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Statement by Politis |
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World peace rhetoric aside, if the editors cannot work together to solve it, ArbCom should be pushing to solve it. Let's decide on a naming convention, agree on it, and enforce it. |
World peace rhetoric aside, if the editors cannot work together to solve it, ArbCom should be pushing to solve it. Let's decide on a naming convention, agree on it, and enforce it. |
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====Statement by Politis==== |
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Statement forthcoming on Monday, 20 April 2009 [[User:Politis|Politis]] ([[User talk:Politis|talk]]) 10:36, 18 April 2009 (UTC) |
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==== Clerk notes ==== |
==== Clerk notes ==== |
Revision as of 10:36, 18 April 2009
Wikipedia Arbitration |
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Track related changes |
A request for arbitration is the last step of dispute resolution for conduct disputes on Wikipedia. The Arbitration Committee considers requests to open new cases and review previous decisions. The entire process is governed by the arbitration policy. For information about requesting arbitration, and how cases are accepted and dealt with, please see guide to arbitration.
To request enforcement of previous Arbitration decisions or discretionary sanctions, please do not open a new Arbitration case. Instead, please submit your request to /Requests/Enforcement.
This page transcludes from /Case, /Clarification and Amendment, /Motions, and /Enforcement.
Please make your request in the appropriate section:
- Request a new arbitration case
- Request clarification or amendment of an existing case
- This includes requests to lift sanctions previously imposed
- Request enforcement of a remedy in an existing case
- Arbitrator motions
- Arbitrator-initiated motions, not specific to a current open request
Current requests
Macedonia naming dispute
Initiated by Yannismarou (talk) at 03:00, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
Involved parties
- Yannismarou (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), filing party
- ChrisO (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
- Caspian blue (talk · contribs)
- Shadowmorph (talk · contribs)
- chandler (talk · contribs)
- Husond (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) (naming dispute)
- Taivo (talk · contribs) (naming dispute)
- Man with one red shoe (talk · contribs) (naming dispute)
- Future Perfect at Sunrise (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) (naming dispute)
- NikoSilver (talk · contribs) (naming dispute)
- Avg (talk · contribs) (naming dispute)
- Tasoskessaris (talk · contribs) (naming dispute)
- Jim62sch (talk · contribs) (naming dispute)
- Aramgar (talk · contribs) (naming dispute)
- Kapnisma (talk · contribs) (naming dispute)
- ΚΕΚΡΩΨ (talk · contribs) (naming dispute)
- Hectorian (talk · contribs) (naming dispute)
- John Carter (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) (naming dispute)
- Horologium (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) (naming dispute)
- Jack forbes (talk · contribs) (naming dispute)
- PMK1 (talk · contribs) (naming dispute)
- Politis (talk · contribs) (naming dispute)
- Heimstern (talk · contribs) (naming dispute)
- Ev (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) (naming dispute)
- GK1973 (talk · contribs) (naming dispute)
- Patton123 (talk · contribs) (naming dispute)
- Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
- ChrisO
- Caspian blue
- Shadowmorph
- chandler
- Husond
- Taivo
- Man with one red shoe
- Future Perfect at Sunrise
- NikoSilver
- Avg
- Tasoskessaris
- Jim62sch
- Aramgar
- Kapnisma
- ΚΕΚΡΩΨ
- John Carter
- Horologium
- Jack forbes
- PMK1
- Politis
- Ev
- Patton123
- Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried
- Beginning of the centralized discussion in Talk:Macedonia which bore yet no fruit
- User:ChrisO's refusal to undo his move
Statement by Yannismarou
I'll be as brief as I can. After an extensive edit-war, a straw poll on the application of the name "Republic of Macedonia" on the article Greece took place but it bore no fruit. No adm closed the poll; the article was protected twice by User:Horologium to avoid ongoing edit-wars, and no solution to the problem was found. After endless discussions, it was consensually agreed that the case should be presented on 22 April before the ArbCom for the reasons exposed in the above thread. It was not conclusively decided who will file the request.
Pending the filing of the case, User:ChrisO moved the article Republic of Macedonia to Macedonia. The issue was brought to AN by User:John Carter, and then a "centralized discussion" started in the Talk:Macedonia page. Unfortunately, this discussion bore no fruit, and edit wars ensued.
I regard the issue of major importance. It is not only the legitimacy of User:ChrisO's move and its adherence to our policies which is judged here, but also the avoidance of further and collateral damage this action may entail. I thus decided to bring the case in front of you now, although not all the proper series of "dispution mechanism resolution" actions has been followed. I do think, however, that this case falls under the categories "Sensitive or "drama prone" issues requiring advice on handling" as well as "Unusually divisive disputes among administrators".
My filing concerns mainly the User:ChrisO's move, but it is the ArbCom itself which will determine the scope of its competence, and if and how it is going to examine the related issue of the "Greece" article. Although I try to present the case as neutrally as I can, I cannot hide that I am an involved party, and that I have commented on ChrisO's actions here. I apologize for acting in the way I act before the 22 April, when the Greece article issue was planned to be brought here, but I strongly believe that any delay to bring User:ChrisO's move to your attention would entail irreversible damage to the project (collateral edit-warring already ensued, the title's name may affect many articles where uncontrolled edit-wars most probably will erupt, and a controversial adm action of major importance for many articles cannot remain "on the air" for so many days). Thank you.--Yannismarou (talk) 03:00, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
Response to Coren: The link here answers to your question. Yes, one administrator's action precipitated this early filing. Yes, the consensus was to bring the naming issue to ArbCom the earliest on 22 April because of the Orthodox Easter. There seemed to be a consensus the filing to be made by a non-involved user (maybe User:Horologium, the protecting administrator), but this was not conclusively decided.--Yannismarou (talk) 03:42, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
Response to FloNight, bainer (arbitrators), Fut (involved party) and others: I see here that there is a question about what we ask from the arbitrators. As I see things, there are two issues: 1) ChrisO's move which precipitated the filing, and 2) the underlying issue (naming dispute). I believe that both should be dealt by the Committee. As far as (1) is concerned, LessHeard vanU's perspective is interesting (but needs some development and clarifications). As far as (2) is concerned, I've exposed how I personally regard ArbCom's extent of competence here. I am not sure if my interpretation keeps pace with how ARBCOM itself regards its competence, but I personally tend to see it in the broadest possible sense, because it is a matter of policy application everywhere. If the Committee decides to deal with the naming dispute issue, then it should issue concrete guidelines about how the country should be referred not only in the "Greece" article but throughout the project. Eventually, these guidelines will decide the naming dispute itself. So, directly or indirectly, the ARBCOM will have to deal with the heart of the problem: the naming dispute (and I agree on that with Sept). At least, this is what I believe.--Yannismarou (talk) 01:03, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
Statement by ChrisO
The Macedonia naming issue is one of the oldest and ugliest POV disputes on Wikipedia. It has been ongoing since as far back as 2002, when the Macedonia article was first created. The dispute centres on the name of the country Macedonia, which shares its name with a Greek region and a wider historical region. The Greek and Macedonian governments have been involved in a fairly bitter diplomatic dispute over the issue for the last 17 years, which has spilled over onto Wikipedia. Years of discussions between Wikipedians over what name to use for the country have been largely fruitless, with some Greek editors insisting on adopting the Greek government's preferred terminology across Wikipedia or just within a "walled garden" of Greece-related articles. POV vandalism and disruption in support of the Greek position across the whole of Wikipedia is endemic on this issue, as an abuse log shows. Any article that mentions Macedonia is a target for disruptive editing, which generally involves replacing the term "Republic of Macedonia" with "FYROM" or made-up terms like "Vardarska". This has even extended to anonymous vandalism from the Greek Parliament on an article that appeared on the Main Page recently. [1]
