Wikipedia's longest arbitration case

After five months and 17 days it's finally over: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Scientology

Case Opened on 04:16, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Case Closed on 13:31, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

A few of the remedies deserve discussion:

Review of articles urged

9) The Arbitration Committee urges that knowledgeable and non-conflicted users not previously involved in editing Scientology-related articles, especially Scientology-related biographies of living people, should carefully review them for adherence to Wikipedia policies and address any perceived or discovered deficiencies. This is not a finding that the articles are or are not satisfactory in their present form, but an urging that independent members of the community examine the matter in light of the case.

Passed 11 to 0 at 13:31, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

In the Scientology arbitration case which closed today, two senior administrators were sanctioned even though neither had edited this topic since 2007: one was topic banned and another was restricted.

Two years ago as I responded to a positive checkuser finding and a noticeboard request related to this dispute. That problem could not be resolved at the community level. As a result of that situation and its followup I requested two arbitration cases on this subject. The other was Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/COFS. These two cases consumed 253 days of my life. Two administrators and various other editors were less fortunate; they are now under formal sanction regarding actions they had ceased long before the case began. In several instances, diffs cited in the decision were cherry picked, inconclusive, or very old.

Remedies in Wikipedia are supposed to be preventative rather than punitive. When it comes to arbitration this is no longer true. It is not possible to endorse the Committee's request for "knowledgeable and non-conflicted users not previously involved in editing Scientology-related articles" to involve themselves in this dispute. The dispute does need help, but it's like stepping into quicksand.

The dead trees standard

June is coming in a couple of days, which will be the two year anniversary of the dead trees standard. It's an idea that applies to courtesy deletions for Wikipedia's biographies of living people.

If the living subject of a Wikipedia biography wants their biography deleted, and that person does not have an entry in any reliably published paper encyclopedia including specialty encyclopedias, then we delete their biography upon request.

It's objective, it's measurable, and it's sensible. A Wikipedia article is going to be a top Google return for nearly anyone's biography, and nobody is more affected by that than the subject himself or herself. Many of these biographies are not watchlisted, they're openly editable, and biography subjects are strongly discouraged from editing their biographies themselves.

So in other words, David Bowie is here to stay. And everyone else who has an entry in the Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll is going to stay in Wikipedia. But if a fellow who played bass for David Bowie for a year wants out of Wikipedia, we'll delete the bassist's biography if he asks us to.

There are two great sides to nailing this down:

1. Wikipedians cut down on low priority drama.
2. Biography subjects get an answer they can understand.

Ever call the cable company with a service request and get the run-around? It's no fun. When you want a refund for a service outage, the last thing you want to hear about is how Cable Inc. organized their departmental structure. If the answer is yes you want the money now, and if the answer is going to be no they could at least say it without wasting your time.

Living people who want their biographies out of Wikipedia want straight and simple answers. Put yourself in their shoes: the top Google return for your name is a lot more important than a five dollar refund from your cable company. We can't stop corporate bureaucracy, but we can fix this.

So let's do the decent thing: add dead trees to policy.
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Image credit

Wikipedia's longest 'Did you know?' submission

... that optics is a subfield of electromagnetism within theoretical physics?9x expansion principally by ScienceApologist.[1] Durova^Charge! 01:17, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Useless self-disclosures

Geek cred:

• My real name is a prime number in leet.
• Was named after a physicist.
• Saw the first Space Shuttle landing from Edwards Air Force Base. Had a spot in the VIP section and actually broke their rules and walked three miles to the fence at the edge of the dry lake bed to get the best view.

Handedness:
Naturally ambidextrous--used crayons and pencils with either hand as a small child, couldn't tell the difference or understand why adults made a fuss about it. Got pressured to choose a side; became left dominant for most purposes including writing.

Can actually write with either hand. Penmanship is better with the right but it's slower so hardly ever use it. Able to write signature simultaneously with both hands: forward, backward, and in mirror writing. It makes an entertaining party trick for about two minutes.

For image restoration, though, always and only use the right hand. That was the inadvertent result of an old desk's geography.

Power and cluelessness

Among people in power, a profound lack of clue is indistinguishable from greed for more power.