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:*Thanks {{u|GoldenRing}}. I phrased my question awkwardly. I can see why you had concerns about the page, what I'm asking really is why you felt the need to delete the page rather than raise your concerns with Dlthewave, or blank it, or amend it in some other manner. Your deletion, albeit done under AE, was a speedy deletion. The closest justification under speedy is G10. Did you (do you still) feel that G10 was the rationale for deletion? Or was it purely based on the user page policy, which says that negative material should be removed or blanked, but doesn't say deleted. It is the decision to delete rather than use other options that I'd like to hear your thinking on. While I support in principle the notion that an AE admin have within their discretion the option to delete a page, my thinking is this should be done within policy, so I'm looking for the policy that allows deletion in this instance. At the moment I'm seeing a page that can be considered to be of concern, but it appears to me that the appropriate solution would be discussion about the page rather than deletion of the page. I've not looked closely - is there discussion about the page that you can direct us to? [[User:SilkTork|SilkTork]] ([[User talk:SilkTork|talk]]) 08:42, 26 February 2019 (UTC) |
:*Thanks {{u|GoldenRing}}. I phrased my question awkwardly. I can see why you had concerns about the page, what I'm asking really is why you felt the need to delete the page rather than raise your concerns with Dlthewave, or blank it, or amend it in some other manner. Your deletion, albeit done under AE, was a speedy deletion. The closest justification under speedy is G10. Did you (do you still) feel that G10 was the rationale for deletion? Or was it purely based on the user page policy, which says that negative material should be removed or blanked, but doesn't say deleted. It is the decision to delete rather than use other options that I'd like to hear your thinking on. While I support in principle the notion that an AE admin have within their discretion the option to delete a page, my thinking is this should be done within policy, so I'm looking for the policy that allows deletion in this instance. At the moment I'm seeing a page that can be considered to be of concern, but it appears to me that the appropriate solution would be discussion about the page rather than deletion of the page. I've not looked closely - is there discussion about the page that you can direct us to? [[User:SilkTork|SilkTork]] ([[User talk:SilkTork|talk]]) 08:42, 26 February 2019 (UTC) |
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:*Thanks {{u|GoldenRing}}, that makes things a lot clearer. My thinking is that everyone here has acted in good faith and with a view that what they were doing was within policy and procedure. While I feel that in principle an AE admin can delete a page as part of DS, that such a deletion should meet with policy, and if the deletion is not to go through a community discussion process (ie, is a Speedy deletion), then such a deletion should meet Speedy criteria. So, as in this case the deletion was not done under Speedy, the page should instead have been blanked. As this deletion was done under AE, albeit - in my opinion - inappropriately, it should be discussed at WP:AE rather than DRV. At the moment we have discussion at both DRV and AE. Rather than create a constitutional crisis, one venue or other should give up the right to discuss it; or perhaps, GoldenRing, you could reflect on if an AE enforced blanking serves the purpose as well as a deletion, and agree on the DRV that it can be undeleted, so we can resolve that discussion there, and you can then blank the page under AE and Dlthewave can appeal the blanking at AE. [[User:SilkTork|SilkTork]] ([[User talk:SilkTork|talk]]) 12:10, 26 February 2019 (UTC) |
:*Thanks {{u|GoldenRing}}, that makes things a lot clearer. My thinking is that everyone here has acted in good faith and with a view that what they were doing was within policy and procedure. While I feel that in principle an AE admin can delete a page as part of DS, that such a deletion should meet with policy, and if the deletion is not to go through a community discussion process (ie, is a Speedy deletion), then such a deletion should meet Speedy criteria. So, as in this case the deletion was not done under Speedy, the page should instead have been blanked. As this deletion was done under AE, albeit - in my opinion - inappropriately, it should be discussed at WP:AE rather than DRV. At the moment we have discussion at both DRV and AE. Rather than create a constitutional crisis, one venue or other should give up the right to discuss it; or perhaps, GoldenRing, you could reflect on if an AE enforced blanking serves the purpose as well as a deletion, and agree on the DRV that it can be undeleted, so we can resolve that discussion there, and you can then blank the page under AE and Dlthewave can appeal the blanking at AE. [[User:SilkTork|SilkTork]] ([[User talk:SilkTork|talk]]) 12:10, 26 February 2019 (UTC) |
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*My view is that deletion of a page is permitted as an enforcement action under discretionary sanctions. Indeed, there are intentionally ''very'' few limits on what sanctions an administrator can impose under discretionary sanctions. As such, I see Bishonen's undeletion as a violation of [[WP:AC/DS#sanctions.modify]], albeit one that was carried out in good faith with the best of intentions while uncertain of whether the arbitration enforcement action was permissible. I will note that [[WP:AC/DS#appeals.notes]] (bullet point 4) indicates that any action taken under discretionary sanctions are presumed valid and proper until a successful appeal, so if there were a question over whether deletion is a permissible discretionary sanction, that should have come to ARCA initially. All AE actions can only be appealed at [[WP:AE]] or [[WP:AN]], so this cannot be appealed at [[WP:DRV]]. Leaving a note at [[WP:DRV]] directing interested editors toward such an appeal would be appropriate in this situation. I decline to answer {{U|GoldenRing}}'s fourth question for two reasons. Ideally, ArbCom should not be the first point of appeal of a discretionary sanction. Separately, the admin who placed a discretionary sanction may not appeal their own sanction. This is especially important for an appeal that potentially skips AE/AN, since that would deprive other editors of the ability to appeal at those venues under our procedures. ~ [[User:BU Rob13|<b>Rob</b><small><sub>13</sub></small>]]<sup style="margin-left:-1.0ex;">[[User talk:BU Rob13|Talk]]</sup> 16:40, 26 February 2019 (UTC) |
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Revision as of 16:41, 26 February 2019
Requests for clarification and amendment
Clarification request: Eastern Europe and Balkans discretionary sanctions scope
Motion adopted. Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 23:24, 17 February 2019 (UTC) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Initiated by RGloucester at 16:07, 23 January 2019 (UTC)
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
Statement by RGloucesterThis is a matter of housekeeping, and I hope that the honourable members of the Arbitration Committee can assist me by providing some clarification. Recently, I filed a request for arbitration enforcement relating to the article "Origin of the Romanians". In making preparations to file that request, I came across the strange situation whereby I knew discretionary sanctions applied to the relevant article, but I was not sure which of the two related and existing discretionary regimes was most appropriate to use. I expect that's somewhat confusing, so let me explain a bit further. There are discretionary sanctions regimes in place for articles related to Eastern Europe, and for the Balkans. Unfortunately, the definitions of both 'Eastern Europe' and 'the Balkans' are ambiguous and potentially overlapping. This produced a strange result whereby the relevant editor had originally been notified of the Eastern Europe regime, but was later notified of the Balkans regime in relation to his edits of the same article. In any case, this ambiguity is really not desirable for discretionary sanctions. The definition of 'Eastern Europe' specifically has actually been a matter of substantial dispute on Wikipedia before. One can easily imagine a situation whereby one could 'wikilawyer' about the validity of a notification of the existence of one of the regimes, in an effort to avoid sanctions. I wonder if the the Arbitration Committee can do one of two things: either clearly define the scope of each regime, or merge the two. This way, administrators enforcing sanctions and editors seeking their enforcement will not have to grapple with the ambiguities inherent in the terms 'Eastern Europe' and 'the Balkans', and will be able to avoid a bureaucratic nightmare. Thank you in advance for your consideration of this matter.
