Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case

Arbitration Committee proceedings

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Case requests

Request name	Motions	Initiated	Votes
BLP and flagged revisions		21 May 2011	{{{votes}}}

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Case name	Links	Evidence due	Prop. Dec. due
Palestine-Israel articles 5	(t) (ev / t) (ws / t) (pd / t)	21 Dec 2024	11 Jan 2025

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Arbitrator motions

Motion name	Date posted
Arbitrator workflow motions	1 December 2024

Requests for arbitration

BLP and flagged revisions

Initiated by Scott Mac at 18:45, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Involved parties

• Scott MacDonald (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), filing party
• Kww (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

• Kww notified

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

• Urgency doesn't really allow this. But see ANI] and my talk page.

Statement by Scott MacDonald

Apparently, the flagged revisions trial is over. This case is not about that.

However, over the last months, many BLP articles have had flagged revisions set because of violations of the BLP policy. Admins have used it for BLP protection rather than for "trial" reasons. In at least one case I set it because of serious violations and complaints.

I've not been involved in the ending of the trial, but apparently a decision was taken to remove flagging from all flagged articles. I think that's a mistake - but that's not my complaint.

The problem is:

1. Removing protection from BLPs because of some new blanket rule. BLPs are an area where admins are enjoined to use all tools at their disposal. Removing FR for ideological or inhouse reasons, and brooking no exceptions, flies in the face of admin care and discretion on BLPS. The arbiter who closed the discussions (Brad) suggested that their might be exceptions on a case-by-case basis for BLPs - but the "blanket rule" approach is being enforced.
2. Far more seriously is the reckless way this is being done. Even if all FR is to be removed from BLPs, each needs looked at to ensure no living person is put at increased risk. It may well be that alternative means may give adequate protection - but that needs weighed in each case. At very lest the admin who placed the FR ought to be notified, in case something is being missed by the admin who is mass removing.

I had nothing to do with this until admins started removing the protection from articles I monitor, and doing so without any discussion. I asked Kww (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), who was undoing flagged protections, to desist. When he refused I raised the matter on ANI. However, that discussion was not allowed because Kww's attitude was "we have consensus for this." There was an unwillingness even to pause and consider concerns.

I am not asking arbcom to intervene in the ending of the trial. I am asking arbcom for an urgent and immediate ruling that mass unflagging of BLPs should be paused until a responsible way of doing this is agreed - with proper admin notification and a way to discuss any articles which might prove to be exceptional or particularly problematic. It may be that FR can be safely removed in most or even all cases - but we need to have a way to take care. We don't shoot first and ask questions later on BLP unprotection.

It may be that this BLP unprotection will prove reasonable, but some discussion is essential. I will withdraw the case if the unflagging of BLPs is paused until this occurs. --Scott Mac 19:00, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

@Risker. I'm not claiming he's not reviewing himself (I don't know). But given the number of articles he can't be doing it in depth, nor can he be monitoring the article afterwards for adverse effects. At very least those who have been involved with any BLP problems (and the protecting admin) need to be involved here. No admin is infallible, and this is not an area for gung-ho mass approaches. Each article needs care and each is different. His motivation is obviously to remove flagging, rather than to carefully weigh the article.

• If flagged revisions is to be removed from all BLPs without exception (and there are doubts as to whether we do anything without common sense exceptions!!) then I'd suggest that all flagged BLPs be listed somewhere so a number of admins can review them. Perhaps the vast majority will be straightforward - but some may need some discussion.

Statement by Kww

This is really nothing more than heel-dragging ... one more attempt to stretch the trial of PC out indefinitely. I've been stepping through articles individually, evaluating the condition of the articles during the trial. If I see that there has been significant rejection of anonymous edits, or it was indefinitely semi-protected when it was placed on PC trial in the first place, I tend to semi-protect it. I've generally been doing a 3-month semi-protection if it looks like there's been some troubles during the trial, and indef if it looks like a truly intractable situation. If there hasn't been substantial trouble during the trial, and it wasn't semi-protected before the trial, I've been unprotecting it. I think my actions are fully justified by the recent RFC on the topic.

Scott has strenuously objected. He has reverted other admins' efforts to remove articles from the trial at Barry Chamish (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) and Dustin Diamond‎ (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). In both cases, another admin had already removed it from the trial, Scott had returned it to the trial, and, when I once again removed it from the trial, Scott returned it back to the trial a seond time. Edit warring? Wheel warring? Choose your terms. Scott makes no effort to explain what about the two articles in question makes them so very special that the consensus to remove PC from all articles needs to be unilaterally overridden, but he feels quite comfortable of accusing me of being disruptive for following that consensus. So comfortable, in fact, that he blocked me for not doing what he and he alone thinks is necessary. That block got discussed at WP:ANI#Mass removal of Flagged revision from BLPs, where his position was soundly rejected. If there's any "emergency" basis here, it's an emergency basis to reject this thing quickly so that the effort to shut this trial off can proceed without the cloud of an Arbcom case hanging over the head of admins that attempt to implement the RFC result.—Kww(talk) 19:28, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

