Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Maoririder/Workshop

This is a page for working on Arbitration decisions. It provides for work by Arbitrators and comment by the parties and others. After the analysis of /Evidence here and development of proposed principles, findings of fact, and remedies, please place proposed items you have confidence in on /Proposed decision.

Motions and requests by the parties

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Proposed temporary injunctions

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Proposed final decision

Proposed principles

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Comment by others:

Stubs

1) "Stubs are articles which [...] don't yet contain enough information to be truthfully considered articles. The community believes that stubs are far from worthless. They are, rather, the first step articles take on their course to becoming complete." (From Wikipedia:Stub)

Comment by Arbitrators:

1. I think that this is necessary, as much of the case comprises complaints about Maoririder creating stubs. James F. (talk) 12:09, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

1. Wondering whether I should present some further evidence in the form of condensed statistics from Schoolwatch, showing the immense resources within the community that can be tapped to expand quite brief stub articles, given the right circumstances. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 13:59, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Stubs

1.1) "Stubs are articles which "[are] clearly too short, but not so short as to be useless. In general, it must be long enough to at least define the article's title."[Stubs] don't yet contain enough information to be truthfully considered articles. The community believes that stubs are far from worthless. They are, rather, the first step articles take on their course to becoming complete." Wikipedia:Stub, a guideline, does not prohibit stubs nor does it incorporate the generally negative community opinion regarding stubs.

Comment by Arbitrators:

1. A better formulation Fred Bauder 16:01, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
2. I concur with Tony that there is no "generally negative community opinion" about stubs in general—but for extremely short ones such as Maoririder's early efforts, I would agree; perhaps revise this to be more specific on that point? Mindspillage (spill yours?) 03:43, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

1. I don't see any justification for claiming that there is a generally "negative community opinion" about stubs. Far from it. There are some extreme views that import notions of notability into stub creation, but in general a stub that identifies its subject adequately seems to be regarded as acceptable. Lex fori started out in April as this. It was expanded a bit until it was listed on AfD when it was like this, not much different. The vote was unanimous keep, and the article was expanded by the last person to vote on that discussion (that is, all voters voted keep for the unexpanded stub). Something similar happened to Lex loci rei sitae, with the exception that it has not been expanded. Not one person made anything of the fact that both these articles were extremely brief. Moreover eight out of twelve Maoririder stubs that were nominated for deletion were kept; some of them were expanded, some of them were not. Stubs are an accepted part of Wikipedia. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 08:32, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
2. Tony's got a point here; The recent 2005 Bali bombings spawned a bunch of new stubs and they've grown since: Jimbaran (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), Warung (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) and Bukit (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). The process of writing a term as a redlink and people taking it from there should be encouraged. — Davenbelle 11:06, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Stubs

1.2) "Stubs are articles which "[are] clearly too short, but not so short as to be useless. In general, it must be long enough to at least define the article's title."[Stubs] don't yet contain enough information to be truthfully considered articles. The community believes that stubs are far from worthless. They are, rather, the first step articles take on their course to becoming complete." Wikipedia:Stub, a guideline, does not prohibit stubs nor does it incorporate the generally negative community opinion regarding very brief stubs that are no more than a brief sentence defining their subject.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

1. "stubs" -> "very brief stubs that are no more than a brief sentence defining their subject." Trying to incorporate Mindspillage's suggestion into Fred Bauder's original formulation. Please reword as desired. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 17:46, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Assume good faith

2) Editors are expected to be cooperative with other users and to assume good faith on the part of others.

Comment by Arbitrators:

1. I feel that this applies, too. James F. (talk) 12:09, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

1. Especially applicable to later stages, when in my opinion Maoririder's primary purpose in using a sock account was to get away from the people he felt were hounding him. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 14:06, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

No personal attacks

3) Personal attacks are expressly prohibited because they make Wikipedia a hostile enviroment for editors, and thereby damage Wikipedia both as an encylopædia (by losing valued contributors) and as a wiki community (by discouraging reasoned discussion and encouraging a "bunker mentality").