The situation outside Wikipedia regarding the country's name is straightforward - it's called simply "Macedonia" by the great majority of English-language reference works and media. Wikipedia's policy is also clear about how terminology should be used. (See Talk:Macedonia#Article move for a summary.) Unfortunately any movement towards a solution that reflects external sources has been blocked by Greek editors, essentially for POV reasons. Policy has been and is still being ignored - all of the editors who have objected to the article's new name have so far refused to discuss the policy rationale for the move. It is clear that attempts to reach a consensus have failed and are unlikely to succeed without external stimulus. I undertook a WP:BOLD editorial action to cut the Gordian Knot by moving the article to a name that matches policy and real-world usage. What we need now is to obtain a definitive, binding ruling on the policy dispute and preferably to tackle some of the disruptive behaviour - POV-pushing, wikilawyering, vandalism - that is occurring daily across Wikipedia on this issue. The issue is far wider than just the article move; there will be no resolution of this matter without addressing the underlying policy problems. Note that this doesn't imply solving the naming issue itself - ultimately this dispute comes down to whether policies should in fact be followed (the answer to which should be obvious but is being clouded by wikilawyering and a simple refusal to discuss policy requirements). -- ChrisO (talk) 07:03, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
(add) I should add that this issue is rather different from the other naming disputes that the Committee has looked at - Samaria and Ireland. Samaria appears to be a much more complex issue and the arbitration case is a hopeless mess, frankly. In Ireland, the Committee remanded the issue to the community for further discussion. This stage has already happened for Macedonia - a lengthy attempt to reach agreement failed some time ago (see WP:MOSMAC, now defunct). The consensus-seeking mechanism has been tried repeatedly but as others have already noted, it has been stymied by an intransigent ethnic-nationalist block of editors. I should also add that a couple of Yannis's claims are misleading - there has been no "collateral edit-warring", merely an unrelated dispute over content in the ancient history section of the article, and I have already stated that I will voluntarily reverse the article move if its policy rationale is found to be faulty. -- ChrisO (talk) 07:31, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
Response to Carcharoth. I would have no problems with a delay until the originally planned date of 22nd April. -- ChrisO (talk) 07:31, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
Statement from 100% uninvolved Grsz11
I've never worked on a Macedonia or Greek article, I have no interest in doing so. I saw this come up on ANI several times today. From what I can tell, Chris made the move and after, explained himself on the talk page. Not really the standard procedure, but how often has "procedure" failed in these cases? He made a legitimate, even compelling argument backed up with statistics, etc. It earned support then, even from some (as far as I can tell) neutral editors. Obviously the relevant articles are subject to endless ethnic and cultural battles. Why let them even attempt to solve this any longer? I don't see why ArbCom couldn't settle the naming issue. Grsz11 04:00, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
Statement by User:Man with one red shoe
First of all I'm confused by this filling. this is not the issue that was supposed to be brought to ArbCom, it's only a tangential issue. Second, it was clearly agreed by all the parties to wait till the end of this weekend for practical reasons. Third, I was named a party in this discussion, but I don't even watch the Republic of Macedonia page, and I don't even have yet a formed opinion over moving it to Macedonia. Thus, this case filling has to me a distinct feeling of either scoring points against the opposite party or panic that the real case will be submitted soon and thus this was an attempt to preempt it from being filled (BTW, it was agreed that the case will be filled by a neutral party, this doesn't seem the case here either). Sorry for the meta-comment, but these things had to be mentioned.
I will only comment on what the initial issue was supposed to be: I don't see the issue in Greece page (see talk:Greece) as a simple content problem, I see it as a matter of principle, whether Wikipedia allows a group of people to "own" their national page and keep them as walled gardens and enforce their national POV there. If it's not evident to you that's the case here, please examine the use of the name of "Republic of Macedonia" or "Macedonia" in the majority (or maybe even "all") of the other articles and even in foreign language Wikis. I also made the case that biased polls serve no use (for example it serves no use to ask Palestinians about Israel's right of existence or to ask Chinese about Tibet independence and so on, there are many national POVs out there) While assuming good faith in Wikipedia is a good policy, assuming that national editors will excuse themselves automatically from debates where their POV would influence the result is ludicrous and will only encourage same national(ist) editors to watch over "their" national pages like eagles (again I don't accuse anybody of bad faith, the problem here is POV, national POV at that) I only hope that we can find some way of removing or reducing this kind of POV and have a procedure for deciding this kind of sensible national items, maybe in case of doubt by enforcing the standard used in the rest of the articles or having a more balanced straw-poll that involves more 3rd party nationals, that's all. Now, people will complain about national profiling, I think I made a clear case why the national POV can be a problem in Wikipedia, I don't ask for excluding people based on their nationality, I ask for bringing more 3rd party people or using solutions from other articles, or finding different ways to decide content in the case there's suspicion that national POV plays an important role in the debate as it is pretty clear from the simple common sense analysis of the issue. If you can't make this kind of sweeping decision maybe you should decide in this specific naming matter and put it to sleep in a merciful manner, cause otherwise the edit wars and debates will continue endlessly. man with one red shoe 05:04, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
Statement by Fut.Perf.
I request that Arbcom accept this case under the perspective previously agreed by all participants of the sub-dispute that had arisen at Talk:Greece. To Coren: No this is not a request for the committee to settle the naming dispute (i.e. the content issue) itself. It's a request for guidance in a more general matter of Wikipedia governance: how to deal with content decisions where a dispute is overwhelmingly dominated by pre-existing real-world political positions polarised along national lines. This is a situation where the standard Wiki model of consensus procedures regularly fails, and we need to figure out how to deal with that. Regarding the Greece article, we clearly found that this dispute was between a single, deeply entrenched and extremely determined, national faction of Greek editors, against a consensus of everybody else. However, the Greek faction is strong enough to block all regular consensus mechanisms threatening their POV island: by gaining at least "no consensus" status in any vote-like procedure through sheer strength of numbers, and by derailing any discussion-based procedure through sheer tenacity of filibustering, until neutral editors are bored away. We need to figure out how to deal with polls dominated by national factions, and we need to figure out where the line is to be drawn between healthy debate and disruptive WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT filibustering with people advocating nationally-based POVs.
ChrisO's move is just an expression of exasperation with this situation: he tried to cut the gordian knot, by doing the correct edit in a situation where he knew normal procedure would simply never lead anywhere. Arbcom needs to deal not so much with the legalities of this move itself, but with the underlying causes: why do we regularly have situations that make such rouge moves look like the only way out? Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:04, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
- P.S.: For what it's worth, my views on the content issue are expressed here. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:55, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
Statement by Heimstern
Looking just at ChrisO's action, a single administrative action, isn't going to make much of a case. What really needs examining here is a complete failure in the wiki model to get us through a problem (here I am talking about the dispute at Talk:Greece, not the move at the other article, where I've had no involvement). Attempting to follow traditional methods of dispute resolution has led to roadblock because of a sizable nationalist faction that insists on using a name not used elsewhere in Wikipedia. Where two separate consensuses, one consisting almost entirely of people with a vested interest in a certain nationality, the other consisting of more or less everyone without any vested interest in that country, something is broken. The Wikipedia community needs better tools to deal with nationalistic editing if we are to have any hope of truly being a neutral encyclopedia in cases like this. I ask ArbCom to help us with this. At least, point us in the direction we should go next (and please, don't ask us to go to mediation or RFC. This issue has been discussed out, and certain parties absolutely will not listen.) Heimstern Läufer (talk) 07:02, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
PS: If this case is supposed to include everyone with involvement in the naming dispute, I suppose I should be added, though having that many parties sounds exceedingly unwieldy to me.