As for my "unwillingess to pause and consider concerns", I have paused since my block. I probably won't resume today, because I have better things to do with my life, and there's no reason for me to shoulder this burden alone. But as for Scott's concerns? I reject them absolutely, in their entirety, and without reservation: there's no need to go through an article by article discussion to remove a protection feature that, by consensus, is not to be used.—Kww(talk) 19:34, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

@Carcaroth: the closure of the RFC mandated that the process of removing protection from all articles was to be completed yesterday. We now have a seven-day extension to get the job done, and Newyorkbrad described that extension as "final". There were over 1200 articles on PC, there are now 165 left (there were 260 this morning: Wizardman and I have been working on it today and got to 95 of them). I'm proceeding under a quite strong consensus and mandate to do this effectively and expediently. Life would be better spent reviewing my decisions and seeing where you disagree. As I've stated numerous times today, I've got no objection to review and adjustment of my decisions, as long as people don't try to extend the trial further by putting the articles back under PC.—Kww(talk) 19:57, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved Shirik

I don't see the issue here, really. There's nothing preventing Scott MacDonald (or any other admin for that matter) from putting up a level of protection as necessary after PC has been removed. For non-admins, that's what RFPP is for. I understand that we need to be a little careful on BLPs, but by Kww's own admission, he has been reviewing each page before removing the PC bit, not just doing it as some bot-like operation. Will mistakes be made? Probably. But mistakes happen every day. And nothing can't be undone. We even have revdelete now so any such unprotected changes that get through due to one of those mistakes isn't even that big of a deal.

The exact topic of this case is, as far as I can tell, not a dispute that is necessary for Arbcom to deal with. However, if anything is to be looked into, it is the block, which was done by an involved admin in a dispute. However, I choose to ignore this issue myself, as it has resolved itself through typical processes in place.

That being said, I personally am not opposed to the thought of some kind of arbcom injunction against removing PC from BLPs, perhaps by saying "semi until otherwise determined safe", but PC needs to die sometime. But really, the time for discussion is over. I thought that's what the RFC was for. It seems like Scott disagrees. An arbcom motion to "please build consensus within this timeframe" is really just a waste of time at this point. --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 19:13, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Statement by more or less uninvolved Wehwalt

Any involvement I have is limited to saying that the block should be overturned, disclosing that Kww and I had worked together in the past and that I was his nominator on an earlier unsuccessful attempt at adminship. I just want to say that this issue is not worth ArbCom's time. There were, if I recall correctly from what Kww said, about 300 articles remaining that still had pending changes. Simply look through and see if semiprotection is warranted on the BLPs, which are probably not that many of the total. This should not be a major project.--Wehwalt (talk) 19:18, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Statement by SlimVirgin

Scott has become too involved in this. He wheel-warred against two admins (Ged UK and Kww) who removed PC from Barry Chamish on May 17 and 21, [1] —this was being done in accordance with the closure on May 7 of the RfC—then blocked Kww for removing it from a number of other BLPs. [2] Though there was no support for his position on AN/I, [3] he then threatened to reblock Kww if Kww continued. [4] In addition, this is an article that Scott has recently edited, edits that did not suggest any particular BLP issue. [5] [6] [7] So I urge Scott to stop using the tools in this area.

More generally, one of the issues that has harmed BLP policy on Wikipedia is this kind of aggressive response. It causes people to push against it, as a result of which consensus go to the dogs, and BLP policy development is once again stymied. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 19:37, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Statement by Uninvolved A Quest for Knowledge

Arbitration is the last resort of the dispute resolution process and should only be sought after all efforts by the community to resolve the dispute have been exhausted. As far as I can tell, this dispute is less than a day old and this request is premature. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 19:49, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Comment by Carcharoth

I was about to agree with Scott that "this is not an area for gung-ho mass approaches", but then I remembered how the matter of the deletion of unreferenced BLPs was approached en masse in a gung-ho fashion with no individual checking in each case (Kww says that he was checking here in each case before the protection level was changed). There seems to be a disconnect here between how sometimes a mass approach is good and how it is sometimes bad. I don't think it is possible to generalise, other than to say that usually a mass gung-ho approach needs moderately wide consensus (such as by the RfC in question) rather than being adopted by an individual. Unless you view increasing levels of protection (with deletion and salting being the ultimate protection) as progressive steps on a ladder that can be easily implemented by an individual admin, but need some form of discussion to undo. Having said that, it would have been easy to include bot notification of the protecting admin and also a notice on the article talk page (providing that triggers watchlists - I can never remember), before flagged revisions was removed from articles. Wait a week, then have admins willing to do this remove flagged revisions after careful checking of each article, and keep a list of BLPs for a few weeks more to be on the safe side. Unless there was a reason to remove things quicker that I haven't seen yet. That approach might be over-cautious (and not the usual approach to changes in protection levels), but it would have avoided what happened here. BTW, are there figures for how many articles were placed under flagged revisions and how many of them were BLPs? Carcharoth (talk) 19:47, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Clerk notes

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

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (0/0/0/1)

• Comment: Scott MacDonald, on what basis do you state that Kww has not reviewed each article individually and made a determination? Risker (talk) 19:03, 21 May 2011 (UTC)