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That RevelationDirect be investigated for being a WP:MEATPUPPET of @ Laurel Lodged: now

1) I'm a little unclear on the exact claim against me since I seem to be an mascot of a WP:TAGTEAM rather than a full fledged member. I'm also unsure of how a meat puppet investigation works and how conclusive the results are. But there has been a repeated claim that I am under the improper influence of another editor and I would love to clear the air on that as part of the evidence phase of ArbComm. RevelationDirect ( talk) 20:57, 31 July 2023 (UTC) reply

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Support motion, preliminary provision of context, counter-evidence, and possible explanation for misunderstanding I support this motion. We cannot ignore baseless accusations that harm the reputation of fellow Wikipedians. I'll provide some context below, and my analysis why BHG probably mistakenly arrived at the conclusion that there was some sort of "tag team" which was "revenge-nominating" categories she had created. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw ( talk) 18:32, 1 August 2023 (UTC) reply

• This is a straw man. I never alleged that RevelationDirect is under the improper influence of another editor, let alone tat RevelationDirect is a "meatpuppet". See [1], where I wrote: I also do no know whether you are a part of the tag team. All I do know is that you both repeatedly endorse the tag team, and that you repeatedly act as their attack dog by piling on me for criticising them..
  RevelationDirect extensively quote-mined that discussion in multiple venues, so it is particularly surprising that they seem unaware of my reply. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 21:12, 2 August 2023 (UTC) reply

  In response to NL's "possible explanation for misunderstanding": no, I did not overreact to an overwhelming amount of automatic Twinkle notifications.

  The Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2023 May 20#Sportspeople_second-level_administrative_division didn't bother me at all: I didn't think it was a great idea, but not a big enough issue to merit exposing myself to more of LL's goading.

  As to the tag-teaming, the evidence is at User:BrownHairedGirl/Draft evidence in SmallCat case.

  NL's presumption of their ability to read my mind- is an unwelcome as their speculation about my religious beliefs and their continued false allegations that I "threatened" a closer.

  I really am astonished at the way NL has repeatedly stoked this dispute, whilst proclaiming themself to be some sort of neutral peacemaker. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 00:56, 12 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Comment by others:

• I believe that "investigations" for WP:meatpuppetry fall under the purview of WP:SPI, and that CheckUsers will specifically not do "innocence checks" such as is being requested in this section. Beyond My Ken ( talk) 16:10, 5 August 2023 (UTC) reply

  From my perspective, an "innocence check" perfectly describes what I'm asking for! Presumably, if I was bluffing, I would be exposed by that review though.

  I'll defer to others whether ArbComm has that authority to request them and whether it's appropriate to use it in this case. RevelationDirect ( talk) 20:59, 5 August 2023 (UTC) reply

  I'm not sure a CU check must follow a report at SPI. However, the accusation in this case is not sockpuppetry (inappropriate use of multiple accounts), but meatpuppetry (several editors colluding to influence consensus). A CU check would turn up no useful evidence. – FlyingAce ^✈hello 21:26, 5 August 2023 (UTC) reply

  ArbCom has the experience to investigate allegations of sockpuppetry/meatpuppetry on their own. While an SPI could be requested, it would be a waste of time: meatpuppetry allegations are notoriously difficult to prove, especially for experienced users, and (absent compelling evidence by the filer) it would likely be closed as "we're never going to be able to prove anything here". Knowing that, an SPI could not conclusively determine innocence, only that we do not have evidence for guilt - if two people engaged in sufficiently sophisticated meatpuppetry, we wouldn't be able to prove anything with the tools at hand. I know it wasn't requested, but CU absolutely would not be used in this case. GeneralNotability ( talk) 23:36, 5 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Motion to strike Proposed Findings of Fact #4.11.2.2, 4.11.2.3, 4.11.2.4 & 4.11.2.5

2) Since WP:ARBGUIDE#Workshop requires that "Proposed findings of fact should be supported by evidence on the /Evidence page." and these had none, I propose striking them. - RevelationDirect ( talk) 00:27, 17 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Support. Nederlandse Leeuw ( talk) 00:42, 17 August 2023 (UTC) reply

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Arbitrators may ask questions of the parties in this section.

Proposed final decision Information

Proposed remedies (Marcocapelle)

Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.

Motion about content / withdrawn by proposer

Proposed principles (Marcocapelle)

Good intentions

1) Inappropriate behaviour driven by good intentions is still inappropriate. Editors acting in good faith may still be sanctioned when their actions are disruptive.

Comment by Arbitrators:

@ BrownHairedGirl: as the evidence phase is re-opened and tag teaming was just one of several elements you wished to cover in your broader evidence submission, perhaps you could just submit evidence about that within the parameters? Barkeep49 ( talk) 16:57, 10 August 2023 (UTC) reply

@ BrownHairedGirl: I figured you might say that you needed to post everything. I was wondering if a smaller focus (tag teaming) could allow you to post in a way that felt good for you. It sounds like maybe not, which again is not a surprise. Barkeep49 ( talk) 18:37, 10 August 2023 (UTC) reply

BHG: I have tried to be very respectful of your point of view about presenting evidence both in discussion with you and others. And so while I have no doubt that you feel being able to present just part of the evidence is "crumbs", I hope you realize that from the arbitrator perspective, having a complete set of evidence about a sub-topic of the broader dispute is meaningful and substantial and could effect the direction of the case. I didn't know if this frame - 100% of something even if not 100% of 100% - might feel good to you or not which is why I asked. Ultimately you're entitled to decide it's not worth doing, but out of respect for you and the process and because of my genuine desire to reach the best decision possible in this case, I wanted to be explicit in the value that doing so would provide just so I know you had the best possible information to make your own decision. Barkeep49 ( talk) 19:48, 10 August 2023 (UTC) reply

@ BrownHairedGirl: If this dispute is about you having put 100 hours into evidence, might I respectfully suggest that you're viewing this the wrong way? I understand it is frustrating to put in a lot of work and see it not get put to use; I recently spent an entire week writing a very long document that turned out to be useless. It was frustrating for sure, and more than a few expletives came out of my mouth. But I was able to take a couple pages of that document and use them in something else, and thus my work was not all for naught. You've put an awful lot of work in, you could still select the best parts of that and submit them into evidence. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!} ⚓ 19:43, 10 August 2023 (UTC) reply

@ BrownHairedGirl Obviously we care about accuracy and verifiability, that is one of the goals of Wikipedia. But I fail to see how the UCOC provision on accuracy and verifiability requires that we simply disregard procedure or fairness to give you 20,000 words of evidence. Even the US Supreme Court limits Amicus Curiae briefs to 9,000 words. If you can convince the US Supreme Court in 9,000 words, you can convince us with less. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!} ⚓ 22:05, 10 August 2023 (UTC) reply

@ BrownHairedGirl: Because this is coming up again, I will state what I said to other arbitrators internally when you first asked for an extension. I intend for this to be my first, last, and only public word on the matter. From my internal opinion on your original request:

