Thierry Henry's fateful handball has proven to be as contentious on Wikipedia as it has been in football (soccer) following households. The article on France national football team was protected for 36 hours by Camw on 19 November due to excessive vandalism. The same day saw Camw's semi-protection of the article on Henry quickly increased to full protection by Stifle due to "excessive violations of the biographies of living persons policy: France/Ireland match fallout". The article regarding the Republic of Ireland national football team has seen a low level of vandalism but has yet to be protected at any level.
The article created to summarise the match itself, France vs Republic of Ireland (2010 FIFA World Cup Play-Off), has proven to be equally contentious. The article has been edited 384 times by 95 editors since its creation, and was nominated for deletion on 19 November by chandler who stated "There's already precedent on not having articles the day after a controversial refereeing decision was made." The deletion debate has amassed 364 edits since being opened, with 107 editors expressing an opinion. The article Hand of Frog has similarly been nominated at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hand of Frog. Historical precedents include Argentina v England (1986 FIFA World Cup quarter-final) and its redirect Hand of God goal. Three community requests for comment are currently open on the issue, see below for details.
WP:Update has monthly reports of changes to all the policy pages in subcategories of Wikipedia policy and guidelines (except "legal") and all the General style guidelines going back to mid- to late 2008. Since September, policy reports have also been generated a week before the end of each month, in the hope that editors will use the information to discuss policy changes before the Update at the end of the month. Any editor is welcome to edit the reports or start a new report at WP:Update/3.
Here are some of the changes reported this month at WP:Update/1. Ownership of articles gained two new sections illustrating "ownership"; material similar to this has drifted in and out of the guidance over the years, and it is too soon to say whether it will be retained this time. Something is afoot at Policies and guidelines, and Sock puppetry continues the momentum from last month. The most active content policy page so far this month is Biographies of living persons, followed by Verifiability. Several of the Criteria for speedy deletion were tweaked, and the "Community ban" section at Banning policy was renamed to Community sanctions, with guidance extended in line with the new focus.
The recent request for comment regarding Admin Recall held at Wikipedia:WikiProject Administrator/Admin Recall has been closed and summarised. Ben MacDui concluded that "The status quo, whilst garnering some support, is very unpopular. 77% of respondents do not support its continuation. Only one proposal achieved a greater degree of support than opposition—'Wikipedia:Community de-adminship'—which received a majority of 13, and the support of 65% of those who considered it. Hats off to its creator Uncle G (talk · contribs)." This led to the creation of Wikipedia talk:Community de-adminship/Draft RfC, which aims to refine Community de-adminship through discussion so that a formal Request for comment can be held as to whether or not to adopt the proposal. The drafting process will continue until 8 pm GMT on Monday 4 January 2010.
There are a number of contentious deletion debates this week. The article on Wolfgang Werlé has been nominated for deletion here by Grsz as a "marginal BLP". The subject of the article has requested deletion of the article, and is currently suing the WikiMedia Foundation based on German statutes (see last issue). Many Wikipedians believe the article should be kept since the coverage in reliable sources allows a balanced article to be created, while a number believe the article should be deleted as the subject has minimal notability.
Fourteen Requests for comment have been made in the week of 16 to 22 November:
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