- Since it seems clear to to me that this case is going to happen, I'm really hoping the Arbs will listen to this: treating this like any ordinary case is not going to produce good results. The traditional methods of counting reverts, uncivil remarks and questionable admin actions is not going produce any answer that meaningfully solves the real problem here; namely, that this article is under siege from a group of nationalists for whom no way save that endorsed by Greek foreign policy is acceptable. We need something new. More of the same will at best leave us where we are now, and at worst may bolster the nationalists. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 15:02, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
Statement by PMK1
Personally I was hoping that this whole issue could wait until the Orthodox Easter, which begins this weekend. As a sort of respect to users from both "sides". But in further reading the comments by Yannismarou and ChrisO, both have vigourously defended their actions. It is true that a walled garden has been established by many users, all from a similar POV and ethnic background, whereby the term "Macedonia" has been claimed as an exclusively Greek one, despite the prevalent opinion in the English-speaking world. Macedonia, without any appelations, is the self-identifying term for the country officially known as the Republic of Macedonia. ChrisO's actions are justified as they follow suit behind the practises featured in the English version of Wikipedia. The addition of "Republic of" was used to disambiguate it from other Macedonias, however usage of the full name of a country is not common wiki practise. Although officially "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland", the article is United Kingdom. There are dozens of similar examples, "United States of America" => United States, "Commonwealth of Australia" => Australia, "United Mexican States" => Mexico. In this case the term "Macedonia" has been appropriately chosen, acting in line with other developments on Wikipedia and accordance with WP:NAME. PMK1 (talk) 08:10, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
Statement by Jack forbes
I originally came across the naming dispute on talk Greece where I disagreed with listing editors nationalities taking part in a straw poll. I have no allegiances to either country, so no matter what decision is made I won't lose any sleep over it. I took some interest in the name change made by Chris0 to the Macedonia article as many of the same editors where involved. My concern is the way he went about it without any prior notice and his comments since making the change. I saw his statement here that any admin reverting his change could be desysopped for wheel-warring. I later noticed him making this change to his opening statement implying it was not an administrative action which he confirmed here after I asked him just that. He did though reassert it could be wheel-warring in a conversation on J.delanoy's talk page [2]. The question for me is, did he use his tools in the proper manner and after using those tools was he right to infer that it would be wheel-warring and possibly frighten off other admins from reverting his preferred version. Jack forbes (talk) 09:44, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
Statement by Horologium
(This is a preliminary statement, primarily to address a question from Coren in the Arbitrator's opinion section below. I will expand upon it later today.)
In the previous arbitration (WP:ARBMAC), the Arbitration Committee explicitly and specifically declined to discuss the central issue, that of the name of the country, because it was a "content issue", and ArbCom doesn't deal with content issues. They referred that matter back to the community for resolution. The result was an epic failure of the community to come to such a resolution, and there are good-faith editors on both sides of the dispute (or perhaps all three sides, seeing the new wrinkle introduced yesterday by ChrisO's move). The problem is that the content dispute is now a behavioral dispute, which is clearly under the purview of ArbCom.
My involvement in this issue is minimal; I protected the article Greece (three times now) to stop the edit warring over "Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia"/"Republic of Macedonia", and I have commented on the article's talk page about my personal preference, but I have not edited the article or any other article which relates to the naming issue. In fact, I question whether I qualify as an involved party at all, but that is something which I do not have the ability to explore at 6 AM (local time). Horologium (talk) 10:09, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
Statement by GK1973
Wikipedia's guidelines are not laws and the success of this project mainly relies on the cooperation of the editors and the maintaining of good will. ChrisO is right when he claims that in other cases his rationale was followed, as is the case of Greece itself, a country whose constitutional name is different than the name most people use to refer to it. Yet, this name's use does not provoke nor angers any editors. On the other hand, wikipedia clearly does not follow these guidelines in other cases, such as "England" for example... Most people use this name to refer to a country with a totally different constitutional name. The same applies to many other cases such as "China" (everybody means the country and not its culture...), the "City of Vatican" (everybody just says Vatican...), Taiwan and a whole lot others. Why didn't we follow these guidelines in all these cases? Because there was no reason to, or because we didn't want to stir trouble to certain communities within Wikipedia. Many people here accuse the Greeks of nationalism. First of all, there is no wikipedian who is not sensitive when it comes to the "rights", "truths" etc that have to do with his country and this fact is accepted and respected here. These Greeks have insisted that the name of the Republic of Macedonia be changed to Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYRoM). Did we comply to their wishes? Of course not! Despite their "cries" we used the constitutional name of this country, which was EXACTLY what the editors of this country wanted. For years now, most editors, who now are called "nationalists" accepted this willingly or unwillingly and a completely working compromise was found. So, Wikipedia stood by the ethnic Macedonians completely in this issue and this was eventually accepted by the Greek community. Now, out of the blue, an administrator who has been involved with this issue multiple times and thus cannot be assumed to have been ignorant of the trouble his actions would provoke, decided that referring to this country by its constitutional name (which we do in many cases) was not enough and not only changed it (as we do in many cases), but he did it in a most provocative way. What should be judged here is how this move helps Wikipedia. How does it help to so bluntly displease a community which had already accepted the use of RoM in Wikepedia? How does it help to instill fanaticism to both sides? Even ethnic Macedonians had no problem with things as they were. NOW, they will have... and we all owe this to ChrisO, a person who singlehandedly destroyed the consensus Wikipedia had achieved for so many years between the two communities. I further accuse ChrisO, that he preplanned this edit, that he on purpose chose the specific day for his actions, that he clearly did not act out of good faith, that he has lost his credence as an administrator and that he proved unworthy of the trust Wikipedia showed him by making him an administrator.
Once again : This edit has nothing to do with the name conflict! This conflict is not about whether this country should be called Republic of Macedonia or simply Macedonia but whether it should be called Republic of Macedonia or something else like "North Macedonia", "New Macedonia", "Vardarska" etc. The country's constitutional name is Republic of Macedonia and was used in Wikipedia until this edit. For this state to be simply called "Macedonia" was never the case.GK1973 (talk) 12:13, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
(addition) I have read all statements and I see that most editors are misinformed regarding the name issue "pending in Wikipedia". People, there is NO name issue in Wikipedia, as far as the changed article was concerned. The name Republic of Macedonia, the name Greece as a state disputes, is NOT disputed in Wikipedia. It is accepted and used. The renaming ChrisO did, had nothing to do with any dispute. He just altered the name the ethnic Macedonians chose for themselves, the true, correct and official name of this country, the name Greek "nationalists" had accepted in Wikipedia, respecting the 5 pillars, to another, unofficial name, because "most people verbally use it". Apart from him, was there anyone who perceived this as an issue to be resloved? No one! On top of that, he directed any search on "Macedonia" directly to the article describing the country. Was there any such motion from the ethnic Macedonians? No! From any other? No! Was there any problem he addressed? No! Consensus had miraculously worked for so many years, so that no party really pursued any complaints on the naming of RoM, the name that EU does not recognize, yet we in Wikipedia did. So, what was the problem this move resolved? None! In contrast, it created problems and roused unwanted nationalist feelings in all parties involved, with no reason at all. The use of the name of this state in third articles is an issue in its own and should the committee wish to resolve it, I have no objection. As I understand it, this would anyways be discussed soon. Yet, the current issue was solely provoked by the abuse of the specific article GK1973 (talk) 01:49, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
Statement by Taivo
How ironic. The Gordian Knot was a tangled Greek mess solved by a Macedonian who bent, if not broke, the rules. (And of course I realize that Alexander was not a Slavic Macedonian, but it's still a beautiful irony, nonetheless.)
