Dispute resolution (Requests) |
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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.
This page trancludes from /Case, /Clarification and Amendment, /Motions, and /Enforcement.
Please make your request in the appropriate section:
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Contents
- 1 Requests for arbitration
- 1.1 Sam Harris BLP
- 1.1.1 Involved parties
- 1.1.2 Statement by Ubikwit
- 1.1.3 Statement by Collect
- 1.1.4 Statement by User:Flying Jazz
- 1.1.5 Statement by LM2000
- 1.1.6 Statement by Johnuniq
- 1.1.7 Statement by Jweiss11
- 1.1.8 Comment by Beyond My Ken
- 1.1.9 Statement by {Non-party}
- 1.1.10 Clerk notes
- 1.1.11 Sam Harris BLP: Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter <0/8/0/0>
- 1.1 Sam Harris BLP
- 2 Requests for clarification and amendment
- 2.1 Amendment request: Wifione
- 2.1.1 Statement by Smallbones
- 2.1.2 Statement by Fluffernutter
- 2.1.3 Statement by Bilby
- 2.1.4 Statement by Jayen466
- 2.1.5 Statement by Harry Mitchell
- 2.1.6 Statement by Alanscottwalker
- 2.1.7 Statement by (uninvolved) coldacid
- 2.1.8 Statement by Konveyor Belt (uninvolved)
- 2.1.9 Statement by Carrite
- 2.1.10 Statement by Doc James
- 2.1.11 Statement by John Vandenberg
- 2.1.12 Statement by User:DGG
- 2.1.13 Statement by Jytdog
- 2.1.14 Statement by {other-editor}
- 2.1.15 Wifione: Clerk notes
- 2.1.16 Wifione: Arbitrator views and discussion
- 2.1 Amendment request: Wifione
- 3 Motions
- 4 Requests for enforcement
- 4.1 Astynax
- 4.2 Spudst3r
- 4.3 Parishan
- 4.4 Gouncbeatduke
- 4.5 DungeonSiegeAddict510
- 4.6 Ashtul
- 4.7 MarkBernstein
- 4.7.1 Request concerning MarkBernstein
- 4.7.2 Discussion concerning MarkBernstein
- 4.7.2.1 Statement by MarkBernstein
- 4.7.2.2 Statement by Cullen328
- 4.7.2.3 Statement by PeterTheFourth
- 4.7.2.4 Statement by starship.paint
- 4.7.2.5 Statement by Thargor Orlando
- 4.7.2.6 Statement by Bosstopher
- 4.7.2.7 Statement by Strongjam
- 4.7.2.8 Statement by Hipocrite
- 4.7.2.9 Statement by Kaciemonster
- 4.7.2.10 Statement by Liz
- 4.7.2.11 Comment by MONGO
- 4.7.2.12 Statement by EncyclopediaBob
- 4.7.2.13 Statement by Drseudo
- 4.7.2.14 Statement by Starke Hathaway
- 4.7.2.15 Statement by GoldenRing
- 4.7.2.16 Statement by (username)
- 4.7.3 Result concerning MarkBernstein
- 4.8 Edit war at Anita Sarkeesian
Requests for arbitration
Sam Harris BLP
Initiated by Ubikwit 連絡 見学/迷惑 at 14:31, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
Involved parties
- Ubikwit (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · edit filter log · block user · block log), filing party
- Xenophrenic (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · edit filter log · block user · block log)
- Jweiss11 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · edit filter log · block user · block log)
- LM2000 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · edit filter log · block user · block log)
- Collect (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · edit filter log · block user · block log)
- Jonotrain (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · edit filter log · block user · block log)
- Second Quantization (talk · contribs)
- Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
- Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried
AN/I 1 [1] 2[2]
BLP/N RfC 1 RfC 2
Statement by Ubikwit
Xenophrenic alleges BLP violations: [3] [4][5], and he uses a “wife-beating” analogy [6]
Chomsky quote: Deletes the Criticisms section [7], removing the blockquote formatting in the process, and adds a promotional quote from Harris’ blog (Harris claiming he disagrees with the criticisms. Then he claims that there is a copyvio, and subsequent attempts to paraphrases quote obfuscate and render it unrecognizable. I request that BLP claims be taken to BLP/N.[ https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sam_Harris_(author)&diff=next&oldid=646958761]
Adds “attacking” characterization, and disjointedly misquotes articles on Chomsky by adding "the state religion ... where we must support the violence and atrocities of our own state, because it's being done for good reasons", which appears in neither article, but is close (not exact) to a statement Chomsky makes in the video posted in an “UPDATE III” to the article.[8]
I add a “Political” subsection under “Views”, delete the “attacking” paragraph and restore the blockquote.[9]
Misrepresenting sources: Eskowhere
Relevant quotes:[10], [11]
He targeted this[12], and tries to add two other religions without supporting sources [13] to dampen impact of statements on Islam (also supported by misrepresented Eskow piece).
Adds self-serving blog posts:[14]
Adds quote to bolster self-serving blog statement.[15][16]
Removes expanded Political section.[17]
Further gaming in revert of expanded Political section, claiming “ref formatting, punctuation and spelling corrections”.[18]
Jweiss11
Accuses Greenwald of libel, indicative of advocacy. [19]
Conflates religion and politics, and makes a compound personal attack accusing me of having a COI, “you seem to have some investment in advancing the industry of Sam Harris-smearing here on Wikipedia”. [20]
Starts new section about “Political” section [21] “…the section serves not to expand on Harris's views, but, rather to serve as a repository for criticism, some of it likely distorting and defamatory”.
States that attributed Beattie (academic, feminist theologian w/BBC program) quote is “certainly defamatory”, but doesn’t bring it to BLP/N. [22]
Removes refcite to secondary source, leaving only primary source in relation to self-serving statement that relates to contentious issue.[23]
LM2000
First substantial edit adds slew of new sources and cheerleader-like statements from Harris supporters, not one of which addresses a specific topic or publication.[24]
Second edit removes “signed” blockquote introduced by Jonotrain (talk · contribs), an SPA.[25]
Third substantial edit removes Political section, deleting Wade Jacoby and Hakan Yavuz (scholarly journal) and Salon article by Lean w/Chomsky quote.[26]
Self-reverts, claiming he sees there is Talk discussion, and claims he won’t “fight” for the changes.[27]
Jonotrain
Expands on Greenwald, adds quote from Sayeed piece in Mondoweiss linked to by Greenwald.[28]
Block formats and “signs” long Greenwald quote.[29]
He reverts LM2000’s self-revert of his deletion of Jonotrain’s edits.[30]
Collect
Started distracting threads[31]
[32]
[33] and joined an edit war over eminently well-sourced material in lead, with an edit summary unsupported by sources.[34]
- Note that is was Xenophreic that first brought the possibility of arbitration up[35].
- It also appears that Second Quantization (talk · contribs) wants to join this case, so I've added him (hopefully not out-of-process).[36][37][38]
@DGG: Not sure about what you mean by "non-NPOV material" per se, but yes, NPOV is a good policy, here's one relevant essay section.[39]
@Thryduulf: Content disputes and continual bad faith editing that admins have not acted on. The RfC's are, to a large extent, rehashes of discussion that met with WP:IDHT and WP:IDLI, and represent a form of gaming by diversion from the actual discussion of the sources and an attempt to assert a local consensus subverting content policy, coupled with a refusal to take recurrent assertions to BLP/N after the first was rejected as not being a BLP violation. Note that as I have reached the 500 word limit, I didn't point out BLP disputes on other articles, particularly articles where Jews have been involved as subject(of article) or object(of criticism), but since Collect has raised the issue vis-a-vis Sayeed, see the Joe Klein BLP and the Neoconservatism article, particularly with respect to the issue of Dual loyalty. Of note are BLP/N[40], BLP RfC[41], [42] [43]--Ubikwit 連絡 見学/迷惑 15:55, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
@NativeForeigner: I wouldn't object if there was improvement, but there's only so much banging one's head--even a hard head like me--against the wall anybody can take. I continue to post impeccable sources as I find them, but since it seems that there has been socking and that there advocacy is apparent, etc., I'm doubtful. Note that there are conspicuous absences in statements from parties. I was able to eventually improve the Joe Klein and Neoconservatism articles, but that was daunting enough. And though Collect is part of this, too, at least he didn't delete the "Political" section. This is a conundrum, at least from where I stand.--Ubikwit 連絡 見学/迷惑 18:06, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
@NativeForeigner: OK, I'll withdraw this request, and see if the two AN/I threads, one which BMK has re-opened, can be integrated.--Ubikwit 連絡 見学/迷惑 02:28, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
- This is the very first mention of "cognitive biases" I've seen. The notion that academics and other RS "misconstrue" statements that "run afoul of a wide array of people across the political spectrum", and that our job as Wikipedia editors is to exclude such "defamatory" comments, etc., is symptomatic of tendentious editing related to advocacy.--Ubikwit 連絡 見学/迷惑 05:08, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
Maximum of 500 words (you can use http://www.wordcounter.net/ to check). You should use diffs and links to support the case you are making, and try to convince the arbitrators that the dispute requires their intervention. You are not trying to exhaustively prove your case at this time; if your case is accepted for arbitration, an evidence page will be created that you can use to provide more detail.
- ATTENTION:*
- Once you have entered all required information into this template, preview and then save it. It will place the request in a new section at the bottom of Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case.
- You must inform all parties that they have been named in this request using {{subst:arbcom notice|CASENAME}}.
- Once you have done this provide the diff of the notification in the area provided.
- If you have any questions or problems please ask a clerk for help or post on Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Clerks.
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Statement by Collect
I commend the committee to review the content of the material at hand in order to see which editors were proposing material which might run afoul of WP:BLP, WP:V and WP:BLP, noting that the OP here appears quite unwilling to try for a consensus for what he wants, whilst a number of editors (>7) who are not known to act as any sort of claque in one's wildest imagination demur with his edits. Look at it this way -- Xenophrenic and I agree.
Examine the number of edits by each editor for the material, and consider the likelihood that this action is an acknowledgement that he dare not try seeking WP:CONSENSUS by starting an RfC (as recommended) or even taking part in RfCs by making a !vote in them.
The OP's first talk page edit was on [44] 11 February 2015, less than two weeks ago. Scarcely time enough to do much? An RfC from last year was long closed - and he wished to debate it when the result was not close, alas. Kindly note the edit history for the talk page, and be amazed.
Then on to the actual BLP, which is,indeed, subject to WP:BLP and WP:WikiProject LGBT studies/Guidelines "3.Identification and categorization of people is bound by Wikipedia's policy on Biographies of Living Persons (BLPs). To add content on a person's religion, sexuality and gender variance you need reliable sourcing."
I guess I became editorially involved after this edit of 15 Feb [45]
-
- "Theodore Sayeed also sees a dichotomy in Harris' treatment of the world's religions: "For a man who likes to badger Muslims about their “reflexive solidarity” with Arab suffering, Harris seems keen to display his own tribal affections for the Jewish state."
On 16 Feb, I started Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard/Archive217#Sam_Harris_.28author concerning that edit. In that section, the current OP posted "The only assertion that this thread has to make is related to whether Wikipedia can categorize Harris as a Jew. Harris had been categorized as a Jew four times over before Collect removed those with this edit earlier today." which as the discussion ensued was not a position supported by others at that noticeboard.
I also started an RfC on that same issue at the BLP talk page: Talk:Sam_Harris_(author)#RfC where six edtors oppose the usage, and the OP here did not opine.
He has tried to insert the same or similar material 16 times in the past week alone.
Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Sam_Harris_.28author shows examples of threats ("This is increasingly looking like something I'm going to have to bring up with ArbCom") civility issues ("you have a competence issue with respect to the article") etc.
[46] As someone that has continually had to deal with Collect's wikilawyered BLP claims, at the very least he needs to be warned against that, because this kind of thing is an unnecessary time sink. from the OP who quite appears to have written enough for ten editors on the article talk page, alas.
And the maraschino cherry: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive874#Tendentious_editing.2C_removal_of_well-sourced_material.2C_etc..2C_at_Sam_Harris which would lose so much by being quoted. Collect (talk) 22:28, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
@Flying Jazz -- this case has nought to do with "American Left" and I am puzzled why you appear to think it does. Cheers. Collect (talk) 02:53, 23 February 2015 (UTC) @Arbs Please examine [47] to see if a motion by you here concerning such behaviour is proper. Collect (talk) 15:04, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
Statement by User:Flying Jazz
I've never posted anywhere like this before. This isn't about BLP, but it is about User:Collect. I found that the first citation in the lead at American Left referred to an outdated preface that should (in my view) have consequences for the entire article, but there seem to be major problems with the talk page that prevent consensus or even conversation about the situation. Collect addressed my finding in the talk page at [48] in such a superficial way instead of engaging with text and ideas and with me. When I made the change at [49], he reverted with the comment at [50] "revert Bold edit per BRD without prejudice as this is being discussed and a unilateral major change is likely unwise" with no further discussion. I clomp around, write snarky things, make big mistakes. I feel like I'm being tag teamed there. I don't have evidence in diffs. I'm starting to not care. I don't expect applause for going to the library to check something, but I don't expect "Bold edit per BRD without prejudice" either. Flying Jazz (talk) 01:05, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
@Collect -- I didn't mean to puzzle you. It's not about American Left either. I think that sometimes simple actions by an editor in one article may help with decisions about complicated actions by the same editor in other articles. I admit that it might have been a terrible mistake in process for me to post here before going through other process, but I honestly don't know. Flying Jazz (talk) 06:35, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
Statement by LM2000
The statement above by Flying Jazz has nothing to do with the situation at hand.
After two weeks on the talk page, two RfCs, two threads on AN/I, and one on BLP/N, nobody has spoken in support of Ubikwit's edits. Ubikwit has sought out the comments of the commentators most fervently opposed to this subject and has pasted their most critical quotes into the BLP. The result is an unbalanced mess of an already bloated article which violates NPOV and DUE. Ubikwit had been an ardent defender of a large "Criticisms" section, a clear violation of WP:CSECTION, when the section was removed he accused users of "whitewashing" and subsequently split the criticism from that section into two other sections, "On Islam" and "Political". The problem with this is that with the exception of two block quotes from the subject himself, the remainder of the "Political" section was compiled of nothing but total condemnation of the subject by commentators who disagreed with him on his stance on Islam.[51] My addition of Harris "cheerleaders" was an attempt to achieve NPOV,[52] comments from Harris supporters still remain confined to one paragraph while Ubikwit's version saw comments from Harris' critics stretch several paragraphs and block quotes.
Dealings with Ubikwit have been less than pleasant. You can see detailed accounts of his personal attacks in the subsection of the first AN/I thread, Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive874#Tendentious_editing.2C_removal_of_well-sourced_material.2C_etc..2C_at_Sam_Harris#update, no administrator intervened by the time that list was compiled as the thread was at the top of the list at that point. During that thread, which he had started, he had been warned that this was a content dispute and wasn't an issue for AN/I, making this current discussion all the more confounding. Robert McClenon described the scene as a "tantrum" and ended up giving Ubikwit a warning. Ubikwit's interpretations of basic policy are novel at best. He thinks that WP:RS is the most superior policy and as long as something is sourced it can go into the encyclopedia, NPOV and UNDUE be damned, this had turned the article into a coatrack. In a moment which seems surreal in retrospect, he accused Jweiss11 of WP:OR for critiquing his edits on the talk page. Ubikwit has never bothered to hide his contempt for the subject (openly referring to him as a PUNDIT) and had denied that the subject had received anything but entirely negative commentary until Jweiss and I found ample sources to the contrary. He has described practically everybody participating in the talk page discussion as lacking WP:COMPETENCE, including Johnuniq, who hasn't been invited here.LM2000 (talk) 06:43, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
Statement by Johnuniq
The article has been on my watchlist for years and I noticed the recent excitement. It looks like a pretty ordinary content dispute to me, although there are some unusual aspects: this is a dispute between one editor and several others; and there has been a high level of tension in talk-page comments from the start. I confidently asserted that "ArbCom will have nothing to do with this garden-variety disagreement among editors on an article talk page", but DGG is proving me wrong. I'm posting to remove any doubt as to whether I have seen this case. Johnuniq (talk) 08:58, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
Statement by Jweiss11
I initially didn't have much to add here because LM2000 has already succinctly summarized this incident and my sentiments about it. But now that my heretofore absence has been described as "conspicuous" by Ubikwit, I'll say a few words. Let me start with the specific points Ubikwit has enumerated in reference to me.
First, per libel and advocacy, we all need to understand that the subject of the article in question, Sam Harris, is a person who has made statements that have run afoul of a wide array of people across the political spectrum. His criticism of ideas and behaviors is often an examination of cognitive biases, and it's precisely cognitive biases that induce many others, including notable people writing in established, reliable venues, to misconstrue his ideas, attack positions he does not hold, and make defamatory comments about him. Our job as Wikipedia editors is sift through all of this and make sure that the most notable commentary is summarized in a neutral fashion.
I've already commented on the alleged conflation of religion and politics here and here.
My alleged "compound personal attack" was simply an assessment of Ubikwit's editing, which appeared to concertedly violate principles of neutrality.
My edit to start a new "Political" section, titled "Social and economic politics", was an effort to isolate Harris's commentary on political elements that were not already covered in other sections like "On Islam" and "On Judaism" so that those could be properly expanded without introducing redundancies to the article.
I didn't bring the issue about the Beattie quote to BLP/N because it didn't occur to me that might be necessary. We already had at least one RFC open at the article talk page and an open thread at WP:AN/I on the general matter at hand.
I removed the refcite to "Atheists for Cheney" because it didn't appear to support the content that preceded it, "Harris is a self-proclaimed liberal, and states that he supports raising taxes on the wealthy, decriminalizing drugs, and the rights of homosexuals to marry." The only relevant passage in Kaplan's article is the phrase "self-professed liberal", which I missed the first time I looked at the article. Even know, upon closer review, it seems to be a snide remark, not solid, factual evidence.
I see that a number of arbitration committee members have already declined this case on the basis of it being a content dispute. But DGG has noted that this is also a matter of editor behavior, so I'll close with that issue. Besides his obvious flouting of neutrality guidelines, Ubikwit has consistently accused other editors of "gaming the system" while at the same time misunderstanding or intentionally misconstruing other principles like WP:OR; see LM2000's recap of our "surreal" moment above. He's also attacked the competence of just about every editor who has disagreed with him on this matter. His behavior in this incident is probably something that should be subject to administrative review at some point. Jweiss11 (talk) 22:49, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
- Comment: Ubikwit's last comment here is yet another example of his tendency to misconstrue and misappropriate various Wikipedia guidelines and project his transgressions of guidelines onto other editors. Jweiss11 (talk) 06:24, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
Comment by Beyond My Ken
Just a note: since this request appears to be heading towards being declined, I've undone my earlier closing of the AN/I thread at WP:ANI#Sam Harris (author). BMK (talk) 01:33, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
Statement by {Non-party}
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 case request or provide additional information.
Clerk notes
- This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).
Sam Harris BLP: Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter <0/8/0/0>
Vote key: (Accept/decline/recuse/other)
tentatively Accept although this is in one sense a dispute over the appropriate content for this article, the conduct of editors inserting grossly non-NPOV material in a BLP is also a matter of editor behavior. I'm a little surprised it has gotten this far without some appropriate action being taken by neutral administrators, but I think we might want to accept and resolve a BLP dispute of this sort more readily than we might another type of article. DGG ( talk ) 04:20, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
- Decline. This is a content dispute between a single editor and other editors. The two RFCs listed above both date from less than a week ago and are still open. The latest thread on ANI was closed only due to this request, before most admins had had a chance to comment. I see nothing here that cannot be sorted by normal community processes far quicker than we could conduct a case. Indeed a case would likely lead to any BLP violations lasting longer than they otherwise would. Thryduulf (talk) 15:19, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
- Decline As Thryduulf points out, there are two open RfCs and the ANI route has not been exhausted. And I agree the community should be able to handle it faster than we can. Dougweller (talk) 15:43, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
- Decline Quite possible this will improve before we have a chance to get the case pages set up, let alone get community input and draft. NativeForeigner Talk 17:29, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
- @Ubikwit: Go through community channels. If the dispute continues despite this, bring it back, and this is something I'd be willing to look at. NativeForeigner Talk 23:12, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
- Decline This looks to me like a content dispute that, due to BLP issues, really needs to be resolved faster than ArbCom can move. I'd recommend reopening the ANI thread - or starting a new one - and getting the community involved instead. Yunshui 雲水 23:01, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
- Decline --In actu (Guerillero) | My Talk 03:03, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
- Decline. I believe this is a dispute which can still be solved by the community. Salvio Let's talk about it! 10:59, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
- Decline per the above. Seraphimblade Talk to me 12:30, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
- Decline With this being filed very few days after the initial ANI threads, there has not been enough time for the community to act. I would encourage parties if they have comments about other parties, to back them up with diffs as they post them at ANI. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 18:32, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
Requests for clarification and amendment
Amendment request: Wifione
Initiated by Smallbones at 15:56, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
- Clauses to which an amendment is requested
- List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request
- Smallbones (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · edit filter log · block user · block log) (initiator)
- Fluffernutter (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
- Bilby (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · edit filter log · block user · block log)
- Jayen466 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · edit filter log · block user · block log)
- HJ Mitchell (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
- Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
- diff of notification Fluffernutter
- diff of notification Bilby
- diff of notification Jayen466
- diff of notification HJ Mitchell
- Information about amendment request
-
- Please delete this princple, or copyedit it to "6) ... The Committee ...has... a longstanding mandate to deal with activities often associated with paid editing—POV-pushing, misrepresentation of sources, and sometimes sockpuppetry ..." where the ... indicate words I've removed.
Statement by Smallbones
The principle seems to say that we do not have a policy on undisclosed paid editing or that ArbCom and admins cannot even consider enforcing the current policy WP:Terms of use and guideline WP:COI (1st section which repeats the relevant part of the ToU), or perhaps not even any part of the ToU.