Genuinely, I think this request stems from a trap a lot of participants fall into: feeling the need to respond to everything on the assumption that arbitrators simply take claims for granted and diffs are just there for decoration. The diff is the context, and if things are being taken out of context, it should be sufficient to either say "read the diff" or present your own to give fuller context. There are times where that's not possible or the best response, but that's generally the stronger stuff that deserves an extended treatment. Failing to recognize this is, I think, the source of a lot of issues [...] where the minor points get picked up on. The word limits are not merely a way for us to limit how much we have to read: they are to force parties to prioritize their arguments and synthesize information rather than throwing everything at the wall and hoping things stick. Not only do I think allowing her to post a treatise would be annoying for us, I think it would be actively harmful to her if we let her. It may seem like letting her post what she wants in her own defense would be fair, but that's a shallow conception of fairness. Breaking (because 20k is well beyond bending) the rules so that she can post something we know will be generally useless and possibly incredibly harmful isn't, in my mind, in the interest of fairness. Similarly, it privileges fairness to her while largely ignoring how unfair it is for other participants who will now need to read and possibly respond to all of that. Even if we say 20k words takes 70 minutes to read (I believe that to be a bit low), that's over 22 person-hours spent reading alone (counting parties and arbs only). Is that a good use of our collective time or does it amount to a filibuster or distraction?
— Wugapodes, internal communication to the Arbitration Committee, 31 July 2023

Now, on the merits, I will say that I chose to read your draft submission back when you emailed it to us. I did not read it as evidence, but rather I read it from the perspective of trying to evaluate whether the composition used words economically, and therefore whether not granting an extension would lead to important material being excised. At the very start you spend roughly 200 words explaining the history of SMALLCAT (information wholly available at the two links you give) and reiterating the content of the guideline (information available to anyone who reads the guideline central to this case). Further on you spend another 250-odd words on "Why this became a sprawling dispute" but provide us with a link to a single ANI discussion where your only commentary was "See also [ANI link], where none of them would even acknowledge what SMALLCAT actually says." I'm not going to go point-by-point; it suffices to show that the draft-as-written is not economical nor concise.

I want to raise a counterfactual; imagine we did allow the unedited draft to be considered as evidence. Granted, it's difficult to view one's self from a disinterested perspective (it's why litigants are generally advised to have someone else represent them), but please try. Considering the concerns already in evidence regarding bludgeoning of process (e.g. Thryduulf's evidence), if that draft were to be in evidence, would it dispel or substantiate those concerns? I chose (and continue to choose) not to consider the draft as evidence, and therefore I choose to not answer that question. I believe our word limit procedures exist, in part, to limit the ability of parties to unintentionally harm their own case. That is a major factor in my opposition to an extension.

This is why, speaking personally, I have not found your accusations that the process is rigged against you persuasive. I have privately, for the last 10 days, been trying to use our procedures for what I perceive to be your benefit. I have been urging other arbitrators to enforce our procedures (not even rigidly, we were willing to consider a request for up to 5 times the normal word limit) so that you will not submit something that will make you look bad to me and my colleagues without realizing; my argument was even quoted and sent to you as advice in our denial. Tangentially, the drafters of this case re-opened and extended the evidence phase in order to gather more evidence on a very serious (gendered and culturally specific) personal attack against you which might mitigate some of the issues raised against you.

I say this, in part, because I want to make explicit how much work people are doing both on-wiki and behind the scenes to try and help you. One community member tried extracting relevant parts of your draft to submit (but later replaced), and recently another community member has offered to help edit the document to which you responded "I don't believe that it could be condensed that far [i.e., by half] without removing important parts of my case" ( diff). Editors I respect have submitted evidence showing the body of helpful work you can do when you stop digging (e.g. Tamzin's evidence; Pppery's evidence). In my ideal world we would be able to retain all those great contributions from you without needing to devote volunteer resources to resolving the latest conflict you find yourself in. You bring up that you've spent 100 hours on this case, but just an hour prior you rejected someone offering to literally do labor in your defence. How many hours, collectively, has the community spent on trying to find a way to keep you around? In previous disputes, how much time were other people devoting to your defense in order to insulate you from the workload (see User:Barkeep49/Friends don't let friends get sanctioned for a perspective on this phenomenon)? You bring up an accounting of your time, but your time is not the only time that counts when considering issues of fairness.

If, after all of this, you still would like an extension to post your draft without edits, then there's not much else I can do to try and get you to reconsider. — Wug· a·po·des 08:40, 11 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Comment by parties:

• I copied this from a previous case. The "good intentions" I specifically have in mind here is that I believe that BHG genuinely desires to uphold WP:SMALLCAT but by means of inappropriate behaviour. But the principle may be applied to others as well of course, including to myself. Not sure if this is the right place to add this clarification.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Marcocapelle ( talk • contribs) 16:56, 6 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Support. Violating one guideline in pursuit of upholding another guideline is not just inappropriate, it is also unnecessary. Nederlandse Leeuw ( talk) 20:12, 7 August 2023 (UTC) reply

@ Marcocapelle Technically, you are borrowing the text of Wikipedia:Arbitration/Index/Principles#Good faith and disruption, not Wikipedia:Arbitration/Index/Principles#Good intentions. But they are closely related arb principles, so it doesn't really matter. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw ( talk) 23:46, 8 August 2023 (UTC) reply

@ Barkeep49: I will post my evidence in full if you let me. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 17:21, 10 August 2023 (UTC) reply

@ Barkeep49: what would feel good (or at least a bit less bad) is being able to post all the evidence that I spent 100 hours of my life drafting, and which even then doesn't address all the muck thrown at me by the SMALLCAT-defiers.

If I can't do that, then I'm not going pretend that a few crumbs does anything other than mislead the arbs about what's been happening. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 19:17, 10 August 2023 (UTC) reply

@ CaptainEek: This case is about the conduct of the parties.

My evidence is all about that conduct, with a particular focus on the UCoC. If the arbitrators don't want to consider the UCoC violations which underpin this whole dispute, then I respectfully suggest that the arbs are viewing the case in the wrong way.

I came here to build an encyclopedia, and the UCoC requirement to "strive towards accuracy and verifiability" describes the core of all my work. If that's not also the core concern of the arbs, then I have been in the wrong place. My discussions with the arbs and the focus of other editors in this case an elsewhere have led me to conclude that my focus is an outlier ... and that this Arbcom process is structured to assert other priorities. So I am not allowed to present my case, and the fundamental principle of "strive towards accuracy and verifiability" is downgraded, while unencyclopedic practises such as rampant contextomy and systematic endorsement of false assertions are overlooked (or even protected) while secondary issues are made central.

That is why I have semi-retired. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 21:26, 10 August 2023 (UTC) reply

@ CaptainEek: there's a bunch of major distinctions which you seem to overlook, including:

1. An Amicus Curiae brief is a submission by a non-party. I am not a non-party.
2. An Amicus Curiae brief is offers an alternative or additional perspective; it is not primary evidence.
3. The USSC does not permit an unlimited number of non-parties to submit evidence
4. The USSC does not permit open-scope cases, where any allegation by anyone of any unrelated misdemeanour by a party may be added to the case. USSC cases are tightly focused.
5. Arbcom is a first-instance hearing. The USSC is a court of final appeal, not a primary trial court. My experience of first instance courts in both civil and criminal cases in both England and Ireland is that the evidence bundles are humungous, often several feet high.
6. One third of my total word count is table of evidence of how massive contextomy was used to misrepresent me and trigger a pile-on. That cannot be summarised unless the full data is presented.
7. A significant part of my evidence relates to tying together the patterns of misconduct across multiple venues, and/or to the comparisons of the standards which Oculi applied to his own category creations versus those applied to mine. That cannot be summarised unless the data is included
8. Another significant part of my evidence describes omissions by Oculi and Laurel Lodged. That too requires a lot of words to tie it together: a set of diffs cannot describe it.
9. Yet another big chunk of my evidence is rebutting misrepresentations and false assertions. That too cannot be sumarised.

