORE or not, and would not comment about what he was going to further nominate for AFD. He was (I recall, and can look for diffs) derisive about the view by me and others that he was working from a list of summer camps, for example. He would not explain his true motivation, and in this was withholding and difficult for other editors. This prevented me and others from developing an alternative campaign that would be less damaging to wikipedia fabric (like I have advocated and/or been involved in developing in other AFD areas). I also previously and at later times experienced Pigsonthewing as unnecessarily withholding and difficult, e.g. at a later time he complicated a situation by being unwilling to simply clarify to me that he was not an administrator). Within a set of AFDs about summer camps, anyhow, I specifically linked to the others, which were:

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Camp Pathfinder (2nd nomination)
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sitka Fine Arts Camp
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Camp Modin
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Forest Lake Camp
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Falling Creek Camp
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Camp Ondessonk
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Camp Rockmont for Boys

What they had in common, which I was not aware of, besides their topics, was that they were developed in an era when editors used user-created custom infoboxes, and the articles still all had them, and they were all listed in PigsontheWing's worklist.

Note of disclosure: PigsontheWing objected to my linking of the summer camp AFDs together in some of the AFDs, by calling my linking to be violation of wp:canvassing guideline (which it was not) and also by asserting that in my referring to the fact that one of the camps was NRHP-listed I had violated a restriction on my own editing (which it might have been, though I had not believed it to be when I mentioned it, and as a consequence I responded to his objection by deleting and/or striking comments that he objected to). This proceeded mostly at User talk:Doncram#NRHP & Recent canvassing. Also I was not during any of this time aware of sanctions on PigsontheWing about userboxes or of any of the arbitration or past history. I had had some previous negative interaction with PigsontheWing about use of "start" templates in conjunction with an NRHP infobox, however. And I thought he was an administrator and hence generally deemed to be highly trusted by the community. My belief that he was an adminstrator was a factor in May 2014 in interaction that led to me opening an edit warring proceeding, whose result was that he and I were both blocked (some info at User talk:Doncram#May 2014. In that incident it was an obstacle that he did not promptly disclose that he was not an administrator. Another obstacle was that he made obfuscating assertions about the location of a discussion (some info at User talk:Doncram#location of discussion issue). I am not sure but I believe that he and I have not much or at all interacted since then. About my posting here, late in this proceeding: I have watchlisted here and have occasionally noticed this proceeding going on, and just happened now to browse it further and then to see more connections.

Around then PigsontheWing prodded and succeeded in eliminating numerous older articles having custom infoboxes or lesser-used infoboxes. In cases when the original article creator was around and noticed and removed the prod, or when others removed the prod, AFDs were started.

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/South Asian Federation of Accountants, July 19 2014 AFDd by Pigsonthewing (one of those with terse nomination "No evidence of notability")
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/BETT, prodded by Pigsonthewing, prod removed by me, then AFDd by Pigsonthewing
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hill Farm Community Garden, had been prodded by PigsontheWing, AFD opened by another, PigsontheWing voted delete.
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dundee Community Garden, whose custom infobox was changed to park infobox in this first edit at the article by PigsontheWing, before Pigsonthewing prodded it and then opened AFD.
  • Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Community gardens in Omaha, Nebraska, a follow-on that did not itself involve an infobox, but which extended damage in my view (as it further over-ruled the local editor from developing content where they preferred)
• A series of Isle of Man articles in November 2014, which I believe were on Pigsonthewing's worklist, but anyhow which I believe were targeted for using a little-used template, {{Infobox Isle of Man TT course}}: Crosby Cross-roads, Windy Corner, Glenlough and others.

The scope of Pigsonthewings 2014 infobox-related article deletion campaign includes most of the 48 articles that AFDSTATS shows Pigsonthewing himself nominated for deletion, from August 17, 2013 to December 2014. (Of 48, 21 of those were deleted; 21 were kept by Keep or by No consensus; others were redirected)

But the scope further includes:

• Numerous more prodded by Pigsonthewing and then deleted without AFD, in 2014 (I recall seeing a good number of these in Pigsonthewing's contributions, in progress. These could be found in Pigsonthewing's edit history and reviewed for whether infoboxes were involved by administrators, but not by me)
• Some number prodded by Pigsonthewing then AFDd by Pigsonthewing then deleted, in 2014, such as Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mark Beech (politician), where also i cannot see the original article to determine if it had a custom or lesser-used infobox.
• Some number prodded by Pigsonthewing then deleted after an AFD opened by someone else, in 2014 (so not included in Pigsonthewing's AFD nomionations)
• Whatever Pigsonthewing did in 2013 and before, including, e.g. about lesser-used {{Infobox University of Notre Dame residence hall}}, Pigsonthewing's May 3, 2013 Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Badin Hall (University of Notre Dame)