WP:Terms of use is clearly Wikipedia policy, stating so itself (since 2009), and being categorized as such, and in a policy navigation box. Denying that this is policy, would be creating policy by fiat, and be a constitutional crisis for Wikipedia (i.e. ToU don't apply here). The principle was not needed to decide the case, so there is no need to even appear to be denying that WP:Terms of use can be considered by ArbCom.
The thread at Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Wifione/Proposed_decision#No_Wikipedia_Policy_on_Paid_Editing.3F discusses this at great length. It says everything that needs to be said IMHO. But do note that IMHO 3 arbs expressed some level of agreement or sympathy with my position in that thread. I'll inform all non-arb participants of that thread, listed above, about this request but don't really think they need to expand upon what they've already said.
- I'm sorry to repeat myself from the talk page thread, but I just don't understand how anybody can say that WP:Terms of use is not currently a Wikipedia policy.
- the page itself states "This page documents a Wikipedia policy with legal considerations."
- it is listed at Wikipedia:List of policies
- and at Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines
- it is categorized at Category:Wikipedia policies
- and at Category:Wikipedia legal policies
- and listed on the template:legal policy list
- the relevant section here is repeated word-for-word at WP:COI, a guideline, and ArbCom does enforce guidelines when necessary.
- I also find it disturbing that folks will say that there is no consensus for the policy when the largest RfC in history was conducted less than a year ago with 80% of the respondents supporting the change to the ToU. The fact that it was conducted, as required by the ToU, on meta rather than en Wikipedia, strikes me at best as a technicality.
-
- Now I don't understand the distinction being put forward between accepting WP:Terms of use as policy, but saying that ArbCom does not have a mandate to enforce it.
- As I understand it ArbCom has the power to enforce any persistent violation of policy. This is supported by Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines#Enforcement
-
-
- "In cases where it is clear that a user is acting against policy (or against a guideline in a way that conflicts with policy), especially if they are doing so intentionally and persistently, that user may be temporarily or indefinitely blocked from editing by an administrator. In cases where the general dispute resolution procedure has been ineffective, the Arbitration Committee has the power to deal with highly disruptive or sensitive situations."
-
-
- Smallbones(smalltalk) 16:15, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
Roger Davies, just a small correction, http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Policies does list the TOU as policy:
"Policies
These are all official policies of the Wikimedia Foundation.
Wikimedia wikis
These policies, in addition to the terms of use, apply to all Wikimedia wikis." (my italics)
Carrite, I just can't imagine somebody seriously writing "the community has reaffirmed again and again that there is no prohibition of paid editing per se, the WMF's unilateral tweaking of so-called "Terms of Use" notwithstanding."
The "WMF's unilateral tweaking" was the largest RFC in history [53]. 1103 users (79.4%) supported the change to the TOU and only 286 against it. That's 4 supports for every 1 against. Folks who say that there is no community support for the TOU either haven't paid attention or want to exclude a large number of the members of our community. If anyone - arbs or otherwise - want to change the outcome so that the TOU is no longer policy, the TOU describe how they can do that. It certainly hasn't been done yet. There's no requirement that another RFC has to be run so that policy can be enforced. Smallbones(smalltalk) 02:07, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
Statement by Fluffernutter
The Wikimedia Terms of Use are English Wikipedia policy. That is made clear in a number of places, including the Terms of Use themselves, [a 1] the English Wikipedia page that redirects to the Terms of Use,[a 2] and our own conflict of interest guideline.[a 3] The Wikimedia Terms of use prohibit undisclosed paid editing, in very exacting terms. The Terms of Use also spell out exactly how a community would go about opting out of that section of the Terms of Use; none of these steps have been followed - or even begun, as far as I know - by the English Wikipedia. That means that, by the terms that we are all agreeing to by using this site, the ToU's paid editing policy is our paid editing policy. Now, perhaps this somehow slipped through without anyone in the community noticing the extremely long and involved discussion that led to the adoption of the current Terms of Use. Perhaps the community would like to opt out of the Terms of Use using the provision the ToU provide. However, the community has not opted out of them, which means that, at least for the moment, they are our policy, unless and until the community locally opts out of them in the manner laid out by the ToU.
Now, does all of this mean Arbcom has to be the enforcer of All Policies Ever, Including Paid Editing, All the Time? No. But it does mean that Arbcom passed a remedy which is literally false: "[paid editing] is not prohibited by site policies." Perhaps Arbcom meant "disclosed paid editing is not prohibited", a true statement (which would be odd, in a case centered around accusations of undisclosed paid editing, but hey, it could happen); in that case, the statement needs to be clarified so that it is no longer ambiguous. It doesn't appear, looking at the Arb responses thus far, that that is the case, however. At least some Arbs appear to literally believe the Terms of Use don't apply on the English Wikipedia, which is...rather a problem. If this is what Arbcom meant, then I would hope that they would read the documentation they missed and correct their finding.
All that said, however, it looks like this clarification request is pretty likely to go nowhere, whether because the Arbs aren't familiar with local and/or global policy or just because they are reluctant to modify a finding they passed. That could be a problem going forward; it could not be. It depends on whether Arbcom actually believes this policy doesn't exist and intends to base future decisions on that, or whether it just wants us all to go away and stop talking about this finding so it can hear itself think. I'm hoping it's the latter, and I hope that once this furor dies down, Arbcom will quietly avoid handling future paid editing issues as if there were no policy governing them.
- ^ "A Wikimedia Project community may adopt an alternative paid contribution disclosure policy. If a Project adopts an alternative disclosure policy, you may comply with that policy instead of the requirements in this section when contributing to that Project. An alternative paid contribution policy will only supersede these requirements if it is approved by the relevant Project community and listed in the alternative disclosure policy page." (emphasis mine)
- ^ "This page documents a Wikipedia policy with legal considerations."
- ^ "Wikimedia's Terms of Use state that 'you must disclose your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation.'
- @Seraphimblade: I can only speak for myself, but it is not at all uncommon for me to come across new editors (especially at AfC) who are very, very clearly paid editors but who are not disclosing it. To make up a situation by way of example, if someone is creating a page called ABC Widgets, and they have the username JohnUniqueName, and clicking the article's external link to ABCWidgets.com shows that "John UniqueName" is their PR manager...it would beggar belief for that to be a coincidence. Now, if ABC Widgets is pure G11 fluff ("ABC widgets is the bestest widget producer in Countryistan, call us at 555-555-5555 for low, low prices!"), their status as paid/unpaid is irrelevant, because either way, they're spamming. But if the article is more borderline ("ABC widgets is a widget producer in Countryistan. It has won the Golden Widget award from Widgets 'R Us three years running and is considered the premiere widget producer in Countryistan"), it becomes very relevant whether this is a good-faith editor who's here to help build the encyclopedia, or someone who's here to promote ABC Widgets. It is not necessary to out JohnUniqueName publicly to deal with this; in most cases a quiet, non-specific word with them ("Hey, so our ToU require people editing for pay to disclose, please give that a read and see if it applies to you") will do, and in cases where it doesn't, a blocking admin need only use "undisclosed paid editing" or the like as a block summary (I would add "and forward the evidence to Arbcom for review", but you guys appear loathe to get anywhere near any of this lest you get stuck with yet another job). tl;dr: It's not at all uncommon to come across cases where this distinguishing between paid/neutral is relevant if you spend any amount of time in new-page-related areas; please don't tie our hands by retaining a finding saying that we aren't allowed to do anything about them. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 18:14, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
-
- @DeltaQuad: You're looking in the wrong place for the ToU -> enwp policy confirmation. If you read past the beginning, down to this section of the ToU, particularly the end of the "Paid contributions without disclosure" subsection, you'll see it quite explicitly: "A Wikimedia Project community may adopt an alternative paid contribution disclosure policy. If a Project adopts an alternative disclosure policy, you may comply with that policy instead of the requirements in this section when contributing to that Project. An alternative paid contribution policy will only supersede these requirements if it is approved by the relevant Project community and listed in the alternative disclosure policy page." (emphasis mine). The enwp community may opt out of the ToU's paid editing policy, but it has chosen not to (or has been unable to get consensus to do so, perhaps), which means the global version is our version, and you're (we're) accepting those terms by contributing here. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 23:44, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
Statement by Bilby
When the Terms of Use were changed last year to include a requirement for paid editors to disclose their relationship with clients, this became the English Wikipedia's policy. Since being enacted seven months ago, the various projects have had the opportunity to create alternative policies which would override the ToU. Commons has done so, but to date the community here has not agreed to an alternative. Accordingly, it is incorrect to say that the English Wikipedia does not have a policy in regard to paid editing.
The fix is an easy one - strike the principle, (as it had no particular bearing on the findings), or just strike the first sentence, which would leave us with:
- "The Committee [has] a longstanding mandate to deal with activities often associated with paid editing—POV-pushing, misrepresentation of sources, and sometimes sockpuppetry—through the application of existing policy."
The principle would then be accurate, it would not in any way change the findings, and the principle could then be easily reapplied to future cases. I'm not concerned as to whether or not the committee chooses to enforce the disclosure requirements, but this would bring the principle in line with the current situation on WP. - Bilby (talk) 00:44, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
- @Seraphimblade, the community was involved in creating the policy, as it has been expressed in the Terms of Use. Along with the policy are explanations of how it should be applied, clarifying the example you give [54]. The en.wp community can, if we choose, create an alternative policy, but until we do we have the one that was created via the broader Wikimedia community process. I agree that there are questions about how to apply it, but those are separate as to whether or not the policy holds.
- At any rate, I'm surprised that this is an issue - as far as I'm aware, the disclosure requirements did not come into effect until after Wikifone edited the articles, so a change seems unlikely to have a bearing on the decision. It does suggest some confusion on the part of ArbCom about the current situation with paid editing, so I echo Smallbone's concern about the principal being applied again, but hopefully that won't be a concern. - Bilby (talk) 13:58, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
- @Roger Davies - I agree that enforcement is a problem, and I'm not asking ArbCom to try and enforce the policy. My concern is only that the current principal is incorrect - whether or not ArbCom chooses to enforce the policy, the statement that there is no policy prohibiting paid editing is in error. If it isn't going to be reused that's probably not a big concern, but the worry is that the principal may be reused in future cases, or people may take it as written. - Bilby (talk) 15:54, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
Statement by Jayen466
The most elegant solution is to strike the principle, as there is neither a related finding of fact nor a related remedy. This leaves the committee free to formulate something more developed if and when a related case arises. Andreas JN466 17:54, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
Statement by Harry Mitchell
The principle is correct as written. Even if ToU enforcement were ArbCom's job (it's not, the WMF employs lawyers for that), there is no clear enforcement mechanism and it's not ArbCom's job to come up with one. The effects of paid editing, on the other hand, (disclosed or otherwise) are very much within ArbCom's remit because there have long been clear policies which enjoy community consensus and specify enforcement mechanisms (for example, we routinely block people for POV pushing or advertising).
There is no need to prove paid editing, and encouraging attempts to do so is to encourage precisely the sort of opposition research that the likes of Phil Sandifer, WillBeback, Racepacket, and others were banned for. There's a reason we ban people for that sort of thing, and we shouldn't be encouraging it—it's entirely possible to push a POV without being paid and to be paid and write neutrally. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 17:22, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
- @Alanscottwalker: Bad editing is very easy to prove and is dealt with quickly (that's what I do on Wikipedia when I'm not bogged down in explaining what I do to people who, meaning no disrespect to them, spend very little time on the front line and so don't realise just how academic this issue is); all it takes is diffs and analysis. Bad motives are impossible to prove with on-wiki evidence, and require digging through people's personal and professional lives, which is one of the few things that gets an almost automatic siteban. Yes, it's entirely possible that somebody who is only here to promote a company does it because they're paid to, but while you're all sat round discussing whether or not they're paid and should have disclosed it, I've blocked them for advertising and have moved on to the next one and the one after that. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 17:51, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
Statement by Alanscottwalker
1) Amend your dicta that was unneeded for the case. 2) The TOU is a basis for all kinds of policy on Wikipedia. 3) It's silly for the committee to claim it cannot enforce things without confession, it does it all the time (eg notthere, sockpuppets, etc., etc, etc.). Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:58, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
HJMitchell's claim of "no clear enforcement mechanism" is plainly untrue, there are only a very few enforcement mechanisms on wikipedia, for all breaches of site norms. There is no need to "prove" any breach (which is what the committee's, "not a court" principal means), there is only the need to have consensus that a duck appears to be a duck. As for whether paid COI runs the unacceptable risk of skewing coverage and making the pedia less reliable, consensus already is that it does (see the guideline), and that consensus is the only one that conforms to the reliable sources on COI and common sense. Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:36, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
HJMitchell: So? Policy sets out norms. Be neutral, use RS, don't OR are non-self executing norms - but exist for people who don't know what they are doing in writing an encyclopedia. Anti-COI, is just a prophylactic subset, for people unfamiliar with dealing with their own COI. As for evidence that always varies from case to case, suspicious activities and suspicious statements, confession not required. COI rules are not about motive, they are about the appearance of relationship. Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:00, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
Doug Weller: What policy are you being asked to impose? Your just being asked to cut back on things unneeded for your decision.Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:27, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
@DeltaQuad: When you pressed save just now and every other time, you agree to the Terms of Service in WP:TOU. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:21, 16 February 2015 (UTC) @DeltaQuad: It's the agreement we both made when we pressed save and it sets out obligations between us, and every other community member. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:34, 16 February 2015 (UTC) @DeltaQuad::It guides you and me in using this site that is Us - (aka, the community) and it sets out responsibilities that are the way we are to act to the other users and readers - it is meant to be a benefit to others. Alanscottwalker (talk) 23:21, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
@DeltaQuad:: I'm not sure what you are asking or arguing but WP:CONEXCEPT would be another manifestation of the relevant consensus in addition to the fact that we all in the community agree to the terms set out. Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:40, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
@DeltaQuad:: Well. It would be prudent for arbcom not to make statements that are over-broad and unneeded, and so you should go along with the motion, as you suggest, this is a poor place to 'have it out'. Alanscottwalker (talk) 01:00, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
@Roger Davies: Undisclosed paid editing is prohibited by site policy. "By using this site you agree to the Terms of Use" -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 02:04, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
@Roger Davies:: It's what we all in the community consent to by using this site. There cannot be a more universal consensus than that. (The page you link to says that the Terms of Use apply to the English Wikipedia site - as does almost every page on English Wikipedia). Alanscottwalker (talk) 10:30, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
@Roger Davies:: No one is asking the comitee to declare anything. The purpose of this is in fact to get you to not to declare the principle under discussion. However, because it just took you that many words to qualify the needless and infilicitous principle, the commitee should either qualify or strike. Strike would be simplest. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:11, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
@John Vandenberg: The English Wikipedia community already does have and has used the sanctions against a user under the TOU,[55] so your second paragraph is incorrect, and just makes the retroactive argument all the more needless splitting hairs around a useless principle. Alanscottwalker (talk) 04:52, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
@NativeForeigner: The committee is not being asked to enforce the TOU policy, here. Prudence dictates that the committee cross that bridge should you come to it, and that will depend on the facts and circumstances existing when and if that should ever occur. There is usually little consensus about hypotheticals precisely because they have no facts - and issues of enforcement are approached constantly and consistently on this site in the course of specific facts, not hypotheticals. (see eg, [56]) As for "precedent", that is at best a technical truth, here, when the committee's past statements in its decisions are often used and quoted during and in the committee's work. Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:23, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
@NativeForeigner: OK, but part of the reason why all this past explaining is problematic is this clause is stated as a general principle, with no application made to facts (findings) or remedies - so it hangs there as a principle without application to the case. As for the FergusM matter, the community mentioned the TOU often as a reason for the enforcement (up to the very end of the ban discussion) and that appears to be consistent in that, that very part of the TOU is in the community's COI guideline (the policy/guideline distinctions seemingly made are also rather odd, considering it does not matter to your decision - guidelines are something you deal in too, when behavioral issues arise). Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:11, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
@NativeForeigner: You mention "child protection". I, and perhaps others here, are mystified as to what that has to do with "paid editing." Can you explain? Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:21, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
@NativeForeigner: Thanks. Admitting I have never communicated privately with the committee and obviously don't know how the committee privately discusses off-wiki evidence but you would seem to have cases of basically two types, one where the committee decides it can act (combining on wiki and off wiki evidence, or just looking at on-wiki evidence) and the other type, in which case the committee refers it to other organizations or does nothing with it. Even openly labeling an account (which I suppose the committee need not do), as breaching site norms is not problematic. Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:58, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
@NativeForeigner: Thanks again, and get some rest. In all these years, we also have not solved the neutrality problem, or the OR problem, or the CopyVIO problem, or the true RS problem, etc, etc. but they are in their nature just something we work on everyday. Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:38, 22 February 2015 (UTC) @NativeForeigner: I was going to add this before you responded. so I will add it here, concerning specifically "enforcement", WP:Policies and guidelines says: "editors (including you) enforce and apply policies and guidelines". That responsibility still exists when you are on the committee. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:36, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
Statement by (uninvolved) coldacid
Reading through everything out of interest, there seems nothing out of place, incorrect, or policy-setting with the clause under consideration. With all due respect to the request initiator, the proposed rephrasing would not magically change the status quo, either, but it would at a minimum result in an error by omission with regard to the committee's responsibilities and powers. I would suggest that the committee decline the request, and if Smallbones really feels the need for ArbCom to have the power and responsiblity of enforcing ToU, that they use the usual channels for changing enwiki policy. // coldacid (talk|contrib) 19:29, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
In light of Fluffernutter's comment, perhaps the principle should be revised as follows?
6) The Committee has no mandate to sanction editors for disclosed paid editing as it is not prohibited by site policies. The arbitration policy prevents the Committee from creating new policy by fiat. The Committee does have, however, a longstanding mandate to deal with activities often associated with undisclosed paid editing—POV-pushing, misrepresentation of sources, and sometimes sockpuppetry—through the application of existing policy.
This would help clarify that paid editing isn't banned on Wikipedia, but that undisclosed paid editing can lead to ArbCom actions and remedies. // coldacid (talk|contrib) 20:30, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
New proposal for the revised principle:
6) The Committee has no mandate to sanction editors for disclosed paid editing as it is not prohibited by site policies. The arbitration policy prevents the Committee from creating new policy by fiat. The Committee does have, however, a longstanding mandate to deal with activities often associated with undisclosed paid editing—POV-pushing, misrepresentation of sources, and sometimes sockpuppetry—through the application of existing policy. The Committee does not have a mandate to investigate undisclosed paid editing itself.
@Dougweller: would this address your concerns with the existing motion? // coldacid (talk|contrib) 15:41, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
Statement by Konveyor Belt (uninvolved)
While the TOU are site wide policy, I believe the "site policies" referred to in the decision were local policies, which, unless something has very drastically changed lately, do not disallow paid editing, undisclosed or otherwise. If that is the case, then the principle is fine as written.
As for the WMF policies taking precedence over local ones, sure they do, but as they are WMF policies, they are not for us to enforce. The WMF must do it themselves as it is their policy. And as they seem unwilling to do so except in egregious cases, the point is moot. KonveyorBelt 17:55, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
Statement by Carrite
This request for amendment seems a transparent attempt to make "policy" by fiat. The fact is, the community has reaffirmed again and again that there is no prohibition of paid editing per se, the WMF's unilateral tweaking of so-called "Terms of Use" notwithstanding. A radical change of policy such as the banning of paid editing needs to come through a community RFC — and good luck with that. The statement on paid editing in the Wifione decision was well considered and accurate, in my opinion. Carrite (talk) 21:52, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
- @Smallbones - I was thinking, "gee, I never saw the vote to which you refer." That's because it was on Meta, not En-WP. Get back to me when you subtract all the massive number of unsigned and unverifiable IP votes from this greatest of all plebiscites. Carrite (talk) 05:39, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
Statement by Doc James
If arbcom is not taking any stance at this point in time one way or the other they should simply delete the statement in question.
It appears that further discussion is required on this issue by the En community. Is there evidence of a policy against paid undisclosed advocacy editing? Yes sure there is. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:13, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
-
- @Thryduulf: Yes, however if there is a job posted on Elance to have an article written about X. When the job is closed and article X appears on Wikipedia, it is not unreasonable to deal with the new article as if it were created by a paid editor and the editor who created it as a paid editor (likely a sock puppet if not disclosed). It is also not unreasonable to request Elance take down the account that took the job if it did not disclose. The community attempting to address spamming / promotional editing is not "harassment" or "threats". Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:09, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
Statement by John Vandenberg
The principle as written in that case ("The Committee has no mandate to sanction editors for paid editing as it is not prohibited by site policies.") is fine, and the proposed amendment by user:smallbones here is wishful thinking on their behalf. Paid editing is not prohibited, neither by site policy nor by the TOU amendment. The TOU only requires disclosure of paid editing, and that only came into effect after the period of contributions by Wifione that has been determined to be problematic. As far as I know the TOU itself doesnt explain how to handle non-disclosure prior to the TOU amendment, however that was answered on the talk page by the LCA team; see meta:Talk:Terms_of_use#Retrospective.
The TOU allows each community to enforce the TOU (and any other WMF policy), but does not mandate it, and that does not translate into a mandate for the English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee to enforce it either, as that mandate should come from the local community. I would hope that any non-trivial violation of the TOU is referred to the WMF legal team, as a TOU ban can only be made by the WMF as it is their contract with the user. If a person has violated the TOU, they should be banned Wikimedia wide — it is not a site specific policy.