Comment by Arbitrators:

1. And this old chestnut. James F. (talk) 12:09, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Blocks without policy backing

4) "Administrators who block without policy basis should be sure that there is exceptional, widespread community support for the block." (From Wikipedia:Blocking policy)

Comment by Arbitrators:

1. To address exactly why Maoririder was blocked at first. James F. (talk) 12:09, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

1. Oops, remind me to add to evidence that ike9898 consulted at least one other editor, who approved, besides Scimitar. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 13:39, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Ideal stub article

5) "When you write a stub article, it is important to bear in mind that its main interest is to be expanded, and that thus it ideally contains enough information to give a basis for other editors to expand upon. Your initial research may be done either through books or through a reliable search engine such as Yahoo! or Google. You may also contribute with knowledge you have acquired from other sources, but it is useful to conduct a small amount of research beforehand, in order to make sure that your version of the facts is correct and from a neutral point of view." (From Wikipedia:Stub)

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

1. I believe it can be seen in user talk:Maoririder that the main crux of the perceived problem with his new article creation revolves around this issue. -Satori ^(talk) 15:33, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
2. I don't believe it's appropriate to judge newcomers by their encyclopedic knowledge of Wikipedia policy or their skill in writing what we deliberately call the ideal stub article. Nor is failure to show such skill an excuse for delivering two blocks, one delivered with five minutes warning and the other delivered with no warning at all and no intervening indication that anything was amiss. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 16:25, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Firstly, I'm not "excusing" anything. I had nothing to do with the blocks you're refering to, nor did that have anything to do with my involvement in this process. Also, I completely agree with you that we should not judge a newcommer for not immediately knowing Wikipedia policy. However, the ideal stub article language was pointed out to Maoririder more than once very early in his editting. And the meaning of it was explained to him on his talk page. After that point, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect him to be aware of it. -Satori ^(talk) 16:32, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Most likely he interpreted it as I do, as a guideline. It may seem a little absurd to some editors, but when I read that something is a guideline I tend to take that a bit literally--a guideline illustrates standards that quite a lot of people agree with, but it isn't policy that all editors are expected to follow. Do we really want to start requiring all new editors to understand and comply with all of our guidelines as well as our policies? If so, I hope there's a grandfather clause so that I can remain immune from the requirement, and moreover I don't hold out much hope for there being much of a Wikipedia left before long if we keep biting newbies. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 17:35, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Creating stub templates

6) "Do not create new stub types prior to discussing them at Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Proposals." (From Wikipedia:Stub)

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

1. This is another idea Maoririder has shown some difficulty with. -Satori ^(talk) 15:33, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
2. My comments on the ideal stub article proposal apply here. Newcomers make errors. Looking at Maoririder's talk page and at sfd-t, I see that 7 such templates created by Maoririder Activist-stub, Football-position_stub MainePBS-stub, PBSKids-stub, Bakery-stub, Park-stub, Maine-stub were listed there and all deleted. He was asked not to create any more without discussion, and acknowledged this request at 17:30, 1 August, 2005 (UTC) and I think it's significant that none of the stub templates listed on sfd-t were created after that time. It appears that Maoririder made an effort to comply here. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 17:02, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Community

7) "Community plays an important role in helping Wikipedia-the-project make Wikipedia-the-encyclopedia. Because Wikipedia is a wiki, a lot of communication and collaboration is needed to create the encyclopedia. Many hands make light work, but there must be some coordination between all those hands to make the work happen at all." (from meta:The Wikipedia Community)

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

1. There is a perception amongst the initiating parties that Maoririder has had trouble working within the Wikipedia community. Specifically, his statements along the lines that he "will do better" and "will work with all of you" were not always followed through. -Satori ^(talk) 15:51, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
2. A healthy community treats its members in a manner commensurate with their behavior. Maoririder clearly made successful efforts to comply with all reasonable requests--within one week of arriving he had mastered use of stub templates, quit creating stub templates without discussion, researched and added more material to his articles, and had a reasonably good grasp of Wikipedia style, which he applied in his articles. Some of the treatment he received was not proportionate to any potential threat to the community or to the wiki. Inasmuch as this happened, the fault lies with Wikipedia, not Maoririder. Perhaps Wikipedia is not as healthy a community as we would all wish it to be. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 17:06, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Requests for comment

8) "Wikipedia:Requests for comment is the open part of the dispute resolution process, which seeks community input regarding specific topical, policy, and personality disputes. Ultimately, the content of Wikipedia is determined by making progress toward a community consensus. However, the size of Wikipedia prevents community members from actively following every development...A good quality RfC can help contributors resolve differences, add different insights, give comments and opinions on how others might see some wording, and so on."