There are several layers to the issue before us here. First, there is the real-world conflict over a single word--started by Greece so long ago that it almost seems to date from Alexander's day. This issue is totally irrelevant to Wikipedia's policies, but it is mentioned time and time again as motivation for the uncompromising stand of the nationalist editors as here, here, here, and (my personal favorite) here illustrate. They self-identify themselves as Greek (as here and here), but then complain loudly when others identify them as Greek (as at Talk:Greece passim). Second, there is the continual attempt by the entrenched nationalists to paint international usage as the standard for Wikipedia naming (as here). This issue is also totally irrelevant to Wikipedia's policies, but is repeatedly used to sidetrack the issue of common English usage as found throughout Talk:Greece. Third, there is the Greek vandalism that occurs nearly daily throughout Wikipedia against Macedonia. The abuse log is cited elsewhere here, but I have personally been watching Staffordshire University and was forced to revert this on four occasions before getting the article protected from anonymous IPs. Staffordshire University is not even within the Greek "sphere of interest", but it was cited (along with other irrelevant articles such as 2007 Fort Dix attack plot) by Avg as a reason for reporting Future Perfect to "the authorities" when he changed "former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" to "Republic of Macedonia". This is a serious problem and further illustrates the nationalistic fervor of this community when anyone tries to treat Macedonia as an equal entity within Wikipedia. But none of these issues is relevant to the discussion at hand.
Finally, we come to the real issue of this arbitration–how does Wikipedia deal with a parochial group of editors (whether nationalistic, as in this case, or religious) that blocks all attempts at productive editing that violates some self-proclaimed interest? In this case, we have a group of editors who refuse to reach any consensus on following Wikipedia policy using consistent wikilawyering, WP:JUSTDONTLIKEIT, WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT, and other diversionary tactics without addressing the fundamental policy issue. Wikipedia's policy is very clear to me concerning naming an entity (WP:NCON)–1) Use the most common English name, and if that isn't available for some reason, 2) Use a self-identification. The policy specifically excludes political, moral, and legal arguments in deciding on a name, but the Greek editors continually cite 1) the political views of Macedonia and Greece, 2) the moral rights of Greece, and 3) the legal name imposed by international organizations as reasons for ignoring Wikipedia naming policy. Consensus is impossible when you are talking to a wall. It is my sincere hope that this arbitration will result in a clear and unambiguous interpretation of Wikipedia naming policy. (Taivo (talk) 13:00, 17 April 2009 (UTC))
Statement by John Carter
I first came to this discussion after Future Perfect at Sunrise requested additional eyes and voices in the discussion on the Talk:Greece page regarding how the Republic of Macedonia was to be named in that article. At the time, the two choices being considered were "Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" and "Republic of Macedonia". I and other new arrivals seemed to consistently favor the latter, but to the best of my knowledge and memory the simple name "Macedonia" was never really even spoken about, except to dismiss the article being named that out of hand. Although there were heated voices on both sides, and I am ashamed to admit that I was one of them at times, there did seem to be some real discussion taking place, and there were hopes, at least on my part, that a real solution could be arrived at.
Then, out of the blue, without any discussion, ChrisO moves the page, locks it in place himself, and says that he is doing this in the interests of following policy, and is forced to justify how his move is in compliance with policy. I and several others called into question the move, and there were several comments from various parties indicating that it might be an attempt to basically game the system and take advantage of the fact that many or most of the editors from the Greek side would be celebrating the Orthodox Easter before they noticed the change had been made, thus in effect making it a stable page for several days before the Greek editors returned and noticed the move. Several editors have very clearly stated that these actions of ChrisO's undermine their trust in the fairness and effectiveness of the wikipedia.
I beg the ArbCom to accept this case. The article in question was one of the top 300 in hits for March, and it is thus one of our most important articles. Such radical moves as have taken place on such an important article are at best questionable. That they take place under a cloud such as the one cast by ChrisO's actions damages the trust of several experienced editors, and even more so newer editors, and we should all do our best to address ensuring that such damaging behavior not happen any more often than necessary. John Carter (talk) 13:13, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
Statement by J.delanoy
I really do not care where the article ends up. I have my own personal opinion, but I do not have a vested interest in this topic, as I am a fourth-generation American with German/French ancestry. What I would like to see come out of this case is a definitive method to deal with disputes like this, where consensus clearly fails to produce results. As much as I know the Committee does not like to step into content disputes, something desperately needs to be done to end the relentless wikilawyering that surrounds topics like this. J.delanoygabsadds 15:05, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
Comment by Nathan
A useful precedent for this case is the stubbing and protection by Fut. Perf. of the Liancourt Rocks article, subject to a similarly disruptive and long-term naming dispute. While that step was unilateral and without substantial prior discussion, it had the effect of shutting down the dispute. While it may not have permanently settled the issue, the fact that I haven't seen it back here or on the admin noticeboards suggests it was an effective step.
ArbCom typically doesn't decide content disputes, and it seems like this issue can be resolved without changing that tradition. Simply endorse ChrisO's, or decide not to overturn it, and it will become the new status quo without an explicit content decision on the part of the Committee.
I do understand that endorsing this type of action (essentially resolution of a content dispute by administrator fiat) is a difficult proposition for the committee and the community to accept. I think this case, and the problem of endorsing fiat actions, can both be resolved by committee motion: resolve that the decision in this instance will stand, caution ChrisO and other administrators against making unilateral decisions without discussion in the future, and further admonish ChrisO for choosing to take this action at a time when many of the key involved editors are away on holiday. Nathan T (formerly Avruch) 15:30, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
Statement by SheffieldSteel
On the face of it, the underlying issue (M, ROM, or fYROM) looks like a pure content dispute, but I feel that the conduct of many participants needs to be considered, with numerous incidents and/or accusations of nationalism, bad faith, and personal attacks having taken place. There is additionally a policy aspect to this: editors and admins have been unable to establish a consensus as to how our naming conventions should be applied to this case - uniformly, or making exceptions.
I hope that ArbCom will consider this case in its entirety, rather than focussing solely on (getting distracted by?) the issue of ChrisO's move/protect protected move of the article currently at Macedonia. SHEFFIELDSTEELTALK 15:21, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
Statement by Hiberniantears
ChrisO did the correct thing, even though it has stirred a hornet's nest. Look at Taiwan as a case in point. This all comes down to a long, long edit war concerning an entrenched camp(s) of nationalist editors. There cannot be consensus on this. There will not be consensus on this. So the only responsible thing to do is to take the warring camps out of the picture and view how we treat every other article on Wikipedia concerning a country. That is what administrators exist for, and it is what ArbCom exists for. Hiberniantears (talk) 15:33, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
Statement by uninvolved user Knight of the Wind
After noticing a thread on AN/I, I decided to look farther into this. It seems to me that ChrisO's action was done according with policy, and that the move protection was applied to prevent edit-warring. Reading through the talk page, I saw no consensus to move or to keep as is. For me, in my opinion, in an area where there is no consensus, policy takes priority. However, reading through the talk page, it seems a large number of the editors involved in the naming dispute are Greek/Macedonian. This, is an issue due to nationalism. I believe this could represent a conflict of interest to many users. I do not believe ChrisO abused his admin tools in this situation. What I want to see come from this RFAR is a clear consensus on the name, and though I hate to say it, topic bans on users with obvious COI may be in order. Knight of the Wind 16:20, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
Statement by Avg
I would like to start by expressing my firm belief that this action by ChrisO was not simply a random "bold" move nor a move by a passing-by, uninvolved administrator. It was a carefully planned and premeditated move, by a heavily biased editor, with the objective of acting as a fait accompli. It is also the culmination of a serial disregard of any sense of the consensus process and it has been accompanied by a host of accusations, insults and threats against an ethnic group of editors. It was not the first time he abused the admin tools to settle this dispute in his favour. And finally, it was based in deceit and in an outright lie to the community. I'm prepared to prove my claims with diffs when the arbitration enters the evidence phase. ChrisO has completely lost my trust.