In the prods and AFD nominations of this campaign, editors might disagree about whether Pigsonthewing had adequate justification to seek deletion on stated grounds they were under-referenced, depending on their perspective about the importance of wp:BEFORE. Pigsonthewing's prod or AFD nominations were terse, often merely asserting "No evidence of notability". Among them were numerous articles, however, were in fact on quite notable topics, as documented in some of the AFDs, where notability could/should have been ascertained by performing wp:BEFORE. Within and around the AFDs, Pigsonthewing lashed out (as at me) and expressed himself strongly and that was damaging I believe.

I believe Pigsonthewings' concealed his motivation and worklist throughout the article deletion campaign. I am not aware of Pigsonthewing ever disclosing his motivation or his working from a worklist of articles having custom or less-used infoboxes. He refused to answer questions getting at his list. I figured out later that he was working from a worklist on infoboxes, I think when I noticed in his contributions during fall 2014 that he edited at the worklist itself, which was in User or Wikipedia space. Later still, I looked for the list again, and was not able to find it. I presume that PigsontheWing eventually arranged for the worklist to be deleted. (Update: The worklist is/was User:Pigsonthewing/Direct calls to Infobox ) That was still before I was aware of Pigsonthewing having any template-related sanctions.

I believe Pigsonthewings' concealment was damaging to Wikipedia in that it prevented reasonable questioning of his motivation in the prods and AFDs, which would have been legitimate to question in each one, and which could have led editors to explore article merits more and to change the outcome in at least some cases. Or to allow editors to consider clarification or review of Pigsonthewing's sanction. And it prevented the possibility of other editors reviewing his edits, or working collaboratively to contain the damage to editors and to content, e.g. by having an RFC about custom infoboxes, e.g. by collectively reviewing the worklist and seeking alternatives to deletion such as combining standalone articles into new list-articles , or, e.g. by simply by changing the custom or lesser-used infobox usage to a different Pigsonthewing-approved alternative infobox, where such was available, so that Pigsonthewing would no longer target them.

--doncram 20:05, 13 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Thryduulf: Not "irrelevant" at all. After being banned in late 2013 with "1.1) Pigsonthewing is indefinitely banned from adding, or discussing the addition or removal of, infoboxes.", Pigsonthewing engaged in a campaign to remove infoboxes he didn't like from mainspace by a selective campaign to remove entire articles. And he concealed it and was disruptive and caused damage to editors (including me and the Nebraska editor who has not edited since.) This does seem to me to be in violation of the intent of the ban, and it went under the radar, and it should not be condoned. And in one edit i linked above, he arguably removed one type of infobox, and added a different type of infobox, which is arguably two violations of the ban. In that case and others he also PRODed or opened AFDs or voted "Delete" and otherwise discussed the removal of infoboxes (his apparent real intent), though couching it as removing the entire articles.

To the arbitrators: I suggest the original ban should be modified to clearly ban this related behavior. It would be reasonable to clarify/extend the ban, perhaps: "Also with respect to articles containing infoboxes, Pigsonthewing is banned from initiating PRODs, from initiating AFDs, and from discussing the removal of such articles." From my review of Pigsonthewing's AFD nominations history, the majority of that is about articles having infoboxes he did not like. Perhaps the clarification could be limited to articles having infoboxes of the type that Pigsonthewing seems to dislike, but not sure how that could be worded. I don't think I or anyone is irreplaceable, and I am not aware why it would be especially important to preserve Pigsonthewing's voice in unrelated AFDs that could be a side impact. --doncram 20:47, 14 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Found Pigsonthewing's worklist of articles having custom infoboxes as of April 2, 2014, and Twinkle PROD log showing its use, often rapid-fire. Redlinks show effects on articles in scattered areas. Of summer camp ones, I note this one for which Google news search quickly shows me the topic is Wikipedia-notable and it should not have been deleted. One PRODed and AFD-targeted summer camp article eventually stricken from worklist after another editor applied infobox organization. One struck from worklist after Pigsonthewing changed custom infobox to infobox park, which lost info, may not have been a good fit, but alternatives to deletion push existed. Overall, the pursuit of article deletions with concealment of Pigsonthewing's motivation foisted distruption in scattered areas, removed valid content and/or turned off content editors, and prevented rational discussion. While Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Infoboxes highlighted effects of infobox campaigns upon great writers' content contributors to feature-worthy articles, this deletion campaign hit scattered others, with same theme of a technical focus by one editor foisted upon content-focused others.