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

1. Tony Sidaway has made reference to the RfC against Maoririder as editors "going on the attack". I think it's helpful to remember that the RfC process exists precicely for situations where a group of editors is having difficulty communicating and resolving disputes. Editors made attempts to explain to Maoririder that the RfC was not meant to punish him, and at least one offered to assist him with responding to it. (I'll add supporting diffs to the evidence page).

If RfC scared off Maoririder, then perhaps there's a problem with the dispute resolution process itself, at least when dealing with people who may be scared of process and formalism. Tony seems to want to blame the initiators for this failure. If this issue needs to be addressed, I think it should rise above blame — serious consideration needs to be given to how the Wikipedia community can better deal with conflict that involves a user who is acting in good faith, but appears to have trouble communicating with others.

Maybe the most difficult question, which has no answer in WP policy or guidelines, is this: When a user has trouble communicating with the community, perhaps because of challenges beyond his/her control, how much of a burden is placed on the community to accommodate that user? I think everyone involved tried to accommodate Maoririder as much as they felt was reasonable. Of course, reasonableness is subjective, and Tony obviously feels that the level of accommodation was inadequate, and that the move to RfC was unreasonable. If this arbitration is going to be instructive for future disputes of a similar nature, I think this needs to be addressed. -Satori ^(talk) 17:38, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

1. I'm sorry, I should have been clearer. When I referred to editors "going on the attack" I was specifically referring to the two blocks, on 2 August and 3 August (UCT). These blocks don't seem to have had any justification in policy, were inadequately discussed, and were not reviewed in any meaningful way. The first one was preceded by a laughable five-minute warning, at a time when maoririder hadn't even been editing for 15-20 minutes. By the time it got to RfC, the damage had been done--to maoririder and to his reputation. Here were trusted editors, administrators, stating that maoririder's edits were disruptive and that he showed no interest in improving. I believe the evidence shows these claims were false. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 01:29, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Statements on the conduct of other editors

9) Consensus of community opinion is a useful decision-making principle. However the stated opinions of some editors are more influential than those of others. The Civility policy requires that all editors, but particularly trusted editors, should at all times be wary lest their statements about the conduct of other editors overstate the facts or overstep the bounds of reasonable inference.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

1. Based on clear evidence of gross exaggeration of the disruptive nature of Maoririder's edits. I believe that the premature block, although undoubtedly intended in good faith, is strong evidence that some experienced editors badly misjudged the nature and impact of Maoririder's edits. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 07:55, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Proposed findings of fact

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Comment by others:

Creation of stubs by Maoririder

1) Maoririder (talk · contribs), new Wikipedia editor, has created a large number of stubs, some of which are so short as to fail to define the subject of the article, see /Evidence for numerous examples.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

1. Could you make this a little more specific? I've gone through dozens of this guy's stubs and I'm not seeing him fail to define the subject. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 08:34, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Creation of stubs by Maoririder

1.1) Maoririder (talk · contribs), new Wikipedia editor, has created a large number of stubs, some of which are no more than a sentence in length and offer no more than minimal definition of their subjects. This is shorter than recommended by Wikipedia:Stub, which offers a guideline of "3 to 10 short sentences". ([1], [2], [3], [4])

Comment by Arbitrators:

1. A little more accurate than the previous version. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 01:16, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Complaints regarding Maoririder

2) A number of other editors have complained to and about Maoririder, both about his creation of stubs and his failure to substantially improve them after their creation. Often these other users have offered to help. see User talk:Maoririder.

Comment by Arbitrators:

1. Are editors required/expected to expand their own stubs? Kelly Martin 19:45, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

1. The above seems to miss the point of having a wiki. Anyone can improve a stub. For some wonderful examples: Portland High School, Portland, Maine and Midget wrestler. Do we want to stop people seeding excellent articles like this? All articles must start somewhere. I wouldn't have written the Portland High School article myself, but because Maoririder provided the foundations I was easily able to complete the structure. During the AfD debate it was kept by almost unanimous vote. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 19:03, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

   Response to Satori: All Maoririder stubs that I have examined, from the very first day, were expandable and contained accurate if sketchy information. It probably isn't appropriate in any case to give items such as the manual of style the status of policy. We've seen a regrettable instance of one longstanding editor who should know better engaging in protracted edit warring in order to enforce guidelines which themselves contain cautions such as this (MoS): "Writers are not required to follow all or any of these rules: the joy of wiki editing is that perfection is not required." That's a good, sane voice speaking there. Let's not drown it out in a headlong rush to make more rules. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 17:20, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

