First arbitration case in almost six months

The opening of the Doncram case marks the end of almost 6 months without any open cases, the longest in the history of the Committee.

Open cases

The case concerns Doncram's creation of masses of articles composed of unchecked content transferred from foreign databases and his perceived misrepresentation of legitimate criticism. The filer, SarekOfVulcan, notes that while he is a long-standing editor, he "has frequently run up against other editors relating to both the content and how he reacts when the content is challenged." When arbitrator Roger Davies asked the parties to "provide details of a [recent] arbitratable issue that the community has failed to resolve", SarekOfVulcan cited two instances:

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See Architects of the National Park Service for his continuing to create lists with insufficient evidence for inclusion. Note Cbl62's edit summaries of "it's been 3 months since sourcing discussion began and still nothing to support these entries." Note particularly their exchange on Jan 4, where Doncram and Cbl62 disagree on a source.

Also note this AfD, where he declares "If this was userfied to my space, I would be inclined to return it to mainspace immediately, as it is an obviously valid, completely sourced article."

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In November 2011, SarekOfVulcan noted on the administrators' noticeboard for incidents that Doncram created the Chambers Building article without substantive content. Snottywong described the report as "an immediate kneejerk [sic] ANI complaint [which] was uncalled for." In her reply, Elen of the Roads states that she originally blocked him

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to stop him transferring the content of another database into Wikipedia without any check being made on the quality of what was being imported (there were a lot of problems with the other database). All the time. Without stopping. And endlessly abusing both the guy who wrote the script that he used, and anyone who tried to clean up the mess.

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Orlady's statement says that her long-standing complaints include Doncram exhibiting "an attitude of article ownership", escalating minor disagreements into larger arguments, believing that he is exempt from policies and guidelines, and demonstrating "a pattern of personalizing interactions with others, including engaging in blisteringly vitriolic personal attacks against [her]."

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14 January 2013 (all comments)

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Ed. note: the talk page was cleared prior to publication as per the Signpost's normal practice. The previous comments can be read here. Thanks, Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 02:41, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting. I only recently discovered the "Wikipedia as database" debate. As importing and exporting encyclopedic data to and from WP gets more common, I expect we will have more of these disputes about merging content. --Surturz (talk) 17:31, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
With regards to the editor's note, a better link to the previous discussion might be this one. The previous comments can be read more easily on that page in my opinion.--Rockfang (talk) 20:40, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It is not particularly appealing to have the signpost judge (even a part of) an ArbCom case before it has even been heard. It is also questionable whether it should report some of the more hyperbolic statements cited by parties, third hand. Two layers of selection bias is quite enough. Rich Farmbrough, 23:35, 16 January 2013 (UTC).[reply]

I have to agree with this comment - I don't know anything about the case myself here, but reporting it like this (with quotes from the people bringing the case and none from Doncram himself) seems like a bad idea. The Signpost should probably restrict itself to saying 'a new ArbCom case has been opened', and allow those who want to know more to click the link and read it, rather than producing a summary vulnerable to partisan bias. Robofish (talk) 00:25, 17 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I am in agreement with the two above. The article left me with a bad taste in my mouth. With regards, Iselilja (talk) 00:44, 17 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
These three have agreed to disagree in a more or less acrimonious way for months. I am not surprised to see this here. Just a clarification: I think Doncram mostly works with databases from NRHP, which are foreign to Wikipedia, but not foreign in the sense of being in a foreign language. Jane (talk) 10:30, 17 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]