How about narrower clarification that Pigsonthewing to be banned from deletion activity on articles having "direct calls" to infobox template? --doncram 16:38, 18 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

In immediate response, Pigsonthewing just returned to the worklist ("Thanks for the reminder!"), also requests an update to the worklist from User:John of Reading. and proceeds. E.g. in several edits just termed "CE" makes substantial reduction of infobox while converting its type. And P's edit effectively removes an infobox from an article, by stripping it down to a ridiculous one-item box. wp:POINTY, and isn't this essentially a violation of the clear ban that Pigsonthewing should not remove infoboxes from articles? --doncram 18:42, 18 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'm beginning to understand why Pigsonthewing uses opaque edit summaries of "CE" and why he won't respond to reasonable questions in AFDs and otherwise, about his actions and goals. Because while he is banned from discussing the removals or additions of infoboxes. And he is banned from adding infoboxes, he apparently feels nonetheless he can remove infoboxes (was this intended?) and he perhaps he can "convert" one type of infobox to another type (was this intended?), even if doing so reduces information. Seems to me that "converting", is effectively removing one kind of infobox and adding another infobox. And he just cannot explain what he is doing? So, for example when an editor inquires just now on his Talk page, is he technically in compliance by not answering, or by being cryptic, e.g.

removing the question with "you thought wrong", in answer to inquiry whether he "had been asked not to edit or add infoboxes"]. So he is allowed to edit with deliberately uninformative edit summaries like "CE", and he is required NOT to explain what he is doing, as he follows a worklist bringing him to encounter diverse editors on diverse topics???

I don't get it. Could the arbitrators please clarify whether Pigsonthewing is allowed to edit and remove infoboxes in articles? And is he allowed a loophole of being allowed to "convert" infoboxes, i.e. removing one infobox and adding another type of infobox? Even if the replacement loses some information? Or strips it so information in the new infobox is a fraction of the info in the original? And further that he is prohibited from discussing these actions? Or is he allowed to discuss "editing" but not address questions about adding or removing? Even in an AFD where his motivation is apparently the removal of the infobox, from a worklist? It seems to me like he should not be allowed to do what he cannot discuss. He's not an administrator, but all experienced editors should be willing to explain their actions. If they can't explain they should not be undertaking the actions. --doncram 21:02, 18 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Odd; I strongly agree with AGK that the remedy as written was clear, but at the same time I disagree with his interpretation of it. Since neither of us is a fool, I guess that's evidence that the interpretation of it isn't as clear as either of us think.

So far, the things Andy has done that have brought him before WP:AE and WP:ACCAORWHATEVERTHESHORTCUTISFORTHISPAGE don't violate the restriction, and don't really look like attempting to test the boundaries of it either. So the proposed motion seems like a pretty simple solution, and I'm surprised it is not passing. It is not granting him an "exception", it is "clarifying" the previous remedy.

It seems odd to consider expanding the remedy wider than it was before when there's no real evidence that Andy's participation at TFD has been a problem. However, if you want to get evidence about his TFD behavior first, I suppose I won't argue with that. But then I'd suggest narrowing the wording of the scope of the review (and the scope of evidence you want) more than it is now, to narrowly focus on TFD. And keep in mind that if no serious problems are found, you're not deciding whether to relax a remedy, you're deciding whether to tighten it.

p.s. I was pointed to this discussion by a participant in it, but it's not canvassing since she and I don't really agree on the infobox case as a whole. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:02, 16 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Support adding the word "articles": This should be simple, adding one word to eliminate the drama of people who disagree with Andy trying to play "gotcha" over his legitimate area of expertise. The infobox case involved decisions involving articles, where the question of including or not including infoboxes is wholly different from the technical aspects of infobox templates. Basically, the IDONTLIKEIT crowd who resists Andy's good faith attempts to clean up the mess that the template areas is in needs to realize that Andy disagreeing with them is not a crime and this clarification would help immensely to ratchet down the mob drama that seems to follow Andy everywhere. I vehemently oppose any attempt to increase Andy's restrictions, he's salvaged infobox templates for me on several occasions, the project benefits from his expertise. Montanabw^(talk) 20:00, 22 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding the first proposal below, would it also include any articles specifically created by Andy with an infobox in it from the beginning? I don't know how often it might happen that Andy creates new articles, but it would seem to be covered by the proposed sanction, depending on how one defines "adding". John Carter (talk) 00:59, 23 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This section is for administrative notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