The Arbs seem to want to structure this case as a set of diffs with minimal context. That approach frames the dispute in favour of those who quote-mine assertions which they dislike, while excluding the diffuse evidence for why those assertions were made. That's a procedural bias, and while I know that this approach has been used before, in this case it clearly favours those who misrepresent SMALLCAT.

I just word-counted User:BrownHairedGirl/Draft evidence in SmallCat case: 11,765 words, according to Notepad++'s TextFX add-on, or 5,788 words according to User:Shubinator/DYKcheck (which includes my prelim notes about the raft, but sees to exclude tables). There is a lot more that I could add, but I have no energy or inclination to do so.

So if I could post that plus the evidence which have I already posted in this workshop page, I'd be able to make my case well enough. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 23:21, 10 August 2023 (UTC) reply

I'm a strange editor to provide advice, but I think it would be effective if you provided your evidence just against me as the filer of both ArbComm and ANI. FWIW, I never objected to your word count request, but you could just say you don't have space to address the other involved editors because of the space limitations. (Granted, some of Laurel Lodged's edits should clearly not be ignored, but Valereee, Beccaynr, MJL and and others are covering that quite well.) My overall thesis is that, rather than providing evidence at dispute resolution, you're sprinkling accusations in the wild where they can't be addressed. TBH, your comments on this page combined with the lack of formal evidence furthers that narrative. But I don't want to further it; I'm hoping providing any evidence against me will help move this forward in a way we weren't able to achieve on your talk page. - RevelationDirect ( talk) 11:29, 11 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Sigh. My evidence is disallowed, so RD asserts that I am making unevidenced allegations. YCMTSU. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 23:52, 11 August 2023 (UTC) reply

In reply to @ Wugapodes post of 08:40, 11 August 2023‎.

First, I want to stress that I do believe your post was made as good faith attempt to help. I find it very problematic, for reasons I set out below, but I do not intend in any way suggest or imply bad faith.

The fundamental issue which the arbitrators need to decide here is a simple one: Do the Arbs agree that it is a breach of the UCoC for editors to repeatedly misrepresent a short, simple stable guideline?

That's the starting point of my evidence, and it's the fundamental question for me. To be absolutely clear, if sustained misrepresentation of any text is acceptable conduct, I do not want to remain part of Wikipedia. That applies whether the text is an internal policy or guideline, the words of another editor, or an external source.

The second fundamental issue for me is that building an encyclopedia is an intellectual exercise: it requires both intellectual rigour and debate of contested issues. However, in the last decade, a culture has developed on en.Wikipedia in which reasoned debate is not just deprecated, but is actively supressed by editors who post unreasoned and unevidenced assertions, and react with fury to reasoned challenges, denouncing them as uncivil and seeking revenge.

The result is that some parts of Wikipedia have developed an aggressively anti-intellectual culture, one which actively monsters anyone who tries to apply even basic rigour.

I have been here before. The Portals case in 2019/20 was triggered by my harsh response to an editor who had championed the deletion of a guideline, but then cited it as a "schema for advisement", which is just a fancy way of saying "guideline". That was an outrageous attempt to have it both ways ... but there was utter fury from a lot of editors, not at the absurdity of basing argument on a guideline which the citer deplored and helped to abolish, but at me for harshly denouncing such shoddy practise.

So as this case developed, I decided that I was no longer prepared to be kicked around by the warriors of this anti-intellectual culture. I would make my case on the need for intellectual rigour, and against deplorably anti-intellectual practises such as claiming Humpty-Dumpty like that words can mean whatever someone wants them to mean, and that the propaganda technique of quote-mining should have no place here, and that it is acceptable to target another editor's work deletion purely to punish them.

When the Arbs refused to give me the space to make that case (and defended the contextomy of diff-farming as the best way to present evidence), I concluded that there was no possibility of an outcome which would halt the anti-intellectual bullying I have been subjected to, and no possibility that the final decision would acknowledge the simple fact that this whole dispute is about the sustained misrepresentation of a simple text, and the vicious hostility of some editors to challenges to their misuse.

This whole drama has been a massive drain on my time and energy, and it is deeply hurtful. It's not the first time that my name has been muddied for trying to uphold even basic standards of intellectual rigour, and I cannot continue on this basis. I see no chance of this being fixed, so with great regret I have decided to withdraw from Wikipedia. I will make occasional drive-by edits, but nothing else. I am sick of being monstered by people who demand freedom to assert objective falsehoods.

Wugapodes says that my evidence doesn't help my case, and (I paraphrase) that the Arbs are doing me a favour by banning me from presenting it. That is a rather patronising response. I assume that there was no intent to patronise, but I am 60 years old, with a long track record of significant achievement in real life and on Wikipedia, and I will make my own decisions about where my interests lie.

For clarity, I have no interest in continued participation in this anti-intellectual mob culture. None at all. I do want to build an encyclopedia, and my record shows that I have done a lot of that for nearly two decades, with successful collaborations in many topic areas. But I have decided that i will not continue to harm my health by enduring these monsterings by people who do not "strive towards accuracy and verifiability": either moves are taken to end that, or I go. My selection and presentation of evidence reflects the outcomes I seek. This challenge to an entrenched culture is a long shot, but nothing less will persuade me to return. That UCoC requirement to "strive towards accuracy and verifiability" is clearly not being treated as the central issue of editor conduct, which makes this a hostile environment for me. Being told that it's not in my interest to make that case merely reaffirms to me that I made the right choice to semi-retire.

As to the notion that my 11K words of evidence imposes an undue burden on other parties: aaaargh! Hundreds of thousands of words have been written about this dispute, at CFD, on my talk, at ANI, and here at Arbcom. My 11K words (half of which is quotes and data tables) is a small addition to that total, and even it wasn't such a small proportion, any robust intellectual work requires a lot of reading. People ho are actually here to build an encyclopedia should not object to a bit of reading: it's a core part of the job. And given that this dispute arises entirely from the sustained failure of some editors to read and comprehend even the six words "Small with no potential for growth", it's clear that word count is not a key factor.

It is particularly ironic that RevelationDirect complains about the burden of that reading. I tried to discuss that substance of the dispute with RevelationDirect on my talk, but instead of continuing that chat, they quote-mined our chat to an extreme degree, even chopping up my sentences to remove anything which demonstrated why I was making those criticisms. RD then used that quote-mining to create a monster ANI storm; yet now they claim that my words are too many. As to RD's assertions that they believe suppression of my evidence is in my interest: if RD had any concern for my interest they wouldn't have escalated a debate into megastorm. And of course, RD's own interests are very well served by the suppression of my detailed evidence of how they used the propaganda technique of quote-mining to smear me.

So there we are. Arbcom's refusal to hear my case has, in lawyer's terms, fettered their discretion to consider my case. If there was an appeal process, I'd be confident, but there is no appeal. As a result, I fully expect that this Arbcom will repeat the errors of its predecessors, and focus on how I challenged misconduct rather on the substantive misconduct, i.e. breaches of our core purpose (as set out in the UCoC) of building an encyclopedia by "striv[ing] towards accuracy and verifiability". Without my evidence, it's hard to see any other outcome.

