I thought it was rather petty of you to revert my edit on the Olivier page. This information is useful since it's something that often comes up. I could add more references if you feel one is not enough to make the information "reliable", but I feel WP is already drowning in references. Best wishes, Adrian Dadge (talk) 00:11, 16 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
An arbitration case regarding civility in infobox discussions has now closed and the final decision is viewable at the link above. The following remedies have been enacted:
Any uninvolved administrator may apply infobox probation as a discretionary sanction. See the full decision for details of infobox probation.
Standard discretionary sanctions are authorized for all discussions about infoboxes and to edits adding, deleting, collapsing, or removing verifiable information from infoboxes.
Cassianto is indefinitely placed on infobox probation.
The Arbitration Committee recommends that well-publicized community discussions 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 and how those factors should be weighted.
All editors are reminded to maintain decorum and civility when engaged in discussions about infoboxes, and to not turn discussions about a single article's infobox into a discussion about infoboxes in general.
For canvassing editors to this case, Volvlogia (talk · contribs) is admonished. They are warned that any further instances of canvassing related to arbitration processes will likely result in sanctions.
Our illustrious, fair, and well informed committee at ArbCom saw to that, unfortunately. I'll be about, just to annoy certain people, but that's about it. Wasting my time and money writing articles, only to be trolled and treated like shit, has come to an end. Best wishes to you, John. CassiantoTalk18:22, 30 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
That's you on borrowed time then. Wikipedia doesn't seem to like people who improve things, only those who go around and fuck it all up. CassiantoTalk18:29, 30 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I've experienced that first tinge of stupid content disputes. It is, unfortunately, easier to dispute details than to author content. I can hardly blame either of you, or anyone else, for giving up. Mr rnddude (talk) 05:30, 1 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Notice that you are now subject to an arbitration enforcement sanction
The following sanction now applies to you:
You are topic-banned from infoboxes for three months. This means that you may not add, edit or remove infoboxes, and you may not edit discussions about anything related to infoboxes, either as regards their use in specific articles or in the abstract.
You may appeal this sanction using the process described here. I recommend that you use the arbitration enforcement appeals template if you wish to submit an appeal to the arbitration enforcement noticeboard. You may also appeal directly to me (on my talk page), before or instead of appealing to the noticeboard. Even if you appeal this sanction, you remain bound by it until you are notified by an uninvolved administrator that the appeal has been successful. You are also free to contact me on my talk page if anything of the above is unclear to you. Sandstein 21:39, 2 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Sandstein, that's a shocking bad decision, considering Cassianto did not breach the restriction as it is currently written. Perhaps you should read through the comments thoroughly, (including the filer's inaccurate representation of what the restriction is) before you make your decision. - SchroCat (talk) 21:48, 2 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Cass, I have no doubt that whatever happens another stalker will misrepresent the restrictions in order for another poor decision to be twisted against you. It's no wonder that ArbCom is not considered a shining example of volunteer management if they can't even manage their own house properly. - SchroCat (talk) 22:09, 2 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia, like the Universe, is now accelerating to its heat death. We're getting more and more hawkish monitors at AN and ANI, we're getting fewer and fewer content contributors, and like a snake eating its own tail, the project is doomed to fail because of individuals who do nothing more than police the place. It's like Rise of the Machines. Eventually, though, these Wiki-police will be replaced by AI-bots who will detect the quality of your contribution and summarily block you if you don't meet their threshold. The good news about that is that you know you're dealing with a 'bot, not these other individuals who claim to be human and who claim to be interested in a collaborative project and who claim to be motivated by improving Wikipedia, but manifestly do nothing of the sort other than attempt to govern it and enforce their petty Wiki-lawyering efforts on the few humans who are left to produce content. And, as any of you would know if you know anything about me, it's not even worth starting to discuss the facile and self-important, self-aggrandising, self-perpetuating nonsense known as Arbcom. Toothless, ball-less, hopeless. I think when God created the Norwegian coastline, he had to do something equal and opposite, yin and yang, so he created Arbcom. I know you know all this. My best to you. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:19, 2 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
ha, elequently put, Rambler, and so true. The sheer level of incompetence shown by Mr Sandstain and the kangaroo court at ARBCOM illustrates perfectly why Wikipedia loses decent editors at a rate of knots. I forget whose page I saw it on, but I saw a banner message saying that one day, all that will be left is a clique of admins and a bunch of their sycophants; the rest of the Wikipedia would've moved on to projects where people's contributions are valued, and not decried. Not only were the committee (deliberately) ambiguous with regards to their awful writing at the ArbCom case with regards to "no more than one comment" bullshit, but perhaps the biggest fraud of it all was calling the case "civility in infobox discussions". I would consider my recent comments to be very civil, which kind of contradicts the case title, yet this happens. Yet more evidence of this case being about me in all but name. The bungling incompetence of the committee, highlighted further by Mr Sandstein's own display of the same behaviour, above, is evident for all to see. CassiantoTalk23:17, 2 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Oh dear, like ARBCOM, it appears that Mr Sandstein can't even string a sentence together: "You are topic-banned from infoboxes for three months. This means that you may not add, edit or remove infoboxes, and you may not edit discussions about anything related to infoboxes, either as regards TO their use in