I would also like to draw the attention of the ArbCom to the somewhat established tactics even in the statements of certain involved parties here, in labelling a group of editors as "Greek nationalists". The issue of ethnic profiling is something that I feel ArbCom should address. Mud is a difficult thing to remove when someone throws it at you. I would ask ArbCom to protect me and anyone else insulted from the continuous abuse and ridicule we get, just because we happen to have a certain opinion, which has always been based on policy and which we have never tried to impose to anyone. I would challenge anyone to find any of the "Greek nationalists" reverting any article where "Republic of Macedonia" was the established naming. On the contrary, the other side (which mainly comprises of two users who enjoy immunity, ChrisO and Future Perfect at Sunrise) has engaged in extensive edit wars, mass renames and intimidation tactics in order to push their POV and reverse the status quo. Again, diffs will be provided in detail.
Regarding the content dispute, never, ever has "Macedonia" been discussed as a choice for naming the country, because it was common ground to everybody even remotely involved with the issue that there is a high degree of ambiguity. Again, I will present as evidence many diffs where even ChrisO himself strongly advocates that Macedonia should not be used as the name of the country. I will also present my arguments on the naming issue (of course I disagree with the current naming) if the content dispute is discussed, however I very strongly believe the behavioral issue has to be tackled first. I find appalling to be forced to enter into a content dispute with the tables turned to ChrisO favor, just because he abused the admin tools.
Comment by briefly and tangentially involved LessHeard vanU
I was the first respondent to the notice posted by John Carter at the Noticeboard, and it was I who moved the discussion - after a few false starts - to Talk:Macedonia after it became apparent that there was little in the way of neutral admin reaction to the move against the amount of partisan comment that was being generated on the Noticeboard. The opportunity for uninvolved community comment on ChrisO's actions has passed, and it therefore falls to the ArbCom to decide if it was in line with the admin remit (understanding that any evidence or comment that may be made in the process will again be dwarfed by those responding to the long standing dispute). It may be that ArbCom will need to divorce the review of ChrisO's admin actions and that of ChisO as a party to the dispute to gain a proper perspective of those actions. At the time of writing I am assuming the Committee will accept this request. LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:12, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
Statement by Húsönd
I reiterate my brief comment on Talk:Macedonia: the timing of the move by ChrisO was inadequate. Furthermore, being ChrisO clearly involved in this dispute, he should have refrained from an unilateral move that was guaranteed to produce a very heated outcry. That said, I fully understand the frustration that led to such reaction. The naming issue of the Republic of Macedonia and its application on Wikipedia has been a long-lasting dispute, as the Greek POV is fiercely defended by a large group of Greek users that effectively block any consensus from ever occurring. The recent straw poll clearly demonstrated this. Yet, outside attention was only drawn when the straw poll issue was brought to ANI by Greek users, irked by my rather visual analysis (now deleted) of the ethnicity of the straw poll participants. Consensus was easily formed at ANI that Greek users had their own walled garden and were creating an obstacle to Wikipedia's natural consensus building process. Despite overall agreement, the poll ended, no admin ever closed it, no decision was ever made, and the heated discussion unsurprisingly died out. It is very frustrating to see core values of Wikipedia be manipulated by one ethnic group, but even more frustrating to see everybody (expect that ethic group) acknowledge the manipulation and still do nothing about it. On top of that, those who point the obvious fact that the problem lies with one ethnic group still have to bear with the usual accusations of racism and censorship. And then they become "involved" and can take no unilateral actions such as... move an article. Thus, although I do not approve ChrisO's rush, I think that his action attempts to bring rightful attention to a problem that should earn far more disapproval. I am glad that this is finally back at the Arbcom and I do expect that at last we may have some results, and some peace. Húsönd 21:44, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
Statement by BirgitteSB
Responding to an RFC on this naming issue was one of the first really heated disputes I ever came across in Wikipedia. That was in April 2006. I am a strong believer in consensus but we must find a way resolve areas of perpetual "no consensus". Chris O's actions were neither with nor against consensus here, because there has never been anything more stalemate achieved in regard to the issue. I don't know that ArbCom intends to touch the content issue here. But they may be able to help the resolution of the content issue by at least framing the question properly. I found a diff from Talk:Macedonia back in 2006 were I tried to share some insight on that See here is where you and I at an impasse. I am looking at the article attached to this talk page (BTW take a minute and read the article one more time). I read this article and think how to best direct the average English speaker who is looking for this information to this article. While I believe you are thinking more about what people who have already found the article will think about the concept of Macedonia. There is a place to deal with the concept of Macdonia, but it is not here; it is on the disambiguation page. I think the reason that the issue has been so problematic for so long is that no one has enforced people from sidetracking productive discussion by asking irrelevant questions or by presenting evidence that is irrelevant to the useful question. I believe the solution here is the one used at Talk:Evolution put together an FAQ on a sub-page figure out the answers by consensus and once it is done quickly and firmly redirect misguided questions or objections there.--BirgitteSB 23:40, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
Statement by Jim62sch
I'm innocent I tells ya, I wuz framed. Seriously, I've noted elsewhere that I thought the move was a bad idea, both in its timing and in its intent: I understand why Chris did what he did, but I see no consensus for the move. Yes, as a potential political tactic it was smart in the sense that a move to the center takes us back to Republic of Macedonia, but in this case it wasn't necessarily the best idea. The real issue is precisely what User:John Carter and User:Taivo have explained. To be more blunt: should the Greece article be a walled garden, one that can ignore the realities and policies and logic? I say "no". Period and EOS. •Jim62sch•dissera! 23:53, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
Statement by Septentrionalis (Pmanderson)
If ArbCom does not choose to address the content dispute, they should reconsider accepting the case. There is no hope of consensus otherwise, and the sanctions of WP:ARBMAC, which have caught at least of the parties to this case, have not produced decent or civil behavior.
This includes something like providing a Special Master to decide the content dispute for them; but I think the settlement is only likely to prevail if it is backed by ArbCom's full authority. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:33, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
Statement by harej
I would like to begin by introducing words to live by for all warring parties. By editing Wikipedia, you are not a Greek, a Macedonian, an Albanian, Serbian, Montenegrin, Croatian, Pole, Russian, or whatever you may choose to call yourself, but a Wikipedia editor. You are a writer who must be capable of collaborating, compromising, apologizing and forgiving. If you are not capable of that, you are not wanted here.
This is a problem which Wikipedia will not solve and will never solve by itself. This is a bitter debate, fueled by national interests, thousands of years in the making, and currently manifested on Wikipedia. As a collaborative reference work made possible by the positive contributions of people of all ancestral stock, and used by people of all ancestral stock, Wikipedia and its editors must consider that they will go nowhere with continual self-assertion of what they personally want. They must put down the editorial firearms, sit at a table, and consider what the best approach to solving this is. I want ArbCom to promote this atmosphere of solving the debate by actually solving the debate instead of solving the people.
After all, this is Wikipedia. It does not have to be an exact duplication of the real world (as long as the articles, er, reflect the real world sufficiently). Therefore, while it will never be able to end the arguing in its entirety, it can ameliorate it.
World peace rhetoric aside, if the editors cannot work together to solve it, ArbCom should be pushing to solve it. Let's decide on a naming convention, agree on it, and enforce it.