I may post a response to Thryduulf's evidence, which is about other cases of angry mobs reacting with hostility to reasoned debate. Or maybe not; the energy I would have to spend on that would be better spent on my other projects, where intellectual rigour is not attacked as a form of anti-social behaviour. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 23:48, 11 August 2023 (UTC) reply

• I completely disagree that these are the two fundamental issues. The most fundamental issue at stake here is: when (1) you think that you are right, and (2) multiple fellow editors disagree with you, are those conditions together a sufficient justification for a very hostile style of communication with these editors? Marcocapelle ( talk) 13:04, 12 August 2023 (UTC) reply

  @ Marcocapelle's reply encapsulates the attitudes and conduct which have led me to give up on Wikipedia, and go into semi-retirement.

  When multiple editors assert that "Small with no potential for growth" means the same thing as "Small", that just means that multiple editors are wrong. Not as a matter of "interpretation" or opinion, but as a matter of fact. It doesn't matter if five, ten, or a hundred editors assert that falsehood: it's still objectively false.

  We are here to build an encyclopedia, and are obliged by the UCoC to "strive towards accuracy and verifiability". Asserting demonstrable falsehoods is a breach of the UCoC. Endorsing falsehoods is a breach of the UCoC.

  But yet again, we have complaints from an editor whose assertion of falsehoods has allowed the deletion of many hundreds of categories contrary to a stable, simple guideline. (See e.g. User:BrownHairedGirl/Draft evidence in SmallCat case#Abuse_of_SMALLCAT, tho note that other evidence in this case shows that I documented in my draft only the tip of a huge iceberg). Note that Marcocapelle also supported Oculi's overtly vindictive deletion of my work. [11] and endorsed as humour Laurel Lodged's taunting of me, [12] ~14 hours after Laurel Lodged's "humour" sunk to naming a parody sex manual. [13]

  (Marcocapelle was almost certainly unaware that after the storm was started at ANI, a sock account posted to me a graphic sexualised comment which appeared to be a rape threat. My oversight and revdel requests got excellent prompt action, which went above and beyond what I hoped for; the Arbs have details. I stess again that is extremely unlikely that Marcocapelle had any knowledge of this, and I have absolutely no reason to suspect in any way that Marcocapelle had any involvement. I mention it only to note the extremely hostile environment which I face on Wikipedia. Previous ANI storms have been accompanied by multiple attempts from the USA to hack my email account; that didn't happen this time, but I still have to spend time on active security measures.)

  But even here at Arbcom, Marcocapelle accuses me of a hostile style for challenging Marcocapelle's falsehoods, and insists that their prolific use of falsehood is at best a side issue. This is utterly toxic conduct, and its use by seeral parties to this dispute is why I'm out of here.

  Nobody who is here to build an encyclopedia should have to put up with the dramas created by unrepentant purveyors of falsehood who yell "civility" when their falsehoods are challenged. But that climate will remain unless the Arbs start taking action against those who assert falsehoods in order to breach the UCoC by allowing arbitrary deletions, and those support hostile actions against other editors ... and then have the utter cheek to accuse me of a very hostile style of communication.

  Good faith, competent editors should not have to engage with these purveyors of falsehood and their endless attempts to deflect challenges to their falsehoods by claiming that the response is "hostile". I am out of here; the question for the Arbs is whether they will leave other good faith editors as prey to these vindictive falsifiers. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 14:32, 12 August 2023 (UTC) reply

  (not a party) There is discussion below at Analysis of evidence presented by Beccaynr where limitations of the evidence I presented, including about Marcocapelle, are discussed, i.e. what the evidence shows with regard to Marcocapelle's awareness of LL's edit summary, and Marcocapelle has also made a statement. I post here because the comment above by BHG appears to include a connotation that does not appear supported by evidence, i.e. that Marcocapelle's reference to "humour" was a reference to LL's edit summary. Beccaynr ( talk) 15:22, 12 August 2023 (UTC) reply

  Thanks, @ Beccaynr.

  Please note that I made no assertion about whether Marcocapelle was of aware LL's edit summary. All I know is that Marcocapelle's comment was made 14 hours later. That means that it was possible for Marcocapelle to know about it, but obviously I cannot know whether Marcocapelle had actually seen it.

  However, I would add that:

  1. If Marcocapelle's didn't do some checks, then their endorsement of LL's taunting was reckless, and does not indicate that Marcocapelle followed the UCoC requirement to "strive towards accuracy and verifiability".
  2. Marcocapelle made a second comment: [14] I disagree that he "denigrates". The two of you are often in disagreement, but Laurel generally keeps it civil, as he has done now. You'd better do the same
  3. Even Laurel Lodged doesn't agree with Marcocapelle's assertion that Laurel Lodged generally keeps it civil. See LL's non-apology apology at #Apology_from_Laurel_Lodged_to_BHG: the many things that I have written over the years that caused offense, the worst (and least effective!) things were those that ridiculed her insights and skills.
  4. Marcocapelle's comments were rebuked [15] by uninvolved admin TadejM: accusing other people of being too sensitive is at least uncivil
  5. Oculi Seconded [16] Marcocapelle's initial comment.
  6. I have seen no apology from either Marcocapelle or Oculi for their endorsement of LL. If have missed it, and someone produces diffs of an apology, I will of course strike this.

  Yet despite their endorsement of LL's taunting (and implicitly of LL's bogus allegation that my ALT proposal was a hijack), Marcocapelle accused me above [17] of a very hostile style of communication. At ANI, Oculi accused me of creating a a toxic atmosphere at cfd (see Oculi's post timestamped 11:13, 8 July 2023, at WP:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1134#The core issue of WP:SMALLCAT). BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 16:33, 12 August 2023 (UTC) reply

  • Of course I do not endorse the edit summary now that I am aware of it, and aware of its meaning. On the contrary, I was rather shocked by it. And I also strongly regret that you have been the victim of harassment the way you have described it. Things like that should never happen. Marcocapelle ( talk) 18:19, 12 August 2023 (UTC) reply

  Thanks, @ Marcocapelle.

  But for clarity: have you apologised for endorsing what was visible on the page?

  Do you still think that Laurel Lodged's describe an ALT proposal as a hijack and an explanation of context as BHG rabbit holes was WP:CIVIL and humour? BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 19:10, 12 August 2023 (UTC) reply

  • I am a bit lost here. We are now looking back at what happened while knowing about that edit summary and I can no longer imagine how it would be without that edit summary. Marcocapelle ( talk) 22:03, 12 August 2023 (UTC) reply

  No need to imagine anything the edit summary is not visible, so you can just read the rendered page as it was when you made your comments.

  I thought that maybe you might have reconsidered your endorsement of the rest, but it seems not. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 22:09, 12 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Comment by others:

• I think something like this is important, as all the evidence presented suggests that BHG's actions are motivated by a desire to improve the encyclopaedia and that she genuinely believes her (proposed) actions are improvements. Thryduulf ( talk) 17:09, 6 August 2023 (UTC) reply

  Thryduulf's comment on Marcocapelle proposal is not based on the facts.

  My methods in relation to WP:SMALLCAT consisted of:

  1. a brief, guideline-based oppose [18] to Oculi's at WP:Categories for discussion/Log/2023 June 13#Expatriates_A-G, for which I was monstered. I was also assailed for leaving a "note to closer" about leaving any close unimplemented pending a deletion review. Marcocapelle supported that nomination. [19]
  2. at WP:Categories for discussion/Log/2023 June 9#Expatriates_2, Oculi had made a similar merge nomination of 123 categories, with a similar rationale. [20]. The only supporter was Marcocapelle. [21] I made slightly longer oppose, again guideline-based. [22] The only further comment was a vicious personal attack on me by Oculi [23]

  That's my methods. In retaliation, my category creations were repeatedly targeted by Laurel Lodged and Oculi. The most overtly vindictive was WP:Categories for discussion/Log/2023 June 24#Category:Irish_astrophysicists, where the nominator Oculi acknowledged that the category could be populated, but instead proposed its upmerger to "educate" (i.e. punish) me. But Oculi turned off Twinkle's notification, so was I unaware of it until a month later. More details at User:BrownHairedGirl/Draft evidence in SmallCat case#Irish_astrophysicists.