Statement by User:DGG
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 case request or provide additional information. I'm unfortunately recused from this case for a concern irrelevant to this particular matter, so I'm commenting here. I agree the AC should not make new policy. But it does enforce all aspects of existing policy relating to behavior on the enWP, unless there are specific provision to the contrary. It does not need a statement for each such policy that it falls under the jurisdiction of arbcom. It does automatically. Existing policy is based on the TOU, and the TOU is policy on all matters with relevance to enWP. As it is the basis on which any of us edits in any capacity, it is in fact superior in position to all local policy here, except to the extent where it permits local variation and to the extent that local policy may be regarded as an interpretation or extension of it. The TOU have a policy that undisclosed paid editing is not permitted. This provision permits variation to a limited extent, but the enWP has not (yet) chosen to vary it, and is therefore bound by the statement in the TOU. I would if I could make a specific motion to the effect that To avoid doubt, it is existing policy based on the TOU that undisclosed paid editing is prohibited in the English Wikipedia. Editing in this prohibited manner is editing behavior, and therefore under ArbCom jurisdiction, and so I would if I could make a motion that To avoid doubt, the Arbitration Committee has jurisdiction over undisclosed paid editing, subject as in other matters to superseding office action in particular cases. Wheat Arb Com & the community would do in the way of procedures and standards are secondary matter for subsequent discussion, and I do not think their premature discussion helpful--the first step is to determine the actual policy, and the second to decide how to implement it--or even whether implementation is feasible. I agree that resolution of this case does not require these two statements, but it is usual to give potentially relevant statement of policy, to avoid doubt on the matter. As the question seas raised here, the statements should be made. I intend to propose that the committee make such statements by motion independent of this case, but if it fails to do so, I would urge the community to do so. I do not at the moment propose it to the community, because I still hope to propose these motions from the Committee and take a public vote on them to determine and demonstrate the extent of support they have within the committee. it is obvious that we on arb com think differently on these two issues, and the way to find the current consensus is by such a discussion and vote, and the community has the right to see it. DGG ( talk ) 05:25, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
-
- Yes, within the present committee i agree with your prediction that it would be a landslide for the opposition. I am not so sure about what the vote would be in the community .I take a long view of things, and hope to see what I say now to be standard doctrine in 2 or 3 years. That's the usual timescale by which I accomplish things here. Instigating sudden fundamental action is not my style; inducing gradual appreciation for the need for it very much is. DGG ( talk ) 09:25, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
Statement by Jytdog
I am late to this party; sorry for that.
Quick note about me: I work the COIN board a lot, acting on postings there and I (along with Smallbones, who started this request) was involved in discussions at the COI guideline about how to implement the amended ToU in our COI guideline. You can see the changes by which the ToU were added to the guideline in this set of diffs, which were worked out over about three weeks. The Talk page discussion, as you can imagine, was elaborate. We were not able to agree on whether the ToU is WP policy - there were strong views on both sides. What we did with the COI guideline, was basically bow to the ToU, recognizing it as a higher and binding authority on us. (Note: The ToU amendment allows communities under it to enact different approaches to paid editing, which we have not done and which I believe we as a community are not capable of doing; we are too divided. Without enacting our own approach, the ToU is binding on us.)
What has happened since then, is that in practice (the true source of policy), we bring the obligation to disclose paid editing to the attention of editors with an apparent COI all the time, and violations are acted on.
- The template we use for warning editors about minding COI explicitly cites the ToU - see Template:Uw-coi.
- Also, I have witnessed admins indeffing editors for violating the Terms of Use. For instance, Bilby did so, and the block was reviewed by PhilKnight and upheld. I know Doc James has been minding paid editing, I don't know whether he has actually blocked someone for violating it.
In my view, in practice the Terms of Use are being implemented as policy.
I request that Arbcom consider amending the statement under clarification to state something like:
- the WP-en community is obligated to follow and enforce the Terms of Use, which obligates paid editors to disclose their "employer, client, and affiliation" and to follow project policies and guidelines related to paid editing
OR
- undisclosed paid editing is against Wikipedia policy, via the operations of the WMF Terms of Use and the practice of the WP-en community.
Please do consider alternative motions before closing this. Thank you.Jytdog (talk) 22:37, 22 February 2015 (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 case request or provide additional information.
Wifione: Clerk notes
- This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).
Wifione: Arbitrator views and discussion
- No. Salvio Let's talk about it! 18:19, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
- I've been looking through Wikipedia talk:Conflict of interest/Archive 17 and Wikipedia talk:Conflict of interest/Archive 18 and it's pretty clear that the community can't agree on this. I also thought that someone was going to raise a new RfC. Until the community can agree on a policy, I don't see how or why we should be imposing one, which is what this request would do. Dougweller (talk) 18:22, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
- @Dougweller:, I don't think we should impose anything. We should, however, simply strike principle six by motion, and thus make no statement on the matter at all. As we decided the case, it was wholly irrelevant to anything; so we have no need to try and rewrite or copyedit it, simply striking it solves all the problems. Courcelles 19:22, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
- Oops, I was looking more at the arguments than the request. Striking it would seem ok. Salvio, are you objecting to that? Dougweller (talk) 21:52, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
- This is what I got:
6) While undisclosed paid editing is prohibited by site policies, there is not a current mandate from either the community or the Wikimedia Foundation for the Committee to enforce of this policy. Further, the arbitration policy prevents the Committee from creating new policy by fiat. This should not be interpreted as prohibiting the community from enforcing the site policies around undisclosed paid editing, or from creating a framework to allow the committee to do so. The Committee does have, however, a longstanding mandate to deal with activities often associated with undisclosed paid editing POV-pushing, misrepresentation of sources, and sometimes sockpuppetry—through the application of existing policy.
How does that sound? --Guerillero | My Talk 06:34, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
-
- The thing is, insert that into the Wifione case... and what does it add? We didn't pass any FoF's related to paid editing, nor base any remedies off of such accusations. This isn't the place to hammer down the Committee's position on various kinds of paid editing and spend two weeks going around in circles. We sidestep all of this by simply looking at the final decision, finding the part that doesn't belong in the document, and excising it. Courcelles 07:28, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
- @Salvio giuliano: et al. Are you actually asserting that the TOU aren't policy? If you are, then are you also going to throw the BLP, NFCC, NOR, Global ban, Global CU, Global OS, Privacy, Access to nonpublic data and Arbitration policies out the window as well? They were applied to the English Wikipedia by the WMF/Jimmy without a local community consensus. --Guerillero | My Talk 01:11, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
- I agree that the statement as written is not incorrect, the only provisions in the TOU or local policies relate to a subset of paid editing (i.e. undisclosed paid editing) not paid editing as a whole. I therefore see neither need nor benefit in amending the remedy as written. It is however true that this principle does not directly impact the outcome of this case - it was included to reference why we were not making any findings regarding the allegations of paid editing that were repeatedly made against Wifione. So, while I would not oppose any motion to strike it from the case, I don't see doing so as an especially productive use of the Committee's time. Thryduulf (talk) 13:44, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
- @Fluffernutter: Leaving aside whether it actually matters whether someone is being paid (I really believe it doesn't - if the are improving the encyclopaedia we want them; if they are not currently improving the encyclopaedia work with them until they either are or it becomes clear they cannot or will not), we are not tying anybody's hands with this - "paid editing" is not prohibited by any policy, the subset "undisclosed editing" is prohibited but is not mentioned in this principle. Thryduulf (talk) 19:18, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
- @Doc James: There is no policy about "paid advocacy", whether disclosed or otherwise, the terms of use talk only about undisclosed "paid editing" Thryduulf (talk) 13:24, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
- Generally, everyone needs to be aware that terms of use also prohibit "violating the privacy of others", including "Soliciting personally identifiable information for purposes of [..] violation of privacy", "Engaging in harassment, threats, [or] stalking...". Any attempt to discover whether someone is or is not an undisclosed paid editor must be careful not to breach these clauses of the terms of use. Thryduulf (talk) 13:24, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
- I can't add much to what I said at discussion at the case page (and am unsure why this request is here, does it really need said again?) We can't actually tell if someone is editing for pay unless they disclose it voluntarily, and if they disclose it voluntarily, it's not against the TOU. Checkuser doesn't let one peek into a person's bank account. So, at the end of the day, we can handle inappropriate editing (POV pushing, misuse of references, etc.), regardless of motive, but I don't see how we're supposed to figure out why someone was behaving that way. Seraphimblade Talk to me 17:57, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
- I would support striking this principle. The current wording isn't correct, but the principle itself is also not so necessary to the case so as to make me feel like we need to spend time crafting better wording. GorillaWarfare (talk) 20:39, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
- @Salvio giuliano: If there's an issue with a principle (which I think there is, here—although I and others interpreted this to mean that there is not local policy about paid editing, the ToU is policy, and the principle currently suggests otherwise), we should fix it regardless of timing. GorillaWarfare (talk) 21:08, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
- I disagree on the merits and I disagree on procedure. Arbitration cases – coming, as they often do, after years of heated disputes and, as they say, drama – need to put an end to the controversy they deal with. If we start tinkering with cases immediately after they close, that goal is negated. The time to raise issues concerning a proposed decision is before it is passed. Not after. Salvio Let's talk about it! 21:25, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
- We regularly tinker with cases after they close; that's the whole point of amendment requests. We've never spoken of any time restrictions around when amendment requests can be filed, and I disagree that we need some arbitrary time period before amending a case. GorillaWarfare (talk) 15:46, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
- I disagree on the merits and I disagree on procedure. Arbitration cases – coming, as they often do, after years of heated disputes and, as they say, drama – need to put an end to the controversy they deal with. If we start tinkering with cases immediately after they close, that goal is negated. The time to raise issues concerning a proposed decision is before it is passed. Not after. Salvio Let's talk about it! 21:25, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
- @Salvio giuliano: If there's an issue with a principle (which I think there is, here—although I and others interpreted this to mean that there is not local policy about paid editing, the ToU is policy, and the principle currently suggests otherwise), we should fix it regardless of timing. GorillaWarfare (talk) 21:08, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
- Question to my fellow Arbitrators: Why, when we passed this at 12-0 is it now completely incorrect and irrelevant? Is it because it's now in the spotlight? Why not fix the issue instead of dumping it to bring it up again in the future? (I already understand Courcelles' objection and I've replied to it above) -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 22:20, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
-
- @DeltaQuad: I don't give a damn about the spotlight, but we goofed here, plain and simple. It happens, we need to fix it and move on. We can either fix it by striking the principle (we don't have to mention everything from evidence in a decision), or by making the exact change coldacid proposed above. But merely adding the word "disclosed" would make even less sense in the context of the case than striking it, as absolutely no one accused Wifione of being a disclosed paid editor. But at least that would make the principle into a statement that is actually true. Courcelles 23:58, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
In a separate point, how did this become site policy? We are looking at a two man change in Nov 2009, since when do two editors determine what is and isn't English Wikipedia policy? If it's the WMF's, then it should say it's WMF policy. If it's a global one, per the global RfC, then it should say global.Pointless argument, read down -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 22:20, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
- @Alanscottwalker: Yes, I agree to them, in an legal agreement with the Wikimedia Foundation, not the English Wikipedia Community. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 22:25, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
- @Alanscottwalker: We'll have to agree to disagree then I'm afraid. The first line of the overview in the ToU states "These Terms of Use tell you about our public services at the Wikimedia Foundation, our relationship to you as a user, and the rights and responsibilities that guide us both." It doesn't mention the community. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 23:02, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
- @Alanscottwalker, Fluffernutter: I see that my point is actually a pointless argument. My objection to this being site policy is the fact that the community can't come to an agreement about it. I feel (and yes, feel, so in legal/policy terms it has no application) that there should have been a provision indicating that a consensus, instead of a policy would be the determining guide. Because this is policy set down by the WMF, which yes we agree to by obligation of using this site, the English Wikipedia did not make it's own consensus like in the creation of normal ENWP policy. So while it is site policy, I feel there is a community "will", if you may, to not go with it, because the consensus (for or against) does not yet exist. But again, none of it matters in the grand scheme of things, because were looking at this as letter of the law (or policy, if that fancies you). I do understand that this is site policy, whether I regretfully say yes with every edit or happily say yes with every edit. Are we still disagreeing on the facts at this point? -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 00:25, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
- @Alanscottwalker: I'm saying, yes, this is site policy, and I've stricken my above paragraph. My comments above don't really matter in the grand scheme of this ARCA/Motion, so you can just ignore them, or if you really want we can continue on my talk. Was there anything besides whether or not this is site policy we were disagreeing on? I want to make sure i'm not skipping over anything. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 00:45, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
- @Alanscottwalker: Over-broad, ok, I can see where that comment comes from the specific wording of whether it's policy or not. As for unneeded, I disagree, see my comments with Courcelles above. And I'm not saying this is a bad place to have talk about the motion. I said it was a bad place for me to place my objection to the way the ToU was written. I've stricken the relevant part from my oppose below. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 22:45, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
- @Alanscottwalker: I'm saying, yes, this is site policy, and I've stricken my above paragraph. My comments above don't really matter in the grand scheme of this ARCA/Motion, so you can just ignore them, or if you really want we can continue on my talk. Was there anything besides whether or not this is site policy we were disagreeing on? I want to make sure i'm not skipping over anything. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 00:45, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
- @Alanscottwalker, Fluffernutter: I see that my point is actually a pointless argument. My objection to this being site policy is the fact that the community can't come to an agreement about it. I feel (and yes, feel, so in legal/policy terms it has no application) that there should have been a provision indicating that a consensus, instead of a policy would be the determining guide. Because this is policy set down by the WMF, which yes we agree to by obligation of using this site, the English Wikipedia did not make it's own consensus like in the creation of normal ENWP policy. So while it is site policy, I feel there is a community "will", if you may, to not go with it, because the consensus (for or against) does not yet exist. But again, none of it matters in the grand scheme of things, because were looking at this as letter of the law (or policy, if that fancies you). I do understand that this is site policy, whether I regretfully say yes with every edit or happily say yes with every edit. Are we still disagreeing on the facts at this point? -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 00:25, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
- @Alanscottwalker: We'll have to agree to disagree then I'm afraid. The first line of the overview in the ToU states "These Terms of Use tell you about our public services at the Wikimedia Foundation, our relationship to you as a user, and the rights and responsibilities that guide us both." It doesn't mention the community. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 23:02, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
- Even if I accept that the TOU is policy, the TOU also explicitly prohibits invasion of privacy. I have yet to see an allegation of paid editing that did not include an invasion of privacy in some form or another. Furthermore, there are no enforcement provisions. The idea that it therefore falls to ArbCom to fashion an enforcement process out of whole cloth is bizarre.
But, if there is to be a process, it needs to be constructed with the fully informed consent of the community and must not sneaked in like via the back door. In essence, the community needs to agree to each aspect of the following question:
"Do you consent to ArbCom, on the strength of an anonymous email denouncing you, launching a secret and amateur investigation into your private life - to pry into your location, ryour job title and your employer - then to discuss that investigation at length with others on secret mailing lists, and the perhaps site-ban you with no means of appeal?"
Finally, I cannot begin to understand why people are so very keen for ArbCom to create a secret Star Chamber process to tackle paid editing, and then act as judge, jury and executioner when perfectly good and highly transparent processes are already available to deal with POV-pushing, misrepresentation of sources, battlefield conduct and so forth. Roger Davies talk 15:15, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
- Alanscottwalker. The TOU is the legal agreement between the WMF and each individual editor. Think of it as n x individual "contracts". [The http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Policies WMF policy page] does not list it as a policy. Roger Davies talk 09:11, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
- Alanscottwaker. Whatever the truth of that, it's not ArbCom's job to declare policy. In fact, we are specifically prohibited by ArbPol (itself ratified with 87% support) from doing so. But much more to the point, this principle refers to the Wifione case and, also per ArbPol, sets no precedent. In the context of the case, the allegations of paid editing refer to articles which the editor stopped editing in 2013, at least six months before the 16 June 2014 TOU amendment concerning paid editing came into effect. Simply put, the TOU stuff is irrelevant. Roger Davies talk 13:04, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
- It is relevant to the case, in that it guided our decision to not direct address the undisclosed paid editing concerns. It's not necessarily necessary. There is still no community policy for enforcement of this aspect of the ToU. A clarification of the above might be prudent, I'm not sure that the principle was as clear as we would have liked. If arbcom decisions set binding precedent, I'd find this necessary to clarify/address. But as they do not, and it does deal with our decision making on the case, I'm not very bothered by it. In terms of the ToU/policy argument, the terms of use are policy. However in terms of any mandate for enforcement, despite a lot of handwaving there isn't any consensus (either formal or de facto) for how/if arbcom should address them. I also lie in the camp that we should not. NativeForeigner Talk 10:49, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
- Alanscottwalker I think we'll need to deal with it when we get to it, but I do think that this is a statement that was crafted specifically to this case, in the context of this case. If we deal with a undisclosed paid advocacy case (or even a case request on the topic) we could craft a position more specifically oriented. In terms of the FergusM incident, that was the community acting through consensus, there were also issues of COI editing at play, and given all factors, action was taken. Here we were saying "we're not considering paid editing, because that is the thing we are least comfortable dealing with/enforcing, and our conclusion would be the same whether or not there really was paid editing. NativeForeigner Talk 19:40, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
- @DGG: I plainly oppose that and would be more than happy to go on the record as such, though I see no such need to play politics (based upon statements here, it would likely be a landslide towards the opposition, as you know.) I find it exceedingly unlikely the community will give us jurisdiction over paid editing, when there was clamoring about the off wiki consequences of us being in charge of child protection! If they do, I have major concerns, but I'll address them if it comes to that. I know you have strong feelings on paid editing, my thoughts in terms of why it is problematic are similar, but to as a committee to have explicit jurisdiction over such matters is more than concerning for me. NativeForeigner Talk 09:12, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
- @Alanscottwalker: Two things with very real world consequences that can deal with off wiki information and private information. Hence both have substantial ramifications, and are the two actions where arbcom would step off-wiki the most. Potentially we could address it with on-wiki evidence only, but thus far that would seem to be atypical of most paid editing accusations. NativeForeigner Talk 12:32, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
- @Alanscottwalker: I wish I could agree that it wouldn't cause problems. Whether or not we take the corrective action we're analyzing input, which if not sent to the committee, would absolutely be considered doxing, then acting on it. We lose the ability to communicate any subtleties, mitigating factors, circumstances, which we would analyze if we blocked. But if we block, we're taking full responsibility and analyzing private evidence, for which the community will ahve no view, when enforcing the terms of use. And per Roger Davies above, we are not some sort of court of paid editing. Although the committee was never set up to do a substantial amount of what it does today (WP:BASC etc), it was certainly not set up to be a panel of members for enforcement of a legal document, in private, with no due process, while somewhat encouraging the breaking of the firmly established site policy that doxing is forbidden. I'm quite tired, hopefully this was somewhat coherent. If this issue sticks around (I am hopeful we can adequately resolve this specific issue in a reasonable amount of time) I may write at length about my feelings on the matter. I will say, when I joined the committee last year after dealing with the WikiPR/morning277 stuff, I was frustrated with the handling of it. I wanted the committee to take a more defined role in paid editing. But soon after joining arbcom (even in light of the RfC on meta about paid editing), I realized that my hopes that arbcom could simply resolve the paid editing issue were wildly optimistic, and ignored that arbcom is comprised of 15 volunteers, not 15 attorneys with the ability to serve warrants. (No magic 8 ball either) In my eyes, at this time, without a clear foundation policy, the best we can do to balance the privacy of users, established site policy, and the global ToU, is to act in cases of egregious COI issues, such as Wifione, independently of any paid editing (as we did, and the above Principle points towards). This brings up a good question: how did this COI/(possible!?!) paid editing last for so long without being dealt with. That's a question that the community should seek to answer, in addition to the paid editing one. The fact that User:Vejvančický as well as the (indef blocked) user User:Peter Damian were the ones that truly pushed the case through (organizing off-site) does raise solid questions about the quality of our in-house handling of such issues. I will posit that how we deal with article quality/COI concerns is much more important in the short and long term than how we deal with cases of undisclosed paid editing: presumably undisclosed paid editing leads to the first issue, but many other problems do as well. As far as I am concerned until we recieve clarification from the foundation on how the ToU should be enforced, the focus should be on fixing issues of COI and content, (and, if there is momentum to do so) establishing a local consensus on paid editing. (and how it relates to other policies, such as WP:OUTING.) I understand the tendency to throw this at Arbcom and say "Arbcom deals with private things, and policy, they should fix the undisclosed paid editing thing!" But we are (in my opinion) ill-suited to do so, and the community should work to establish local consensus on the issue to either give or explicitly remove the mandate from arbcom (my feelings on what I think it should do are clear). It might also be reasonable for users to ask the foundation for their feelings on enforcement. When I say that we don't have a mandate, it's not for a lack of wanting to solve the issue. It's because I really do believe arbcom is not the right body of people people to solve this issue. As such the community hasn't formed a consensus as to how these issues should be handled (at all, let alone by arbcom), I maintain there is no mandate that we act on paid editing. Sure, send us cases of coi the community cannot solve, but I do not think that paid editing is something for which a user should be explicitly brought before arbcom for and sanctioned for. Damaging content with COI? Yes. But undisclosed paid editing on its own should not be. This isn't a feel-good solution, where the community can wipe its hands and say "we solved the paid editing problem" As I see it, at the present, with ambiguous local policy, and a global policy whose enforcement raises the "inquisition-like" concerns above, the best we can do is mitigate issues of undisclosed paid editing with good quality vetting of articles for COI/POV issues. NativeForeigner Talk 13:26, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
- @Alanscottwalker: Indeed, it is very much a work in progress, and it needs to be viewed as such. I think this will take some time, effort, and serious community thought, and won't be solved by attributing it to arbcom. Hopefully through this process of (general) improvement, these issues will be ironed out. But sometimes it takes them being highlighted for the community to make any real progress on them. Thanks for the thoughts. I really hope the community can work a reasonable policy out, although this is a difficult issue, and it may take quite some time. If there is any general guidance I would give, it is that the community should work out processes which are implementable, not ones which look good from a PR perspective. NativeForeigner Talk 13:41, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
Motion (Paid editing principle in Wifione case stricken)
- For this motion there are 12 active arbitrators, not counting 1 who is inactive and 2 who have abstained or recused, so 7 support or oppose votes are a majority.
