Workshop on re-working "Consensus required" at Donald Trump

I'm going to attempt to state some rules for editing which might improve the situation. Please feel free to make BOLD changes to the wording; any !vote should be in a different section (and should wait at least 48 hours) as the language here could change. power~enwiki (π, ν) 19:32, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

Currently proposed changes

The "consensus required" restriction is lifted as a page restriction on Donald Trump imposed under discretionary sanctions.
All significant changes to the lead section of the article must obtain consensus on the talk page before being made. This includes adding or removing any phrase or sentence. This is imposed as a page restriction under discretionary sanctions.
1. Points 6, 7, 8, 17, 20, 23, and 24 of the "Current Consensus" are struck as redundant to the new rules on changing the lead section (and points 11 and 16 on that topic are already struck); a list of discussions regarding the various discussions of contents of the lead section shall be maintained on a sub-page.
Content referring to events that have occurred in the past month should not be added to the lead, unless there is an overwhelming consensus that they have an exceptionally historic nature (for example, Trump resigning from office, or Congress making a Declaration of War). This is a guideline, and is not imposed under discretionary sanctions.
Article-level maintenance tags should not be added to the article without prior discussion of that tag on the talk page.
Any additions, removals, or heading-level changes of ==Top-level== and ===Second-level=== headers should be discussed on the talk page before being implemented.
If there are objections to whether a topic is historically relevant enough to be in the article (a violation of WP:DUE or WP:SUMMARYSTYLE), the material should stay in the article until a preliminary consensus is obtained on the talk page. Challenges to specific wordings as violating NPOV or other guidelines should be respected. WP:1RR remains in effect, and edit-warring is strongly discouraged.

Discussion of changes

I appreciate that you are trying to avoid some of the disagreements and misunderstandings lately. I'm sorry but I pretty much disagree with all of this. I really can't see setting up different DS standards for this one article; how is a new user, or a user who edits other DS articles, supposed to know that this one is "special"? Also I don't think trying to pre-litigate situations is going to be helpful. JMHO. MelanieN (talk) 20:23, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

The primary intent is to limit "consensus required" to the top part of the article: the infobox, lead, and Table of Contents. The "regulars" should also discuss any changes to those sections on the talk page first. Consensus required is already a "special" rule. Most of the rest is bureaucracy which I feel is sadly necessary at this point; editors who aren't regulars at the page can't be expected to know all of it, but a pre-agreed set of guidelines will hopefully make discussions less heated. power~enwiki (π, ν) 20:31, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

I think my other ideas (such as transcluding the lead and infobox from fully-protected pages) are clearly worse, but am open to other approaches. power~enwiki (π, ν) 20:33, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

Good point, Melanie. No editor can reasonably be expected to completely shift gears every time s/he moves to a different article—re-learning the local rules—which many do ten times every day. There are already too many variations of ArbCom remedies, and with very little justification for the differences that I can see. It should be possible to reduce to two-sizes-fit-all: normal and remedies. There is nothing particularly unique about Donald Trump as compared to any highly contentious, emotionally-charged topic area, and human nature is the same everywhere. ―Mandruss ☎ 20:43, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

The main difference is that, while most Wikipedia articles suffer when dealing with discussions of recent events, Donald Trump is constantly in the news and as a result is constantly suffering from those problems. power~enwiki (π, ν) 20:45, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

I don't think that's enough difference to justify unique process rules. ―Mandruss ☎ 20:47, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

I'm just waiting for an official version of the widely practiced "Trump Exemption" to become law here....

-- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 23:54, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

I thought it was already? Everytime something negative comes out it gets in all his articles and gets a dedicated article. That is the Trump Exemption right? PackMecEng (talk) 19:33, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

It would be an improvement, though of course my position is that the "consensus required to restore" provision should simply be removed and that's that.Volunteer Marek (talk) 14:43, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

Procedural discussion

@Power~enwiki: You know you can't lift an admin's discretionary sanctions this way, right? Please read Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee/Discretionary_sanctions#Modifications_by_administrators --NeilN ^{talk to me} 19:17, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

Right, but the sanctioning admin is absent, and I don't want to ask any other admin to do so without consensus it's an improvement. power~enwiki (π, ν) 19:19, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

The correct forum for this would be AE, where it is more structured and where people who are beyond talk page regulars here can comment. TonyBallioni (talk) 19:22, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

@Power~enwiki: You're going to try to get consensus here for this article and then present it at WP:AN or WP:AE? --NeilN ^{talk to me} 19:24, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

Yes, I would like some feedback that these suggestions are an improvement and don't have obvious flaws before trying to get a consensus to implement them at WP:AE. That is what I believe "Workshop" to mean. WP:ARCA might be able to handle doing both at the same time, but I doubt the sitting arbs want to deal with this. I have no confidence that both can happen at AE. power~enwiki (π, ν) 19:26, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

I wish we could tighten up the terminology for the sake of clear communication and understanding. As I understand it, a sanction is a block, a ban, or any of the ad hoc creations imposed by an admin on one or more specific editors. Discretionary sanctions refers to the ArbCom-vested power of any admin to impose a sanction unilaterally at his or her discretion ("shoot on sight"). Neither is synonymous with the ArbCom remedies or editing restrictions, but some editors seem to use them that way. Also, DS and the editing restrictions are independent; i.e. an article could potentially have one without the other. ―Mandruss ☎ 19:41, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

My understand is that "Consensus required" is an arbitration remedy imposed under discretionary sanctions, which does absolutely nothing to clear things up. Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee/Discretionary_sanctions does not define "remedy" or "restriction", and appears to throw everything under "sanctions". power~enwiki (π, ν) 19:47, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

Yeah. In that case the fault lies with ArbCom and we're doomed to eternal unclear communication and understanding, except for those editors intimately familiar and experienced with these matters who can divine the meaning from the context. I think I'm almost there, after 5 years editing and 2 years at Donald Trump. ―Mandruss ☎ 19:55, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

Looking further, the phrase "page restriction" appears to be unambiguous here, so I'll use that. power~enwiki (π, ν) 20:01, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

So... you're basically saying that all these page level restrictions are not actually authorized by ArbCom since they're not sanctions and represent just the consequences of various power grabs by individual admins? Yes.Volunteer Marek (talk) 14:45, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

We need more Admins and more astute Admin oversight, not rule changes. SPECIFICO talk 23:24, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

There seems to be consensus that we're best keeping the current imperfect rules rather than trying to come up with new ones. I also am on vacation and have an elbow injury, so I don't plan to look at this (or any high-profile AP2 page) for the next two weeks. power~enwiki (π, ν) 03:40, 27 June 2018 (UTC)