  Marcocapelle actually supported [24] that WP:SMALLCAT-defying nomination of Irish_astrophysicists, even tho they had debated with me at WP:Categories for discussion/Log/2023 June 13#Expatriates_A-G, so must have been aware of my reminder about what SMALLCAT says. Even worse, Marcocapelle supported a nomination whose intent was clearly vindictive.

  And yet, here at Arbcom, my methods are denounced rather than those of the vindictive Oculi and his supporter Marcocapelle. Kafkaesque. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 22:17, 6 August 2023 (UTC) reply

  • We clearly disagree with each other on the vindictiveness aspect. Marcocapelle ( talk) 06:07, 7 August 2023 (UTC) reply

  I think Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2023_August_2#Category:Irish_astrophysicists shows WP:POINT and ignorance of WP:NOTFINISHED on the Part of Oculi.

  I also think this Principle would need some refinement. Acting in good faith (e.g. POINTinesss would be bad faith) should give an editor some leeway providing they are respecting WP:NPA, WP:CIVIL, WP:BLUDGEON and so on. It goes without saying that disruption is sanctionable. Isn't disruption in good faith better than disruption in bad faith? I'm not sure I even know what "good faith disruption" would be, I'd have to see a good example, but it doesn't sound like something that needs a harsh punishment. —DIYeditor ( talk) 03:06, 7 August 2023 (UTC) reply

  This principle is saying that if you cause disruption you can be sanctioned for that, even if your intentions were good. Someone who disrupts the encyclopaedia despite attempting in good faith to improve it typically gets less harsh treatment than someone who approaches the project with bad faith - the former get multiple chances and lots of advice about how to improve, some get mentoring, etc. while the latter get quickly blocked for vandalism, NOTHERE, trolling, etc. and extremely rarely end up at arbcom. Thryduulf ( talk) 09:45, 7 August 2023 (UTC) reply

  That makes sense, maybe the principle could be expanded to say that? Inappropriate behaviour driven by good intentions is still inappropriate. Editors acting in good faith may still be sanctioned when their actions are disruptive, although editors acting in bad faith will be given far less if any leeway. I think it needs to be contextualized for this case, but of course the Committee is going to have to decide which principles they are applying here. I did realize that CIR would be a good example of well-intentioned disruption and understand better what is meant by this principle. —DIYeditor ( talk) 11:58, 7 August 2023 (UTC) reply

  In reply to @ DIYeditor's post of 03:06, 7 August 2023: Oculi's overtly punitive nomination at WP:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2023_August_2#Category:Irish_astrophysicists was supported by 3 other editors: Marcocapelle, [25] RevelationDirect, [26] & Bduke. [27]

  Editors who support an overtly punitive and WP:POINTy nomination share at least some responsibility with the nominator, tho there is scope for debate on exactly how much. But in the case of Marcocapelle & RevelationDirect, their long history of supporting SMALLCAT-defying nominations needs to be taken into account, esp since it followed their being alerted to the SMALLCAT-defiance at WP:Categories for discussion/Log/2023 June 13#Expatriates_A-G: unless they claim to severely incompetent, they must have been aware that the Irish astrophysicists nomination was not supported by SMALLCAT.

  Note that also that the nomination on 24 June Irish astrophysicists was followed on the same daily log by two more group nominations of my work by Oculi ( [28] & [29]) and one group nomination of my work by Laurel Lodged. Given the overtly punitive nature of Oculi's nomination of Irish_astrophysicists, and Oculi's failure to notify me as creator of any of those 3 nominations, and Oculi's previous personal attack on me, [30] this is clearly WP:HOUNDING.

  (For evidence of the lack of notifications, see this search of Oculi's edits to my talk, and also my talkpage history for 20–26 June. On Irish astrophysicists, note that Oculi used WP:TWINKLE to create the nomination [31]. By default Twinkle automatically notifies the creator, as it did for Oculi multiple times that week. See e.g. June 20 [32], June 22 [33], June 23 [34], June 25 [35]. But no notification on 24 June, to me)

  See also on the same day WP:Categories for discussion/Log/2023 June 24#People_educated_by_school_in_GB, where the nominator Oculi explicitly rejects the SMALLCAT principle of "Small with no potential for growth", writing [36] The nominator has no obligation to make any attempt to populate any categories created by others. Again, the supporters include Marcocapelle & RevelationDirect. Whether we label this as a tag-team, as groupthink, or just as shared disregard for SMALLCAT, there is a pattern here.

  Note also Laurel Lodged's explicitly reckless !vote at WP:Categories for discussion/Log/2023 June 24#People_educated_by_school_in_GB, where LL writes [37]: Support I'm not even going to read this. I'm supporting because I just love the table. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 21:51, 7 August 2023 (UTC) reply

  So silly. Can't you see a joke from a mile off? How could I love a table without having read it? Of course I read it and expressed my admiration for the work involvednin in an obvious, jocular way. Laurel Lodged ( talk) 11:35, 9 August 2023 (UTC) reply

As of yet, nothing demonstrating tag teaming (or equivalents) has been added to the evidence page. - RevelationDirect ( talk) 16:40, 10 August 2023 (UTC) reply

The evidence is at User:BrownHairedGirl/Draft evidence in SmallCat case.

But it's complex to document, so it took a lot of words. The Arbs wouldn't let me post it. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 16:50, 10 August 2023 (UTC) reply

• I think what people seem to be dancing around is what to do when the actions seem to be good intentioned. In other words, if we as editors are attempting to assume good faith that the intentions are good. The thing is, there are many motivations, WP:OWN, for example, which can seem on the surface to be good intentioned, but are still contrary to policy. I think we should be cautious in attempting to legislate based upon what someone is thinking (their intentions) as opposed to what we see in evidence before us (their edits). - jc37 12:04, 7 August 2023 (UTC) reply

  Yes, the point of this principle is that it doesn't matter what your intentions are - good faith disruption is still disruption and you can be sanctioned for disruption regardless of your intentions. Thryduulf ( talk) 12:16, 7 August 2023 (UTC) reply

  This stance by jc37 & Thryduulf (that intentions are not a significant mitigation) seems to commend possible sanctions for the overtly WP:POINTy disruption at WP:Categories for discussion/Log/2023 August 2#Category:Irish_astrophysicists by Oculi, Marcocapelle, RevelationDirect, & Bduke. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 22:09, 7 August 2023 (UTC) reply

  Just to clarify, that's not my position. I only weakly support oppose the principle due to real concerns about the proposed text. But even in looking it over, I'm not sure how to address my concerns. I really am uncomfortable with the phrasing of the first sentence. I think this principle would be better without that sentence. We're not the mind police. - jc37 22:24, 7 August 2023 (UTC) reply

As of yet, nothing demonstrating pointiness for that nomination has been added to the evidence page. - RevelationDirect ( talk) 16:43, 10 August 2023 (UTC) reply

The evidence is at User:BrownHairedGirl/Draft evidence in SmallCat case.