Statement by Politis
Statement forthcoming on Monday, 20 April 2009 Politis (talk) 10:36, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
Clerk notes
- This area is used for notes by non-recused Clerks.
- Opening clerks, User:Tiptoety and User:KnightLago, name this case "Macedonia 2" and make a short cut from WP:ARBMAC2 to the case final decision section, just as WP:ARBMAC redirects to Wikipedia:ARBMAC#Final_decision. Thanks. — Rlevse • Talk • 21:39, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (10/0/0/0)
- Accept, primarily to examine the use of administrative tools in this matter—I note that the article was, and remains, move-protected—but also to try and move the broader dispute towards resolution. Yannismarou, please add as parties (and provide appropriate notification to) the editors involved in the naming dispute, as well as any others who have expressed interest in participating in the case that was to be filed on the 22nd. Kirill [pf] 03:15, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
- Comment, I need to understand something here that's of critical importance, I think: is the community requesting that ArbCom settle the naming dispute itself? I understand that one administrator's action precipitated this early filing of a request, but the intent was to bring this to ArbCom all along? — Coren (talk) 03:23, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
- Accept, I am never surprised when these areas of real world ethnic/political strife come here. As Fut Perf says, this is an area where wiki consensus building regularly fails and we as a community need to find better ways to work with this type of situation. The consensus model regularly fails here because each side, due to long term centuries-old strife in the area/topic, perceives the truth, as they see it, being twisted. Focus should be on admin behavior and conduct of all users, not what the titles should be. — Rlevse • Talk • 10:01, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
- Accept To examine admin conduct, and to assist the Community in finding a solution to the naming conflict (not select the name). FloNight♥♥♥ 10:57, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
- Accept, both to look at the recent move but also the underlying issue in the sense that it would have been brought to us anyway next week. As Flo says, we will, as always, not be resolving the content dispute, but we can provide a framework for resolution. --bainer (talk) 12:46, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
- Accept Wizardman 16:19, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
- Accept. Please note that when the case opens I will post some questions thay I will be asking the parties (and interested others) to address. Newyorkbrad (talk) 16:31, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
- Accept -- FayssalF - Wiki me up® 18:21, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
- Accept. Risker (talk) 23:10, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
- Accept. Would like to suggest here that the opening of the case is delayed until 22nd April, for several reasons: (1) So ArbCom can finish off some other cases that need our attention; (2) To fit in with the original intention to file on 22nd April - mainly, as I understand it, to fit in with the dates of Orthodox Easter; (3) To give those involved time to gather their thoughts; (4) To enable discussion of the case name (request name conflicts with an article of that name), the case scope and who should be the named parties; (5) To enable people to read the megabytes of discussion that has taken place around this topic; (6) For arbitrators and the editors involved at this topic to read the following articles: Macedonia naming dispute, Macedonia (disambiguation), and Macedonia (terminology); (7) For those involved in the naming dispute to consider whether time spent discussing the name of the article might be better spent improving articles, as was done with Macedonia (terminology) (a featured article). In general, a way does need to be found to resolve these perennial disputes for set periods of time (say two years) so that in between the periodic debates, work is actually done on other articles instead. Whether by Gordian Knot-type resolution or otherwise. But these nationalist naming disputes need to be settled because they are a large drain in time and resources (several recent and current arbitration cases have been disputes over article names). Carcharoth (talk) 00:11, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
Clarifications and other requests
Place requests related to amendments of prior cases, appeals, and clarifications on this page. If the case is ongoing, please use the relevant talk page. Requests for enforcement of past cases should be made at Arbitration enforcement. Requests to clarify general Arbitration matters should be made on the Talk page. To create a new request for arbitration, please go to Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration. Place new requests at the top. Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/How-to other requests
Request for clarification: EddieSegoura ban appeal attempts
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
- TML (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (initiator)
- EddieSegoura (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (confirmation sent via e-mail)
Statement by TML
EddieSegoura (talk · contribs) was banned back in 2006 (the discussion that led up to the ban can be found at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive104#Exicornt Vandalism/EddieSegoura. Since then, he has expressed a desire to appeal his ban to the Arbitration Committee, but I noticed that he has made his appeals on-Wiki rather than off-Wiki. His current appeal attempt, made about two months ago, is on the current version of his userpage. Here are some of his past appeal attempts: [3] [4]
About two years ago I sent him an e-mail advising him to appeal off-Wiki rather than on-Wiki (I can forward this e-mail and his response to the committee upon request), but it appears that he still desires to make his appeals on-Wiki.
I have no direct opinion on his ban, but I do have a few questions:
- Is the committee aware of his request(s) to appeal his ban?
- Has he ever e-mailed the committee to appeal?
- If his appeals have been rejected, has the committee ever informed him about the rejection(s)?
I have no relation to this user, nor was I ever involved in his banning, but I've noticed that he seems to have a genuine desire to appeal his ban, but his methodology appears to be flawed. If he truly desires to appeal, I would like to help him do it properly. TML (talk) 07:13, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
Statement by other user
Clerk notes
Arbitrator views and discussion
Request to take a look at : The Alastair Haines situation
- Privatemusings (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (initiator)
- Alastair_Haines (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Statement by Privatemusings
per this email and this note, I gather arbcom have received some information ahead of this request - but every little helps, right :-)
An OTRS ticket ( #2009040310049955 ) has somewhat divided the OTRS agents, with confusion as to whether or not it constitutes a legal threat. Regardless, because it comes from a publisher of this user's work, a decision has been made to ban the user indefinitely. A simple examination of the ticket by the arbcom would be helpful. You might also like to review this diff noting that it was posted subsequent to the OTRS request, and clearly by the protaganist!
Please review this asap and consider further steps to improve systemic performance in this area - overall it's just been totally unacceptable in my view.
- @risker and MB - for what it's worth, the outcome of a good conversation on IRC in the OTRS channel was that the OTRS folk are divided, and unlikely to take any action (it was important to note that this was not an impasse, but it's hard for me to explain why not!) - the simple fact is that two users have been indefinitely blocked over this - one clearly in error, which, despite being fixed after 5 days is still a ginormous stuff up. At the very least, I'd hope the committee might lean towards taking some responsibility towards resolving this situation speedily and smoothly, it would speak well of us, no? Privatemusings (talk) 05:21, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
Outstanding Issues
to be explicit, I am swallowing a degree of distaste for this process in asking the committee to attend to the following gigantic boobs outstanding issues;
- A good faith user was blocked for 5 days based on an administrator's hunch that they might have sent an email. They hadn't, and I would like to committee to strongly underline how inappropriate this bungle was. It's the sort of thing that can cause unnecessary drama, I reckon.
- Alaistair Haines has been indefenitely blocked, with the stated rationale that someone else sent OTRS an email. I'd like arbcom to examine this interesting reading of site policy.
- A couple of days after someone else sent OTRS an email, Alaistair posted this diff explaining his current position in regard to legal action. Only a gigantic boob could have missed this - it's linked some 5 or 6 lines up :-)
- The Pièce de résistance - as a response to another somebody (me) asking a few questions, some people note that maybe it's a good idea to open up Alaistair's talk page, and some people think 'hey, the exact opposite might be just the ticket' - right now the talk page is protected from all editing. Way to go wiki dispute resolution!
Finally, I have to pass a wry comment on Brad's note - it's interesting that the vagaries of this project lead such a wise chap to state that editing under your own name is not a good idea. It took me maybe 30 min.s yesterday to sift through and realise the scale of the boobage in this situation - please try to attend to it, dear arbs :-) Privatemusings (talk) 21:31, 15 April 2009 (UTC)hopefully the section title will have captured at least someone's attention.....