2. No, I don't believe editors are required/expected to expand their own stubs. I do think that there is an expectation that a stub will be created that has enough information to give other editors a starting point to expand. Furthermore, I think that basic adherance to the Manual of Style is expected of regularly contributing editors. Section 1.2 of WP:STUB (Ideal stub article) is a good summation of what is expected regarding stubs. -Satori ^(talk) 15:39, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Maoririder's response to complaints

3) Maoririder has been generally polite in his response to criticism of his creation of stubs, but is seemingly unable to substantially improve his performance, at least in the short term, see User talk:Maoririder.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

1. This is demonstrably false. From this to this in about a week. Of course it was about that time the editors who proclaimed they wanted to help him claimed that he was disruptive and blocked him. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 19:06, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Maoririder's response to complaints

3.1) Maoririder has been generally polite in his response to criticism of his creation of stubs, and has made very gradual but good-faith efforts to improve his performance, as can be seen by User talk:Maoririder and a comparison of an early edit [5] to an edit of roughly a week later [6].

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

1. I think his standard of editing after his first week, and his knowledge of Wikipedia style, but particularly his deft touch in wikification, rivalled my own after one week of editing. I consider myself to be a good editor. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 02:18, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Blocks of Maoririder

4) Maoririder has been blocked several times due to his prolific creation of stubs, see Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Maoririder/Evidence#Third_tranche:_Blocks_applied_to_Maoririder

Comment by Arbitrators:

1. This comment by Lucky 6.9, on blocking a sockpuppet expresses well the feeling of some users, "...User:Maoririder has left a HUGE mess in its wake" Fred Bauder 16:49, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

1. Sometimes users need to take a holiday away from the wiki. Out of 12 of his articles listed on AfD as "hopeless" and "useless nanostubs", 8 were kept, only 4 were deleted; the average deletion rate in AfD is around 70%, but for Maoririder's articles it was more like 33%, so his articles are obviously far more promising than the usual junk that shows up on AfD. Throughout Maoririder's history, there is this continual gap between what some users say about him and what the evidence says. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 19:10, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Alternative finding

4.1) One week after his first edit, Maoririder was blocked on August 2nd with a single five-minute warning, at a time when his work showed marked improvement and his actions showed a continuing good faith attempt to improve its quality. Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Maoririder/Evidence#Third_tranche:_Blocks_applied_to_Maoririder

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

1. Follows from the evidence. He was writing reasonable stubs, and responding to suggestions on his talk page. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 08:10, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Sockpuppets

5) Blocked, Maoririder has created several sockpuppets which, due to his distinctive editing style, are readily identifiable; these in turn have been blocked, These include Bluejays2006 (talk · contribs), Sandove89 (talk · contribs) and User:Inquisitor911 (talk · contribs)

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

1. Could this be altered to add that they were almost invariably blocked on the flimsiest pretext? Also the wording above seem to imply that he created socks to evade blocks. Is this actually the case? --Tony Sidaway^Talk 19:12, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

   Yes, it's as I remember. None of the sock puppets were created during the period of an account block. You can check the block log, or my summary in the evidence. Sandover was active 6 Oct, Maoririder was blocked 7 Oct. This finding contradicts the known facts. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 19:30, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

   Also please note:

   User:Inquisitor911 (talk · contribs) was misidentified as Maoririder and unblocked when Lucky 6.9 recognised his error.

   Sandove89 (talk · contribs) is the only genuine sock to have been blocked.

   Bluejays2006 (talk · contribs) has never been blocked.

   --Tony Sidaway^Talk 19:59, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Sockpuppets

5.1) Maoririder is known to have created two sockpuppets which, due to his distinctive editing style, are fairly easily identifiable. These were evidently attempts to evade continuing negative attention. They were evidently not created for the purpose of evading a block because their creation did not coincide with any blocks. There was also one misidentification of a separate editor as a maoririder sock.

• Sandove89 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) was created on 6 Oct, 2005 and blocked the following day with the log summary "Sockpuppet of User:Maoririder which has left a HUGE mess in its wake".
• Bluejays2006 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) was created on 13 Oct, 2005 and edited on that day only.
• User:Inquisitor911 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) was blocked on 21 August as a possible sock, but has a clearly distinct editing style and is very unlikely to be a sock of Maoririder. The 48-hour blocks imposed on both Maoririder and Inquisitor911 on suspicion of sock puppetry were released the same day when Inquisitor911 convincingly asserted his separate identity.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

1. Just the facts, ma'am. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 19:00, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Proposed remedies

Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.