Statement by power~enwikiI recommend the committee make a motion of clarification here. The articles on Eastern Europe and Balkans are both unclear to whether Romania is part of the region. Neither of the disputes leading to discretionary sanctions particularly apply to Romania; the Balkans dispute primarily involved Bulgaria, Greece and the former Yugoslavia. The Eastern Europe dispute primarily involved Poland, Russia, and the Baltic States; the more recent crisis in the Ukraine has also fallen under those sanctions. I'm not certain that Romania falls under any Discretionary Sanctions at this time. An explicit list of countries affected (rather than a region name) may be necessary. power~enwiki (π, ν) 19:28, 23 January 2019 (UTC) Statement by Thryduulf (re: Eastern Europe/The Balkans)Looking at our articles about Eastern Europe and the Balkans, there is indeed overlap between them. Taking a reasonably (but not excessively) broad interpretation some or all of the following countries are included (sometimes depending on context):
Notes:
Based on this, Eastern Europe (when South Eastern Europe is not distinguished separately) is a near complete superset of the Balkans, so merging these into a single authorisation of "Eastern Europe including the Balkans and the Macedonia naming dispute." would resolve all the issues the OP raises. No actual restrictions would be altered, only the case they are logged under would change. Possibly those who are formally aware of only one scope would need to be informed they are now formally aware of the newly combined scope, but not definitely and this would only be a one-time thing. Thryduulf (talk) 20:01, 23 January 2019 (UTC)
Statement by EdJohnstonAgree with the views of User:AGK. There is little upside to modifying the existing sanctions, and a possible downside. Even the present request doesn't give a persuasive reason why a change is required. In the recent AE about Origin of the Romanians nobody made the argument that the topic wasn't covered under WP:ARBEE. Even if ARBEE and ARBMAC do overlap, it's hard to see that as a problem. Many of the existing DS are about nationalism. In the ideal case, we would have some kind of universal sanction that could be applied to nationalist editing anywhere in the world. EdJohnston (talk) 21:15, 23 January 2019 (UTC) Statement by Fut.PerfSpeaking as somebody who has helped enforcing both sets of sanctions numerous times, I think there's rarely be much of a problem in determining which rule to apply, even if they overlap. For me, the crux of the matter is really not a mechanistic application of what country counts as belonging to what continental region. Those are pretty arbitrary attributions, and to take just one example, you will rarely find Greece described as belonging to "Eastern Europe", even though obviously its geographical longitude is well within the range of other countries that are. What matters is really more the nature of the underlying political struggles motivating the disruption we find on Wikipedia. Speaking broadly, "Eastern Europe" sanctions have mostly been invoked dealing with ethnic/national conflicts that broke up – directly or indirectly – in the wake of WWII, the collapse of the Eastern Bloc, or the collapse of the Soviet Union. The "Balkans" sanctions have been invoked dealing with conflicts that – directly or indirectly – stem from the breakup of the Ottoman Empire and the mix of nationalities that was left behind. I'd personally be opposed to merging the two sanction rules. It shouldn't really matter in practice, if it wasn't for the practice of some admin colleagues (unnecessary and not really advisable, in my view, but still common) to hand out sanctions whose scope is always automatically identical with the entire set of topics covered by the DS regime. For instance, instead of topic-banning somebody from Serbian-Croatian conflicts, which might be entirely sufficient in an individual case, they always automatically reach for a topic ban from all Balkan topics, because that's what the DS rule applies to. I'd find it regrettable if these colleagues were to take a merger of the two DS rules as indicating that in the future all such sanctions should be handed out straight for "all of Eastern and Southeastern Europe", which would almost certainly be overreaching in most cases. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:23, 6 February 2019 (UTC) Statement by {other-editor}Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should opine whether and how the Committee should clarify or amend the decision or provide additional information. Eastern Europe and Balkans discretionary sanctions scope: Clerk notes
Eastern Europe and Balkans discretionary sanctions scope: Arbitrator views and discussion
Motions: Eastern Europe and Balkans scope
(3) Proposed: At Amendment II in Eastern Europe, Eastern Europe is replaced as text by Eastern Europe or the Balkans. Remedy 3 in Macedonia is superseded by this amendment.
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Clarification request: Manning naming dispute
This discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. | ||||||||
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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. | ||||||||
Initiated by MattLongCT at 01:26, 13 February 2019 (UTC)
15) The standard discretionary sanctions adopted in Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/GamerGate for (among other things) "all edits about, and all pages related to... any gender-related dispute or controversy... broadly construed" continue to remain in force. For the avoidance of doubt, these discretionary sanctions apply to any dispute regarding the proper article title, pronoun usage, or other manner of referring to any individual known to be or self-identifying as transgender, including but not limited to Chelsea Manning. Any sanctions imposed should be logged at the Gamergate case, not this one.
Statement by MattLongCTI am seeking a clarification and proposed amendment to Manning concerning its current relevance in regards to enforceable actions. The case in question has not had a formal amendment since 2013. Currently, the case is in a grey area since it cites Sexology even though the case had its discretionary sanctions since rescinded. This has not been noted anywhere in the page for Manning. However, it is listed in Wikipedia:General sanctions#Obsolete sanctions. Separately, Template:Ds/alert says: I fail to see any consistency for what the exact status of Manning is supposed to be. In resolving this, my proposal is that the remedies continue forward with only a slight amendment to show that the case now serves as a clarification of Gamergate. This field of debate still has much activity, so in my view having this exact case to fall back on would be preferable. Gamergate did not once reference LGBT+ issues specifically, so I do not see the problem of having this Manning serve to supplement it. For the record, this is my first time ever posting in WP:ArbCom, so that might be nice to know. ―Matthew J. Long -Talk-☖ 04:31, 13 February 2019 (UTC) Response to SilkTorkIt would be simpler to do that; I would agree. However, my preference is for an amendment over a rescision. One could reasonably interpret GamerGate as not including transgender or preferred pronoun debate. Maybe it's just me who has noticed it, but I don't think that Manning has been applied much since Gamergate was issued. For example, I took a look at discussions such as this one, and I can't seem to find a single instance where a person was formally notified of GamerGate DS (including users named in GamerGate). I did find instances of users being notified of the Sexology Discretionary Sanctions. For that particular discourse, I could not find a single instance of GG/DS applied during that Early June 2015 period (I found one GG/DS alert from months later). In my view, if the committee felt that Sexology was too ambiguous in 2013 to find a need for Remedy 15 of Manning, then I would say that should go double for GamerGate. It's more broad than Sexology sure, but that is why this clarification is needed and would ensure that it is applied properly and consistently. ―Matthew J. Long -Talk-☖ 22:01, 13 February 2019 (UTC) Secondary Statement by MJLI have been keeping up with the statements made in this request. I have begun to notice that discussion has drifted away from my original question somewhat. Therefore, I am presenting this secondary statement. First of all, in response to Katie's question, I am grateful of BU Rob13 for noting their December 2016 Request. However, I will state that I intentionally did not include in this request any mention of nor make any request related to GGTF. My intention was simply to clean up the issues associated with the inconsistent application of DS/alerts in LGBT-related topics. Originally, my participation in this RfC brought me to this conclusion. To elaborate: though there is a gender-related dispute concerning the Matrix, the DS Talk page template has not been placed. I found this odd for such a controversial dispute. Furthermore, and not to sound like a Wikilawyer, it is of my belief that by removing Remedy 15, the committee would give credence to those that might corrupt the committee's intentions for doing so. This could falsely give credence to the belief that Transgender-related topics are no longer controversial and don't fall under the DS regime anymore. There are certainly some parliamentary procedural viewpoints that may justify this view. I would rather keep Remedy 15 as it is rather than seeing it be striked in all honesty. It just leads to more questions of "intent of ArbCom." I primarily just want to avoid those disingenuous discussions before they really come up. Penultimately, I will say that if the committee was to move to formally supercede GGTF, then they would also most likely have to amend or rescind Remedy 1.1 of Arbitration enforcement 2 which cites that case (more specifically this motion). The whole thing is rather complicated, so that is why I sticking with my original request. Otherwise we dig way too deep into the weeds here. Finally, Guerillero just taught me a new idiom: Tempest in a teapot. I would say that would be a fair criticism to apply to this request, yeah. This is really just glorified housekeeping. Thank you all! ―Matthew J. Long -Talk-☖ 23:42, 18 February 2019 (UTC) Response to Opabinia regalisI do agree with their concerns. Aesthetically, GGTF is a nicer case to put this all under, yet Gamergate was the one of the two to outgrow its original jurisdiction for whatever reason. However, we could just rename the case something like GGTF 2 or Gender-related Disputes if we are so inclined. Just a thought. I am happy with the current motion as it stands either way. ―Matthew J. Long -Talk-☖ 16:01, 19 February 2019 (UTC) Statement by Seren DeptThe GamerGate scope seems purposely broad enough to cover earlier cases like Manning or GGTF, and similar issues in the future. I don't think anyone would win an argument claiming that transgender-related issues are outside of that scope, though I suppose it would be harmless to explicitly include them. I think the related DS are regularly applied and I would guess that editors in those areas are widely aware. Maybe warnings are not logged or aren't where you're looking, or maybe I'm wrong and it could be more widely publicized. I guess narrowness is likable in sanctions, but for this I don't think it would be an improvement. Seren_Dept 03:47, 14 February 2019 (UTC) Statement by AlfieI support this change - it doesn't make much difference to the way this remedy will be enforced, but nonetheless it's worth being explicit about these things. There are bad faith editors who will attempt to adhere to the word of the sanction and not the spirit - may as well tighten down the wording to match the intention. -- a. get in the spam hole | get nosey 10:20, 14 February 2019 (UTC) Statement by GuerilleroSeems like a storm in a teacup to me. Manning didn't create any sanctions; it was only reminding people of the sanctions that were already in place at the time of the case. The sanctions that were rescinded in the Sexology motion were de facto recreated when we voted to impose the GamerGate sanctions less than a year later. If people strongly care, you could redirect people to GamerGate to make it covered de jure, but that seems to be at the discretion of admins at AE on a particular request. As for GGTF, the sanctions 100% GamerGate sanctions. The gender gap on Wikipedia is indisputably falls under any gender-related dispute or controversy. Since DS have been standardized for close to a decade and logging has happened on the same page for 5 years, deciding if the sanction should be logged in section A or section B is pretty much the only confusion that can happen. --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 22:30, 17 February 2019 (UTC) Statement by Thryduulf (re Manning name dispute)MattLongCT's idea to rename the case something like "Gender-related disputes" is a good one and not without precedent - "Footnoted Queries" was renamed by motion to "Editing of Biographies of Living Persons" when it outgrew it's original scope. Thryduulf (talk) 18:08, 19 February 2019 (UTC)
Statement by {other-editor}Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should address why or why not the Committee should accept the amendment request or provide additional information. Manning naming dispute: Clerk notes
Manning naming dispute: Arbitrator views and discussion
Motion: Manning naming disputeTo consolidate and clarify gender-related discretionary sanctions, the Arbitration Committee resolves that:
Enacted - Miniapolis 16:19, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
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Clarification request: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Palestine-Israel articles
Initiated by Doug Weller at 11:32, 16 February 2019 (UTC)
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
- Doug Weller (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) (initiator)
Statement by Doug Weller
My clarification request concerns the article for Ilhan Omar, a member of the United States House of Representatives. She's a controversial person in part simply because she is a Muslim and in part because of some comments on Israel. I added the usual ARBPIA template at the top of the page and have told some non-ECP editors about the ruling applying to them if they edit related content in the article. I've been asked at Talk:Ilhan Omar#ARBPIA if 1RR applies to the content relating to the dispute. I've always assumed that it doesn't automatically apply and only applies if the {{ArbCom Arab-Israeli enforcement}} is added to the talk page and the edit notice {{ArbCom Arab-Israeli editnotice}} added to the article.