specific articles or in the abstract." A bit more article writing and a lot less pontificating may see a cure to that. CassiantoTalk23:30, 2 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Discretionary sanctions are fundamentally dishonest anyway. Their (usually unspoken) purpose is to silence dissenting voices, thus making it easier to claim some kind of empty consensus among those who are left. "First they came for the anti-infoboxers, and I did not speak out because I was not anti-infobox ... then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me." I myself have a discretionary sanction in place, well two actually, that forbid me from being critical of the RfA process or making any comment about gender equality. God alone knows what carnage may have ensued had they not been in place! When the time of Wikipedia's inevitable heat death finally arrives it will be nothing to do with the laws of thermodynamics, and everything to do with the self-important individuals epitomised by Sandstein. EricCorbett01:17, 3 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The hilarious thing is, is that I've never been opposed to infoboxes on the whole, I've just dared to challenge the unilateral adding of them on articles where I don't think they work. Obviously, this has aggravated the OCD sufferers among us whose noses have bled profusely at the thought of not having a vanilla-looking neighbourhood that is obsessionally consistent. Like ArbCom and it's gang of enforcers, the shockingly flawed RfA process allows for people like Sandstein to swag up and then go about like a kid in a candy shop, unilaterally sticking their size 10s into situations where they achieve maximum satisfaction at the detriment of others. Some go on to be very fair and extremely competent; others resign their common sense and fair opinion at the door marked "exit" and go on to operate in a megalomaniac and reckless way in order to achieve god-like status among their peers. Perhaps it's no big shock that a flawed and corrupt process, such as RfA, produces flawed and corrupt administrators. I kind of feel sorry for them, in a way, that they feel the need to assert such control and oppression over a bunch of volunteers over the internet. But I do think we should show particular solidarity for poor old Jcc who failed to get the result he so craved, and that is to have me blocked on his and Wikipedia's terms rather than my own. So that'll be him crying into his lavender-scented comfort blanket for a few days. Every cloud and all that. CassiantoTalk05:42, 3 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I'll say finally, without any attempt to save your blushes, that the tragedy of situations such as the one you find yourself in is that WP loses common-sense editors like you and retains OCD sufferers like ... well, you can surely guess who I'm thinking of. As has been suggested on my talkpage, the solution to this infobox stupidity is very simple: mandate them for certain categories of article where they work well, and deprecate them for those categories where they don't. Problem solved. EricCorbett06:46, 3 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Cassianto, I've undone your edit to the closed AE thread. If you want other admins to look at the case, you can request that by appealing the sanction as per the instructions in the sanctions template above. Sandstein 10:25, 3 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
That's funny; I thought appeals could be done at AE? Or is that more disingenuous bullshit from you? Try responding to me, as per your bunch of code on my talk page, rather than ignoring me. CassiantoTalk11:14, 3 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, appeals can take place at AE, but they do not take place in the same thread as the one in which the sanction was imposed. That thread is preserved as a record of the sanction. Instead, to appeal the sanction, you should make a new thread by filling out the template {{Arbitration enforcement appeal}}, based on the text at Template:Arbitration enforcement appeal#Usage, and posting it at WP:AE. This is also explained in the sanction template above. Sandstein 11:19, 3 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
There's no point in arguing Cass. Even when an overly-aggressive admin makes a staggering poor decision that doesn't reflect the restrictions, just their own personal biases, they still can't let the discussion run its course, even when there is serious doubt in any neutral's mind. And don't expect any admin acknowledge that their poor actions create more heat than light. - SchroCat (talk) 11:31, 3 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I'm reminded of a case recently at ARCA where an editor was also sanctioned under a poorly worded and confusing restriction. Despite pleas from numerous editors to improve the wording of the restriction, or simply clarify what the admin meant, the admin doubled down on enforcing the bad sanction, which ultimately lead to the editor leaving the project. This is a website composed of volunteers freely donating time, energy, and more for no other reason than wanting to contribute to the purpose of Wikipedia. I just simply can't understand this burning desire by admins to enforce sanctions on prolific, productive editors and insist that they've done the right thing. Mr Ernie (talk) 19:20, 3 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I'm never surprised by the rather blinkered approach taken by those that wield some limited form of power. It takes only a little courage to admit to making an error - particularly when several people point it out, but even more stubbornness in digging ones heels in and repeating that it's all black and white with no shades of grey. Sometime I do wonder why I bother - the ineptitude of so many people is supported and praised, but when someone is good at doing what they do - like Cass - they line up and try and pull them into the gutter. Not one person at Arb, and only a very small selection of Admins actually know how to manage people or situations, and most crassly thrash about making matters so much worse than they need to be. - SchroCat (talk) 19:27, 3 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
It stems from the fact that most of our hawkish admins do nothing other than police the site and have completely forgotten the main purpose, which is to create content for our readers. Some of them actually do nothing to improve content at all. They get their buzz from killing off other, productive editors. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:40, 3 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
AE appeal
Just as a note, I've closed your appeal to the administrators noticeboard of your arbitration enforcement sanction as declining to lift the topic ban. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:50, 5 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