But it's complex to document, so it took a lot of words. The Arbs wouldn't let me post it. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 16:51, 10 August 2023 (UTC) reply

BrownHairedGirl I think it would be better to distill it down to a handful of examples of extremely bad behavior that can be summed up in a single line with a few diffs and not a lot of explanation. All these details of people being difficult and the timeline of these conflicts doesn't really serve to show sanctionable extreme misconduct to me. I also am not sure I understand the point about UCOC Strive towards accuracy and verifiability in all its work. You seem to hinge the argument on this and I don't see how it applies - that seems to be more about content than following technical rules for organizing Wikipedia (categories). I don't think anyone is alleged to have inserted false categorizations.

What I would do, is either break it out by person, or preferably, break it out by policy/guideline/behavioral essay.

X, Y and Z editors were WP:POINTy [1][2][3][4][5][6][7]

or

POINTiness:

X admits to being pointy in so and so deletion[1] by saying it was to teach me a lesson

Y is arguably pointy by doing so and so[2] which appears to be in retaliation by their own statements[3]

And just leave it simple like that - do one for CIVIL, NPA, whatever. All the context, to be honest nobody is going to wade through that, especially when it doesn't have "gems" of misbehavior by other people that someone can click on, look at, and say, hey, yeah, that is POINTiness which is intentionally disrupting Wikipedia. Please consider an abbreviated evidence submission without all the details, and which constructs a case for a certain argument in a way that anyone can see it without having to spend hours on hours analyzing diffs. I think your evidence fails to make simple and clear arguments, if I may be honest. Just this "these is a conflict and these guys are wrong" is not informative about sanctionable misbehaviors, especially when 10,000 words long. IMO anything sanctionable can be quote farmed and explained in a few words. —DIYeditor ( talk) 00:22, 11 August 2023 (UTC) reply

@ BrownHairedGirl: I think by giving up on this case (and on Wikipedia) you are doing a disservice to the community. If there are behavioral problems with the other parties in this case they may now go unchecked or inadequately checked. It seems to me that the ArbCom will have little choice to find problems in how you've approached this case, and most likely in how you've approached the conflicts, and issue a stern rebuke. You've had every opportunity to make it right and salvage things. Worst of all here is that Laurel Lodged may slide by with a warning or IBAN over something that in my opinion can't be tolerated. I can't put it any other way than to say that with all due respect I cannot tell what you are thinking here. —DIYeditor ( talk) 13:44, 13 August 2023 (UTC) reply

In reply to @ DIYeditor's post of 3:44, 13 August 2023:

My thinking is simply that if I am not allowed to make my case in sufficient detail, then my case will be severely misrepresented and bad outcomes are inevitable. So no good outcome is available. See the long reply to Barkeep49 which i have just posted above. [38]

My thinking is that the worst step would be to gut my evidence and thereby mislead others into thinking that a gutted set of evidence is all I had. I am aware that some of my evidence is not simple, but if the only evidence that some people are willing or able to understand is quote-mining, then I am in the wrong place. Quote-mining is a deplorable practice, a propaganda technique usually associated with the nastiest politics; it should be banned rather than demanded. If reducing myself to that level of deplorable conduct is the only way to stay here, then I have no doubt that at all it is much better for me to leave than to adopt that practice myself.

I came here to build an encyclopedia, which is an intellectual task requiring intellectual rigour and engagement with detail and complexity and context. But this process is being run in a way which actively punishes intellectual rigour and rewards appalling behaviour, and I will not lower myself to that level.

I do agree with your assessment that Arbcom is therefore likely to dump on me. By excluding my evidence and upholding contextomy as the ideal, they have created that likelihood. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 15:35, 13 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Independent judgement of involved parties independent from each other

2) When multiple parties are involved in an ARBCOM case, the conduct of each party should be judged independently of the behaviour of another party.

Comment by Arbitrators:

@ BrownHairedGirl: it is both correct that BHG chooses not to provide evidence of undesirable conduct of other parties and that the Arb's have stopped you from presenting the evidence you've prepared and want to present. As you noted in response to Wugapodes you have agency (which is my word to summarize the paragraph which begins "Wugapodes says..."). And you are using that agency to make a choice - that is that you need to submit all of your evidence or none. The choice the arbs have made has consequences, which includes your clear frustration and disillusionment, and your choice means someone can, accurately, say you've chosen not to present evidence against other parties.

And, to further layout my thinking, this is where I'm struggling to adopt your thinking about the UCoC violations. Because if I accepted your framing about the UCoC bulletpoint, then I would have to equally say that your stating that something which is true (you've chosen to not present evidence) as false would be a UCoC violation. And I suspect you'd to tell me it's not a violation because this is another example of only a partial truth being presented (that your choice is caused by the Arbs decision). To which I would respond that the Arbs decision was caused by an unprecedented extension request and that is important context. To which you would respond... and on and on we'd go. Instead of all that, I find it easier to say that you made too strong of a statement - that what Marcocapelle wrote was false- in the cause of trying to contextualize the full situation. And given the full context of the situation (you're a party to a case before ArbCom and one who is frustrated with the arbitration process and disillunsioned by Wikipedia) I can understand that misstep for what it was. Barkeep49 ( talk) 04:49, 13 August 2023 (UTC) reply

@ BrownHairedGirl:: the standard limit for non-parties is 500 words. The standard limit for parties is 1000 words. An extension of twice that is pretty routinely granted (1000 words for non-parties, 2000 for parties). So I don't know where you got 2500 words which you included in your last reply, but 5000 words is 5x the normal limit for parties and 2.5x the extnesion which is routinely granted and it is more than any other extension I could find in any case with traditional word limits like this case. And the part that I objected to was not It's the Arbs who have chosen to stop me presenting it it was you telling Marcocapelle that what he wrote was false. What Marcocapelle wrote was in fact true, but is from your perspective incomplete. That doesn't make it false. Barkeep49 ( talk) 15:53, 13 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Comment by parties:

• The reverse of what I wrote as a principle would be "either one party behaves badly or the other party behaves badly" and that is what the proposed principle aims to avoid. Of course for this case this is related to the fact that BHG chooses not to provide evidence of undesirable conduct of other parties. The consequence of the proposed principle is that BHG's conduct can still be judged based on the offered evidence, regardless of the conduct of other parties which is perhaps more difficult to be judged because of lacking evidence from BHG's side. Marcocapelle ( talk) 07:33, 11 August 2023 (UTC) reply

@ Marcocapelle writes Of course for this case this is related to the fact that BHG chooses not to provide evidence of undesirable conduct of other parties.

That is false. My evidence has been prepared and I want to present it. It's the Arbs who have chosen to stop me presenting it.

That's the Arbs' choice, not BHG's choice. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 20:12, 12 August 2023 (UTC) reply

In response to Barkeep49's post of 04:49, 13 August 2023:

That seems a bit laboured. The limits set for me by Arbcom (2,500 to 5,000 words) mean that I would have to excise between 57% and 79% of the 11,765 words in my draft evidence at User:BrownHairedGirl/Draft evidence in SmallCat case, even if I added no extra evidence for the issues where I posted evidence in this workshop. So in practice I would have to omit somewhere in the range of about 65% to 85% of the evidence I need to submit. That would shred my case, and I am not prepared to do that.

This is a Hobson's choice. Either I gut my case, or I get accused of not presenting evidence. Either way, I can't present the all the evidence I need. If I did gut it to meet the word limits, then I would be accused of "choosing" to not present evidence on the areas I had to omit, and/or of failing to prove my point because the detail was missing.