I'd like to confirm that:
1. The plain talk page template without {{ArbCom Arab-Israeli enforcement}} means that the only restriction on the article applies to non-ECP editors editing within the area of the dispute. 1RR does not apply and cannot apply to only part of an article.
2. If edits to the article not relating to the dispute suggest that the subject is being targeted because of her positions on the dispute (or her Muslim identity) it's permissible to apply ECP to the article without the other restrictions or simply to apply the AE restrictions template even though the article as a whole doesn't fall within the area of the dispute. It's increasingly my opinion that this should be done. Interestingly the article on her fellow Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also has a section on the dispute but Talk:Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez show it covered only by American Politics but with a 1RR and enforced WP:BRD (Template:American politics AE).
- @AGK: You've said that "The PIA General 1RR restriction applies to all content related to the Arab-Israeli conflict. This includes parts of an otherwise-unrelated page" and others seem to agree. But that isn't what the text we voted on said or what I understood it to mean at the time. The motion we voted on says "any page that could be reasonably construed as being related to the Arab-Israeli conflict." No mention of "all content". Suggesting that it applies to all content (which would mean even in pages where there's no talk page notice about ARBPIA) seems an overreach to me. What might be a reasonable argument is that by putting the sanctions notice on the talk page, even though I didn't add the specific restrictions, puts the entire article under 1RR. Is that the argument you are making? But that raises the question why have the two notices? We should only have the one notice, the one that spells out the sanctions. As for the edit notice, this was my interpretation of this clarification request. We discussed edit notices and awareness there extensively and the motion we passed says
- Editors who ignore or breach page restrictions may be sanctioned by any uninvolved administrator provided that, at the time the editor ignored or breached a page restriction:
- The editor was aware of discretionary sanctions in the area of conflict, and
- here was an editnotice ({{ds/editnotice}}) on the restricted page which specified the page restriction.
- Editors who ignore or breach page restrictions may be sanctioned by any uninvolved administrator provided that, at the time the editor ignored or breached a page restriction:
- That's what WP:ACDS says now. It seems unreasonable to say that if the page is mainly about another area that it doesn't need an edit notice related to the ARBPIA 1RR restriction. Doug Weller talk 21:55, 16 February 2019 (UTC)
- @RickinBaltimore: there's a whole section at Ilhan Omar#Israeli–Palestinian conflict. I don't see how ARBPIA could not be relevant to that or that non-ECP editors or IPs should be allowed to edit it. Could you explain your reasoning? Rob, I agree with your assessment. Having said what I said to Rick about this specific article, I also have seen articles where there has been editwarring about whether a location is in Palestine or Israel, often just about that single word. I've always seen ARBPIA as meant to also cover this sort of detail as it's clearly, to me at least, within the conflict area. So I'd agree that an article such as Omar's should have a 1RR edit notice (and it does now under AP), I'm not sure that an article where the main ARBPIA issue is the location should have one unless we can craft it so that it's clear exactly what in the article is relevant. Doug Weller talk 09:38, 23 February 2019 (UTC)
- @Opabinia regalis, BU Rob13, KrakatoaKatie, and RickinBaltimore: I agree that AP2 and BLP deal with most of my concerns and I've set AP restrictions. That still leaves the problem of the section in Omar's article on the Ilhan Omar#Israeli–Palestinian conflict. It's my strong opinion that this is covered by by the 500/30 restriction but not all share my opinion. In particular Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#Sangdeboeuf was about an edit by Sangdeboeuf[2] where they reverted an edit relating to the confllict by a non-ECP confirmed editor on the basis of my statement that non-confirmed editors could not edit any content relating to the conflict.[3] User:TonyBallioni, whose views I generally agree with, disagreed that ARBPIA applied to this section. I hadn't thought that this was even a grey area but to my disappointment I can't find anything to back my assumption. So I and I think others need to know if non-ECP editors and IPs can edit material relating to the conflict if the article isn't basically about the conflict. Doug Weller talk 10:09, 25 February 2019 (UTC)
- @RickinBaltimore: I agree, the page itself is not essentially about the dispute, but the section is, and I think that what WP:TBAN says applies here. Using "weather" as an example, it says that a tban from the topic "weather-related parts of other pages, even if the pages as a whole have little or nothing to do with weather: the section entitled "Climate" in the article California, for example, is covered by the topic ban, but the rest of the article is not." If we wish to prevent edit-warring in an area covered by sanctions, those sanctions should cover not just articles devoted to the area but sections of articles that focus on the area. Doug Weller talk 13:45, 25 February 2019 (UTC)
Statement by Calthinus
Doug Weller if you don't mind, I'd like to clarify the question(s) here a bit, as your original request is actually touching on multiple different issues that could be relevant for whether a page is ARBPIA... and I'd like to make clear the options among which we unsure which matches global (as opposed to local i.e. page-respective) en-wiki policy.
1) The simplest of all, that some of Omar's comments that drew controversy were about Israel. She is an American politician though and the controversy is in America. Does this mean it is (a) not ARBPIA at all, (b) ARBPIA for specifically those comments and the ensuing controversy or (c) ARBPIA in total.
2) Probably the comment Ilhan Omar that made the most controversy (aside from mostly religious Christian right-wingers flipping out about her hijab, which I don't personally think is relevant to ARBPIA) is her view that pro-Israel lobbyists have "hypnotized" people. To many Jews, including many progressive Jews, this is an offensive anti-Semitic canard that is all the worse because Omar herself is hypocritically the victim of religious bigotry, while for others, again including people who are Jewish, it is media (especially conservative media) taking what she said out of context. Without commenting on which side is "right", there are actually two questions here:
- 2a) Are pro-Israel lobbyists or lobbying groups covered by ARBPIA, and are comments about them by others. Does this make (a) nothing ARBPIA, (b) just the material related to pro-Israel lobbying/ists, (c) the whole article for subjects involved ARBPIA.
- 2b) Again without commenting on the "correctness" of either side, Omar is accused of antisemitism. Full disclosure my personal view is that she is more chronically inconsiderate and communalist than she is anything akin to David Duke, which is not going to be popular with either side. While obviously most non-Israeli Jews are non-Israeli and indeed a significant minority are critical of the structure of the Israeli state, issues of global antisemitism are central to Israeli identity. Do figures (wide range: Omar to Sebastian Gorka to David Duke, no I do not believe they belong in the same category but these are an easy and relevant examples that are not --yet-- covered by ARBPIA) who have commentary on their nation's foreign policy via Israel and also antisemitism become covered by ARBPIA in the capacity of (a) not at all, (b) Israel and antisemitism related material, (c) just Israel material or (d) in totality?