- more hmmmmm..... I headed over to Coren's talk page to ask for his rationale for a block, and wondering if he could outline the best next-steps for an unblock, where he mentioned "The matter is currently in discussion within the Committee." - is it? Perhaps I'm wrong to read into that the intimation that arbcom are currently discussing this, but I'm not sure how not to! cheers, Privatemusings (talk) 03:30, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
- any news? My reading of the below is that the arbcom doesn't consider this an arbcom matter, which is in tension with Coren mentioning that arbcom are indeed discussing it. Are you discussing this?
- It's my opinion that there's a systemic problem in how you (arbcom) choose to communicate around requests such as these, right now I (as initiator) have no way of knowing if anyone is actually attending to any of these issues. Meanwhile, while thumb twiddling, head scratching and general procrastination and avoidance continue, a good faith user remains indefinitely blocked. This shouldn't be acceptable to any of you.
- If anyone flicks me an email letting me know when we can expect an update (ideally with some explanation as to why) I'll be patient, otherwise cage rattling is the only avenue available, I guess :-) Privatemusings (talk) 00:30, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
Statement by JzG
- Alastair Haines (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
The only potential concern I can see here is that Mr Haines apparently can't edit his own talk page, I am always wary of impeding attempts by living individuals to correct inaccuracies about themselves. Mr Haines has contacted OTRS through his representatives, but if we believe that there is a pressing problem with his communications being impeded then there is no reason not to ask Coren to change the block parameters.
A quick look through the history suggests the following interpretation of events: Alastair Haines has a series of blocks for legal threats, and has been warned many times about them. When another comment was made which he considered defamatory, rather than make another legal threat and get blocked, he appears to have asked a colleague to make the threat on his behalf. The colleague was perhaps more moderate than Mr. Haines himself, and in any case the request was a reasonable one and handled to to correspondent's apparent satisfaction. It seems to em that the concern here is that rather than exploring ways of not making legal threats, Mr Haines has decided to explore other ways of making legal threats without consequences. That is plainly unacceptable. That is how I read it from the current comments, anyway; we'd have to ask Coren for his take I think.
The supposed controversy or debate is not evident to me as an OTRS agent and subscriber to otrs-en-l, and I don't see any suggestion that Coren has gone WP:ROUGE on this. It looks like a standard response to legal threats, and it also looks as if all parties are already mindful of the WP:BLP implications. What prior attempts have been made to resolve this dispute? Has it been raised at the admin noticeboards? Has anyone asked Coren about the specific issue of talk page locking?
In any case, I can't see what ArbCom is intended to do here, this seems like the first step in a dispute resolution process, not the last. Attempts to resolve the dispute by argumentation on WR are not, as yet, a part of Wikipedia's dispute resolution process are they? That seems to have been the major venue for this debate thus far, by my reading of the comments.
I would also note that the ticket referenced above has been closed as successful, with a comment from the individual who raised the ticket complimenting Wikipedia on our enforcement of policies. Is there any evidence of a continuing issue requiring resolution, other than a user who is blocked and doesn't like it? I'm not seeing anything here which makes this an "OTRS needs ArbComming" type case. There are three tickets relating to Haines, being 2009040310049955, 2007062910002018 and 2007062810015248; all are "closed successful", none are long threads, none show evidence of outstanding issues. On what basis is it claimed that this block is a response to OTRS? Unless I have grabbed the wrong end of the wrong stick, this does not seem to me to have anything to do with OTRS, it looks like a standard case of an on-wiki argument which has generated a single email complaint which was swiftly resolved by removing some talk page text. I think invoking OTRS is a red herring, we should focus on the user himself and his history of inappropriate legal posturing. I think that's what Coren has done. Guy (Help!) 13:37, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
- Addendum: Having worked this out from first principles, as it were, I think the best course is to protect AH's talk page as being the locus of the disputed content, and to ensure that he is given the information necessary to request any courtesy blanking that may be necessary. I will do this and post at the admin noticeboards. Guy (Help!) 16:02, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
Statement by Coren
Guy has, in fact, nailed the matter with no small amount of precision. While the OTRS ticket itself is closed and has been resolved, the block to AH's account is a matter of continuing pattern of legal and pseudo legal bullying being continued through an agent or proxy. If someone in a clear (and admitted) business relationship with an editor who has repeatedly been blocked for legal threats picks up the same language (and, indeed, much of the same wording) as the previous threats immediately after the editor has been obligated to withdraw them, those threats can rightly be considered as made by proxy.
(There was also another editor blocked by myself, SkyWriter, which has since been unblocked. I had apparently misidentified them as AH's publisher.)
As for the block parameters (that is, excluding editing the talk page), I've simply implemented the specific conditions made by the originally unblocking admin, Theresa knott. I do not feel strongly about it either way, but I do believe that the matter is now best handled entirely off-wiki (either with the Office, or with ArbCom — as a ban appeal, not as anything to do with OTRS). — Coren (talk) 14:05, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
- On timing: I realize the email arrived before AH was unblocked; I was referring to it arriving after Alastair had been blocked for making essentially the same claims. — Coren (talk) 17:28, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
Statement by Mathsci
The OTRS ticket was received on April 3rd. User:Alastair Haines made his second unblock request on April 8th. User:Theresa knott left time on WP:ANI for any objections to her proposed unblock on April 8th, posting the strict conditions on Alastair Haines' talk page when she unblocked. Coren blocked Alastair Haines and User:Skywriter on April 9th because of the prior OTRS ticket. There seem to have been various crossed wires here, probably because of different time zones (Europe, Australia, USA). Mathsci (talk) 14:44, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
Statement by Cailil
I'm not going to add much more since I think everything has already been said. And basically I agree with Guy, Coren and Mathsci. Also as John says below I have asked Alastair to give me a list of diffs - I'm yet to recieve any and am about to ask again.
I have gathered, without being able to see the OTRS ticket, that the publisher was concerned about content on Alastair's talk page but I know that Alastair has issue with other comments elsewhere. Comments including the ArbCom proposal to ban him (a proposal that was rejected). I believe he has sent an email to the Committee - if he has not speciified what diffs / comments are problematic in that message I can ask him to do so. If he does send them - I will pass them on to John and/or the Committee (as long as Alastair doesn't have a problem with that). But that said we can only really judge if it breaks our rules (WP:BLP, WP:NPA, WP:CIVIL, WP:TALK) not if it is defamatory in a legal sense--Cailil talk 16:29, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
- Please note that I have not been able to locate the specific proposal (from the previous RfAr) that Alastair objects too - so he will need to spell out which one he has issue with. I think allowing him to post to his talk page might help progress matters--Cailil talk 16:40, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
Statement by Tiptoety
To Risker: While I agree that this is not the correct method, WP:OTRS does state that any actions by an OTRS volunteer on-wiki are reviewable by the Arbitration committee. Please see [5]. Tiptoety talk 18:43, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
Statement by Casliber
I feel the 1 week block from JHunterJ which was the initial flashpoint for this dustup was incorrect (however I note my involved status) - mainly as it put a content builder with a genuine interest in the article in question, and a content remover who has been guilty of stalking another user, on the same level. Things have spiralled out of control since then, with other issues being drawn in. This breakdown in communication has become a massive timesink and I can see further confrontation on arb pages as no different. I do think some negotiation is possible in order to defuse the situation, calm it down and return an equilibrium of sorts. I apologise I have had limited time with this but believe we can sort it out by email. Open discussion has drawn a peanut gallery so far which has not been helpful. Casliber (talk · contribs) 11:20, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
PS: Had I thought of it earlier, a Request for Clarification on the 1 week block might have resulted in an earlier resolution. Casliber (talk · contribs) 11:21, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
Statement by Ottava Rima
I was, as far as I know, the first to notice the User:SkyWriter block. I contacted Coren and discussed the matter with a few others. I was glad that others stepped forward and that the matter was handled calmly until Coren's return. I am not a friend of Coren's. Most people will know that Coren and I do not get along. However, Coren proceeding in a fair manner and reacted quickly after he returned.