Karmafist's Idea

1) Maoririder will be blocked from uploading files, participating on Articles For Deletion and editing all articles until he has shown that he is able to conform to the encyclopedic standards of the general community. Until that time, he will be welcome and encouraged to participate in personal sandboxes in order to improve his editing skills, which he can show to other, more experienced users (such as those who have helped him in the past on his talk page), who can then offer informal comment/peer review on how to make his content acceptable to general community standards of encyclopedic quality. Continued pseudo-nonsense articles on the personal sandboxes will be acceptable, but not encouraged. Karmafist 22:16, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:

1. This remedy seems inappropriately heavyhanded. From what I've seen, Maoririder has demonstrated that his ability to understand Wikipedia policy as written is sufficient; his failure has been in his inability to grasp the unwritten aspects of our policy, such as the one that says that "stubs are bad" even though our article on stubs says that they're not. The steady trend in the improvement in the quality of his articles should not be ignored. Kelly Martin 19:40, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

1. As I've stated before, I believe that User:Maoririder may have some form of mental retardation, such as Downs Syndrome by looking at his edits. As the case would be with any disability, accomodation and gradual acclimation is the best cure, not enabling poor habits which exacerbate the user's inability to interact on Wikipedia due to their disability. Maoririder is a rarity: a Good Faith vandal a problem user who acts in good faith. He seems to genuinely want to improve, but has refused to do so despite numerous attempts to show him how to improve. My only guess on why this has not worked is that he needs more concentrated and intensive mentoring in a less stressful setting until he is able to contribute worthwhile material to Wikipedia rather than content that has to be cleaned up later by other users. Karmafist 22:16, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
2. This seems like a massive exaggeration and an unacceptable limitation on an editor who is performing de facto incremental improvements to the wiki. The term "good faith vandal" is both insulting and grossly untrue. Someone has just moaned at me about the stubs created by his latest sock puppet, Bluejays2006 (talk · contribs). The stubs are brief, and need some minor tweaks, but are obviously not vandalism or injurious to the wiki by any stretch of the imagination. I'd like to find out why the standard has deteriorated from that of 2/3 August, but other than that there's no problem here. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 23:56, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

   The term was not intended to insult, so I struck it out. Ultimately the goal for me here is to get Maoririder up to a higher level of participation in Wikipedia, not to quibble over off hand terminology. Karmafist 03:45, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

   If you really think he's so bad that he can only be allowed to edit the sandbox then you should be applying for an injunction. But sorry I can't see that this suggested remedy, without some accompanying facts, is even remotely appropriate. We're talking about an editor whose stubs get expanded. One of his latest stubs, Midget wrestler, was nominated for deletion yesterday evening and is already on its way to a keep result, having been expanded by other editors. So all this stuff about "useless nanostubs" is sheer nonsense, apparently born of personal prejudice against very short articles.

   The reference to "pseudo-nonsense articles" is, as far as I can tell, an outright calumny. Maoririder does not produce any kind of nonsense, pseudo or otherwise. While his presentation may be lacking, his articles usually seem to be accurate and verifiable.

   Hmm, people cooperating to produce articles: isn't that how a wiki is supposed to work? --Tony Sidaway^Talk 07:41, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Mentorship

2) Maoririder shall be assigned a mentor who shall monitor his edits. Monitoring shall include approval of all new articles created by Maoririder which approval shall be noted on the talk page of the new article, see Wikipedia:Mentorship

Comment by Arbitrators:

1. While I believe that a mentorship might be beneficial to Maoririder, the restriction on obtaining prior authorization to create a new article is overly burdensome. Kelly Martin 19:42, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
2. Concur with Kelly. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 03:48, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

1. Not ideal, but might tend to protect him from harassment. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 19:23, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
2. I agree with Kelly that mentorship might be beneficial to Maoririder. However, Lucky 6.9 attempted to be a voluntary mentor for him in August, and frustrations over the perception that Maoririder wasn't catching on is what led to the RfC. I think some thought needs to be given towards how best to guide Maoririder towards being a better editor in a way that will be effective, and not lead to the animosity that Tony is concerned about. -Satori ^(talk) 20:21, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Mentorship, revision 1