- Support
-
- GorillaWarfare (talk) 20:49, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
- Utterly and completely irrelevant to the case as decided. Also, at best, a half-true statement. Courcelles 21:21, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
- I am honestly shocked that so many of my colleagues do not think that the TOU are policy. I would like to point them to the list of policies that I outlined (above) that they enforce yet weren't created by EN Wikipedia. While my personal choice would be my proposed wording, I am in the minority and this is the next best thing. (I agree with Roger that sending Arbcom out on a paid editing exposition will end somewhere between The Big Muddy and a Star Chamber. I hope the community does not tempt fate and add this to our long list of responsibilities.) --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 23:33, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
- Guerillero I see where you're coming from on proposed wording but the principle doesn't mention the TOU at all, it only talks about site policies, ie the policies of the English Wikipedia. Our own local policies refer to "site" meaning the English Wikipedia, and the TOU refers to individual wikis as "sites or Projects" so there's no conflict there. If we really wanted to labour the point I suppose we could add the word "local" before "site policies" but given that "site" has exactly the same meaning in the principle, the TOU and in our site policies, I really don't think it's necessary. And, on reflection, do you? Roger Davies talk 01:05, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
- Seems unnecessary to the case as a whole. While I'm firmly in the TOU=policy camp, I think the wording of the principle is actually legit (undisclosed paid editing is forbidden, paid editing is not), but it's clearly confusing and isn't important to the outcome of the case. Yunshui 雲水 15:25, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
- Oppose
-
- The principle is fine as is. Also, I do not really appreciate the fact that we are trying to amend a case so soon after it was closed; even assuming for the sake of the argument that the principle was incorrect, there was plenty of time to raise the issue before we finalised the close. Salvio Let's talk about it! 20:59, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
- I'm not for sweeping it under the rug and waiting for it to come up again.
As several people talked about on the talkpage, we need to amend this, not strike it. The only thing I really ever viewed as an issue was the wording that said the ToU was not policy,and i'm still not 100% convinced that is right either. This needs time for discussion here. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 21:12, 16 February 2015 (UTC) - I was inactive on the case, so coming to it with fresh eyes, for whatever that's worth: I see absolutely nothing wrong with the principle, and I would dismiss this request. AGK [•] 11:18, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
- Even if we accept the rather tenuous "TOU is actually policy" argument, that really gives no idea as to what would be done here. If we're going to prohibit some types of paid editing, we need to hash out what is and is not acceptable in attempting to demonstrate someone is engaging in it, what exactly is prohibited (I presume we wouldn't prohibit a biology professor from updating taxonomies, for example), and how to balance the very real tension between this and the outing concerns that would inevitably pop up. That is, I think, a discussion that needs to happen, but it is something that needs to gain community consensus, not be imposed by us in a haphazard and ad hoc fashion as various things come to us. This is a perfect example of why ArbCom does not and should not make policy. Right now, there is no community mandate regarding paid editing, so the statement is accurate. That doesn't mean the community can't or shouldn't come up with policies around the issue, just that, to date, it hasn't happened. Seraphimblade Talk to me 12:14, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
- After consideration I think the principle should not be struck. If anyone wants to propose a tweak, ok, we could consider it. I'll also state that I am definitely against ArbCom doing it's own sleuthing to uncover undisclosed paid editors. Dougweller (talk) 10:40, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
- If we are going to tweak it, we should consider User:Coldacid's suggested version. Dougweller (talk) 12:10, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
- Abstain
Motions
Requests for enforcement
Astynax
This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.
Requests may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs (not counting required information), except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Request concerning Astynax
- User who is submitting this request for enforcement
- Nwlaw63 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · edit filter log · block user · block log) 17:16, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
- User against whom enforcement is requested
- Astynax (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · edit filter log · block user · block log)
Search DS alerts: in user talk history • in system log
- Sanction or remedy to be enforced
Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Landmark_Worldwide#Discretionary_sanctions_.28January_2015.29 : Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Landmark_Worldwide#Parties_reminded : "2) Parties to the case are reminded to base their arguments in reliable, independent sources and to discuss changes rather than revert on sight."
- Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it
- 29 January 2015 Massive controversial edit (more than doubled the size of the existing article) without any consensus. Besides having numerous BLP and POV issues (slanted defamatory allegations against a living person with sourcing issues), the edit discussed matters which predated the existence of the article topic by many years, and there was again, absolutely no consensus for including it.
- 29 January 2015 Reverting without addressing issues raised, disregarding bold/discuss/revert
- 30 January 2015 Reverting without addressing issues raised, disregarding bold/discuss revert, then reverting again [57]
- 30 January 2015 Argumentative and tendentious, again disregarding bold/discuss/revert
- 12 February 2015 Mass revert of mutiple edits to reinstate contentious version of 30 January
- If discretionary sanctions are requested, supply evidence that the user is aware of them (see WP:AC/DS#Awareness and alerts)
- Mentioned by name in the Arbitration Committee's Final Decision linked to above.
- Alerted about discretionary sanctions in the area of conflict in the last twelve months, see the system log linked to above.
- Gave an alert about discretionary sanctions in the area of conflict in the last twelve months, on 28 January 2015
- Additional comments by editor filing complaint
Astynax ignores consensus on talk pages and RfCs when it does not fit their agenda, and has ignored attempts to resolve the content dispute through normal dispute resolution procedures. Rather than using these procedures, they attempt to have other editors sanctioned with whom they disagree. Ignoring and belittling the views of other editors and ignoring bold/revert/discuss is a consistent pattern over more than a year and a half, and has continued unabated even after the Arbitration case. A quick review of the background is as follows:
- In September 2013, Astynax initiated a RfC regarding the inclusion of Landmark in the List of new religious movements which closed with a consensus that it should not be included [58]. They ignored this and re-instated Landmark's entry, for which they were warned [59]. They then turned their attention to the the Landmark article itself and persistently inserted similar claims there [60] [61].
- In August 2014 Astynax returned and re-inserted the same material [62] [63], proceeding to edit-war over the next few weeks to preserve their version.
- On 20th September 2014, Astynax filed the Request for Arbitration [64], which ultimately resulted in discretionary sanctions being applied to the Landmark article.
- Astynax did not respond to this recent Request for Mediation [65], but instead filed a case at COI against editors who disagreed with them [66]. It should be noted that no action was taken against the two editors here, DaveApter and Alex Jackl. (DA's alleged COI was already raised at the Landmark Arbitration case and not found to be justified).
- Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested
Discussion concerning Astynax
Statements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Administrators may remove or shorten noncompliant statements. Disruptive contributions may result in blocks.
Statement by Astynax
Apart from rearguing points already discussed in Arbcom's Landmark case, the only recent activity Nwlaw63 is offering is the restoration of the article from a revert that essentially wiped out over 6 months of referenced work by multiple editors. The contention that consensus existed to return the article to the state that existed in July 2014[67] is false. The Arbcom case reminded all parties to base any edits in sources.[68] Blanking referenced material on WP:OR grounds or personal PoV is as much a violation as would be insisting on adding material not based in references. • Astynax talk 19:33, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
Statement by Tgeairn
While Harry is one of my favourite whisky drinking admins, and I generally agree with him, I submit that there is a significant conduct issue here.
Following the Arbitration case and subsequent authorisation of Discretionary Sanctions, Astynax has refused to edit collaboratively in this domain of articles. They have refused to participate in mediation; the talk page and archives have numerous examples of threads begun, only to stall out with Astynax's refusal to engage in discussion; and when requests for moves and mergers have not gone in the way they supported, they have then just forced the edits into the article anyway. There appears to be a significant misunderstanding of WP:BRD(edit summary), as well as WP:ONUS(such as here). When other editors have argued that material is undue or has other issues, Astynax continues to re-insert the material without any consensus.
The behaviour here violates at least four of the five principles that Arbcom passed in association with this case and subsequent authorisation of DS, and flies squarely in the face of remedy #2 ("...discuss changes rather than revert on sight."). Given that Astynax has already demonstrated a willingness to restore material against consensus repeatedly over long periods of time, there seems to be little evidence that the article will improve without the application of sanctions. --Tgeairn (talk) 00:50, 20 February 2015 (UTC) Tgeairn (talk) 05:17, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
Statement by User:Nagle
This matter was brought up at WP:COIN, at WP:COIN#Landmark_Worldwide, where I regularly try to help with COI problems. My comment there was "That article has been a long-term headache and a subject of ArbComm sanctions. Can this problem be turned over to ArbComm enforcement? I doubt we can resolve this at WP:COIN. This probably needs the big hammers available at AN/I. John Nagle 20:23, 13 February 2015 (UTC) ... Buck passed to Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive873#Landmark Worldwide heating up, again. Take this over there, please. Thanks. John Nagle 20:42, 13 February 2015 (UTC)" I just got a request on my talk page at User talk:Nagle#Landmark now at AE to do something about this. Since it's at AE, it's AE's problem now. I have no position on this. You guys sort this out. John Nagle (talk) 07:22, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
Statement by DaveApter
(I've reinstated this archived section, as it still seems unresolved) There really does need to be some sort of shift here. As one of the Arbitrators remarked during discussion of the case "The aim of Arbitration is to break the back of the dispute", but here there seems to be no sign of any such breakage. The heart of the matter is a content dispute, but we are completely snookered because some parties resolutely refuse to engage with any of the normal dispute resolution processes.
Astynax's behaviour since the case has been exactly the same as it was before:
- Responding to discussion on the talk page by accusations of original research or "ignoring sources" rather than engaging with the points that are raised.
- Pressing ahead regardless with their preferred version, even when a clear consensus had emerged against it. For example, there had been a proposal on the talk page to merge the Landmark article with the est and WEA, which was closed by Drmies as 'no consensus'. Yet the bloated "Background" section added by Astynax [69] effectively added material relating to events years before the formation of this corporation that would have been appropriate to such a merge.
- Massive block reverts to re-establish his preferred version (This edit [70] eliminated seven specific changes that had been made - is is plausible that there was no merit in any of them?)
- Point-blank refusal to join with any attempts to resolve the difference of opinion through normal channels: this Request for Mediation [71] failed because neither Astynax nor any of the other editors who share his viewpoint would participate in it.
- Abuse of Wikipedia's disciplinary processes to intimidate editors who do not agree with his perspective. The post at WP:COIN is a case in point: Astynax knew full well that the question of my alleged COI had been aired at the Arbitration case (indeed I actually asked for it to be myself).
- For that matter, their original Request for Arbitration was arguably a frivolous application, insofar as none of the three parties that he named were found to have committed breaches of policies. DaveApter (talk) 17:33, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
Statement by (username)
Result concerning Astynax
- This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the sections above.
- There seems to have been a lot of back and forth on the article lately. I'm not seeing a major problem with Asyntax's conduct; they could be more communicative, but they don't seem to be being unreasonable given the circumstances. If I'm inclined towards any action, it's a lengthy spell (maybe a month) of full protection on the article to calm things down and force people to discuss things on the talk page. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:00, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
Spudst3r
This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.
Requests may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs (not counting required information), except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Request concerning Spudst3r
- User who is submitting this request for enforcement
- Sonicyouth86 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · edit filter log · block user · block log) 15:18, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
- User against whom enforcement is requested
- Spudst3r (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · edit filter log · block user · block log)
Search DS alerts: in user talk history • in system log
- Sanction or remedy to be enforced
- Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/GamerGate#Discretionary sanctions: standard dscretionary sanctions authorized for all edits about and all pages related to any gender-related dispute or controversy
- Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it
These diffs predate the alert; they can be used to establish a pattern, but the final decision will be based on post-alert edits. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:04, 19 February 2015 (UTC) |
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- February 15: revert, restores original research (source doesn't discuss the MRM)
- February 15: revert, restores original research again
- February 15 and again: tendentious OTHERSTUFF arguments
- February 15: baseless accusations ("small cadre of editors fighting against any sources content that portrays the "men's rights movement" in innocuous language")
- February 15: synthesis, combined two sources to suggest that, since the author is considered a "men's rights leader" (first source), he wrote about the MRM in his book (second source) which he didn't
- February 17: partial misquote of source ("believe female privilege and male degradation is system within society"), again original research (adds statement from a source that doesn't mention the MRM)
- February 17: partial revert, restores misquote, adds synthesis by combining two sentences that aren't combined that way in the source
- February 19: describes majority academic position as the opinion of "some feminist scholars" although the statement is sourced to academics (i.e., Maddison, Flood, Messner, Menzies, Dunphy, Mills, interview with Kimmel, Williams and two additional reliable sources.
- February 19: again original research, sources the statement conservative men's rights activists consider the MRM to be a backlash or countermovement to feminism with a quote that doesn't mention men's rights activists or the men's rights movement
- February 19: changes the lead without any prior discussion; again original research: Advocates describe the movement as bringing attention to... and One prominent leader within the movement described men's rights..." sourced to a book that doesn't discuss the MRM, its activists, or anything about the MRM; removed the source which contained nine academic citations for the statement that the MRM is considered a backlash
- If discretionary sanctions are requested, supply evidence that the user is aware of them (see WP:AC/DS#Awareness and alerts)
Alert about discretionary sanctions in the men's rights topic area in the last twelve months, on February 13, 2015
- Additional comments by editor filing complaint
Spudst3r is a long dormant SPA; two of his three edits in 2014 were to Masculism and Men's rights movement and the vast majority of his edits in 2015 have been to the same topic area. His sudden return in 2015 to the MRM article coincides with several off-site calls for meatpuppets (e.g., [72]) in this topic area.
In addition to the problem that he misleadingly summarizes sources, he reverts to his preferred version without waiting for the discussion to conclude. He either doesn't understand the original research and synthesis policies or he prefers to ignore them. In either case, the editor should be topic banned until he can demonstrate his ability to follow our content policies in the men's rights topic area.
His talk page edits are disruptive and circular, mostly consisting of arguments that the MRM page and women's rights movement page must be treated equally or repetitions of (as many as 13) guidelines and principles per comment. --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 15:18, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
@Thryduulf: Disputes and controversies involving the men's rights movement could be covered if they are gender related, e.g. a controversy about an MRM figure's allegations of bias against men would be within scope, but controversy about that figure's allegations of bias against Christians would not. The men's rights movement is a strand of the men's movement that's based on the idea that men are discriminated and oppressed. All secondary sources about the movement discuss men's rights activists' belief that men are discriminated and oppressed and all primary sources from within the movement argue that men are discriminated and oppressed relative to women. All disputes and controversies involving the MRM are inherently gender related. For example, one of the most favorite primary sources used by Spudst3r is a book (The Myth of Male Power) written by activist Warren Farrell who argues that male privilege is a myth and that men are the oppressed and disposable sex, and that secretaries oppress their male bosses with their "miniskirt power", and other stuff like that that's all clearly gender related. Btw, Farrell never actually mentions the MRM or its activists, yet Spudst3r attributes statements about the MRM and its activists to that book. The men's rights movement page is clearly a gender related page, everything mentioned on the MRM page is gender related. --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 15:53, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
- Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested
Discussion concerning Spudst3r
Statements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Administrators may remove or shorten noncompliant statements. Disruptive contributions may result in blocks.
Statement by Spudst3r
Opening Remarks
I hope that this arbitration is not administrated by editors who have a POV interest in gender-related subjects, since I believe I am being dogpiled by editors with a stake in those matters right now. I don't say that to cast aspersions: anyone can look at the history of the men's rights movement article and see a long history of nonstop reverting.
While I am making my best efforts here to assume good faith, it's hard not to think that my activity on the men's rights movement page is seen as a threat by those who are trying to exert, intentionally or unintentionally, ideological ownership over the men's rights movement page. Proof of this? First, the men's rights movement article is currently under a Neutrality notice dispute right now Second, almost immediately after I started making edits to the men's rights movement page, I was accused of being a sockpuppet as a way to further limit my participation: I was thoroughly investigated and eventually exonerated only after an IP lookup and diff commits proved it would be near impossible for the allegations to have been true. Third, when the other user in this matter spoke up about another user spreading false sockpuppet accusations, the entire process was turned around into a vote on topic banning him. That's what I call a chilling effect.
Finally, I want to say that I think accusations of tendentious editing, sockpupetry, and meatpuppetry reflect a seriously unhealthy attitude towards contributing to Wikipedia. New editors who make bold but good faith changes are now being quickly accused of all sorts of things - pick a WP:, any WP: -- to scare them away from participating. It bites newcomers, demonstrates Badfaith and does not promote civility.
A Few General comments:
- Being a SPA is not an offence. (Not that I think I am a SPA.)
- Disagreement over how to structure an article is not grounds for disciplinary sanction. Please judge me by the content of my edits and comments, not my opinions.
- I strongly dispute that I have been malicious, tendentious, acting in bad faith or against Wikipedia's standards of conduct.
- Contributions do not have be perfect.
- WP:OTHERSTUFF is not official Wikipedia policy.
- Disagreement =! tendentious. Tendentious ccusations need to be backed with why my edit or comment is tendentious. Simply stating it is not enough.
- It is not against Wikipedia policy to be active. Am I am interested in the men's rights movement article? Yes. Have made a lot of activity over a very short period of time. Yes. Am I inconvenient for those who would like ownership of the men's rights movement article? Yes. Is it against the rules to be active? No.
- I am POV in so much as I believe the current men's rights movement page is POV. The page currently gives undue weight to a collection of sources and lacks balance due to pervasive insertions of expressions of doubt. I am not alone in thinking this:
Background diffs collapsed for readability. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:04, 19 February 2015 (UTC) |
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Current talk page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 |
- Accusations of original research involve an extended dispute over the validity of sources for this matter. The tl;dr of the debate is that: 1.Currently a collection of scholarly articles are describing the movement in one way, while very prominent and influential sources established by sources to represent the movement describe it another. Most of my edits attempt to simply add an encyclopedic description of prominent views that people within the movement have into the article. Giving 100% weight entirely to only scholarly, theoretical analysis while ignoring sources that clearly give weight to other views, is to me, the definition of POV pushing. 2. There is a dispute over what's considered a valid source -- and this is permitting the current article to suppress new citations clearly related to this article if they do not directly speak about the men's rights movement from an abstract perspective. In my view it is the combination of these two tensions that is in need of arbitration more than anything else.
- I'll probably get eaten alive for saying this, but despite posturings of NPOV, there is an element of truth to the idea that articles become neutral from POV pressures. I think an objective observer can look at this situation and see an ideological interest from editors on both sides of this dispute. However, I do not believe my edits push POV, engage in original research, or improperly engage in Synthesis. I don't even self identify as MRA, I have just studied the subject long enough to recognize this article's biases.
- To explain my spike of new activity: I picked up Wikipedia editing activity last month due to having more free time now. Before the men's rights movement article, I started my editing back up by making contributions to the securitization (international relations) and ritual articles. This article is not what brought me back, though I admit it's been on my to-do list since last year.
Response to Specific Accusations
In light of Cailli (talk · contribs)'s comment, I've ignored examples before Feb. 15. Please instruct me if that interpretation is incorrect. Here we go:
Example 1 & 2:
- I made two reverts to preserve the contributions of a different editor. I justified both reverts in my comments and cited Wikipedia policy. During my 2nd revert I even noted "See Talk.", and immediately opened a talk section to seek consensus." My two reverts are not even close to a violation of 3RR. In fact, if we removed one of them, my reverts would actually be an archetypical example of Bold, Revert, Discuss.
Example 3 regarding my "tendentious" comments:
- WP:OTHERSTUFF is not official Wikipedia policy. But let's say it was official: The OTHERSTUFF article itself even notes that the rationale "may be valid in some contexts but not in others". The rationale I made in the talk page was that the women's rights movement and men's rights movement should strive for similar tone and structure, because they are so clearly related in character as articles and as concepts. I still believe that is a valid point that I back up with genuine examples.
Example 4:
- Baseless accusations? I made those comments in the appropriate notice board in response to BrantNewland (talk · contribs)'s remarks. I backed those comments up with evidence in that thread, pointing out how "consensus-seeking attempts to make the tone more neutral are getting reverted over and again by the same individuals."
Example 5:
- Sonicyouth is convinced these edits are inappropriate, but I have devoted considerable time discussing with Sonicyouth why Warren Farrell should be sourced here -- my reasons justifying them are in the talk page there. In fact, other editors who self-evidently hold a different POV on this article from mine, such as EvergreenFir, also saw justification to including Warren Farrell citations when revising my edit. To seek consensus since making the original contribution I even improved my edits further in response to Sonicyouth86 disagreement with the use of "complement". In return for all of this? I get attacked for making "reverts before discussion has ended" and brought to arbitration...
Example 6 partial misquote of source ("believe female privilege and male degradation is system within society" and Example 7: restores misquote
- Am I seriously getting accused of misquoting a line that was already present before I edited this section?! I made a typo where I accidently wrote "system" instead of "systemic" in a quote, which I immediately fixed after I noticing. With all due respect to Sonicyouth, I think it's fair to characterize the first part of this accusation as spurious. In regards to the addition of Warren Farrell quotes? I added them to provide detail of why a male's rights advocate would deny male privilege from their perspective as they see it. I added them boldly to provide detail on why the MRM denies male privilege. (which it currently did explain why). (Afterall... isn't it curious that in a section about female privilege, nothing at all exists to actually discuss that concept?)
Example 6 / 7: Sonicyouth writes: "adds statement from a source that doesn't mention the MRM"
- Not true. I am accurately summarizing Clatterbaugh here in a section called "The Men's Rights Perspective" on Page 11. Here's part of the quote "This perspective concurs with the profeminist view that masculinity is damaging to men but with the gigantic difference of the belief that the principal harm in this role is directed against men rather than women." From this existing source in this section I wrote: "In contrast to feminist approaches to Masculinity, men's rights advocates see masculinity as primarily damaging to men more than women," I'll let you be the judge of whether that's actual WP:SYNTHESIS, or a simple WP:GOODFAITH summary citation of a reference. Either way, it's worth noting also how I also in this edit removed the Warren Farrell attributions as a consensus seeking measure. I fail to see how I've engaged in bad behaviour here.