3) As it stands currently, Doug Weller's writeup mentions Omar's very visible Muslim faith. Islam is not definitively "Israeli/Palestinian domain", however just like antisemitism there is a lot of interaction, as there is a sense of pan-Islamic solidarity regardless of the reality of this solidarity, on both sides. Furthermore, although this fact may be regrettable, by wearing the hijab and by spearheading the effort to allow head coverings in federal government processes, Omar became an iconized living symbol of religious Muslims in the US (again, personally I find this incredibly problematic on many different grounds but it is hard to deny it has become the case) and has been punished for it time and time again by unabashed Islamophobes on social media elsewhere. At first glance this may not seem relevant, but since Doug brought it up, it is worth mentioning that issues of Muslim immigrant assimilation do play a role in debates about how Muslim Americans can relate to American foreign policy (I am not implying all Muslim Americans are anti-Israel/pro-Palestine/or anything whatever, but one cannot deny that this is relevant). Should this also be a consideration? Personally I think, no, but it has already been brought up and is worth asking because I can see another side here as well
Hope I've made the issues here more, not less clear?--Calthinus (talk) 14:11, 16 February 2019 (UTC)
Statement by Shrike
@AGK: But per PIA General 1RR restriction it applies to "any page that could be reasonably construed as being related to the Arab-Israeli conflict" and not to the content. I btw agree with you AGK and think it should apply to the content but then the wording should be changed --Shrike (talk) 20:23, 16 February 2019 (UTC)
Statement by Huldra
Agree with AGK and Shrike: when ARBPIA notice is place, then it is 1RR for the whole article.
As for changing the rules (so that ARBPIA is only for a part of the article)...Please don't. The usefulness of that does not make up for the added level of complication (The rules are more than complicated enough as it is!) Huldra (talk) 21:22, 16 February 2019 (UTC)
Statement by Icewhiz
I'd like to introduce this AE case into evidence. The AE case involved, in part, edit warring in Acid throwing - which is mostly not ARBPIA - however Acid throwing#Israel, West Bank and Gaza Strip is very much ARBPIA related. Such ARBPIA sections are common in longer pages - and applying this on the section would make sense. Ilhan Omar is in the border-zone between reasonably and broadly (as much of the coverage of her, through the years, is focused on antisemitism/Israel/etc.) overall, and specific sections of the page are very much ARBPIA related. Icewhiz (talk) 07:30, 17 February 2019 (UTC)
Statement by Zero0000
I can't actually tell what everyone is proposing in this discussion. The question is whether to apply ARBPIA only to entire articles or selectively to parts of articles. The former would be a simpler rule, but it can also lead to absurdity. A year or so ago there was a huge edit war on List of state leaders in 2016 (or some other year) over the 3 lines that applied to Palestine. It would ridiculous to apply ARBPIA to the other 250 or so items in that list just because of those 3 lines. I think that what we need is something like this: if an article is largely related to the I-P conflict, it is covered in toto; otherwise the parts of an article related to the I-P conflict are covered. Zerotalk 08:22, 17 February 2019 (UTC)
To editor TonyBallioni: Your proposal to remove from ARBPIA articles about debate within other countries will impact articles like American Israel Public Affairs Committee and Christians United for Israel, both of them about American organizations that now carry ARBPIA tags. In my view, removing ARBPIA protection from such articles would immediately open them to edit-warring of the kind that ARBPIA is intended to subdue, involving the same editors who edit-war on other ARBPIA articles. I cannot see this as a step forward. Zerotalk 05:00, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
Statement by SMcCandlish
There's a lot of verbiage up there (says the long-winded guy), but the key thing to me is that unusual restrictions like 1RR should never be held to be applicable at a page without the admin-placed editnotices and other templates that explicitly make them so and which are hard to miss. Drama-frought topics are among the most likely to attract new editors, so there's a serious WP:BITE problem here. If I'd ended up blocked my first week of editing, for violating an obscure and excessive rule I didn't know about and which applied only to a particular page, I probably never would have come back. Consider also that new editors can't tell who's an admin, and which concerns to take seriously (lots of noobs get lots of grousing and templates from lots of people; a DS notice from an admin isn't likely to be interpreted as special by someone who doesn't know the ropes yet, but a big warning every time they edit a particular article is harder to ignore). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 22:07, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
Statement by TonyBallioni
As one of the admins who is more active in ARBPIA from an AE perspective, I'll copy what I just posted at AE here where the ARBPIA and AP2 issues colidied:
I think that a lot of the focus on this article as a part ARBPIA is because the subject is visibly Muslim, and that plays a part in the news coverage, because it is a region where the ethno-religious tensions are high. This hasn't been brought up here, but I do think its something that needs to be addressed as a sort of elephant in the room.
That being said, I don't think being a Muslim American politician with views on the conflict makes that politician part of it under our rules anymore than an Evangelical Christian congressman who wants all of Israel and the Palestinian territories to be part of the State of Israel because it will speed up the end of the world. The question is whether or not she can reasonably be considered part of the conflict. I do not think she or any other current member of the United States Congress can.
@KrakatoaKatie and RickinBaltimore: something I do think the committee could possibly amend or clarify here is that the ARBPIA general prohibition does not apply to the internal politics of countries that aren't Israel or its neighbors. Namely, if I wanted to, I could make a fairly strong wikilawyerly argument that Harry Truman is reasonably construed to be under the sanctions. Those of us who aren't active participants in the Wikidrama in the area think its crazy, but AE for ARBPIA is generally the same faces reporting each other on technical violations repeatedly or reporting newer users to the area who are on the other "side" that we eventually end up indefing. One country having an internal debate as to its policy on the State of Israel and its relationship with its Arab neighbors is not what these sanctions were usually intended to address. The committee clarifying "Hey, this area is clearly not part of the sanctions." Would be helpful. TonyBallioni (talk) 04:08, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
- Zero0000, well, Christians United For Israel is not under ARBPIA ECP currently and the banner on the talk page proclaiming it as being part of it was ironically added by an IP 6 months ago. American Israel Public Affairs Committee currently is, but I would much rather see it under AP2: Israel has long been a third-rail in American politics (in part because of the desire of some evangelicals to bring about the end of the world by supporting it...) and its role in US politics probably should be addressed in its own right. There are also likely articles in British politics that should not be under ARBPIA that are because of the anti-semitism controversies with the Labour Party. A foreign political organization or politician being accused of being anti-semetic or of being a Zionist because of positions on Israel does not suddenly make an internal political dispute part of this conflict.I could see an argument for ArbCom creating new discretionary sanctions for topics surrounding Antisemitism, Zionism, and related topics, but that would need a new case, and I don’t like the direction where it seems that we’re trying to fit things related to those topics into ARBPIA, which I think is a very bad thing. TonyBallioni (talk) 05:34, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
Statement by GoldenRing
Speaking with my AE-admin hat on, I would not consider Ilhan Omar to be under 1RR or the General Prohibition.
Bans are generally constructed as either "pages related to...." or "pages and edits related to....". In this case, both the ARBPIA 1RR restriction and the General Prohibition are constructed as "any page that could be reasonably construed as being related to the Arab-Israeli conflict" - ie. the "and edits" is not there. Therefore, when assessing whether these restrictions are being violated, the question is not "Are the edits related to the conflict?" but "Is the page reasonably construed as being related to the conflict?"
I have always seen a difference between "broadly construed" and "reasonably construed" and my understanding is that the "reasonably construed" language was deliberately chosen to be narrower than "broadly construed." My understanding of this language is that "broadly construed" includes any page that has some connection to the conflict, while "reasonably construed" includes only pages on subjects that are mainly about the conflict (or subjects that are mainly notable because of a connection to the conflict). Ilhan Omar is notable as a member of the United States Congress and has made some controversial remarks about the Arab-Israeli conflict; she is related to the conflict, but her principle notability does not come from the conflict. Therefore, the page is not "reasonably construed to be related" and so is not subject to 1RR and the General Prohibition. However, the page is broadly construed to be related, and so is subject to discretionary sanctions.
Clear as mud? GoldenRing (talk) 12:47, 25 February 2019 (UTC)
Statement by ZScarpia
The way things have worked in the ARBPIA area is quite sensible, although that and the wording of the rulings are probably out of kilter, which, I think, is the reason for the current request. The rulings have been applied to ARBPIA-related content in any page, no matter whether the topic can be construed as being in the ARBPIA part of the project or not. In the former case, the rulings have been applied only to the ARBPIA-related content; editors could edit non-related content on those pages freely. As the usage notes that go along with the template for the ARBPIA notice indicate, the notice does not have to be placed on a page in order for the rulings to apply there. In the page which is the cause of the current request, the Ilhan Omar one, that means that under the practice followed in the past at least, ARBPIA rulings would be enforceable on any ARBPIA-related material there without the notice having been placed. The problem that placing the notice has caused is that editors are questioning whether any of the majority, non-related material there is under editing restrictions or not. We possibly have two problems with the current rulings: one that the wording of the rulings may indicate that those rulings apply only on pages where the subject matter falls wholely within the ARBPIA area when in fact the practice has been to apply them to content anywhere; a second whereby we either don't have a second notice which indicates that only ARBPIA-related content on the relevant page or the notice that we do have does that. The practice that has been followed is sensible and I don't think that it should be altered to conform with what the wording of the rulings actually say. Altering the wording of the rulings and the notice would involve a lot of pain which would still not necessarily end up with a sensible form of wording. Given the wording of the notice which we do have, it would be better if it was only placed on pages whose subject matter, broadly constued, fell wholly within the ARBPIA area, those being ones where it would be sensible to apply the ARBPIA restrictions to most of the material. Following current practice, the absence of the notice would not prevent the restrictions being applied to relevant content in other pages. ← ZScarpia 13:32, 26 February 2019 (UTC)
Statement by {other-editor}
Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should opine whether and how the Committee should clarify or amend the decision or provide additional information.
Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Palestine-Israel articles: Clerk notes
- This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).
Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Palestine-Israel articles: Arbitrator views and discussion
- First: for rules this complex, we shall need to ensure the guidance (like editnotices) is unambiguous. ARBPIA stacks general remedies on top of one another, necessitating requests for clarification like this one. Let's also make sure we try hard to simplify 'spaghetti junction' templates like {{ArbCom Arab-Israeli enforcement}}, which needs to use about three times fewer words.The PIA General 1RR restriction applies to all content related to the Arab-Israeli conflict. This includes parts of an otherwise-unrelated page. The page need not have the standard 1RR template before the restriction applies, though clearly administrators should not mindlessly sanction for reverts by unaware users even if a strict reading of the procedures would permit enforcement. Whether another remedy shares jurisdiction on a particular page does not change this position. AGK ■ 20:18, 16 February 2019 (UTC)
- The 1RR restriction applies to "any page that could be reasonably construed as being related to the Arab-Israeli conflict". It does not apply to "any edit", just "any page". As such, a page that couldn't be "reasonably construed" to be within the Arab-Israeli conflict topic area is not subject to 1RR, even if a small amount of content related to that topic area would place it within the topic area if "broadly construed". The use of "reasonably construed" instead of "broadly construed" was quite intentionally done. I would say a page like this is "broadly construed" to be in the topic area, but not "reasonably construed" to be there. Discretionary sanctions are active, but 1RR is not (by default). ~ Rob13Talk 03:00, 17 February 2019 (UTC)
- As a side note, enforcing administrators could choose to apply 1RR to any page "broadly construed" to be within the topic area as a discretionary sanction, if desirable. It's just not automatic. I see this as optimal, since it allows administrators to tailor the sanctions on pages at the fringe of this topic area to the level of disruption they're experiencing. Does this change your opinion on whether we should be expanding the general 1RR sanction, Shrike? ~ Rob13Talk 03:03, 17 February 2019 (UTC)
- To correct a point of confusion: {{ArbCom Arab-Israeli enforcement}} has no effect other than to notify editors of the sanctions in place on the topic area. It does not need to be on the talk page to "activate" discretionary sanctions on the article, though its presence is desirable to increase awareness of the sanctions. I find that template somewhat problematic, even, because it seems to imply that the set of articles with 1RR and the set of articles with discretionary sanctions are identical. This is false, since 1RR is "reasonably construed" and discretionary sanctions are "broadly construed". All articles with 1RR have discretionary sanctions active, but not all articles with discretionary sanctions active fall under the general 1RR. ~ Rob13Talk 03:07, 17 February 2019 (UTC)
- @KrakatoaKatie: Including the ECP, actually. ECP can be applied as a discretionary sanction if needed to control actual disruption. ~ Rob13Talk 05:02, 19 February 2019 (UTC)
- @Doug Weller: All of that awareness/notices stuff is related to discretionary sanctions. The 1RR in this topic area is not a discretionary sanction, and therefore there are no such requirements. Personally, I see that as the one thing we might want to address in this request. Requiring page notices before first-offense, no-warning sanctions for the violation of 1RR in a broad topic area seems the minimum we can do to promote awareness of the remedy. ~ Rob13Talk 02:02, 23 February 2019 (UTC)
- i have a problem saying that the ARBPIA 1RR restriction applies to all content when the page AGK linked to himself clearly says otherwise. There will be a couple thousand more pages covered under that restriction if we move from 'pages' to 'content'. As for this particular page, I think it's a real stretch to include it under ARBPIA, but it's obviously covered under AP2, which can do what Doug wants except for the ECP. Katietalk 01:59, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
- I think linking this to ARBPIA is really a stretch, and would set a precedent that other pages would be added to ARBPIA that necessarily wouldn't need to be. As Katie stated above AP2 would cover this. RickinBaltimore (talk) 18:16, 19 February 2019 (UTC)
- As a practical matter, it seems obvious that both BLP and AP2 apply, so what's the advantage of using ARBPIA in this context? Opabinia regalis (talk) 07:23, 25 February 2019 (UTC)
- That's the way I see it as well, since BLP and AP2 apply, the Congressperson making comments about Israel/Palestine doesn't make the page itself about Israel/Palestine. RickinBaltimore (talk) 12:54, 25 February 2019 (UTC)
- As a practical matter, it seems obvious that both BLP and AP2 apply, so what's the advantage of using ARBPIA in this context? Opabinia regalis (talk) 07:23, 25 February 2019 (UTC)
Clarification request: Gun control
Initiated by GoldenRing at 15:38, 25 February 2019 (UTC)
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
- GoldenRing (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) (initiator)
- Dlthewave (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- Bishonen (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
- Notification of Dlthewave
- Notification of Bishonen
Statement by GoldenRing
In the course of a request at the arbitration enforcement noticeboard, I deleted User:Dlthewave/Whitewashing of firearms articles as an arbitration enforcement action. My reason for doing so is that WP:UP states that "Users should generally not maintain in public view negative information related to others without very good reason. Negative evidence, laundry lists of wrongs, perceived flaws, collations of diffs and criticisms related to problems, etc., should be removed, blanked, or kept privately (i.e., not on the wiki) if they will not be imminently used, and the same once no longer needed. The compilation of factual evidence (diffs) in user subpages, for purposes such as preparing for a dispute resolution process, is permitted provided it will be used in a timely manner.
In my view, this page is obviously the sort of "collation of diffs and criticisms related to problems" that the policy forbids. Dlthewave has repeatedly stated (eg diff) that the purpose of the page is as background to an opinion piece in The Signpost; since I have repeatedly asked and they have given no other explanation, I have taken this as an admission that the material is not intended for dispute resolution. My justification for doing the deletion as an arbitration enforcement action is the "other reasonable measures that the enforcing administrator believes are necessary and proportionate for the smooth running of the project
" provision of WP:AC/DS#sanctions.user. I'm aware that deletion is unusual as an enforcement action, but didn't expect it to be as controversial as it has proved.
Dlthewave appealed this at AE and in the course of the appeal, Bishonen advised them to start a request at WP:DRV, which they did. Bishonen undeleted the page so that those participating in the DRV request could see the content. I have objected to the undeletion as a unilateral overturning of an enforcement action but Bishonen has declined to self-revert this. I have no interest in wheel-warring over it.
A number of editors at DRV have objected to the deletion, for two main reasons: Firstly, that the content doesn't violate policy, and secondly that deletion is not a valid enforcement action (ie is not authorised under discretionary sanctions). Additionally, I and a couple of other editors have pointed out that DRV can't review enforcement actions, but a number of editors have objected this, too. These objections include some very experienced editors who I respect and I'm not so sure of myself as I was 24 hours ago. So I would like the committee please to answer these questions:
- Is deletion of a page an enforcement action that is authorised under discretionary sanctions?
- If the answer to 1 is "yes", was Bishonen's undeletion a violation of WP:AC/DS#sanctions.modify?
- If the answer to 1 is "yes", is DRV a valid venue to review deletions carried out under discretionary sanctions?
- If the answer to 1 is "yes", while we're here, we may as well consider the substance as well: Was deleting this page in line with policy and a reasonable exercise of administrator discretion in an area subject to DS?
I would like to be very clear that I am asking these questions for clarification and am not looking for action against anyone; in particular, I am not requesting any action against Dlthewave for starting the DRV (they were, after all, advised to do so) nor against Bishoen for giving that advice or for undeleting the page (Bishonen is an admin I hold in high regard and while we disagree on this point of DS procedures, any action against her would be a great loss to the project; I would much rather concede the point and let the undeletion stand than see action here).