• Recuse obviously. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 01:11, 20 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• The purpose of restrictions is to reduce disruption. It doesn't much matter whether the disruption is on articles or talk pages, or wherever. If his contributions in non-article space have not been disruptive, there may be benefit in formalising a narrower scope of the restriction.  Roger Davies ^talk 20:33, 20 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• My recollection was that we crafted the remedy to stop the infobox wars. Those were mainly around adding and removing infoboxes from articles, and that's where Andy needed to be taken away from. I personally supported allowing him to stay in policy debates on the topic, though that didn't pass. I'd certanly support such a change. Worm^TT(talk) 11:34, 27 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• As Roger says, arbcom restrictions are meant to stop drama, not breathe new life into it. Considering Andy's recent attempts at testing the boundaries of his restriction and the community's uncertainty as to where exactly these boundaries lie, I'd be in favour of a gordian solution: let's simply ban Andy from anything infobox-related across all namespaces. Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 12:08, 27 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• The restriction is fine as written. Decline. AGK [•] 23:18, 27 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • The restriction is not fine as written, as evidenced by the fact that it's the second time in less than two months that we have been requested to clarify its scope. Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 11:02, 28 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • This is evidence that people are struggling to grasp the restriction, not that it warrants amendment. It is unreasonable to agree that a sentence as simple as the one in question is ambiguous.

      @NE Ent: My advice is to discard the invented interpretation that this restriction applies only to the mainspace; I don't see where this has come from or why it was arrived at. As I said, the restriction is fine as written. Any confusion about it is difficult to sympathise with in this case, given the remedy's clarity. AGK [•] 13:15, 28 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• In case this is still active on 1 January, I'll note here for the record that I am recused as an arbitrator for this case. Thryduulf (talk) 16:20, 28 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• What about something like "Pigsonthewing is prohibited from adding an infobox to any article, or participating in discussions concerning whether an infobox should be added or removed from either a specific article or group of articles. He is explicitly allowed to edit infobox templates to improve their functionality, and to nominate infobox templates for discussion at templates for discussion." Needs some wordsmithing, but I've never liked the wording of the initial restriction, and while I don't think Andy has gamed it, the wording has still led to drama. Some more explicit language would be good, even though it leaves the line of what Andy may and may not do the same. (I think enough time has passed to allow an exception for putting infoboxes in articles he has recently created himself, but that might be beyond the scope of this request.) Courcelles 23:49, 29 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• @RexxS: Perhaps "participating in discussions related to whether an article or group of articles should include an infobox". The locus of dispute here was binary, whether an article should or should not have an infobox; not whether it should use "template:infobox foo" or "template:infobox bar". Courcelles 19:56, 30 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds good to me --Guerillero | My Talk 17:48, 30 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• I like Courcelles' suggestion, though I think Callanecc has a good point that "to improve their functionality" should be dropped. GorillaWarfare (talk) 03:41, 2 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• I am also recused from this request. Dougweller (talk) 19:08, 2 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Essentially I agree with Salvio. I consider some of the renominations at TfD disruptive, and think that both nominating and discussing template related infoboxes there should be included in the ban. I'd like to find some language permitting technical changes, but I can't see how to make it unambiguous. DGG ( talk ) 00:37, 3 January 2015 (UTC) I had earlier stated I would recuse from this case. DGG ( talk ) 20:02, 3 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• I tend more toward agreeing with Courcelles and WTT. I don't see how any of these nominations were deliberately disruptive (the fact that a discussion turned contentious does not necessarily mean it should never have been started), and the original restrictions clearly indicate a restriction on whether or not an article should have an infobox, not maintenance tasks on infoboxes. I would have to see more evidence of disruption on Andy's part in the areas of maintaining infoboxes before I would be willing to consider expanding the restriction, and I don't see justification for that here. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 13:45, 3 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• @Thryduulf: Maybe scope of the restriction is the wrong wording...but regardless, if we pass the motion as is, no administrator at ANI is going to feel like they can restrict him in the areas we explicitly allow. As I stated, we can achieve the same by saying that it only applies to the article and talk spaces, without explicitly allowing. I'm also not fully on board that he's been completely cooperative in areas outside the ban, as some diffs here appear different. There is simply not enough information here to see whether explicitly allowing those is healthy for the community. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 14:42, 12 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

There are 15 active arbs with 3 recused and 0 Abstaining; a majority is 7.