Example 8 & 9 which Sonicyouth is literally now bringing to this arbitration after making zero attempts to discuss them in the talk page:
- I made these edits based on the discussion here on the movement's strands and this discussion putting to doubt that the "backlash" opinion is so definitive as to be valid as a factual assertion. So to fix this, I went about attributing POV as best I could. First: Since scholarly disagreement exists, I first clarified the statment as coming from "Some feminist scholars ..." since Lingard, Douglas, Clatterbaugh, and Coston/Kimmel all provide more nuance than calling the movement a backlash. In this respect I admit may have been a little too general with the description of feminist scholars in my attribution however, since there sociological scholars also appear. Sonicyouth brings up a valid point there, and I agree referring to "Some scholars" may be more appropriate. Either way, these concerns concerns have not been up anywhere else except in this arbitration talk page.
- Second, Sonicyouth accuses that I: sources the statement conservative men's rights activists consider the MRM to be a backlash or countermovement to feminism with a quote that doesn't mention men's rights activists or the men's rights movement No, the source citation is very clearly speaking about the men's rights movement. I'll let you be the judge of what Lingard and Douglas wrote on pg. 36 as it also informs the previous citation above: "While conservative elements of the men’s rights position overtly describe themselves as a ‘backlash’ to feminism, their more liberal counterpart’s self-proclaimed commitment to ‘the true equality of both sexes and to the liberation of both sexes from their traditional roles’ (Clatterbaugh 1997: 89) make it problematic to describe the men’s rights position in general as nothing more than a backlash against feminism.". Sounds like an accurate source citation to me.
Example 10: This is the first time concerns with these edits have been raised by Sonicyouth: changes the lead without any prior discussion; again original research ... sourced to a book that doesn't discuss the MRM, its activists, or anything about the MRM; removed the source which contained nine academic citations for the statement that the MRM is considered a backlash:
- I changed the lede to begin making concrete progress on trying to find consensus within the lede after revert after revert after revert after revert shows no sign of NPOV issues getting addressed. In my comments I emphasize heavily that this is a "first attempt" at seeking consensus: updated lede: first attempt at reworking lede to achieve balance using existing article content. Content has been rearranged but NOT deleted, as to help consensus seeking for now. In that edit I did not remove any existing content from the lede, nor did I delete sources despite what Sonicyouth suggests. The additional content I added to the lede comes from existing sources within the article itself. Sonicyouth's disputes that this source "doesn't discuss MRM" again comes back to our disagreement in Example 5 on whether Warren Farrell's Myth of Male Power book is eligible for citation or not -- which other editors have indicated it is. You can again find our extensive discussion of that matter here.
Conclusion:
I believe I am being accused here because my activity is seen as a threat to the men's rights movement page. Responding to all these unclear accusations has been very draining on my ability to contribute to wikipedia.
In my contributions I have made extensive (possibly excessive?) use of the talk page. I have used citations extensively in my new additions, and have edited articles to reflect concerns that are raised in discussions. Have my contributions always been perfect? I don't claim they are, but taken as a whole I believe my contributions demonstrate a good faith effort to making consensus seeking progress in areas that have otherwise been lacking. I have lots of activity in this article, yes, but not activity worthy of disciplinary sanction. I think my banning or blocking has the potential to have a real chilling effect on new contributors. Spudst3r (talk) 01:14, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
- @Cailil (talk · contribs) - Hi Cailli Not sure if I'm allowed to reply to statements... but I just want to clarify that the paragraph above does not reflect my personal views on men's rights. Unfortunately with how I wrote it I look like an ideologue. That was not my intention - I was just trying to sum up the views of Warren Farrell and Clatterbaugh regarding how MRM supporters see men's rights issues. E.g. Clattebaugh who wrote "the movement divides into those who believe that men and women are equally harmed by sexism and those who think that female privilege and male degradation are systemic in society" I wrote that in the talk page to state my understanding from the sources what the movement thinks as a way of suss out what other views exist within the movement.
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- RE OR / Synthesis revert issue: At the time my reverts were based in pretty strong policy (I wrote: Directly related sourced facts is WP:NOTOR, read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:These_are_not_original_research#Compiling_facts_and_information. I admit the subsequent talk discussion I created in the talk page for the 2nd revert was instructive for clarifying how this source could be properly incorporated, however. So I admit my actions on that revert were not perfect, but I think in terms of conduct I acted reasonably: I cited policy I thought was appropriate in my revert comments, and limited my reverts by using the talk page to prevent an edit war.
- RE WP:ASPERSIONS: Diff 9 when read alone does look like I am casting aspersions with no evidence. But I was making that comment in relation to another comment in that same thread where I did provide evidence. Specifically I wrote: "consensus-seeking attempts to make the tone more neutral are getting reverted over and again by the same individuals." I also made those comments after receiving serious/false accusations of sockpuppetry/meatpuppetry right after my first contributions to the MRM page (where you suggested I be sanctioned with BrantNewland (talk · contribs)). I hope you can understand how that has contributed to a feeling of getting dogpiled (though I think we've had productive interactions on the MRM page since then.) Spudst3r (talk) 02:32, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
- @ Tony Sidaway - Yeah, I really need to work on that. My apologies. I'm half convinced that I'm here due to the alacrity and verbosity of my comments than necessarily the contents of my edits...Spudst3r (talk) 10:29, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
Statement by Cailil
This is a rare occasion when I comment as an involved user (due to my edits at Men's rights movement not in the GG area) at AE but I've had a number of interactions with Spudst3r and have in a very short space of time had a number of red flags raised
Diffs 1-5 are not relevant to the case since the notification is post Feb 13. However, Diff 6 was a revert of original research I removed from the Men's rights movement article. The material a) had no connection to the subject b) it was being used in essay form to synthesize a point and c) it was a copy-paste of the majority of the linked article's abstract (probably a copyvio). Spudst3r then reverted its subsequent removal again diff 7. Diff 9 falls into the category of casting unfounded aspersions about other users. Here Spudst3r is parroting the r/mensrights reddit party line that feminists run wikipedia and the only way to solve "their article's" problem is to illuminate eliminate the "enemy" (see also this ani thread). I have little problem with Diffs 8 10 or 11. My only other issue is his use of POV-statement in an attempt to discredit scholarly opinions he seems not to like[74]. His defense of this action speaks volumes in terms of WP:ADVOCACY and WP:NOTADVOCATE
" I think it's accurate to say that most Men's rights advocates see issues of male inequality as ones that are systemic throughout most of recorded history and in need of changing society as we currently know it away from how it currently or previously existed to address them. Recent social advancements coming from the women's movement may be seen as making the situation for men's rights worse, but only because they see the movement as imposing additional obligations on to men and new social rights to women without providing commensurate changes to complement them in areas where men face systemic disadvantage."[75]
Even so I think a final warning and advice on how to fly right might be enough here--Cailil talk 20:18, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
-
- @ HJM - My understanding of the wording of WP:ARBGG is that any gender controversy is covered - so controversial backlashes against Feminism, the USA bills/laws VWA & ERA, and other topics like Same sex marriage, as well as any future issues like the Chelsea Manning conflict etc etc are already preemptively covered. It is as I understand it a preventative measure so that nothing ever gets to the GG level of disruption on WP again. The Men's rights issue is highly controversial a) in RL and b) for the Men's rights online community's reaction to wikipedia's coverage (exactly like GG). Offsite interference has been an ongoing issue in the area since 2006 (and if you want to see a summary of the history which was made nearly 3 years ago see this)--Cailil talk 12:28, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
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- @Thydruff: Spudst3r's edit re: the POV templates was about how women's equality movement (in the eyes of mRAs) has effected men's rights for the worse. That is very clearly a gender conflict. His edit re: Warren Farrell is exactly what you describe - an allegation of bias against men, and the prison/WP:NOR issue is about bias in favour of women--Cailil talk 19:08, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
Statement by Binksternet
After I saw just a few of Spudst3r's contributions to the article and talk page of the men's rights movement topic, I thought that he was WP:NOTHERE to build the encyclopedia. Rather, he is here to make the men's rights movement look good, to the best of his ability. Thankfully that motivation has not resulted in too much damage, since there are experienced and neutral page watchers keeping track of activists such as Spudst3r. I, too, was taken aback at Diff 9 with its display of battlefield attitude. Spudst3r is too deep into advocacy to see that this comparison is nonsensical, that the men's rights movement assertions of "male disadvantage" are overwhelmingly dismissed by sociology and anthropology scholars who should not have to remind us of the two-thousand-plus years of thoroughly established male advantage. In that same diff Spudst3r tries to argue against reliance on scholarly sources. Wikipedia does not need this kind of disruption. Binksternet (talk) 04:54, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
Statement by abhilashkrishn
When considering all the points mentioned by Sonicyouth86 and Spudst3r, I can't see anything wrong in Spudst3r's actions. The user is actively using the wikipedia for positive contributions and the sources are well acclaimed. - abhilashkrishn talk 20:02, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
Statement by Strongjam
No stance on this request, but I am surprised by how broad the wording on the GG sanctions is. Based on the wording I think this case would qualify, MRM is certainly controversial and there is some overlap between GG and MRM. Clarification from the arbitrators if they meant for it to be applied this broadly might be needed though, should there be at least some connection to the Gamergate controversy first? — Strongjam (talk) 20:11, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
Statement by Tony Sidaway
Complaint aside, I think the admins might encourage this editor in the direction of terseness. --TS 06:35, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
Statement by (username)
Result concerning Spudst3r
- This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the sections above.
- I'd like to hear from @Bbb23: who seems to be the resident uninvolved admin on this topic. I'd also note that the article is under community-based article probation. I'm not entirely sure that masculinity and the men's rights movement fall under the GamerGate discretionary sanctions, which are authorised for any gender-related dispute or controversy (emphasis mine); I'm not sure masculinity/MRM are disputes or controversies in their own right. Input on that from other admins would be appreciated.
To the substance of the allegations, the complaint does appear to have some merit. Spudst3r clearly has an unhealthy interest in this topic and would be well-advised to broaden his editing interests. Cailil's comments were fairly conclusive in leading me to the opinion that Spudst3r's edits are problematic. The greatest cause for concern is the addition of op-ed style commentary to encyclopaedia articles, which appears to be based on novel synthesis of published material and reach conclusions that aren't fully supported by the literature; edit-warring to restore such content is also concerning, and a sign of a problem editor. I don't have a strong opinion on what the remedy should be if we decide this is in our scope. I'd like some more admins to weigh in first. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 19:59, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
- (speaking in a personal capacity, not for the Committee as a whole) I don't think that the entire topic of the men's rights movement is within the intended scope of the Gamergate sanctions. Disputes and controversies involving the men's rights movement could be covered if they are gender related, e.g. a controversy about an MRM figure's allegations of bias against men would be within scope, but controversy about that figure's allegations of bias against Christians would not. I have not looked at the diffs and hold no opinion about the merits of this request. Thryduulf (talk) 11:15, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
- Could somebody please trim the complainant's submissions? It is too long and administrators are not expected to read all that. AGK [•] 13:37, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
- The notice log at Talk:Men's rights movement/Article probation shows that Spudst3r was notified in March 2014 of the community probation on Men's Rights Movement. Not everything related to MRM may qualify as part of ARBGG's remit, but gender-related issues presumably do. All the diffs 1-10 listed at the head of this complaint are about gender-related issues and they all occurred since he was notified of ARBGG on 13 February. So in my opinion this is a valid complaint under ARBGG. EdJohnston (talk) 16:58, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
- I'll leave the discussion of proper jurisdiction to others, as I am perfectly comfortable taking action on this topic under either ArbCom discretionary sanctions or under community general sanctions. And 'perfectly comfortable taking action' seems like an appropriate summation of my feelings as to this request. I agree with Cailil's excellent summation of the major issues (though I think I would quibble with the purported NPA violation – I don't think it is serious enough to fall under the 'casting aspersions' guideline; and with diff6 – I can't really see what's wrong with that one but perhaps I'm just missing something). The original research issues raised are serious and valid, as is the edit warring generally. At this time, I am leaning towards a short (<2 month) topic ban along with encouragement to seek out another topic area to get a better appreciation of Wikipedia's content and conduct policies. Thoughts on that course of action? Thanks, NW (Talk) 01:00, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
Parishan
This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.
Requests may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs (not counting required information), except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Request concerning Parishan
- User who is submitting this request for enforcement
- Steverci (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · edit filter log · block user · block log) 22:41, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
- User against whom enforcement is requested
- Parishan (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · edit filter log · block user · block log)
Search DS alerts: in user talk history • in system log
- Sanction or remedy to be enforced
- Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Armenia-Azerbaijan 2 and a lengthy block :
- Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it
- February 14, 2015 Following 4 are violations of WP:3RR
- February 14, 2015
- February 14, 2015
- February 14, 2015
- Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any
- 14 February 2007 First time blocked for 3RR
- 20 February 2007 Second time blocked for 3RR
- If discretionary sanctions are requested, supply evidence that the user is aware of them (see WP:AC/DS#Awareness and alerts)
- Previously blocked as a discretionary sanction for conduct in the area of conflict, see the block log linked to above. [76]
- Additional comments by editor filing complaint
Parishan has recently violated the three revert rule by edit warring on the Shusha article:
[77][78][79][80]
Parishan has also shown a tendency to stalk and edit ware my edits on the Khaibalikend Massacre, Shusha massacre, and Shusha. articles.
Parishan has even more recently violated 3RR on the Blue Mosque, Yerevan by harassing two other users, User:EtienneDolet and User:Ninetoyadome:
[81][82][83]
According to WP:3RR, violating the rule guarantees a block.
He has also been edit warring User:NiksisNiks's contributions across several articles, usually without explanation:
[84], [85], [86]
Parishan continues edit warring across multiple articles and exhibiting a battleground mentality and making controversial edits without reaching consensus with other editors. He has made multiple reverts in violation of 3RR on a range of highly sensitive articles, and has previously been blocked for violating the 3RR on Armenian-Azeri articles not once, but twice. Because he continues to violate the 3RR, I believe it is time for him to be disciplined for the rule once again. --Steverci (talk) 22:41, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
- NOTICE Parishan has accused me of breaking the 3RR on the Shusha article. I would like to point out that the 03:08 edit was not a revert in any way, and the 03:28 edit was me fixing an error of his. Thus, he remains the only one who violates 3RR. --Steverci (talk) 15:06, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
- Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested
Discussion concerning Parishan
Statements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Administrators may remove or shorten noncompliant statements. Disruptive contributions may result in blocks.
Statement by EtienneDolet
Seeing that I am mentioned in this case, I feel that I have to make a comment to further elaborate as to why I've been mentioned. I will also comment on a few things to help further inform those involved with this case.
I have found myself at talk pages with Parishan several times. During these discussions, the user displays an aggressive tone that is almost always unnecessary. Above all, his belligerent approach to these discussions often gets personal with discourteous remarks. In this recent discussion, Talk:Araksi_Çetinyan#Ozgur, Parishan was quick to say "You are inventing grammar as you go along, which makes me seriously doubt the level of your command of Turkish" and that "it is quite legitimate on my part to express concern with regard to your understanding of that language." I find these remarks as bad faith, and I really don't understand how these comments can help the discussion. I felt as though I'm viewed more of as an 'unintelligible opponent' rather than someone he can work with. Other discussions where I have concerns was at Talk:Kars#Azeri_presence_in_Kars, where bad faith assumptions were made against me just because I made a late response, even though I apologized for it beforehand.
As I can see from his contributions, the user has been displaying an increasingly disruptive editing pattern, particularly on Armenian related articles. Almost all his edits either:
- a.) publicize the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh's unrecognized status or that Armenians occupy the land ([87][88][89][90][91])
- b.) remove, at times, any sort of mention of Nagorno-Karabakh Republic in related articles ([92][93][94][95][96][97][98][99][100])
- c.) remove Armenian presence and history in Armenian populated villages, sometimes deleting them in the form of a redirect ([101][102][103][104])
- d.) add strong POV wording or claims that are not backed by RS sources ([105][106][107][108])
The diffs I provided highlight the user's vehement determination to make a WP:POINT: that Armenians occupy Nagorno-Karabakh, or that the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh is unrecognized. Wikipedia, as we all know, is not a place to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS, nor is it a venue to promote the personal opinions. At any rate, given that I did not have much time to formulate my comment, I merely had to present the diffs I happen to come across. Most of his edits do not contain edit-summaries, making it even more difficult to pinpoint concerns found beneath them. I've also refrained from adding diffs pertaining to the recent problems at Shusha, Khaibalikend Massacre, and Shusha massacre since they're already being discussed in detail in the related cases above.
As for Sterveci, I really don't know much about his editing pattern. But I do see that he has engaged in edit-wars himself. But this is without to say that Parishan hasn't been edit-warring at Shusha massacre, for example. The Revision history of Shusha massacre looks like what a talk page should be, but in the form of edit-summaries. The reverts appear problematic on both sides, and I think action should be necessary for both users. Given that Parishan has been topic-banned for similar behavior, while continuing to display a tendentious editting pattern I highlighted above, I personally believe he merits a more extensive ban. As for Sterveci, I think 1RR on all topics related to Armenia and Azerbaijan seems more appropiate. Étienne Dolet (talk) 08:23, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
- The AE enforcement Parishan received was a 1RR restriction on topics related to Armenia and Azerbaijan (see case here). As you can see, the case is similar to the one that has now brought him here, suggesting that the user is continuing the same disruption since then. Also, no one here is arguing whether the Republic of Karabakh is recognized or not. But to stick the word 'unrecognized' in multiple leads and infoboxes across multiple articles would be a clear sign of a tendentious editing pattern. After all, as I previously mentioned, the Wikipedia project is not a venue to right great wrongs, even if you find them to be self-evident. As for the rest, I don't think the other points were convincing, but I'll leave that for the admins to decide. Étienne Dolet (talk) 20:15, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
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- Even after such a lengthy response, I believe Parishan still fails to address the core problems at hand. On the one hand, he has admitted that there's a general consensus to have both de jure and de facto in articles related to villages in Karabakh. But then does edits like this, where the de facto status of Karabakh is entirely removed. I do not understand how one could blame other users for this. He then states that some of these villages fall outside the Republic of Karabakh's boundaries, but that still doesn't mean it's not under the de facto governance of the Republic of Karabakh. Removing such information, as he did here, renders the village as solely Azerbaijani, without provide any inkling of fact about its de facto Armenian presence. Changing Nagorno-Karabakh Defence Army's name to simply "Armenian forces" is also another attempt to conceal the independent status of Nagorno-Karabakh's army [109]. To top it all off, the removal of native names of villages mostly populated by Armenians is also deeply troublesome [110]. In any case, the diffs are plenty and one does not have to dig deep into his contributions to find a problematic editing pattern. However, if anyone involved with the case still needs them, I can provide more. Étienne Dolet (talk) 08:19, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
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- Not only does Parish remove the word Karabakh from these articles, but he also removes the de facto Armenian presence of such and such village controlled by Armenian armed forces. He admits that Armenian forces do control areas outside Karabakh, but his editing pattern shows that he removes that too in its entirety. This makes it appear these villages are entirely Azerbaijani, and that there's no Armenian presence in them. He removes native names claiming that they've been spelled 'wrong', but doesn't bother to add the correct spelling (might I add that the spelling was initially correct). Nor does he make that obvious in the edit-summary of the edit in question ([111]). As you may have noticed, these edits don't contain edit-summaries for the most part. I've observed that controversial and problematic edits either don't contain edit-summaries, and when they do, they're simply deceptive. And again, one does not have to dig deep into his contributions to uncover many other similar problems. For example, this nationalist editing pattern is not only limited to Karabakh, Parishan has removed large chunks of information from other separatist movements found within Azerbaijan ([112]). In this particular edit, he deletes the entire The National Talysh Movement section because it's unsourced, even when there are four other CN tags in the article dating as far back as 2008. At any rate, I feel that I have said enough, even though there’s still much more to be said. But to sum it all up, what I see here is a consistent POV stemming from a desire to maintain the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan within Wikipedia. As documented above, this is most obvious in the form of edit-warring, tendentious editing, removal of Armenian native names, and other forms of disruptive editing. In light of all this, I expect admins to come to a fair and balanced judgment. Étienne Dolet (talk) 19:47, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
- The SPI is unrelated to the problems and issues I have outlined here. As we all know, the misconduct of other users shouldn't excuse the misconduct of another. This means, specifically in this case, that the results of that SPI should not be an excuse any user to edit-war. It's also important to note that the users blocked for socking weren't even the accounts Parishan has engaged with. Bottom line: I don't believe we should be conflating the two. As for Parishan's comments: he continues to blame other users for his edits, and claims that he simply reverted to the original version before NiksisNiks edited. But, in one such example, if he wanted to revert to an original version, he could have easily reverted to this version ([113]), which indeed was the original version right before NiksisNiks edited. But he didn't. Parishan removed more than just NiksisNiks' additions. Please keep in mind that the original version included a reference to an Armenian military presence, whereas Parishan removed that too in its entirety: [114]. Also, the removal of Armenian native names are not limited to that article alone [115]. I really don't see any harm in leaving Armenian native names in the lead, especially considering that they're Armenian populated today. Parishan also states that his edits aren't guided by Azerbaijani nationalism because he's a Canadian national. But Azerbaijani nationalism is not limited to Azerbaijan, and neither is it inconceivable in Canada. Someone in Canada can make the same edits than, say, a nationalist in Baku. His userpage states that he supports territorial integrity, and opposes irrendentism, but in view of his more recent edits, I don't see any of it being directed against Quebec. It's the territoriality of Azerbaijan which provokes him to delete, censor, and manipulate separatist movements found within the country. No need to go over again as to how and why, I have already outlined it above. Étienne Dolet (talk) 01:27, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
- Not only does Parish remove the word Karabakh from these articles, but he also removes the de facto Armenian presence of such and such village controlled by Armenian armed forces. He admits that Armenian forces do control areas outside Karabakh, but his editing pattern shows that he removes that too in its entirety. This makes it appear these villages are entirely Azerbaijani, and that there's no Armenian presence in them. He removes native names claiming that they've been spelled 'wrong', but doesn't bother to add the correct spelling (might I add that the spelling was initially correct). Nor does he make that obvious in the edit-summary of the edit in question ([111]). As you may have noticed, these edits don't contain edit-summaries for the most part. I've observed that controversial and problematic edits either don't contain edit-summaries, and when they do, they're simply deceptive. And again, one does not have to dig deep into his contributions to uncover many other similar problems. For example, this nationalist editing pattern is not only limited to Karabakh, Parishan has removed large chunks of information from other separatist movements found within Azerbaijan ([112]). In this particular edit, he deletes the entire The National Talysh Movement section because it's unsourced, even when there are four other CN tags in the article dating as far back as 2008. At any rate, I feel that I have said enough, even though there’s still much more to be said. But to sum it all up, what I see here is a consistent POV stemming from a desire to maintain the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan within Wikipedia. As documented above, this is most obvious in the form of edit-warring, tendentious editing, removal of Armenian native names, and other forms of disruptive editing. In light of all this, I expect admins to come to a fair and balanced judgment. Étienne Dolet (talk) 19:47, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
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Statement by Parishan
I admit I was, perhaps, a bit too vigorous in reverting, but I do not consider the very first revert of User:Hayordi an example of engaging in an edit-war. A newly registered user with barely 100 edits appearing on the article and removing (without a word on the talkpage) sourced information that has featured there for at least five years, has survived the most heated discussions without being addressed once and included in the consensus version of this article - this can be viewed as vandalism, especially given that the removal was one-time and the editor never reappeared on the article. Reverting vandalism, as I know, does not count within the reverts that violate 3RR. Concerning the other diffs claiming that I violated 3RR on Shusha and Blue Mosque, Yerevan, I had a total of three reverts in each and not more, and the rule of WP:3RR states: "An editor must not perform more than three reverts on a single page within a 24-hour period", whereas it was User:Steverci went overboard with four reverts: [116], [117], [118], [119]. His ill-intention motivating him to push his POV becomes obvious from the fact that soon after the article got protected, he ceased participating in the discussion on the talkpage - once the article was not 'revertible', he was no longer interested in it. The user is talking about being stalked; whereas note him referring to my reverts as 'harrassment' and using a block record from eight (!) years ago in an attempt to prove that I have habit of breaking rules.