- @SilkTork: I don't know how much clearer I can make my rationale, but I will try: The policy says, "Negative evidence, laundry lists of wrongs, perceived flaws, collations of diffs and criticisms related to problems, etc., should be removed." The deleted page is a long list of quotes of edits made by other editors which Dlthewave himself thinks is "important to highlight the long-term pattern" of which their AE complaint is "a continuation" (diff). This is plainly a collection of negative evidence, and the attempt to lawyer around the language by not giving diffs by quoting the content of the diff and giving a link to where it can be found is, in my view, entirely specious. Dlthewave themselves said in the diff I have just quoted, "It is understandable that this may be viewed as polemical, howeveri feel that it is important to highlight the long-term pattern" - or, in about as many words, they know it violates policy but think their cause is more important. GoldenRing (talk) 22:59, 25 February 2019 (UTC)
- @SilkTork: I see what you're getting at. As far as I know, this page was not the subject of any substantive discussion prior to the deletion. Dlthewave brought an action at AE and another editor pointed out this page; I asked Dlthewave to explain how it was not a violation of POLEMIC (diff). Two and a half days later I had received no response (diff), despite Dlthewave having edited the AE complaint in that time (diff), so I went ahead and deleted it. I do not claim any of the speedy deletion criteria as justification for the deletion, but rather the authorisation of discretionary sanctions.
- Regarding your question about blanking v deletion, I took the word "remove" in WP:UP to include deletion and it is routinely interpreted this way at MfD, where POLEMIC is generally accepted as grounds for deletion, not blanking. Although there is some controversy about where the line between keep and delete outcomes is, no-one argues that POLEMIC is not grounds for deletion. Pages with similar content are deleted at MfD, see eg 1 2 3, especially the last one which likewise claims to document whitewashing of an article; there are many others in the archives of MfD.
- My reasoning for doing this as an arbitration enforcement action rather than through community processes was (and is) that maintaining such a page is not conducive to collaborative editing in the topic of gun control; that gun control is an area where discretionary sanctions have been authorised; and that administrators are expected to use DS "to create an acceptable collaborative editing environment for even our most contentious articles" (WP:AC/DS#admin.expect). If administrators working AE are suddenly expected to use community processes to resolve disputes, then what was the point of authorising DS?
- To answer a couple of procedural queries I missed in my last reply, Dlthewave met the awareness requirements at the time of the enforcement action because they had started a request at the arbitration enforcement noticeboard (the deletion happened in the context of this request) and I don't see how an editnotice is relevant to this particular action as it doesn't involve a page-level editing restriction. GoldenRing (talk) 10:18, 26 February 2019 (UTC)
- @SilkTork: I am seriously considering other ways out of this and have been for some time. Nonetheless, I think the committee needs to clarify whether deletion is a valid enforcement action; it is clear (most particularly from the comments at DRV and also those here) that a significant portion of the community think it is not, while I can't see how deletion is different to any other administrative action done under DS and authorised by the "other reasonable measures" provision of DS. In the meantime, I am a little unsure what you mean when you say, "such a deletion should meet with policy." There are a great many administrative actions taken routinely that are not authorised by policy but are authorised by discretionary sanctions: administrators cannot normally place topic bans, interaction bans, 1RR restrictions on users or pages, consensus-required restrictions, civility restrictions or BRD restrictions and yet these have all been applied unilaterally by administrators since the beginning of this year. Ordinarily, any of these would require a community consensus process (eg a discussion at AN for a topic ban) but are valid as unilateral actions because they are authorised by discretionary sanctions. How is deletion any different? Ordinarily it requires a community consensus process at XfD (ignoring for the moment speedy deletion criteria) but here it is a valid unilateral action because discretionary sanctions are authorised. And, in the end, what is more serious? Deleting a user page? Or banning a user? If you trust admins with the latter, you should trust them with the former. GoldenRing (talk) 16:22, 26 February 2019 (UTC)
- @RexxS: I would like to correct a few things you have said:
- It is absolutely prohibited to unilaterally modify arbitration enforcement actions; seee WP:AC/DS#sanctions.modify. BLP and COPYVIO are not the only absolute prohibitions.
- All enforcement actions have what you describe as "the usual immunity to reversion", whether they are valid or not because all enforcement actions are presumed valid and proper until an appeal in one of AE, AN or ARCA succeeds; see point 4 of WP:AC/DS#appeals.notes.
- We do not prohibit collections of negative information about other editors "for reasons of BLP" (if that were so, they would never be allowed) but because it's not a civil, collegial thing to do, though sometimes necessary for use in legitimate dispute resolution processes.
- And lastly, the elephant in the room: no careful reading is necessary, the whole page consists almost entirely of quotes of other editors statements at talk page. By what sophistry is this material not related to the editors who made those statements??? GoldenRing (talk) 23:24, 25 February 2019 (UTC)
- @RexxS: I hope no admins follow your interpretation of policy; it is a recipe for desysopping. The simple reality is that the community has accepted the arbitration committee as the final, binding decision-maker in conduct disputes and, short of changing the arbitration policy, the community cannot override its decisions. Some of its decisions are to authorise discretionary sanctions; to make administrator actions under DS appealable only to AE, AN and ARCA; and to give such actions a presumption of validity until they are overturned in a proper appeal. If you doubt this, you might find the level 2 desysop of Yngvadottir for a single instance of overturning a controversial AE action instructive (in fact an AE action which was only confirmed by the committee in a 6-5 vote). GoldenRing (talk) 11:36, 26 February 2019 (UTC)
Statement by Dlthewave
Statement by Bishonen
@SilkTork: You have perhaps forgotten part of the process, then. Unless pages at DRV are temporarily undeleted, only admins will be able to read them, i. e. only admins will be able to discuss them in a meaningful way. It's not supposed to work like that. I followed these instructions for how to do it. Bishonen | talk 18:27, 25 February 2019 (UTC).
Statement by Simonm223
Is deletion of a page an enforcement action that is authorised under discretionary sanctions? Based on the argument by Ivanvector at DRV I would say no. It is not. Furthermore I think the argument that it constituted WP:POLEMIC in the first place is flawed. Simonm223 (talk) 16:21, 25 February 2019 (UTC)
Statement by Ivanvector
This response is directed to GoldenRing's bullet point #1 only, as the subsequent bullets assume a view with which I disagree.
As I stated at DRV, my view is that page deletion is not authorized by discretionary sanctions, certainly not explicitly, and neither in spirit. While the standard provisions authorize administrators to act in arbitration enforcement through the use of editing sanctions and page restrictions, and we grant significant latitude to administrators to create restrictions within the bounds of these categories and to block users who violate those restrictions in the name of arbitration enforcement, these powers do not extend to editorial and/or political control, nor wholesale removal of content. Furthermore, nothing in the gun control case appears to specifically enact these powers. And generally, it is common practice that the Arbitration Committee does not weigh in on matters of encyclopedia or userspace content, and as such it is an improper assumption that the Committee would wish to empower admins with unilateral deletion powers. But noting the disagreement at DRV, I would also like this to be explicitly clarified.
As for Bishonen's action and DRV itself in this incident: if Arbcom has explicitly declared that deleting a page is a sanction available for arbitration enforcement, then I would agree that AE would be the correct venue to review an Arbitration-enforcement deletion. However, the community's venue for deletions out-of-process is DRV, thus DRV is a logical venue for this incident. It is standard and widely-accepted practice to undelete content while its deletion is under review, and Bishonen's restoration ought to be viewed in that light unless and until someone can point to already-established Arbitration procedure in which the Committee has explicitly authorized userpage deletion as a discretionary sanction, and if and only if that process is already established, then owing to the present disagreement Bishonen should be given an acting in good faith pass on this one, or a "to satisfy the pedants" admonishment at the most severe.