2.1) Maoririder shall be assigned a mentor who shall monitor his edits. Monitoring shall include guiding him to edit according to accepted article standards, mediating between him and other editors, and reviewing use of administrative action toward him. See Wikipedia:Mentorship

Comment by Arbitrators:

1. Maoririder needs someone willing to hold his hand, pretty much. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 03:46, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
2. In response to Tony, I think the hard part will be finding someone who can willingly and effectively do it. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 04:38, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

1. Why not? I'd like to see the down-side of this, but maybe others can see it more readily than I. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 04:20, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
   1. Honestly, Kat, I think it would make more sense to tell RC patrollers that they really don't need to be that heavy-handed. You know, I didn't know a Briquet_Griffon_Vendéen was a type of dog, so to me even one of Maoririder's earliest articles was useful. Why are such edits so evil? Maybe we should address this as a problem of RC fatigue. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 05:36, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
   2. And you know I'd be glad to do the mentorship as specified above myself, while not interfering with the judgement calls of RC patrollers on speedies (ie if someone deletes a really short maoririder stub, it's gone). But who would undertake to mentor the next perfectly good faith editor whose content is judged to be not-quite-up-to-standard? This isn't a long term solution. *engage mild rant mode* the wiki isn't short of editors who'd block, edit war, and censure over a trifle, but it is short of people with an appreciation for the lighter touch. This is what worries me most. We appear to be heading fast down the wrong trouser-leg. Why is our tolerance draining away? *rant mode off* --13:04, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Maoririder prohibited from creating new articles

3) Maoririder shall create no new articles for one year.

Comment by Arbitrators:

1. Far too heavy-handed. Kelly Martin 19:42, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

1. Extreme. Do we need this? -Where's the evidence of disruption? -Tony Sidaway^Talk 19:23, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Deletion of new articles created by Maoririder

4) Any new article created by Maoririder which is not seconded by another Wikipedia user on the talk page of the article is subject to immediate deletion without any formal procedure.

Comment by Arbitrators:

1. This will exacerbate, rather than remedy, the situation, by making Maoririder's contributions even more subject to summary, unexplained deletion. It will also exacerbate his sense of persecution. Kelly Martin 19:44, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

1. Better than mentorship. However these needs to be an egg timer clause. Say 72 hours without expansion? Also expansion of the article by another editor would be better endorsement than a note on the talk page. Trouble is you'd still get people freaking out and speedying his stuff on principle. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 19:27, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Maoririder to use one account

5) Maoririder shall use one account of his choice.

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Comment by parties:

1. A non-issue. His use of other accounts has been benign--to try to get away from the people hounding him. If they will stop doing that, he needs only one account. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 19:28, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

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Proposed enforcement

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1) {text of proposed enforcement}

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Outlawed

1) Any edit by Maoririder which violates the remedies in the matter (for example a new article created without confirmation by his mentor or seconding by another user) may be deleted on sight by any administrator without further process; any sockpuppet which displays his distinctive editing style may be blocked for a period of one month.

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1. This kind of enforcement seems to treat maoririder's contributions as damage to the wiki, which they're obviously not. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 08:10, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

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Analysis of evidence

Place here items of evidence (with diffs) and detailed analysis

Shortest women

[7] - Today, Maoririder created an article called "Shortest women", which he also redirected "Shortest woman" to. The entire content is as follows:

== Shortest woman in the world ==

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== Other short women ==

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Please no scandless pictures of women.

{{expand}}

Here we have an example of what the initiators are frustrated with. An article with no significant content, likely headed for speedy deletion. It appears that Maoririder is hoping that someone will fill in the content for him. In fact, he even added the {{expand}} tag. What I read out of things like this is "I want to know about the world's shortest women, but rather than look it up in a reference, I'm going to demand that someone else do the research for me". Most of the time when he does this, the article simply gets speedy deleted for CSD:A1, so it just creates more backlog for our admins and New Pages patrollers. -Satori ^(talk) 21:12, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

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1. I think firstly that you're drawing unwarranted inferences, and secondly that you're grossly misrepresenting what a wiki is about. Firstly, nowhere in the above does Maoririder state that anyone must edit that article. Secondly all articles can be, are, and are supposed to be expanded by many people. The subject of the article seems to be encyclopedic, and Maoririder has provided a useful framework for writing it. This is a small amount of work, but so far it's good. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 16:50, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

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General discussion

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