As for the claims of User:EtienneDolet, I do not see a 'personal attack' in questioning someone's level of command in a specific language (especially if it is not mentioned on his userpage, as it is on mine) if that person takes up the task of interpreting academic sources written in that language and that his interpretation, on which he vehemently insists, seems far from being perfect from the point of view of someone who does have some knowledge of the language. Similar in the case of Talk:Kars: when a user silently reverts a page and appears on the talk page for the first time only two days later, he or she must understand that given the ongoing discussion (following reverts on both sides), such behaviour is counter-productive and can be initially interpreted as meatpuppeting, regardless of whether he or she apologises afterwards or not.
EtienneDolet's claims of me having 'bad faith' are baseless if we take a closer look at his arguments:
- (a) Nagorno-Karabakh is unrecognised and it is occupied by Armenian forces; this is not my invention, and this wording features in the consensus-based neutral version of dozens of articles, such as the one I provided above. It is much less POV than something like this [120].
- (b) The mention of Nagorno-Karabakh was removed from the villages where its independence was not proclaimed, or where it simply does not belong. Examples: the Topkhana Forest is not mentioned in Armenian sources, and being under threat in the 1980s, it may even not exist any longer, so there is no evidence to say that it is "located in Nagorno-Karabakh"; and "Republic of Artsakh" is not acceptable wording for any AA2 article.
- (c) The mention of Armenians was not removed in the first and fourth diff, while the second and third diffs were obscure articles consisting of a single line of unsourced information lingering for five years.
- The first two cases listed in (d) are reverts to the original versions; I did not add a word of my own, so claiming that I was making "a very strong POV statement" in inaccurate. In any event, the word 'occupied', for instance, is nowhere near as POV as 'liberated' in the case of Armenian-controlled Azerbaijani villages. The third and fourth cases were citing a source provided thereby.
Finally, I have never been topic-banned, as EtienneDolet claims, hence this argument cannot serve as a basis for bad faith on my part. Parishan (talk) 10:01, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
- I must apologise; I assumed that since we are on an arbitration page, I did not need to be overly specific in justifying my actions for every diff that has been provided here. However, since I have been told that my addressing of those issues did not seem convincing, I will take the time to treat each of them in a separate manner. EtienneDolet's selection features cases where most of the changes, in my opinion, were reverts of bad-faith edits of one specific disruptive editor. Certainly, when fishing for discrediting evidence on a user without taking a moment to look at what the article resembled just prior to that revert and what exactly prompted it, it would not take much effort to present every contribution as 'bad-faith'. With this biased strategy, it would be possible to find 'examples of disruptive behaviour' for every user who is involved in this case. Let us take a closer look at EtienneDolet's diffs:
- (a) "Publicising the non-recognition of Nagorno-Karabakh"
- [121] - I did not add any content in the article. I reverted an edit by User:NiksisNiks who had removed information under the pretext of it not being sourced. I restored the information and provided a neutral source to back it up. Note also the malicious unexplained removal by NiksisNiks of the sourced information about the existence of a public school in the village.
- [122] - I did not add any content in the article. I reverted back yet another edit by NiksisNiks who had removed a statement on the de jure status of Nagorno-Karabakh from the lead of the article Nagorno-Karabakh, ridding the lead thus of any reference to the region's relation to Azerbaijan whatsoever. I leave it to the admins to decide if NiksisNiks was indeed motivated by good-faith and NPOV in doing so and if I was wrong in reverting that.
- [123] - I replaced the awkward wording "a village in the Hadrut Province of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. Azerbaijan put it in the Khojavend Rayon" by NiksisNiks by the wording "a village in the Khojavend Rayon of Azerbaijan (de jure) or the Hadrut Province of the unrecognised Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (de facto)". I do not see anything wrong in the use of the word 'unrecognised' in this case; if anything, it would spare the reader from wondering why there are two countries listed for the same village. Note that I did not revert the page back to the version that mentioned the village's occupation.
- [124] - The user had redirected the article under a POV name used only by Armenian sources. I did not add any content, but I did remove an unsourced statement added by NiksisNiks whose lack of good-faith had already been obvious to me.
- [125] - I did not add any content. I reverted an unexplained edit which rid the article of any mention of Azerbaijan back to the original version. I fail to see how EtienneDolet considers the use of the word 'unrecognised' tendentious and makes a point of it during arbitration, yet he does not mind it at all when someone removes every mention of Azerbaijan from an article about a landmark de jure located in Azerbaijan. If there is bad faith here in this specific case, it is certainly not on my part.
- (b) "Removing mentions of Nagorno-Karabakh"
- [126] - The village of Zülfüqarlı is located in the area outside of the former Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast, thus not covered by the 1991 Nagorno-Karabakh independence referendum. While it is still controlled by the Nagorno-Karabakh military forces, the latter consider this region to be in the Armenian-controlled territories surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh. Hence it was up to the user who added "Nagorno-Karabakh Republic" as the village's location to provide a source which lists this village as located within the boundaries of the self-proclaimed state.
- [127] - I did not remove references to Nagorno-Karabakh; they are found all throughout the article. I removed one from the lead where it was mentioned that the Topkhana Forest was a state reserve. The forest is, in fact, considered a national reserve, but only in Azerbaijan; no Armenian source makes any mention of the forest under any status, so saying that this state reserve was located in Nagorno-Karabakh would not be accurate. In any event, I find this wording much more acceptable than the wording "an imaginary forest claimed to have been located near Shusha" left by the previous editor.
- [128] - Again, I did not remove a reference to Nagorno-Karabakh. I simply precised its pre-war status as an autonomous entity. The region was officially and uncontestably known as the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast of the Azerbaijan SSR at the time of Arkadi Ghukasyan's birth.
- [129] - I did not add any content. I reverted back to the original version after a bad-faith editor had removed mention of Azerbaijani personalities born in the village.
- [130] - I shall let admins decide whether it is right to consider the wording "the Republic of Artsakh" NPOV. If you ask me, the edit that I had to revert falls under every possible AA2 restriction.
- [131] - I reverted yet again the same bad-faith editor NiksisNiks who had removed every reference to Azerbaijan from the information box.
- [132] - I reverted an edit where not only references to Azerbaijan had been removed, but the village had been referred to as being located not just in the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic alone, but also "in Armenia"; a gross violation of AA2.
- [133] - I reverted an edit of the NiksisNiks who had stipped the article of every mention of Azerbaijan, including the DEFAULTSORT template and even the stub tag at the bottom of the page, replacing it with "Armenia-stub".
- [134] - Stepanakert was a city in the Azerbaijan SSR at the time of Serzh Sargsyan's birth; the Nagorno-Karabakh Oblast was not a Soviet republic and did not subordinate directly to the Soviet government, with Azerbaijan occupying the intermediate position in the hierarchy. I felt the need to precise that.
- (c) "Removing Armenian presence"
- [135] - The village of Gülüstan is located outside of Nagorno-Karabakh. It is controlled by Azerbaijan both de facto and de jure, and since the break-up of the Soviet Union has never been under the control of any other state or military force, recognised or otherwise, except Azerbaijan. Its status is undisputed, unlike the status of Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding regions. Claiming that is it located in such-and-such province of Nagorno-Karabakh (when it is not from any point of view) would require at least a source and a word on the talkpage. It surprises me to see that refusing to accept such controversial statements at their face value constitutes an example of bad faith. Note that contrary to EtienneDolet's claim, I did not remove mention of Armenian presence in the village - it is still there.
- [136] and [137] - These two articles were started back in 2008 by then-newly registered user who created about a dozen articles on villages in the non-disputed Azerbaijani region of Nakhchivan, but under their Armenian names. Not only were these articles forks (for most of those villages, articles already existed under the official Azerbaijani names), blatantly POV (accompanied by the category "Villages in Armenia") and badly worded in English, but they also consisted of only one or two short sentences each and without any source, not even a partisan one. I redirected most of those articles to the ones that correspond to the said villages nowadays. For what was claimed as villages in these two diffs, I did not find a modern equivalent, so I redirected them to the page of the region where they had supposedly been located. The user reappeared two years later, undoing my redirect, but not improving the content one bit, and not even bothering to replace the red-linked obsolete category. The articles about villages whose existence could not have been attested anywhere thus remained unattested for for the next five years until recently when I redirected them back to the articles about their respective present-day geographical region.
- [138] - The Armenian spelling and transliteration are given in the lead, and I did not modify that part. I also kept the Armenian name in English letters in the information box above the Azeri one, simply removing the spelling in the Armenian alphabet, because it had already been given in the introduction, making it redundant and not much useful for the bulk of readers who cannot read Armenian, and had already been taking up too much space in the information box.
- (d) "Strong POV wording"
- [139] - I did not add any content. I reverted an edit by NiksisNiks who used the POV wording "liberated" with regards to a village that passed under the control of the Armenian forces during the war.
- [140] - I did not add any content. I reverted the page back to the original version which NiksisNiks changed without discussing, claiming that he "did not find the information in the source". When he was given the exact reference in the source, instead of taking it to the talkpage, he reverted again, saying "the author was biased". I wonder why EtienneDolet tolerates such a frivolous editing habit, but critisises me for appealing to an academic source which uses the word 'unrecognised'.
- [141] - I did not add any content. I reverted the page back to the original version, distorted by NiksisNiks in the manner described above and a claim that "all sources were biased". Note that the discussion concerning the neutrality of the sources was touched upon on the article's talkpage, and those considering it biased refrained from pushing this issue further and let the article feature this wording back in 2007. How acceptable is it for a user to appear and, in lieu of making a good-faith attempt to add his/her two cents to the discussion, to go ahead and take trouble over the content, and not neutrally (placing a reliability tag, for instance), but in a blatantly POV manner - by removing information?
- [142] - I simply expanded the text with a quotation that was found in the already cited third-party source. I did not add a word of my own. Parishan (talk) 00:25, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
With regard to EtienneDolet's response to the above comment, where he claims that before making this revert I should have understood that "it's under the de facto governance of the Republic of Karabakh": honestly, I do not believe that this is not how Wikipedia works; good faith is one thing, but taking bold statements in sensitive articles at face value is another thing. The burden was on the user who added that highly controversial information to accompany it with a neutral source stating that Zülfüqarlı was "de facto located in the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic", because according to the sources cited in the article Armenian-controlled territories surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh, everything that falls outside of the former Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast and the Lachin corridor is regarded by the Armenian side as the regime's 'security belt' to be passed "to the control of Azerbaijan in exchange for Azerbaijan recognising the independence of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic", meaning that the regime does not claim sovereignty over villages like Zülfüqarlı. I believe this is enough evidence to at least doubt that the wording on the "location of this village within the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic" would be accurate.
The wording "Armenian forces" in this edit is not POV; in fact, this is the wording used by third-party sources, such as the United Nations and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, and even the word 'Armenian' in the title of the article Armenian-controlled territories surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh suggests the same. Note that I linked the phrase 'Armenian forces' to the article Nagorno-Karabakh Defense Army, and not to the Army of Armenia, hence the argument about me ignoring "the independent status of Nagorno-Karabakh's army" is baseless.
The removal of the Armenian name in this edit was motivated by the fact that there had not been any source provided for the given spelling, which would be expected for a village that is uninvolved in the conflict; Armenian sources appear to feature varying spellings, including Գուլիստան, Գյուլյուստան, Գեուլիստան, which are all different from the spelling inserted by the editor. In addition, there has not been any Armenian population in the village in the past quarter of a century and, unlike the Azerbaijani villages in the Armenian-controlled zone, the status of this particular village is undisputed, rendering the name irrelevant from the point of view of the village's current population. By that logic, the once majority-Azeri capital of Armenia should get an Azeri name in its lead. It is especially strange to see this accusation coming from EtienneDolet who himself has been making a go of removing Azeri names from articles about cities which currently have a large Azeri population. EtienneDolet also refuses to acknowledge that the same user who added the unsourced Armenian toponym had earlier redirected a page about an Armenian-controlled Azerbaijani village under its recently invented Armenian name used only in the Armenian media. Nor does EtienneDolet raise the issue of bad faith on the part of NiksisNiks involved in most of the above disagreements, when the latter removed en masse all alternative names of villages in Armenia that sounded Azeri [143], [144], [145], [146], [147], [148] (this are just a few examples of many, see the user's edits from 13 February). I think it is quite obvious that EtienneDolet's criticism of my contributions stems from his personal take on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, hence the fact that controversial edits which conform to his POV remain unnoticed, ignored or even justified, whereas a logical response to these edits aimed at preserving NPOV is presented as 'bad faith' and 'tendentious'.
He claims to have more examples of my "problematic editing pattern". I must say I am very curious to see those, hence I would kindly ask EtienneDolet to please cite some.
Additional note to administrators: In the course of my participation in this project, I have created a number of good-faith articles (unrelated to the war) about the historical presence of Armenians in Azerbaijan, such as this one and this one. I have also contributed substantially with good-faith edits to already existing articles about Armenians in Azerbaijan, such as here, here and most recently here. Therefore I view attempts to portray me in this arbitration case as a contributor with nonyielding anti-Armenian bias - as unsubstantiated and seemingly motivated by factors alien to Wikipedia's community spirit. Parishan (talk) 12:53, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
- The latest comment from EtienneDolet confirms that he has been unable to pick and gather much from the rest of my edits to blame me for POV. We went from "displaying belligerent approach" down to "not using edit summaries" as an argument to have a sanction imposed on me. When other users on the same page make much more substantial and controversial edits without using the edit summary, EtienneDolet does not see a problem in that; he only sees a problem when a controversial edit is reverted back to the original version. The argument of me "not bothering to add the correct Armenian spelling" here does make much sense in light of me wondering till now exactly which of the four spellings was correct and why I had to trust EtienneDolet and User:Tzir-Katin who had not provided a single source for the spelling they had proposed. Removing three lines for which there has not been any proof for over six years does not constitute violation of Wikipedia rules either, and blaming me for 'nationalism' for that edit (what nationalism are we talking about here, given that I am, in fact, Canadian?) is yet another example of bad faith on the part of EtienneDolet. Parishan (talk) 21:24, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
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- Indeed, the behaviour of certain uses does have directly to do with my edits because had it not been for their disruptive interference, EtienneDolet would have not raised the issue of 'POV' and 'nationalist wording' in the articles in question, for some of which I never made a single contribution of my own; for which the said wording had been part of a consensus version or had featured for as long as seven or eight years. The evolution of EtienneDolet's criticism of my activity on Wikipedia here speaks for itself: from over 20 diffs that he originally provided as evidence of my allegedly tendentious editing, he is only able to comment on my rebuttal about two of those.
- In this article, I removed any additional text besides the location of the village because the source provided to support the village's being under the control of military forces since 1992 led to a dead link, which was likewise removed.
- In this article I did not remove anything either; I simply reverted an unsourced bad-faith edit erasing references to Azerbaijan back to the version by Ali al-Bakuvi which, unlike NiksikNiks' edit, mentioned both entities in the infobox: [149].
- My contributions to articles about Quebec separatism are not quite as active because users editing those articles manage to remain remarkably NPOV and balanced, which is not the case in the domain of AA2 articles, even in this very arbitration case. In any event, I do not believe I should explain myself as to why I choose to edit a series of articles on a certain topic, and I do not believe that my interest in the given topic suffices to refer to me as a 'nationalist'. Parishan (talk) 20:35, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
Statement by Grandmaster
From what I see, a lot of edit warring concerns the statements regarding the status of the region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, but de-facto controlled by separatists. I see that there are attempts to remove any mention of the de-jure status, like here: [150] I don't see why the legal status of the region should not be mentioned in every article concerning the region, as otherwise it creates an impression that it is some sort of a internationally recognized country. I think there should be a certain formula agreed by the wiki community for the de-facto regions, which should be enforced. In that case a lot of edit warring over de-jure/de-facto status would be eliminated.
Here an edit war started because of the insertion of a totally inappropriate category: [151] Same here: [152] Note that the region in question has never been a part of the state of Armenia, nor it is now, so the category clearly did not belong there. Yet Steverci inserted it and made numerous reverts to keep it there. That is the problem with this user. He adds inappropriate content, and when other editors disagree, he keeps reverting to keep that content in the article. Of course, Parishan should have shown more restraint. I think that Parishan should be strongly warned to demonstrate more restraint and take any problematic issues to the appropriate forum. But considering that he has no history of blocks for 8 years, and that is 8 times longer than the user who filed this report has been here, I do not think that any stronger measures would at this point be really necessary. In fact, the equal punishment might be even seen as an encouragement for the party that was adding the inappropriate content. Grandmaster 22:48, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
I looked at the editing restriction mentioned by EtienneDolet, and it dates from around 6 years ago. I don't think that block logs and sanctions from so many years ago have any relevance now, as the AE report form requests only the warnings made within the last year. Grandmaster 13:27, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
I think this request needs to be closed in light of Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Steverci, as Parishan has been baited into an edit war by a sock account, and this request was made by the same sock account as well. Grandmaster 22:29, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
Result concerning Parishan
- This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the sections above.
- Two blocks for edit-warring from eight years ago do not provide any great cause for concern. The edit-warring is concerning but the article was fully protected, so there's nothing actionable on that front. EtienneDolet's evidence of POV pushing is concerning, and I don't find Parishan's rebuttal to be very convincing. I'd like to hear from other people who know the topic area well, though. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:40, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
- Per the above comment by User:EtienneDolet about the recent history of the Shusha massacre, I can see the logic of restricting both User:Parishan and User:Steverci. For Parishan to remove from articles mention of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, as here in EtienneDolet's diff, sounds to me like nationalist POV pushing. In a previous AA enforcement case, somebody had replaced mention of 'Nagorno-Karabakh forces' from a newspaper report and converted it into 'Armenian forces' in the article text. I have not yet determined whether Parishan's efforts to make the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic disappear are quite that blatant. EdJohnston (talk) 21:14, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
Gouncbeatduke
This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.
Requests may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs (not counting required information), except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Request concerning Gouncbeatduke
- User who is submitting this request for enforcement
- WarKosign (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · edit filter log · block user · block log) 19:01, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
- User against whom enforcement is requested
- Gouncbeatduke (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · edit filter log · block user · block log)
Search DS alerts: in user talk history • in system log
- Sanction or remedy to be enforced
- Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it
1. 17:21, 18 February 2015 After a sockpuppet vandalized Gouncbeatduke's talk page and made some death threats, Gouncbeatduke decided to accuse me. Note that Gouncbeatduke wrote that they did not have a chance to actually see the vandal's posts.
- In fact I reported the socks, twice. I also tried to convince the sock to stop on their now revdeleted talk page.
2. 17:42, 19 February 2015 Even after Tokyogirl79 explained Gouncbeatduke the severity of their accusations, they stated again their lack of doubt, and intentions to continue removing my "pro-Jewish/anti-Arab non-NPOV edits from the Israel article".
I tried to open an SPI against myself to have a proof that Gouncbeatduke's slander is baseless, but Mike_V decided that "there are no reasonable grounds to consider a check".
- Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any
05:42, 11 February 2015 I previously opened an arbitration request regarding the user and it was found that there was a problem "with how they approach discussions and issues they disagree with". It was decided to offer the user informal advide "and escalate if it becomes necessary.".