Support

1. This seems to have totally stalled out, so proposed as a motion to stimulate new discussion. The goal here is to neither widen or narrow the restrictions, but to reduce drama by clearing out some grey area, along lines of how the AE admins have been enforcing the existing remedy. Copyedit as necessary. Courcelles 00:20, 9 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

   @Thryduulf: Good point, I've made some changes based on your feedback. (WHich I think I can do, seeing as how I'm the only vote at the moment.) If any arbs prefer the older version, feel free to revert. Courcelles 01:13, 9 January 2015 (UTC) Courcelles 01:13, 9 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

2. it works --Guerillero | My Talk 01:18, 9 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
3. GorillaWarfare (talk) 06:48, 9 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
4. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 21:01, 10 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

1. No, Andy needs to be topic banned from everything related to infoboxes, not granted exceptions which make it easier for him to act disruptively all over again. Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 10:22, 9 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
2. Pigsonthewing is a valued contributor across many areas, but has what many see as an uncollaborative approach when dealing with infoboxes. Remedy 1.1 has been interpreted as applying only to the space in which the original dispute occurred (articles), but various editors above have suggested the same uncollaborative approach still exists at TfD's. The remedy is silent about where it applies: as it was based on user conduct, it should be applied where that conduct occurs. I note there is disagreement about whether Pigsonthewing is being uncollaborative at TfD, but the above evidence section shows the point is at least arguable. I don't therefore support a formal narrowing of the restriction via the second sentence of the above motion. -- Euryalus (talk) 20:11, 11 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
3. I also can't work with the second half of this motion. We don't have enough evidence (or this might not even the proper venue) presented to determine whether Pigsonthewing is constructively editing or not to what we are explicitly allowing by the proposed motion. It then prevents people from taking it to ANI or other appropriate venues to get restrictions if they are needed. It just brings it right back to ARCA which is why were here in the first place. I could see a motion restricting it to the article and talk spaces without exceptions, as that doesn't change the scope of the restriction. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 08:30, 12 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

   We have two options. We can reword the topic ban in line with what evidence we have. It is obvious that the status quo is going to cause us future issues. The other option is to open a quick review of the case at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Infoboxes/Review where we get evidence for a week and then post a PD the next. This review would have to be very narrow in scope or it would get bogged down quickly. I would support opening a review if a group of arbs don't have enough evidence to work off of here. --Guerillero | My Talk 22:30, 12 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

   Agree with Guerillero. This has been sitting here for weeks with no prospect of proceeding on the current evidence. Rather than trying to interpret the previous decision, let's consider this extremely specific issue as a narrowly written case. -- Euryalus (talk) 03:11, 16 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

4. Per below. LFaraone 22:58, 18 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Abstain

Enacted - S Philbrick(Talk) 14:56, 27 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

There are 13 active arbs with 3 recused and 0 abstaining; a majority is 6.

Support

1. First choice --Guerillero | My Talk 05:25, 16 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
2. Yep, though the question is probably too open-ended,  Roger Davies ^talk 06:41, 16 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
3. (edit conflict) Given my statement above, it's the only appropriate way to address the concerns I and Euryalus raised since I feel there was insufficient chance to post diffs on this topic above. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 06:44, 16 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
4. Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 10:39, 17 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
5. -- Euryalus (talk) 14:18, 17 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
6. A focussed review would be worthwhile here. LFaraone 22:58, 18 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
7. I'm not a fan of this approach, but I don't think it's getting resolved any other way. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 23:07, 18 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
8. Okay, in the absence of any other way to get momentum in moving this forward, fine. Courcelles 23:46, 26 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

I don't think it is necessary to spend 4 more weeks on this; the evidence is already up there, the existing remedy is sloppy, and the manner in which the AE admins have decided to enforce it works. This proposal is a time-sink for all involved, whose end result will be either something at least somewhat similar to what I've already proposed, or a unnecessary dramatic tightening of the restrictions in place. The latter seems to be more the history of Reviews and cases opened under ArbCom initiative, I don't think anyone is voting FOR that, mind, but it seems to happen. So, oppose as a massive time-sink for this request that is already way too long in the tooth. Courcelles 18:54, 16 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Abstain

---