I am not a fan of NLT related blocks, nor am I a fan of people having their block logged marked up over the matter, let alone from being removed from contributing to the Wiki over it. I believe that these matters can prevented in the future if there is a clear statement about taking something to court and there is a clearly identified person. NLT is to prevent matters from being taken onto Wiki or disrupting the Wiki. Legal matters require individuals, and cannot happen behind pseudonyms in such a way. So, there should be a higher burden of actual legal matters to warrant an indef ban. As for the "threat" part, in casual conversation, they should be taken as a breach of civility in general, as they can be, in their title, threatening and are rude in general. There should be a difference between actual legal matters (indef block until they are resolved) and threats (in extreme cases warranting a block related to civil like disruptions but not an indef block). Ottava Rima (talk) 19:56, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
Statement by SkyWriter
Here is what I understand from information given in discussions:
- On April 3 someone opened an OTRS requesting that an administrator follow Wikipedia guidelines and remove personal attacks against Alastair Haines.
- The OTRS administrator Daniel refused on the grounds that they represented [encyclopedic] content.
- On April 8 Calil blocked the editor making those attacks from Alastair's talkpage for 6 months.
- On April 8 Alastair Haines issued an extraordinarily comprehensive legal waiver that he would never take legal action – covering the past, present, and future.
- The problem apparently solved by both Calil and Alastair -- Alastair was then unblocked.
NO INTERVENING STATEMENTS FROM ALASTAIR OCURRED
- On April 9 Coren blocked Alastair for the April 3 OTRS, wiping out the entire talk page (including the personal attacks).
- Sometime after this the OTRS emailer thanked Wikipedia for its prompt response and praised the site for following its own policies against personal attacks.
- Both Daniel and Coren have failed to explain:
- What threat (i.e. an "or else" statement) was associated with the OTRS.
- How a "thank you" after blocking Alastair shows collusion with Alastair.
- How a "thank you" constitutes a legal threat.
- How a "thank you" prevents arbcom from lifting the Alastair block.
- How personal attacks on a talkpage constitute unremovable encyclopedic “content.”
- How Alastair’s extraordinary legal waiver constitutes ongoing legal posturing.
I therefore recommend that Alastair be unblocked, and that Coren and Daniel be required to read Wikipedia guidelines regarding personal attacks and unequivocally promise to enforce those guidelines before being allowed to work an OTRS or block a user.SkyWriter (Tim) (talk) 14:53, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
Clerk notes
- Is this the correct page for this request per Wikipedia:OTRS#Editorial_review or should it be moved elsewhere? Does anyone else need notification (OTRS admins, cary, etc)? MBisanz talk 05:15, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
- Yes, please notify Cary Bass on his page at Meta, and he can determine which other OTRS volunteers should be informed. Risker (talk) 05:48, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
- Notified at m:User_talk:Bastique#en-wiki_RFAR. MBisanz talk 10:19, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
- Yes, please notify Cary Bass on his page at Meta, and he can determine which other OTRS volunteers should be informed. Risker (talk) 05:48, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
- Please do not link statement headings per Arbcom procedure. The correct format is: ==== Statement by Jimbo Wales ==== . KnightLago (talk) 13:17, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
- Just a general note: Please don't edit other people's comments; bring issues to our attention. And Privatemusings, please reword the level five heading in your section. MBisanz talk 06:47, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
- done - and for the record, whilst the adding of gigantic boobs, where appropriate, is most welcome, their removal may well be reverted. Take note, lurkers. Privatemusings (talk) 08:01, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
Arbitrator views and discussion
- Comment: OTRS is outside of the scope of the Arbitration Committee and is a creature of the Wikimedia Foundation. Any comment on this situation made by the Committee must obviously exclude any OTRS information, as several Committee members do not have OTRS authorization to see the ticket involved. Risker (talk) 05:04, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
- Response to Privatemusings and Tiptoety: The initial request, upon which my comment above was made, was for the Arbitration Committee to review an OTRS ticket and make a decision on what to do about it. That is outside of the scope of the Committee. Each OTRS volunteer is responsible for his or her own actions and, just as with any editorial or administrative behaviour issue, could be reviewed by this Committee. The arms-length relationship between OTRS and the Committee is one that protects the individual who submits information to OTRS; if the person who initiated correspondence with OTRS wishes to send a copy of their email to the Arbitration Committee then we will review it and respond where appropriate, but I do not believe the Committe should muscle its way in to this area without the direct request of the party involved. Risker (talk) 14:58, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
- Comment. This seems to be a matter for Cary or a member of the OTRS team to handle, as would be true for most OTRS ticket related situations. What, exactly, is ArbCom being asked to review? (Are we being asked to make a determination about the legal threats, or lack thereof, in the ticket? Are we being asked to review the block? Are we being asked to review the substantive relation between the submitter and Alistair Haines?) Also, please understand that this matter involves an OTRS ticket and private correspondance, which may limit our ability to full explain or comment upon the situation on-wiki (and impede full access to all of the evidence available). --Vassyana (talk) 10:14, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
- Comment In no way is this issue ripe for consideration by ArbCom in this form. I have no reason to think that OTRS agents would not be able to work through the issue as it relates to them. Sensible people disagreeing with each other (if that is the case) is a strength of the system not a concern. IMO, no action needed at this time. FloNight♥♥♥ 13:20, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
- Recuse; I have acted in the matter of the OTRS ticket as an administrator and an OTRS agent. — Coren (talk) 13:53, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
- Recuse; I was involved in the last arbitration case and initiated the clarification request. One of the unresolved problems has been that Alastair Haines finds a few comments left around the project to be inappropriate. If he is unblocked, but these objectionable comments are not identified and discussed, I fear we will be back here again soon enough. In case it is still outstanding, Cailil says he is waiting to be advised of a list of problems so that the community members can assess and possibly fix them. He could also send them to arbcom if he prefers, or he could send them to me. John Vandenberg (chat) 14:59, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
- Comment: A substantial amount of the problem here involves the fact that Alastair Haines, an editor who has gotten into more than his share of editing disputes, edits Wikipedia under his full name. (Not merely that he discloses his real-life identity, but that his username is actually his name.) This automatically and overtly transforms any dispute involving A.H. the Wikipedia editor into an accusation against A.H. the individual, a fact that has consistently been unhelpful. I repeat the recommendation that has been made in the past that however this particular block is resolved, he consider requesting a rename. Newyorkbrad (talk) 17:24, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
- CommentA mere rename will help but not solve the issues here. I have to pretty much agree with Flo, Coren,and Guy, this is not ready for arbcom and I would be uncomfortable unblocking AH this time. — Rlevse • Talk • 22:43, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
- Recuse as a non-impartial friend of Alastair. I will add a comment above later. Casliber (talk · contribs) 23:20, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
- Comment - nothing substantive to add, except to say that a full and frank discussion of the grey areas of the 'no legal threats' policy is long overdue, including what to do about legal posturing, and those who are litigious by nature, but still want to edit Wikipedia. At some point, repeated arguments over legal threats and possibilities of legal threats, distracts too much from what we are meant to be doing here - working together to write an encyclopedia. Carcharoth (talk) 23:55, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
- Comment, agree with Carcharoth. Wizardman 16:18, 17 April 2009 (UTC)