- If discretionary sanctions are requested, supply evidence that the user is aware of them (see WP:AC/DS#Awareness and alerts)
- Alerted about discretionary sanctions in the area of conflict in the last twelve months
- 05:42, 11 February 2015 Previous arbitration request
- Additional comments by editor filing complaint
I do not believe this user wishes or is able to collaborate with editors whom they perceive as "anti-Arab POV-pusher". The user exhibits battleground mentality and is not here to create an encyclopedia.
- Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested
Discussion concerning Gouncbeatduke
Statements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Administrators may remove or shorten noncompliant statements. Disruptive contributions may result in blocks.
Statement by Gouncbeatduke
At no time did I state that User:WarKosign was the sockpuppet that left death threats on my user talk page. I did ask him if he was the sockpuppet, and I kept asking because I found it strange that he refused to answer. If I am not allowed to do that, I will not do it again. If an editor ask me if I made death threats, I would not mind and I would simply say "No." and that would be the end of it, so I didn't see anything wrong with asking.
Wikipedia administrator Tokyogirl79, who reverted the death threats on my talk page, suggested both User:WarKosign and I stop reading and commenting on each others user pages. I found this to be good advice, and I have followed that suggestion since the time she made it. Unfortunately, User:WarKosign has ignored it, and is now claiming that statements I made on my user page about the person who made death threats are directed at him. As I have said repeatedly, I do not know who made the death threats. I do suspect who it might be, but I do not know.
As far as User:WarKosign's false claim and personal attack that I "exhibits battleground mentality and is not here to create an encyclopedia", I invite anyone who is evaluating this to look the Talk:Israel page. I believe I am normally on the side of the majority of editors, as most editors want a NPOV. I think User:WarKosign editing behavior would be described by most NPOV editors as non-NPOV.
Regarding User:WarKosign reporting the sockpuppet making the death threats, I think it is clear these edits would be quickly reverted, and I find his claim that this proves he is not the sockpuppet ridiculous. While I do not know who made the death threats, I do believe their intentions are the same as User:WarKosign in opening his multiple complaints, that is, to stop me from reverting edits I see as anti-Arab non-NPOV edits from Wikipedia articles.
I did say I plan to continue reverting edits I see as anti-Arab non-NPOV edits from Wikipedia articles, as I do not want anyone who makes death threats to be successful with intimidation tactics. I did not see the death threats made by the editor on my user page before they were reverted. According to a Wikipedia administrator, the threats included "== You deserve to ₫ie for your support of genocidal Islamic settlers. == I will make sure you suffer greatly." and "== You deserve to die ==I will make you suffer greatly." and "I can arrange for you to die in Gaza. Keep it up, raglover." If anyone has better advice on how to deal with such threats, I am happy to listen. I do not see anything unreasonable about stating I plan to continue reverting edits I see as anti-Arab non-NPOV edits from Wikipedia articles, as I do not want anyone who makes death threats to be successful with intimidation tactics.
I have relatively little desire to see Wikipedia admins block User:Gouncbeatduke will be burned alive. or any of it's currently known socks, as I would be happy for them to continue to fire away on my user page. I would far rather Wikipedia admins use their time counselling User:WarKosign, who has a history of opening specious complaints against at least one editor because he reverts User:WarKosign POV-pushing edits in an effort to create a NPOV Wikipedia. I see the Israel article as far more important and in need of a NPOV than my user page. Gouncbeatduke (talk) 19:13, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
- @EdJohnston - Much to the contrary of what User:EdJohnston claims, I in no way feel "free to revert all edits that he perceives to be anti-Arab on the grounds that he must not allow a particular sockpuppet to win". I feel the best way to deter whoever is making death threats is to continue to revert extreme anti-Arab non-NPOV edits in the same careful, selective manner I have been doing, and always observing the one revert rule, to demonstrate the death threats have had no effect. Gouncbeatduke (talk) 23:49, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
Statement by WarKosign
In case you missed it, this is how the user "at no time" stated "that User:WarKosign was the sockpuppet that left death threats".
Also note that the user claims that they followed Tokyogirl79's suggestion not to make indirect comments while in fact the second accusation was made after the suggestion. “WarKosign” 21:44, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
@Bbb23: I do not believe I had a good option. Trying to reason didn't work. Denying the accusation would be dismissed as a lie. Silently ignoring would be taken for admission. I tried to take a third option. Best case: CheckUser determines I couldn't be the sock. Worst case: an SPI clerk rejects the request. Did I violate some policy or hurt anyone ? “WarKosign” 07:38, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
@Cailil: I would be perfectly happy not to interact with the user anymore, it would take care of their repeated personal attacks on me. It would not however take care of the user's complete conviction that their biased opinions are NPOV and everybody disagreeing is a "pro-Jewish/anti-Arab POV-pusher". Most of the arguments the user made at talk:Israel lack any information but instead are a repetition of the same mantra:
- "This is typical of the editing throughout this very pro-Jewish/anti-Arab non-NPOV article."
- "Unfortunately, the POV-pushing editors will never allow this to happen unless more people stand up to them"
- "The Jewish Virtual Library is a very pro-Jewish/anti-Arab web site that should not be cited in any NPOV article"
- "The Wikipedia editors that control the Israel article only allow pro-Jewish/anti-Arab POV-pushing original research to be included in the article, any NPOV citation of NPOV secondary sources is immediately reverted"
- "Looks like the POV-pushing edit warriors are no longer going to allow this discussion"
- "Pro-Jewish/Anti-Arab groups in generally push a point of view ..."
- "PointsofNoReturn has suggested another NPOV way of stating the facts. Like all NPOV statements, it is unlikely to make it into the article as the Israel article is an non-NPOV Anti-Arabism narrative"
- "The Israel article contains a great deal of pro-Jewish/anti-Arab WP:TENDENTIOUS editing and needs work to move to a NPOV"
- "The article should note that the definition of Israel's borders throughout the Israel article is an ever changing line depending on which pro-Jewish/anti-Arab narrative the current paragraph is trying to sell"
- "I reverted the removal of the tag as I believe this is just more pro-Jewish/anti-Arab WP:TENDENTIOUS editing"
The user made a clean start. Wikipedia:Clean start says "Certain articles and topics are particularly contentious, and have attracted additional community scrutiny in the form of requests for comment, community sanctions, or arbitration cases. These areas should be completely avoided by the editor attempting a clean start". The user claimed having no special interest in the WP:ARBPIA subjects, yet this seems to be the only subject of their edits. “WarKosign” 18:41, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
Statement by Huldra
I´ve had no interactions with User:Gouncbeatduke before, but from what I can see, s/he has recently come under attack from this fellow, and has become a bit unnerved by it. Also, to Gouncbeatduke: I´ve seen User:WarKosign around for a bit, and I´m 100% sure s/he is not "that fellow". "That fellow" typically goes "ballistic" in a short while (he has got a *very* short fuse). Also: there are loads of pro-Israeli socks, but at least 90% of them are *not* "that fellow". "That fellow" have some specialities, like death threats and vulgar, sexual language. Making harassment-accounts is another speciality. (I´ve had this and this, just for starters.) Sending abusive email via wiki-mail is another speciality (I had to disconnect my email-account again, as I about a week ago got emails promising to "rape me to death" and "kill your husband"). Death-threats on your user-page is another speciality. (My talk-page is now thankfully semied, after endless attacks.)
To User:Gouncbeatduke I would say this: firstly, if you cannot deal with the behaviour from "that fellow", then don´t edit in the Israel/Palestine area. Yes, it is as simple as that. He has been behaving like this for 10 years now, and is not likely to stop soon. Also, never, never, never, accuse anyone with an edit-count of say, above 100 of being him: it is virtually certain it is not, as "that fellow" have a tendency to go ballistic long before they reach such a number of edits. If you have in any way indicated that you thought an *established* editor was this fellow, then you should humbly, (and I mean humbly) apologise to them.
Also to User:Gouncbeatduke: this fellow is still a student, but yeah, he knows how to use TOR ( and scripts). Get your talk-page protected and unlink your wiki-mail will help enormously, I´ve found. Forward any abusive emails you already have received to this guy, who is collecting info. The best policy is to give "that fellow" as little (public) attention as possible. He loves attention, so why should we gratify him? Huldra (talk) 23:29, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
- Thank you, Huldra, for the information about "that fellow",
. When I contacted emergency@wikimedia.org and ask about proximity, they assured me they were 100% certain my death threats were originating from a location outside the USA, and "that fellow" appears to only appears make threats from Los Angeles, CA, USA. I suppose maybe he has become more sophisticated about hiding his location, but it could also mean it is someone else.and his history of masking IP addresses to appear outside the USA. I agree he is the most likely suspect, so I have opened a SPI on him. I continue to find this all very confusing. Gouncbeatduke (talk) 15:52, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
Statement by Plot Spoiler
Is it not already apparent that Gouncbeatduke is largely beyond reform in the IP area? The user believes that there is some "pro-Jewish/anti-Arab" camp operating on Wikipedia [153]. And it's been mentioned here before, Gouncbeatduke has said that s/he has edited before under a different username but started a new account for a WP:CLEANSTART. As a single-issue editor, Gouncbeatduke does not seem to be abiding by the recommendation that "it is best to completely avoid old topic areas after a clean start." Given that Callanecc has already warned this user at AE (see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive163#Gouncbeatduke), it would be wise to see if Gouncbeatduke can edit constructively outside the topic area. Plot Spoiler (talk) 23:47, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
Result concerning Gouncbeatduke
- This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the sections above.
- Even by the usual standards of the I/P area, one of this editor's assertions about how he plans to edit appear to cross into WP:BATTLE territory. He feels free to revert all edits that he perceives to be anti-Arab on the grounds that he must not allow a particular sockpuppet to win. EdJohnston (talk) 21:06, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
- This request is an example of a user spiraling out of control. Tokyogirl79 has valiantly tried to get through to Grouncbeatduke, but apparently to no avail. BTW, WarKosign is not looking that great, either, when they filed an SPI against themselves to "clear their name".--Bbb23 (talk) 02:57, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
- Would other sysops support for a two-way interaction ban here? It seems to me to be least harsh solution--Cailil talk 17:16, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
DungeonSiegeAddict510
This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.
Requests may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs (not counting required information), except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Request concerning DungeonSiegeAddict510
- User who is submitting this request for enforcement
- PeterTheFourth (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · edit filter log · block user · block log) 14:53, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
- User against whom enforcement is requested
- DungeonSiegeAddict510 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · edit filter log · block user · block log)
Search DS alerts: in user talk history • in system log
- Sanction or remedy to be enforced
- Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/GamerGate#ArmyLine.2C_DungeonSiegeAddict510.2C_and_Xander756_topic-banned :
- Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it
- February 21st Unprompted reference to a Gamergate discussion forum ('Kia') on my talk page.
- February 21st Continues to discuss this forum on my talk page after making a statement on this request.
- If discretionary sanctions are requested, supply evidence that the user is aware of them (see WP:AC/DS#Awareness and alerts)
- Mentioned by name in the Arbitration Committee's Final Decision linked to above.
- Additional comments by editor filing complaint
I was initially unsure of what the comment related to, but I've been informed that Kia is a discussion forum for Gamergate. I'm not sure why he saw it pertinent to bring up on my talk page, but it's not welcome or relevant to anything I've been doing. Searching for 'kia gamergate' returns it as the first result, and I don't know what else it could be reasonably concluded that he was talking about.
- Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested
Discussion concerning DungeonSiegeAddict510
Statements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Administrators may remove or shorten noncompliant statements. Disruptive contributions may result in blocks.
Statement by DungeonSiegeAddict510
I really shouldn't edit Wikipedia in the dead of night. I'm UTC-8 after all. Maybe I confused OP for someone else. Moo --DSA510 Pls No Level Up 18:41, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
- @PeterTheFourth: the term is subreddit. Am I not allowed to correct others? --DSA510 Pls No Level Up 00:03, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
I guess I should apologize. It was very late at night and I wasn't thinking straight. I will restrain myself from night editing talkpages, from now on. --DSA510 Pls No Level Up 00:22, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
Statement by MarkBernstein
KiA (the final "A" is capitalized") is KotakuInAction, a reddit subforum where GamerGaters organize their attacks. (It is also the acronym for "killed in action"; the coincidence might conceivably be accidental.)
Here, for example, is a thread (currently 98 comments long) about whether Anita Sarkeesian’s Twitter statements can be excluded from the Gamergate article:[155], a topic being actively discussed at the moment on the talk page. . Various commentators discuss strategy (adding tweets from Gamergate supporters) and tactics (topic-banning me, bringing complaints against Gamaliel, calling me names, etc). At least 11 tweets in my Twitter stream this morning are sea-lioning this particular thread. The originator of this thread, shares a name with one of the topic-banned parties in the ArbCom case, but surely this is a coincidence.
Brianna Wu recently published [156] a call for Reddit’s CEO to close down the forum. MarkBernstein (talk) 16:22, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
Statement by Avono
To be added to Evidence: [157] subject also referring to 8chan & ArbitrationGate controversy Avono (talk) 17:28, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
Statement by Hipocrite
This edit alone needs a serious explanation or a one-way interaction ban between this user and PeterTheFourth. It appears to be pure, unprompted talk page harassment. Hipocrite (talk) 00:11, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
Statement by Liz
Considering that this mention links to the car Kia, not the GamerGate messageboard, it seems like a pretty trivial misstep. I'd feel differently if there had been a substantial remark about the controversy but this wasn't one. I think the apology from the editor should be sufficient. Liz Read! Talk! 00:51, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
@PeterTheFourth: I didn't look at the entire conversation and DSA510 shouldn't have been on your talk page participating in it. But I still think it was a marginal participation. Liz Read! Talk! 01:29, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
- @PeterTheFourth: I think I will just bow out of the discussion at this point. Liz Read! Talk! 01:42, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
Statement by PeterTheFourth
@DungeonSiegeAddict510: Hello. Regarding you correcting others on my talk page- your topic ban means you shouldn't be talking about the topic at all, and I'm not impressed that you've decided to continue to do so on my talk page after I've filed this report. I initially filed it because you were discussing it for seemingly no reason on my talk page. I'm not a fan of unwarranted questioning about Gamergate as you did, especially given that I haven't interacted with you before.
- @DungeonSiegeAddict510: Would be perfectly okay with accepting an apology, but I'd like to know what it is you meant to discuss and why with me? I'm not a user of the KiA forums. PeterTheFourth (talk) 01:47, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
@Liz: His further statements on the matter make it clear that he wasn't talking about the car manufacturer, despite his initial link to it. If I had to guess, I would say linking it would either be a joke or a means of plausible deniability ('I really only meant to ask you what trade secrets you were keeping about automobiles!') PeterTheFourth (talk) 01:16, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
- @Liz: Thing is... he kind of started the discussion. He wasn't so much a participant as the person who brought it up (still don't know why.) As an aside: Should I be pinging every time I respond to something, or is it sufficient just to ping once? PeterTheFourth (talk) 01:33, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
Statement by (username)
Result concerning DungeonSiegeAddict510
- This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the sections above.
- This doesn't seem like that big of a deal. I think a trouting would do. - the Great Lord Gamaliel 00:30, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
- There was substantial support for banning this editor in the arbitration decision itself, based on his failure to abide by his topic ban, but the Committee, with my concurrence, decided to give him a final chance. His behavior since the case closed has been unimpressive, and I perceive his edits on PeterTheFourth's talkpage as blatant harassment. I would impose a siteban. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:57, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
- This post by DSA510 is indeed a violation of his topic ban from Gamergate. I suggest a one-month block, instead of the indef that might also be considered. Arbcom did entertain a motion to indefinitely block him as part of the case. The Committee made a Finding of Fact:
3) DungeonSiegeAddict510 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · edit filter log · block user · block log) has engaged in soapboxing on talk pages (e.g., [5][6][7]) battleground conduct ([8][9]), broken their topic ban twice (block log), and has provided inappropriate commentary during the case ([10][11]).
- We assume that Arbcom hoped that his behavior after the case closed would show he was on a better path, but I don't see that. EdJohnston (talk) 03:34, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
Ashtul
This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.
Requests may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs (not counting required information), except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Request concerning Ashtul
- User who is submitting this request for enforcement
- Nomoskedasticity (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · edit filter log · block user · block log) 19:29, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
- User against whom enforcement is requested
- Ashtul (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · edit filter log · block user · block log)
Search DS alerts: in user talk history • in system log
- Sanction or remedy to be enforced
- Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Palestine-Israel_articles#General_1RR_restriction :
- Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it
- 12:27, 22 February 2015 (UTC) revert removes paragraph
- 11:12, 23 February 2015 (UTC) 1RR violation -- removes a paragraph again, <24 hours after the first time
- Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any
- Previous block notice for 1RR violation: [158]
- I/P topic ban: [159], subsequently lifted by HJ Mitchell, [160]
- Additional comments by editor filing complaint
Report originally posted at AN3; moved here on suggestion by another editor.
- Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested
Discussion concerning Ashtul
Statements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Administrators may remove or shorten noncompliant statements. Disruptive contributions may result in blocks.
Statement by Ashtul
Preemptive quick resolution
The edit in question is completely insignificant and was returned by Nishidani only due to the massive rollback he has done to other changes. Before getting into a long discussion, I asked Nishidani to comment on it which can resolve this AE request quickly with none of us wasting any additional time. Ashtul (talk) 20:43, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
Long dirty road
I have asked Nishidani to admit the text in question should have been removed but he dodged the request claiming it is 'irrelevant'. I will demonstrate why it is and later the background for this.
- The text removed has been on Wikipedia in some form since at least 2010, not added by Nishidani.
- The text removed is completely outdated and false as Beitar Illit is by now a city and the other content is redundant due to recent addition.
- The article has recently went through massive addition and needed a lot of work (9k->14k). The rewrite was done in a rush and obvious issues such as duplicate sections (History vs. History and today) were left which is where the text in question is located.
- Before any of the changes took place, 100s of word of discussion were written here and on Talk:Community settlement (Israel). Nishidani was impossible to argue with , Cptnono wrote 'Regardless, have you taken a look at Ashtul's reasoning, Nishidani? I don't know enough about those details but it is intriguing enough that merely blowing off is not the best thing to do'.
- The change in question was done as two series of with the first including 16 changes, all step by step so other users can follow the logic and revert a single change if they disagree. The first series took over an hour to compile (11:22, 22 February 2015 to 14:27, 22 February 2015 with an obvious break in between). Nishidani made a quick WP:ROLLBACK revert (kept one change and added some content) with the cheerful description Failure to read the sources or if read, misinterpreting them. Describing as WP:OR statements in the sources, etc. General incompetence. Please note, the revert in question isn't referred to neither there is't an explanation is supplied in an appropriate location, such as at the relevant talk page as demanded here. In a way, it can be called WP:Vandalism as Nishidani revert included return of WP:OR, removing new source and removal of content that seems redundant.
So to summery, this 'revert' is eliminating old content during a rewrite of an article with obvious need for love. In a duplicate section - old, false, redundant content was removed for the second time after a massive, careless revert by Nishidani.
I will publish very relevant background in a bit. Ashtul (talk) 06:15, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
Background
I was blocked then topic banned, then blocked for breaking the topic ban then pardoned. HJ Mitchell demanded I will 'keep a respectful distance from Nishidani'.
Nishidani admittedly was aware of this requirement as he was pinged to the page. "Naturally" his instinct was to WP:HOUND me in order to get in my face and provoke me by massive edits to the two pages I recently edited, Community settlement (Israel) and Barkan Industrial Park. I know I should WP:AGF but with WP:POVPUSH statements such as 'Israeli-occupied West Bank', 'in the Occupied Territories' and elimination of my edit 'At Barkan Industrial Park, thousands of Israelis and Palestinians coexist and work side by side in many of the factories', which was already eliminated before twice by other members of the pack Nomoskedasticity and Huldra, it has diminished (I'll touch on the pack practice later).
Nishidani has since apologized and admitted for possible wrongdoing (20:26, 23 February 2015), which was after the original WarEdit complaint was filed by Nomoskedasticity (14:09, 23 February 2015). Yet, it didn't occur to him to ask Nomoskedasticity to drop this complaint.
Now I want to explain 'The Pack' which I've mentioned earlier. It is quite a fascinating phenomenon to see users Nomoskedasticity, Huldra, Nishidani and Zero0000 keep on popping on the same pages, reverting the same content. It seems like a great system that prevents anyone for making a case for a WP:WAR Examples can be found here, here, here (around 21:38, 17 January 2015), here (around 19:29, 18 January 2015), and here. I am not sure if I'll go as far as blaming them for active WP:Canvassing, but it happened enough times around me to shows a pattern.
- Another claim of WP:WAR was raised by Nishidani for Karmei Tzur. It is completely bogus and part of this witch-hunt. I have deleted three stories that I thought weren't notable enough. A claim for POVPUSH will be completely false as one of them was about stone throwing where nobody died. I've then realized an image was related to one of those and thus deleted it as well. Nableezy disagree over the importance of two of the stories and returned them along with the picture. The only issue is, the picture is related to the story he chose to leave out. I haven't noticed it at first, but once I did, I removed it. I have asked Nableezy to comment on this matter.
I think at this point I have wrote everything I have about why the revert in question (and the one second one) weren't WP:WAR, WP:1RR but rather the duty of an editor to correction of a mistake done by the previous revert where opposition is unlikely.
If this isn't enough of an explanation maybe Nishidani is right and I have notable problems. Since my topic ban was lifted I opened an RfD (which concluded with consensus in a few days and effected tens of articles) and RfC (so far, the two answers support my position - 'rampant POV-pushing and totally unacceptable') exactly to eliminate this type of conflicts.
If this does sound reasonable, I would like a mechanism to be put in place so The Pack won't gang on me again.