Stating for the record that I believe that everyone carrying a mop has acted in good faith with respect to this incident. I also hold both GoldenRing and Bishonen in very high regard, and I appreciate GoldenRing seeking clarification on this point. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 16:35, 25 February 2019 (UTC)
- I would think that the situation described by Black Kite, in which an editor subject to an AE restriction creates a page in violation of that restriction, would be dealt with under WP:G5, and as a result the deletion itself would not be AE enforcement and the venue to review deletion would remain DRV. But maybe we are over-generalizing. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 17:35, 25 February 2019 (UTC)
Statement by Doug Weller
I agree with Ivanvector. Such a deletion is not within the scope of discretionary sanctions. Perhaps an Arbitrator with a longer memory than I have may find such a procedure but I'd be surprised. Certainly it was not authorised by us during the four years I was on the committee. I think everyone has acted in good faith with this but I believe that GoldenRing was wrong and that the page should not have been deleted. I've looked at the page and agree with those who say that the content does not violate policy. I'll also note that no editors have been named although obviously they can be identified via the links. I'll add that even if it hasn't been used it is information that has the potential to be useful. Doug Weller talk 17:10, 25 February 2019 (UTC)
Statement by Black Kite
I can think of situations whereby deletion would be in the purview of an AE action (for example, if a topic-banned editor was violating their TBan on a userspace page) but I agree with the two editors above that I can't see that this falls into this category. It is probably something that ArbCom could do with clarifying for future reference. Black Kite (talk) 17:28, 25 February 2019 (UTC)
- @SilkTork: It is SOP to undelete pages whilst they are at DRV so that non-admins can assess whether the close was correct - for example, whether a CSD deletion actually met the CSD criteria, or in the case of AfD whether the discussion comments were actually valid. In this case, with no AFD or standard CSD, then assuming the DRV is valid the page would have to be visible as otherwise no non-admins could make any judgement about the deletion. Black Kite (talk) 18:24, 25 February 2019 (UTC)
Statement by Levivich
If no harm would arise from having this page discussed at MfD, then it should be discussed at MfD, rather than deleted by any one person's unilateral action. Obviously both admin acted in good faith in a situation that is unclear and possibly unprecedented; any suggestion of sanctions would be over the top. Leviv ich 18:01, 25 February 2019 (UTC)
Statement by RexxS
If an administrator erroneously deletes a page as an Arbitration Enforcement, when the page is not eligible for deletion under that criterion, they cannot claim the usual immunity to reversion of the action that we reserve for justified AE actions. From GoldenRing's own statement, the relevant criterion upon which they are relying is:
Users should generally not maintain in public view negative information related to others without very good reason. Negative evidence, laundry lists of wrongs, perceived flaws, collations of diffs and criticisms related to problems, etc., should be removed, blanked, or kept privately ... (my emphasis)
But nobody reading Special:Permalink/881981663 carefully would conclude that information on that page is "related to others
". All of the information therein is related to articles, and there is no Arbitration Enforcement available to prevent editors from gathering quotes or diffs from articles or from article talk. We prevent users from gathering negative information about others, for reasons of BLP, but that is not licence to extend the prevention to collating article text. 'Shonen's restoration of the deleted page to allow scrutiny does not breach WP:BLP or WP:COPYVIO (the only absolute prohibitions on restoration), and meets the test of COMMONSENSE.--RexxS (talk) 19:28, 25 February 2019 (UTC)
- Response to GoldenRing. Contrary to what you think, BLP and COPVIO are the only absolute prohibitions to undeletion of content for obvious reason, see Wikipedia:Deletion review #Temporary undeletion where this is documented. Any other prohibition is subject to IAR and 'sanctions.modify' is no exception. It is merely a procedure of the Arbitration Committee and has no status greater than WP:policies and guidelines (which actually don't even recognise 'procedure of the Arbitration Committee' as policy or guideline). ArbCom must not confer on itself greater powers than the community is pleased to grant. It is free to create its own procedures, but does not have authority to create policy: that is the prerogative of the community. In the case of a conflict between a guideline like Wikipedia:Deletion process and an ArbCom procedure, then I suggest common sense needs to be the tie-breaker. The damage done to the encyclopedia by denying undeletion of a page when requested at DRV need to be balanced against the damage done to the encyclopedia by a temporary undeletion. In this case, the balance is obviously in favour of allowing undeletion.
"All enforcement actions have what you describe as "the usual immunity to reversion", whether they are valid or not."
I refute that. To misquote Jimbo, the presumption of validity is not a suicide pact. If a claimed AE action is obviously invalid , as yours was, then a reversion of that action in order to comply with a conflicting policy or guideline is perfectly reasonable. Even you recognise that 'Shonen's actions were reasonable.- I concede your point that BLP concerns are not the only reasons to disallow collections of negative information about other users; although that would be the rationale behind collections of negative information about living persons who were not editors.
- I completely deny your last point. All content in the encyclopedia is provided by editors: that is undeniably not what was intended by
Users should generally not maintain in public view negative information related to others
, otherwise no quotes would ever be allowed. The sophistry is in trying to stretch those words to justify deleting a page that quotes hundreds of different editors, and cannot sensibly be construed to contain negative information about those editors. Any such connotation is purely in the mind of the observer, and you've made the mistake of construing talk page comments critical of an article or of statements in that article as "negative information" about the editors who made the comments. - The elephant in the room is actually your error in attempting to convert a possibly justifiable deletion of a page (by normal process) into an AE action. AE actions were granted the privilege of immunity from reversion for a particular reason (the problems of second-mover advantage), in order to solve intractable problems of civility enforcement. Admins must be careful not to abuse that privilege by claiming AE action in borderline or invalid cases, otherwise the community may lose faith in the necessity for having such an exemption to normal admin procedures (WP:WHEEL). --RexxS (talk) 00:18, 26 February 2019 (UTC)
Statement by S Marshall
- I think this matter raises novel issues about procedure. Wikipedian culture takes deleting pages very seriously, and deleting a page out of someone's userspace feels quite violative to me. I was appalled to learn that a page that purports to describe the rules says that AE deletions can be reviewed at the AN but not at DRV. I feel that in the (probably relatively rare) situation where it's appropriate to review an AE deletion without direct scrutiny from Arbcom, then the most correct venue would be DRV. But I also feel that deleting a page as an AE action is the kind of thing that Arbcom should normally supervise directly, because an AE action should normally be about an editor's behaviour rather than a matter of content. Therefore the scrutiny should normally happen here.—S Marshall T/C 21:01, 25 February 2019 (UTC)
- @SilkTork: --- The deleter's position is that this could not be justified as an in-process speedy deletion and was done purely as AE (diff). I also don't fully agree with my friends RoySmith, Hobit, SmokeyJoe et. al. when they say DRV is mainly about content. I feel that what DRV is mainly about is the analysis and critique of sysop judgement calls and use of discretion. Interestingly, in the decade or so since I became heavily involved in DRV, we've never reached a consensus to ask Arbcom to desysop anyone -- which is why there's never really been any overlap between the two venues. We've found wrong calls, because sysops are only human, but we've never found serious misuse of the mop.—S Marshall T/C 12:17, 26 February 2019 (UTC)
Statement by User:SmokeyJoe
- This clarification is not about Gun control, but is about whether, in general, page deletion is a reasonable measure of arbitration enforcement
- Page deletion is not a reasonable measure of arbitration enforcement. Certainly not if the page is not directly subject to an ArbCom ruling. Exceptions would be considered extraordinary.
- If page deletions were subject to AE admin arbitrary unilateral deletion, this would amount to a secret punishment. The user involved can't read the page deleted. The wider community can't read what was deleted.
- What is going on here is a turf war over the powers and scope of ArbCom. Not by ArbCom directly, but by their delegates, which is worse.
- ArbCom is supposed to stay out of content decisions. Deleting a page containing content is most definitely a content action. This page in question, while not content per se, is a page directed at content decisions. That's pretty close to content.
- This issue is the same as the deletion of Universa Blockchain Protocol, discussed at Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2018 July 9. That one was overtly a content page issue. I think this is resolved with agreement that deletions like this should additionally cite WP:CSD#G11, which was agreed in hindsight to have applied.
- WP:Deletion policy is written in clear cut language. WP:CSD is even clearer: "The criteria for speedy deletion (CSD) specify the only cases in which administrators have broad consensus to bypass deletion discussion, at their discretion, and immediately delete Wikipedia pages or media. They cover only the cases specified in the rules here." If ArbCom AE admins also have deletion discretion, add it to CSD, for the record, and to ensure that the community is on the page. ArbCom should not be responsible for undermining the validity or respect afforded to WP:Deletion policy.
- WP:DRV is a long standing very successful forum and process. It is not an enforcement process, but a continuing education exercise. A measure of its success is that lack of repeat culprits being dragged through it. DRV is the highest court for content decisions. There is no cause for carving out deletions that are not reviewable by DRV. {{Temporarily undeleted}} is an essential part of DRV if you consider nonadmins to important in the management of the project. There is already a sufficiently conservative culture at DRV for being responsible with copyright, attacks, and BLP issues.
- --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:03, 26 February 2019 (UTC)
Statement by Hobit
The basis for deletion comes from WP:UP. That same page says "In general other users' user pages are managed by that user. Except for blatant or serious matters, it is preferable to try contacting the user before deletion (see above). However, unambiguous copyright violations, attack pages, promotional text, and privacy or BLP violations can be speedy deleted using a suitable template, such as {{db-attack}}, {{db-copyvio}} or {{db-spamuser}}; other pages likely to require deletion (or where remedial action is not taken) may be submitted to deletion discussion.
Justifying a deletion by citing policy and then not following the policy for how to go about deletion seems problematic at best.