In my reply to Marcocapelle I summarised this as It's the Arbs who have chosen to stop me presenting it. I could of course have made a much longer reply to Marcocapelle to explain all the details, possibly something like the two paras above; but since I have repeatedly made that point in detail, I tried to keep my reply to Marcocapelle terse. Given the widespread practice of attacking longer replies as "bludgeoning", this leaves me with a further Hobson's choice: damned if I do, damned if I don't. And to add to the fun, my summarising gets labelled by an Arb as a possible UCoC violation.

There's a sad irony to all this. Discussion of the capping of my evidence has amounted to thousands of words in this workshop, so the volume of material to be read by the Arbs and the parties has not been significantly reduced by the exclusion. Also, my draft has had 484 pageviews so far, so people are reading it despite it being disallowed. So all that's really been achieved by the exclusion is to increase the amount of material to read, while preventing the Arbs and parties from considering evidence. That's a lose-lose situation.

This whole dispute can be summarised quite briefly:

1. a group of editors repeatedly radically misrepresented SMALLCAT, to wrongly delete many hundreds of categories. That's two violations of the UCoC.
2. when challenged by BHG, they responded with a barrage of spurious allegations (e.g that a mention of DRV is a "threat"), with a nasty personal attack (by Oculi) and by vindictively targeting of BHG's work on SMALLCAT-defying grounds
3. when BHG objected to the revenge, she was quote-mined to create a storm around the tone of her objections

That's it, in 78 words. But instead of focusing on that core, Wikipedia's wildly dysfunctional "dispute-resolution" processes have created a spiralling megadrama of several hundred thousand words, the vast majority of which ignores that core. Some of the parties insists that the core issue of arbitrary mass deletion by repeated misrepresentations of the guideline must not in any way be part of the case! Others demand detailed evidence of the misconduct. But when BHG produces that evidence, it is disallowed. Meanwhile, an unlimited under of uninvolved editors have been allowed to post "evidence" wholly related to SMALLCAT. There is no risk to them in flinging whatever they like on the chance that some of it might stick, and no attempt by Arbcom to balance that out by giving the accused space to respond with other evidence. This open-ended come-and-hurl-allegations-but-deny-reply framework is not like any fair trial or any remotely fair arbitration; it is a formalised version of a mobbing in which even the proceedings are open to anyone to join in. (Yes I do now that the current Arbs did not design this framework; they inherited it. But that doesn't exonerate them responsibility from holing those inherited flaws).

So now we have the utterly absurd situation where after two months of drama and several hundred thousand words and God knows how many hours of editors' time, the case is nearing its conclusion with the crucial evidence off the table.

This demand for brevity is a structural bias which favours falsifiers, because it takes a lot more words to rebut a falsehood than to assert it. It takes hundreds of words to demonstrate a pattern of double standards, but none to apply those double standards. It takes zero words to omit notifications of a vindictive nomination, but dozens of words to show how the omission was an exception to a pattern. It takes few words to use the propaganda technique of quote-mining, but many many times more words to demonstrate the wider context which was excised. It takes few words to attack an editor by singling out for deletion a few examples of their work from hundreds of other categories with the same falsely-alleged flaws, but hundreds of times more words to demonstrate the context. [39] And so on.

Lemme give you a crude example of how this demand for brevity of defence favours a falsifier. Try a false statement about a former UK Prime Minister: " Boris Johnson is Turkish". Only 4 words; but a brief rebuttal would be something like "Boris Johnson was not born in Turkey, has never lived in Turkey, and has never held Turkish citizenship. Johnson was born in the USA, and has only ever held British and American citizenship. One of his four grandparents was a Turkish immigrant to the UK, but his parents were born British citizens born in England". That's 55 words without even naming his parents or grandfather, and even the first sentence (which omits most of the context that underpins the false allegation) is 18 words, i.e. 4½ times as many as the falsehood. If the responder is limited to the same 4 words, then they cannot rebut; they can only deny, e.g. by saying "he is not Turkish". But what we have here is even worse: multiple accusers get many times more words in total than is allowed in defence. It's like being allowed only 2 words to rebut that 4-word falsehood about Johnson.

I didn't come to Wikipedia to waste huge chunks of my life on this elaborate pantomime of deflection in which false assertions are routine, but reasoned rebuttal of false assertions is treated as a vice; where a widespread failure to apply policy and guidelines is acceptable practice, but too many challenges to those omissions triggers a furious pile-on. Encyclopedia-building is an intellectual task, but this suppression of reasoned rebuttal and reasoned challenge is anti-intellectual. So I'm out of here. I expect that as usual the outcome will be a ruling which blackens my name and restricts my ability to participate, while those who create storms to deflect from their falsifications and vindictive disruptions go unrestrained.

One point of context worth noting is that AFAICS from an hour of searches (full checks prove harder than I hoped, so I welcome any corrections), most (or maybe all) of the other parties have no significant record of content creation, or of participation in structured scrutiny of their work at WP:DYK, WP:GA, WP:FA, WP:FL etc. So they appear not to have demonstrated competence in the core encyclopedic skills of accurately using reliable sources, and — crucially — engaging in tightly-focused discussions in which their work is rigorously critiqued in detail by other editors. In those venues, deflection is given short shrift. Even at DYK, misrepresentations, falsifications and contextomy are rightly rejected, often harshly, just as they would be rejected in academia. More nuanced cases can trigger long debate. See e.g. the debates on some of my DYK noms: Emma Rogan, William James, women cabinet ministers, or see https://petscan.wmflabs.org/?psid=25630501 for the 60 DYK noms in 2023 alone where discussion took the page size over 15K bytes.

The result is that they bring to CFD little of the discipline and rigour required to build an encyclopedia, and seem genuinely hurt that they are challenged when they repeatedly make and stand by false assertions that wouldn't be tolerated in articles. It is a deep structural flaw in Wikipedia that some consensus-building forums and dispute-resolution forums are now dominated by editors who have not demonstrated competence in the core encyclopedic skills, and instead try to suppress and punish those who uphold the UCoC requirement to "strive towards accuracy and verifiability". Arbcom has a chance here to uphold encyclopedic good practice, but it has chosen instead to favour the contextomists by disallowing the longer responses needed to "strive towards accuracy and verifiability" by scrutinising assertions. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 15:28, 13 August 2023 (UTC) reply

In reply @ Barkeep49's post dated 15:53, 13 August 2023

The "2,500 words" comes from an email to me from Arbcom timestamped Tue, 1 Aug 2023 18:25:44 -0700. Sent "For the Arbitration Committee" by Barkeep49.

I won't quote it without permission, but I will summarise the context. I had asked the committee to consider a big extension of word count, without yet being sure how much I would need. I was seeking an indication of what sort of extension would be considered, to give the Arbs as much time as possible to reflect.

I was never actually given clear permission to post 5,000 words. Just that 5,000 was the maximum that would be considered, and that 2,500 was preferable. For clarity, I hadn't yet requested a specific figure, and was exploring ranges. The maximum was far too low, so I didn't pursue it.