Cheers, Ashtul (talk) 08:17, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
Statement by EvergreenFir
As I said over at the AN3 report in response to the user saying their timezone settings made them inadvertently revert before the 24 hours were up, the user appears to be waiting for the restriction window to end. They did so without discussing the edits in the meantime. It's gaming to just wait for the instant the 24 hours are up. To quote WP:3RR for the sake of the user, not the reviewing admins: Any appearance of gaming the system by reverting a fourth time just outside the 24-hour slot is likely to be treated as a 3RR violation. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 20:21, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
Statement by IjonTichyIjonTichy
It seems Ashtul has learned almost nothing from his blocks and topic ban, and is repeating the same behaviors that led to the blocks and ban. He is gaming the system and editing in a highly partisan way. He appears to have made an effort to familiarize himself to some modest extent with the letter of WP policies, but his understanding, and more importantly his acceptance, of the spirit of the policies are very poor. He still does not understand or accept the culture of WP. He still does not have a clue. Ashtul's disruptive editing significantly reduces the work output of productive editors.
Thanks and regards, IjonTichy (talk) 15:03, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
Statement by (username)
Result concerning Ashtul
- This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the sections above.
- If this was a first offence it might be closed with no action. But Ashtul has been previously blocked as long as two weeks for violations related to ARBPIA. I propose a six-month topic ban from everything covered by WP:ARBPIA. EdJohnston (talk) 03:41, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
MarkBernstein
This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.
Requests may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs (not counting required information), except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Request concerning MarkBernstein
- User who is submitting this request for enforcement
- DHeyward (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · edit filter log · block user · block log) 06:49, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
- User against whom enforcement is requested
- MarkBernstein (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · edit filter log · block user · block log)
Search DS alerts: in user talk history • in system log
- Sanction or remedy to be enforced
Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/GamerGate#Recidivism
Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/GamerGate#Discretionary sanctions
MarkBernstein (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) was indef topic banned in November 2014 and it appears that his behavior avoided scrutiny. During the ArbCom case, he was blocked multiple times for an Indef Topic Ban violation in January 2015. It appears that these actions saved MarkBernstein from direct ArbCom sanctions. After the decision, the indef topic ban and the block were lifted on promises that he wouldn't return to the behavior that led to the sanctions. Since then, he has returned to the exact same behavior and has been blocked for exactly the same issues. Per the case, enough is enough.
Participants in the case were sanctioned with this remedy for arguably less disruption. Per below, it doesn't appear that MarkBernstein will abide by the rules put forth in the ruling despite numerous promises, excuses, and breaks.
While the enforcement section allows and indef block, MarkBernstein will most likely cease disruption with the standard Topic Ban outlined in the case.
Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/GamerGate#Scope of standard topic ban(I)
Please enforce the rulings in the case with the Standard Topic Ban.
@Guettarda: It's not about his latest block. It's about his entire history of not being able to follow civility rules and the ArbCom ruling. The latest block is a culmination of all the other items. How many editors would come of a topic ban, a 1 month block and then return to the contentious topic and be warned multiple times and blocked again within two weeks and not have the topic ban restored? 2 days, a week, then a month block followed up with 2 warnings and another block within 2 weeks of having the block lifted early on a good behavior promise. --DHeyward (talk) 15:06, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
- @Guettarda:I chose only to list those comments that an admin deemed warnable or sanctionable and only since the TBAN. The questionable edits are embedded in those links below as part of the ban or block notice. I didn't go and search for additional evidence as most editors in that topic area have come across w bit sniping. I did this for three reasons: 1). it's highlighting a pattern severe enough that admins are attempting (and failing) to correct; 2). I don't follow GamerGate enough to correctly categorize every slight so I relied on Patrolling admins; and 3) if I were to bring a myriad of diffs from actual behavior it would be like bringing the GG talk page here. The pattern of conduct is what is disturbing with all the warnings and a block coming 2 weeks and it's noticed. He has 8 "official" warnings, bans and blocks related to specific topic areas and he has been able to accomplish this in less than 3 months and despite being Tbanned and/or blocked that entire time. --DHeyward (talk) 20:11, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
@Strongjam: The ARCA request was closed and MarkBernstein was given the benefit of the doubt. Since then he's been warned and blocked. Everyone seems to have said to take these issues to AE as the proper venue so here we are. --DHeyward (talk) 15:21, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
@Gamaliel: Please note that I was not against you lifting your topic ban which is clear from your talk page. Nor do I want to see anyone restricted based on ideology or "sides" or what not. It's as simple as what kind of editor is constructive for the topic area. If they are more disruptive than helpful, intervention is necessary. MarkBernstein, so far, hasn't demonstrated that he understands how to collaborate. A block two weeks after an indef topic ban and block for the same reasons as those given for the TBan and the previous 2 blocks on a topic covered by ArbCom sanctions means it shouldn't surprise anyone that it is at AE. No one is looking to put his head on a pike but he seems bent on putting it there himself.
- @Gamaliel: Which editor are you referring? I saw one that had a clean block log and no warning (not that it is required) and it was also an account that seemed to focus solely on GG. If admins are topic banning before an AE request, all the better. There's been no request to unban the editor I am aware of. This issue isn't that too many TBans of disruptive editors. Bring it here if you do not wish to perform the block yourself. --DHeyward (talk) 23:58, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
- Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it
Note that these are only the violations he was warned about. Four separate admins have issues either topic bans or blocks regarding GamerGate conduct by MarkBernstein.
- Nov 28, 2014 Indef topic ban for personally directed comments
- Jan 3, 2015 Blocked 1 week for topic ban evasion.
- Jan 24, 2015 Blocked 1 month for topic ban evasion
- Feb 7, 2015 Indef discretionary topic ban ended while block still enacted based on "promises."
- Feb 12, 2015 Unblocked early with "promises" of no more personally directed comments
- Feb 18, 2015 Another final warning about personally directed comments
- Feb 22, 2015 Another personally directed comment gets another warning.
- Feb 24, 2015 Blocked for 24 hours for yet another personall directed comment.
- Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any
- If discretionary sanctions are requested, supply evidence that the user is aware of them (see WP:AC/DS#Awareness and alerts)
- Previously blocked as a discretionary sanction for conduct in the area of conflict, see the block log linked to above.
- Previously given a discretionary sanction for conduct in the area of conflict.
- Alerted about discretionary sanctions in the area of conflict in the last twelve months, see the system log linked to above.
- Gave an alert about discretionary sanctions in the area of conflict in the last twelve months.
- Participated in an arbitration request or enforcement procedure about the area of conflict.
- Additional comments by editor filing complaint
I didn't bother with diffs showing his awareness of sanctions as it is more than obvious that he is.
- Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested
Notified of discussion.[162]
Discussion concerning MarkBernstein
Statements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Administrators may remove or shorten noncompliant statements. Disruptive contributions may result in blocks.
Statement by MarkBernstein
Statement by Cullen328
Although I found Mark Bernstein's participation problematic before the ArbCom ruling on Gamergate, I believe that his contributions have been generally positive since then. Yes, he is forceful in defense of our BLP policy, but certainly such diligence is justified because of ongoing disruptive trolling of this group of articles. Any mistakes he has made recently seem minor, and should be corrected by a few words from other editors, rather than more serious sanctions. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 07:31, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
Statement by PeterTheFourth
I've been nothing but impressed with how stringently Mark Bernstein applies wikipedia's policies in editing articles. My interaction with his has been after his banning and subsequent reversal, and has been pleasant. I do note that there are editors who have directed rather pointed comments towards Bernstein since his ban from directing comments at other editors[163][164]- that Bernstein has received prickly behaviour such as this and been as stoic as he has is admirable to the utmost extent. PeterTheFourth (talk) 07:57, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
Statement by starship.paint
Enough is enough. MarkBernstein clearly feels very strongly about protecting women in computing, but that is no excuse for repeatedly casting aspersions on other editors. This recent diff shows bright as day that MarkBernstein has no problem attacking and assuming the worst in other editors, therefore contributing to a hostile editing environment in spite of repeated warnings, blocks and a topic ban. starship.paint ~ ¡Olé! 09:38, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
Just for those of us who aren’t part of the secret society, what was "Masem’s Talk"?
- @Guettarda: - please read through Bosstopher's statement, which provides diffs on the MarkBernstein's history of casting aspersions. He sees a vast conspiracy by established editors and even an admin to attack women in computing. I think Masem, Orlando and myself (there may be others as well) have contributed enough to Wikipedia that being grouped as part of a conspiracy or "secret society" is plain insulting. We're not redlinks. If MarkBernstein has a problem with established editors, he can come up with the evidence and report us right here. Otherwise, he needs to stop talking about established editors as such. starship.paint ~ ¡Olé! 23:35, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
There is no remaining NPOV issue, merely a vocal group of POV pushers, openly collaborating a campaign on 8chan to make this page more favorable to GamerGate
this is precisely what one small cadre of editors, aided by off-wiki organization, insists we must do
some of our number appear to be in a desperate hunt, coordinated on-wiki and off, for any source anywhere that casts the misogyny in a less vivid light
MASEM ... : (Do you have a bunch of good rape jokes you'd like to share with us?)
Hate to be a sourpuss, but I'm not sure that I join with MASEM in thinking Wikipedia should be "amoral" when it comes down to raping game developers.)
MASEM and his (fortunately shrinking -- DSA is about to be topic banned for last night's escapade) band of merry editors try to insinuate that Zoe Quinn's sex life ...
With respect MASEM, I'm not attacking you. I'm attacking the pattern of your edits on the page in question which ... (c) have facilitated a coordinated POV attack on this page and its talk page which is known to be coordinated offsite, and where your aid is specifically cited as an important asset.
... you might have been supporting more favorable coverage of the planning to rape and beat women in computing because you personally support it, or for other reasons. That some editors are colluding is certain; your own part is not clear to me at this time
... in the course of a Wikipedia discussion orchestrated to deter women from pursuing careers in computer science
kthxbye
[175] in response to another editor saying By spreading rumours about wiki-editors online, while using minimal evidence, you raise the potential of exposing them to an angry mob that could try to exact vigilante justice. I hope you reconsider the extreme accusations you are making against wikipedia editors, and try to tone it down a bit.
From an 8chan thread ostensibly planning ArbCom strategy and coordinating how to deploy Orlando, DSA and Logan but largely venting at me
I supposed that TheRealVordox referred to something of a similar nature that Masem had delivered. ... I see Vordox is active on Twitter, where they have 129 tweets to their 3 followers and conversations with TotalBiscuit, Masem, CH Sommers,and SargonOfAkkad ; say hi for me!
- Of all these accusations, where is the evidence against myself, Orlando or Masem regarding collusion? starship.paint ~ ¡Olé! 01:47, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
Statement by Thargor Orlando
I fully endorse this request, along with the diffs that have been provided. I'm still puzzled as to why he was left out of the initial ruling, why his topic ban was ever lifted, and why he was ever unblocked early given his continued behavior. Hopefully this can put an end to this continued abuse. Thargor Orlando (talk) 12:55, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
- @Guettarda: if this were an isolated incident, you'd be right. The fact of the matter is that this is a pattern of behavior, both before and after his lengthy block and topic ban, and if he's not topic banned from a space he is unable to remain civil and collaborative in now, it's inevitable that it will end up here again in the future. Warnings don't work, blocks don't work, so we're here. No, the behavior is not as bad as it was when he was first topic banned, but the basic intent (casting aspersions, trite dismissals, disruptive commentary toward other editors) persists. Enough should be enough. Thargor Orlando (talk) 14:55, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
Statement by Bosstopher
I agree with Thargor insofar as I dont get why he was left out of the Arbcom decision and had his topic ban lifted. HOWEVER, now that his topic ban has been lifted, I'm not sure it has yet reached the point where he requires a new one.
These are the kind of commments MarkBernstein got topic banned for originally: accusations of being pro-rape,[178] false accusations that an editor (no indication could be found of Thargor's participation at all) was coordinating against him on 4chan and threatening his life,[179][180] and accusing Masem of being some kind of GG mastermind offsite.
Compare this to the lackluster comment that finally got Mark blocked this time round,[181] I cant imagine anyone other than Mark being blocked for a comment like this.
I think there is no reason to topic ban him based on his recent block and his comments have been toned down since his original topic ban. BUT, (and this is a big but) keeping his past behavior in mind, some of his recent comments have been veering dangerously close to his old ways. This includes comments implying Orlando is part of some offsite collusion[182][183], as well as implying that THE BOSS User:Masem, is the evil mastermind behind everything.[184] This was merely someone tweeting at Masem and not a conversation (Mark corrected his comment on request).[185]
So while I think the recent block against Mark was unfair (if admins had topic banned/blocked him for earlier comments instead of giving him a final warning I would have been ok with it), he should probably at the very least be given a 1 way interaction bans with Thargor and Masem. Bosstopher (talk) 13:54, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
Statement by Strongjam
Dr. Bernstein has been productive in the topic space. His presence has only been made disruptive by other editors who insist on make much ado about every edit. Editors who re-add warnings that Bernstein has removed from his talk page, and who's goal on their talk page seems to be to get as much admin attention as possible. Claim rather mundane comments are "vitriol", then when hatted, repeatedly refactor the hat over Bernstein's comment (leaving other editors signatures on the reasoning.)
The talk pages of Dreadstar and Gamaliel have plenty of examples of editors talking about MarkBernstein, and there has already been an ARCA. At some point this has to be considered WP:POINTy behaviour.
@Bosstopher: If there is an interaction ban with Thargor it should be two-way in my opinion. — Strongjam (talk) 14:06, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
Also of note, DHeyward's collection of diffs that violate this sanction or remedy include 0 edits by MarkBernstein. — Strongjam (talk) 15:19, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
Statement by Hipocrite
Dr. Bernstein is being held to a standard of behavior that the people doing the holding could not reach in their best of days - that he reaches the standard on any day is a miracle. Wikipedia is offered here the choice between a bunch of brand new sock puppets and ressurected accounts who are members of a mysoginistic hate movement and a dedicated professional with decades of experience. Don't make the wrong one. Hipocrite (talk) 14:44, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
On the other side, however DHeyward does appear to have a pointy, harassment, civility problem. He's taken to harassing Dr. Bernstein on his talk page by reinserting comments legitimately removed by Dr. Bernstein, and calling users who tell him to stop doing that "Daft." Hipocrite (talk) 15:42, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
Statement by Kaciemonster
I agree with those who are pointing out that Dr. Bernstein is the only editor being held to this higher standard of behavior. While I can understand how past behavior might put his edits under greater scrutiny, we should consider that he's also made productive contributions, and brought valuable insight to the Gamergate talk page.
If I'm remembering correctly, an editor was banned from talking about Dr. Bernstein, and considering the open hostility he's faced from other editors I think he's handling himself pretty well. He's already been blocked for 24 hours, and from the looks of this request, no new evidence has been offered up. If he continues the personal attacks after he's unblocked, maybe a topic ban is something to consider. Right now, I think anything else would be excessive. Kaciemonster (talk) 16:02, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
Statement by Liz
While Mark Bernstein can appear zealous at times, it is always to uphold Wikipedia policies like WP:BLP. He has edited fairly and engaged in productive discussions on article talk pages in the face of off-wiki harassment and on-wiki baiting. Right now, editing in the GamerGate area, we have a balance of editors with different points of view (that one might crudely identify as pro-GG, neutral and anti-GG) and the loss of Bernstein's participation would mean that newly created accounts promoting GamerGate as a ethnically neutral "consumer movement" would dominate the discussion.
Bernstein has a POV but so does everyone editing in this area or they wouldn't have ventured on to these talk pages. If Bernstein crosses the fuzzy line of civility, he, like any other editor, can receive limited time blocks. While no one editor is indispensable on Wikipedia, I think without Bernstein's participation, the articles could easily slide into smearing the good names and reputations of living people who are involved with this controversy. Liz Read! Talk! 17:09, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
Comment by MONGO
With all due respect...perhaps nine lives only applies to cats? Or shall we change the rules depending on which side of the coin one sits?--MONGO 19:34, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
Statement by EncyclopediaBob
I'll reserve direct comments about Mark's behavior until he's able to respond.
@Gamaliel: In defense of your initial decision to lift his topic ban you offer assurance to concerned editors that a reasonable mechanism exists to ensure his positive contributions:
He will be closely watched by many people when he returns to editing, so I am confident that if he steps out of line again he will be quickly dealt with by myself or another administrator.
I've made it abundantly clear to Mark that he will be closely watched by a large number of people, including myself, and that I will be the first one in line at the block button should he engage in further disruptive behavior.
I'm having difficulty reconciling these statements with your apparent criticism of exactly that mechanism here:
Mark Bernstein is being watched by everyone: friends, enemies, administrators, the press. This campaign to get rid of him is doing more damage to the atmosphere of collaborative editing than Mark Bernstein himself possibly could.
Further you state:
If the edit histories of those other editors were subject to the same hyper-scrutiny that is applied to Mark Bernstein, they would not do well here.
but those other editors are not subject to the very specific condition on which HJ Mitchell removed his block:
Hi Mark. As we discussed by email, I've unblocked you with the sole condition that you avoid personally directed comments
which the diffs above show he was unable to abide.
The pattern here seems to be that we give this editor leeway contingent upon special scrutiny but when an attempt is made to apply that scrutiny it's then criticized for being special. I'd hope for general and consistent application of policy, especially in such a contentious space. —EncyclopediaBob (talk) 19:54, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
Statement by Drseudo
Based on the preliminary comments from admins below, I'm hopeful that this request will be seen for what it is: an attempt to drive Mark Bernstein from the project at any cost, for any or no reason. Issue him a ban on discussing other editors, if you must, and then send this request back whence it came. drseudo (t) 21:14, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
Statement by Starke Hathaway
Enough is truly enough. An editor who feels compelled to describe those who disagree with his edits as, variously, "the armies of Mordor," "a barbarian horde of internet trolls," and "a barbarian horde of internet trolls" (again) and Wikipedia as "a battleground when they tell you it's a battleground" cannot and should not be accomodated in a contentious topic area.
What, short of actual sanctions, is going to dissuade this user from his current behavior if warnings from no fewer than four admins will not? -Starke Hathaway (talk) 21:50, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
Statement by GoldenRing
As the editor who initiated to ARCA request recently, I accept that the committee didn't take my view of the case history and the situation surrounding MarkBernstein. I don't have a horse in this (GG) race; I'm here because I see an editor being continually disruptive.
I think problems are clear. @Dreadstar:, if you can't support a topic ban for MB then why did you say One more comment about another editor on the article talk pages and I will ban you from all GamerGate related articles??? Less than two days later he's back at it, so you decide a 24-hour block is sufficient.
I sort of agree with Hipocrite (and others) that MarkBernstein is being held to a standard higher than others; but there is a significant difference: Those others have not had a topic ban removed on the assurance that personally-directly comments would not reoccur. Those other editors have not been warned One more comment about another editor as you did here and I will sanction you. Period. Those others have not been warned One more comment about another editor on the article talk pages and I will ban you from all GamerGate related articles. Those other editors haven't made a gentleman's agreement to avoid personally directed comments.
The problem (or at least a problem) here is that admins want MarkBernstein to stop making personally directed comments but aren't willing to use the tools to make it happen. So far this month, he's given Gamaliel assurances by email; made a gentleman's agreement with HJ Mitchell; given a 'final' warning by Dreadstar; and given another warning by Dreadstar (what's the point of a final warning if you're going to follow it up with another warning?). When it finally becomes clear that none of these warnings is going to do anything, what's the result? A 24-hour block. What earthly good is that going to do anyone with an editor who ignores warnings, gives assurances then goes against them, makes agreements then goes against them? GoldenRing (talk) 03:43, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
Statement by (username)
Result concerning MarkBernstein
- This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the sections above.
- @Starship.paint: - What's the problem with the link you provided? I'd be very curious about a brand new editor making a comment like that. Guettarda (talk) 13:04, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
- Looking at Dreadstar's warnings and blocks, I suppose "the new editor must think we're morons" (to paraphrase MB) is, in fact, a violation of Dreadstar's "don't comment on other editors" warnings. But I fail to see how that warrants a topic ban. Guettarda (talk) 14:44, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
- At this point, I can't support a topic ban for MB; in my view, all he needs to do is quit talking about other editors on the article talk pages. Dreadstar ☥ 15:21, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
- First, I have to address the mistaken idea that Mark Bernstein somehow "escaped" ArbCom sanction by being topic banned during the proceedings. This was rejected by the Committee last week. The fact that other editors under topic bans during the case were sanctioned by ArbCom proves that this theory is inaccurate.
- Bernstein has voiced complaints to me that comments about him by other editors have gone unsanctioned. I have told him that he should strive to move on and attempt to treat those other editors as collaborators. It is apparent that those other editors are in need of the same advice. This is part of an incredibly disturbing trend by those editors and others to get Mark Bernstein sanctioned for absolutely anything they can. When I lifted the topic ban, numerous editors demanded, cajoled, and insulted in order to get him sanctioned, regardless of policy, precedent, or the fact that he hadn't even made any new edits yet. Mark Bernstein is being watched by everyone: friends, enemies, administrators, the press. This campaign to get rid of him is doing more damage to the atmosphere of collaborative editing than Mark Bernstein himself possibly could. If the edit histories of those other editors were subject to the same hyper-scrutiny that is applied to Mark Bernstein, they would not do well here. Gamaliel (talk) 18:17, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
-
- One would also hope for the general and consistent application of policy when it came to deciding which editors to file grievances against. Note that another long-standing editor on these pages was topic banned yesterday for openly insulting other editors. Instead of constantly demanding action against this editor in every talk page and noticeboard available, there was silence from the usual suspects. Gamaliel (talk) 21:25, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
Edit war at Anita Sarkeesian
This merits attention. It's a BLP covered by the Gamergate arbitration case and there should be no edit wars at all in that topic at this stage.
Please fix this. You were given the tools at WP:ARBGG. --TS 01:53, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
- As I read this, the issue here is primarily with User:Theduinoelegy, who was informed as to the existence of discretionary sanctions a week ago. Does anyone see any reason for us not to sanction as requested? NW (Talk) 03:56, 25 February 2015 (UTC)