The reason for deletion is not a speedy criteria. And standard DS do not allow for deletion of a page as near as I can tell. I only see one other deletion in WP:AEL and that was justified on A7/BLP grounds. As S Marshall has indicated, AE enforcing admins very much deserve our support and I'm personally grateful to those that take on such a demanding and stressful job. But here there is overreach outside of the scope of either a single admin or AE. There was no rush and no reason WP:MfD couldn't have been used (where I suspect it would have been kept).
In any case, I agree with Roy (below)--this is about content not behavior. The discussion belongs at DRV. edited Hobit (talk) 04:45, 26 February 2019 (UTC) Hobit (talk) 01:55, 26 February 2019 (UTC)
Statement by RoySmith
I don't often get involved in ArbCom business, so forgive me if I'm not up on the nuances of policy and procedure here. But, reading what User:SmokeyJoe said above: ArbCom is supposed to stay out of content decisions, I find myself very much in agreement. The converse is certainly true; DRV deals with content, and stays out of behavioral issues. It's common in DRV debates for somebody to write, We're only here to talk about the page deletion; if you want to pursue a user's conduct, there's other fora for that. This seems like a natural and useful division of responsibilities, and why it seems odd to be talking about ArbCom getting involved in reviewing a page deletion.
I don't think it was appropriate to delete the user page. I also think it was perfectly reasonable (and SOP at DRV) to temp-undelete the page for review. I also want to echo what others have said; while there's clearly a disagreement about what the proper course of action should have been, it's also clear that everybody has acted in good faith here. There should be no thought of sanctions for anybody. -- RoySmith (talk) 03:03, 26 February 2019 (UTC)
- I've done a lot more reading of the full history of this. My earlier comments notwithstanding, I agree with User:SilkTork that having two parallel discussions in different forums is a bad idea. At this point, I suggest that DRV defer to ArbCom on this one. -- RoySmith (talk) 15:29, 26 February 2019 (UTC)
Statement by Sandstein
While I disagree with GoldenRing on the merits of the deletion, I agree with their submission of 16:22, 26 February 2019 in that the Committee should clarify whether deletions (other than those already allowed by ordinary deletion policy) are in principle allowed as discretionary sanctions, and whether any review of deletions labeled as discretionary sanctions must take place by way of the procedures for the appeal of AE actions. In my reading of applicable policy, the answer to both questions is clearly yes, but the opinions to the contrary that have been voiced at DRV show that this question needs clarification. Sandstein 16:36, 26 February 2019 (UTC)
Statement by {other-editor}
Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should opine whether and how the Committee should clarify or amend the decision or provide additional information.
Gun control: Clerk notes
- This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).
- Recuse obviously. GoldenRing (talk) 15:43, 25 February 2019 (UTC)
Gun control: Arbitrator views and discussion
- I'm still looking into the aspects of this, but as a general principle AE does give admins the discretion to " impose on any page or set of pages relating to the area of conflict page protection, revert restrictions, prohibitions on the addition or removal of certain content (except when consensus for the edit exists), or any other reasonable measure that the enforcing administrator believes is necessary and proportionate for the smooth running of the project", and if the admin considers that the "other reasonable measure" is deletion of a page, that would for me fall within the admin's discretion, so my response to point 1 is yes. That does not mean I think this current deletion is appropriate or reasonable, but that the principle of page deletion is within an AE admin's discretion. And it is important that the community adheres to ArbCom processes such that any ArbCom sanction can only be reversed by following appropriate procedures. So a) undoing an ArbCom enforcement without authority for doing so is a violation of the process, and b) appealing the enforcement in a venue other than the appropriate one is a violation of the process. As such for point 2 my response is yes in principle, and for point 3, it is no in principle. It is sometimes that an AE admin makes a mistake, and the process do allow for other users to question page restrictions, but they should follow process. As for this particular incident - were all the due processes followed? Was Dlthewave given an appropriate warning that DS applied to the page under question? And was the template Template:Ds/editnotice applied to the page in question? I am still looking at the page in question, and would like some more rationale behind why the page was considered to fall foul of "believes is necessary and proportionate for the smooth running of the project". What was the particular harm you saw in the page GoldenRing? My thinking at this stage, even with a convincing rationale for the page deletion, is that the unusual nature of the page restriction (deletion) and lack of clarity in this matter is such that I am not seeing any sanctionable behaviour for Bishonen's advice to take the matter to DRV. As regards undeleting the page. It's been a while since I got involved in DRV, but I don't recall it being a part of the process that pages were undeleted. And while we do give admins discretion to userfy pages on request, I don't think it should be considered that undoing an AE enforcement without first getting clear consensus at an appropriate venue is something ArbCom would be willing to overlook. That may have been a step too far, even with the confusions about the process. Bishonen, could you give us some of your thinking behind why you undeleted the page? SilkTork (talk) 18:16, 25 February 2019 (UTC)
- @Black Kite:, thanks for that - it's been a while since I had anything to do with DRV.
Are all articles automatically undeleted for DRV, or is it just a selected few? And if it is a selected few what is the criteria for undeleting, and on average what percentage of articles are undeleted?SilkTork (talk) 19:00, 25 February 2019 (UTC) - @Bishonen:, thanks for that - very useful. So articles on DRV which are requested to be undeleted are done so, and in this case you were requested. I strike my questions to Black Kite, as your response has given me the appropriate information. SilkTork (talk) 19:05, 25 February 2019 (UTC)
- Because of the unique nature of this AE action I'm not seeing that Bishonen has done anything sanctionable, though for the avoidance of future doubt, if my colleagues agree with me, I think we need to make it clear that nobody should undo an AE action without first getting clear consensus to do so at an appropriate venue. SilkTork (talk) 19:08, 25 February 2019 (UTC)
- Thanks GoldenRing. I phrased my question awkwardly. I can see why you had concerns about the page, what I'm asking really is why you felt the need to delete the page rather than raise your concerns with Dlthewave, or blank it, or amend it in some other manner. Your deletion, albeit done under AE, was a speedy deletion. The closest justification under speedy is G10. Did you (do you still) feel that G10 was the rationale for deletion? Or was it purely based on the user page policy, which says that negative material should be removed or blanked, but doesn't say deleted. It is the decision to delete rather than use other options that I'd like to hear your thinking on. While I support in principle the notion that an AE admin have within their discretion the option to delete a page, my thinking is this should be done within policy, so I'm looking for the policy that allows deletion in this instance. At the moment I'm seeing a page that can be considered to be of concern, but it appears to me that the appropriate solution would be discussion about the page rather than deletion of the page. I've not looked closely - is there discussion about the page that you can direct us to? SilkTork (talk) 08:42, 26 February 2019 (UTC)
- Thanks GoldenRing, that makes things a lot clearer. My thinking is that everyone here has acted in good faith and with a view that what they were doing was within policy and procedure. While I feel that in principle an AE admin can delete a page as part of DS, that such a deletion should meet with policy, and if the deletion is not to go through a community discussion process (ie, is a Speedy deletion), then such a deletion should meet Speedy criteria. So, as in this case the deletion was not done under Speedy, the page should instead have been blanked. As this deletion was done under AE, albeit - in my opinion - inappropriately, it should be discussed at WP:AE rather than DRV. At the moment we have discussion at both DRV and AE. Rather than create a constitutional crisis, one venue or other should give up the right to discuss it; or perhaps, GoldenRing, you could reflect on if an AE enforced blanking serves the purpose as well as a deletion, and agree on the DRV that it can be undeleted, so we can resolve that discussion there, and you can then blank the page under AE and Dlthewave can appeal the blanking at AE. SilkTork (talk) 12:10, 26 February 2019 (UTC)
- @Black Kite:, thanks for that - it's been a while since I had anything to do with DRV.
- My view is that deletion of a page is permitted as an enforcement action under discretionary sanctions. Indeed, there are intentionally very few limits on what sanctions an administrator can impose under discretionary sanctions. As such, I see Bishonen's undeletion as a violation of WP:AC/DS#sanctions.modify, albeit one that was carried out in good faith with the best of intentions while uncertain of whether the arbitration enforcement action was permissible. I will note that WP:AC/DS#appeals.notes (bullet point 4) indicates that any action taken under discretionary sanctions are presumed valid and proper until a successful appeal, so if there were a question over whether deletion is a permissible discretionary sanction, that should have come to ARCA initially. All AE actions can only be appealed at WP:AE or WP:AN, so this cannot be appealed at WP:DRV. Leaving a note at WP:DRV directing interested editors toward such an appeal would be appropriate in this situation. I decline to answer GoldenRing's fourth question for two reasons. Ideally, ArbCom should not be the first point of appeal of a discretionary sanction. Separately, the admin who placed a discretionary sanction may not appeal their own sanction. This is especially important for an appeal that potentially skips AE/AN, since that would deprive other editors of the ability to appeal at those venues under our procedures. ~ Rob13Talk 16:40, 26 February 2019 (UTC)