I stand by my reply to Marcocapelle as an imperfect but fair terse summary of an issue whose nuances are very well documented on this page. My evidence is ready at User:BrownHairedGirl/Draft evidence in SmallCat case, but the Arbs won't let me post it without omitting more than half of it. That is Arbcom's choice, not mine. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 16:30, 13 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Comment by others:

I think it's a good general principle but I feel there needs to be some caveat around baiting. If editor A provokes editor B into behaving poorly, then it seems fair that the provocation is taken into account - while maintaining that editor B is still responsible for their own conduct. Waggers TALK 14:22, 11 August 2023 (UTC) reply

I agree with Waggers. If you behave inappropriately due to being provoked you have still behaved inappropriately but the provocation can be partial mitigation. Lightbreather was the victim of extreme sexual harassment (much worse than that presented in evidence in this case) but was still sanctioned for her own extensive bad behaviour. Of course, the person engaging in the provoking, harassing, etc. has also acted inappropriately and should face consequences for that independent of the consequences for their victim. Thryduulf ( talk) 15:16, 11 August 2023 (UTC) reply

One of the reasons I mentioned Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/SmallCat dispute/Workshop § Standards of editor behavior from a previous case is that it is symmetric for editors behaving poorly in opposition to each other, no matter which one acted poorly first. Taking into consideration the resulting interaction is, I feel, part of the determination of findings of fact. The application of all principles relies on context and thus I don't feel it needs to be mentioned specifically for each principle. isaacl ( talk) 16:16, 11 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Proposed principles (isaacl)

Standards of editor behavior

1) Wikipedia users are expected to behave reasonably, calmly, and courteously in their interactions with other users. Unseemly conduct, such as personal attacks, incivility, harassment, disruptive point-making, and gaming the system, is prohibited. Additionally, editors should presume that other editors, including those who disagree with them, are acting in good faith toward the betterment of the project, at least until strong evidence emerges to the contrary. Even when an editor becomes convinced that another editor is not acting in good faith, and has a reasonable basis for that belief, the editor should attempt to remedy the problem without resorting to inappropriate conduct of their own.

— from Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Jytdog § Standards of editor behavior

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Bludgeoning

2) In formal discussions, less is usually more. Editors who choose to ignore this advice by replying to a large number of comments can bludgeon the discussion. Bludgeoning exhausts other editors, dissuades further participation, wastes time, and makes discussions less effective. Editors should avoid repeating the same point or making so many comments that they dominate the discussion. Editors should particularly avoid trying to convince specific other people that they are right and the other person is wrong, and should instead focus on presenting their own ideas as clearly and concisely as possible.

— from Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Conduct in deletion-related editing § Bludgeoning (alt)

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Comment by parties:

Support. I didn't know this was a commonly cited essay / widely accepted behavioural rule until I was warned about it at the ANI. I still struggle with this, and it's good when people point out I'm doing it and should stop doing it, despite me believing I'm doing the right thing. Nederlandse Leeuw ( talk) 21:58, 7 August 2023 (UTC) reply

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Battleground conduct

3) Wikipedia is not a forum for the creation or furtherance of grudges and personal disputes. A history of bad blood, poor interactions, and heated altercations between users can complicate attempts to reach consensus. Inflammatory accusations often perpetuate disputes, poison the well of existing discussions, and disrupt the editing atmosphere. Discussions should be held with a view toward reaching a solution that can gain a genuine consensus. Attempting to exhaust or drive off editors who disagree through hostile conduct, rather than through legitimate dispute-resolution methods pursued only when legitimately necessary, is destructive to the consensus process and is not acceptable. See also Wikipedia is not a battleground.

— from Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Banning Policy § Battleground conduct

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Repeated behavior

4) Editors who have been sanctioned or warned, whether by the Arbitration Committee or the community, for improper conduct are expected to avoid further conduct that is inconsistent with Wikipedia's expectations. Repeated failure to demonstrate appropriate conduct may result in the editors being subject to increasingly severe sanctions.

— from Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Conduct in deletion-related editing § Repeated behavior

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Comment by parties:

Support. I was gonna suggest this, but isaacl already did. Nederlandse Leeuw ( talk) 21:59, 7 August 2023 (UTC) reply

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Proposed principles (Thryduulf)

Decorum

1) Wikipedia users are expected to behave reasonably, calmly, and courteously in their interactions with other users. Unseemly conduct, such as personal attacks, incivility, assumptions of bad faith, harassment, disruptive point-making, and gaming the system, is prohibited. Making unsupported accusations of such misconduct by other editors, particularly where this is done repeatedly or in an attempt to gain an advantage in a content dispute, is also unacceptable.

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Comment by parties:

Support. Nederlandse Leeuw ( talk) 20:08, 7 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Comment by others:

Copied almost verbatim from the Portals case, but I've changed "in a bad-faith attempt" in the final sentence to just "an an attempt" (and removed an extra word "in" from before "repeatedly" that I'm amazed nobody, including me, spotted at the time). Thryduulf ( talk) 17:12, 6 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Wikilawyering and stonewalling

7) Excessive formalistic and legalistic argument over policies and guidelines, and stonewalling, which ignores the spirit of those policies and serves to obstruct consensus-building processes or cover up an agenda of POV-pushing, is harmful to the project and may be met with sanctions.

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Not sure if this a good or bad principle in this case. One of the involved parties has consistently emphasised the need for a literal interpretation of WP:SMALLCAT, but also dismissed a literal interpretation of WP:CIVIL as "wikilawyering". Both guidelines are relevant, but I'm not sure to what degree. And the degree to which both are relevant is at the heart of this dispute. Nederlandse Leeuw ( talk) 20:07, 7 August 2023 (UTC) reply

No, I did not dismiss a literal interpretation of WP:CIVIL as "wikilawyering". I dismissed as "offence-taking" a mention of WP:CIVIL in response to a reasoned objection, and I dismissed as wikilawyering NL's attempts to procedurally censor substantive discussion. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 00:42, 12 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Comment by others:

Copied from the Portals case, but I've added "and guidelines,". This relates to the evidence of dismissing concerns about e.g. civility because it isn't a policy (see e.g. my evidence). Thryduulf ( talk) 17:16, 6 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Responding to harassment

3) An editor who is provoked, harassed and/or attacked by others – or who genuinely perceives themself to have been provked, harassed or attacked—whether on Wikipedia or off—should not see that harassment as an excuse for violating Wikipedia policy. Editors should report on-wiki harassment to administrators and off-wiki harassment by email to the Arbitration Committee and/or to the Wikimedia Foundation Office. Administrators should be sensitive in dealing with harassed editors who have themselves breached acceptable standards, especially where the harassment has been protracted or severe.

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Support. Noting that in one incident at ANI I have incorrectly responded to a comment which upset me with two comments which upset the other person, which I shouldn't have done, and have apologised for on this page. It's not an excuse. Nederlandse Leeuw ( talk) 20:11, 7 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Comment by others:

Tweaked slightly from the Lightbreather case, but I think it needs a bit more wordsmithing for here. The point is that being the victim of provoking or harassment, etc is not an excuse for behaving badly oneself. Victims of breaches of policy who breach policy themselves can be sanctioned for those breaches. Thryduulf ( talk) 12:26, 7 August 2023 (UTC) reply

• I'd add Administrators should be sensitive in dealing with editors who appear to be reacting to being harassed editors who have themselves breached acceptable standards in doing so or something to that effect. —DIYeditor ( talk) 12:35, 7 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Proposed principles (QEDK)

Editors are fallible

1) Wikipedia users, and groups of users can be fallible. Consensus in a given discussion may be at odds with one of the community at large. Editors should not pride themselves of their infallibility and be considerate of opinions other than their own.

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Proposed principles (DIYeditor)

Proscription of sexual harassment

1) Sexism, sexual harassment, and sexual threats, whether implied, alluded to, or explicitly directed at other editor are extremely detrimental to the environment of cooperating to build an encyclopedia. There should [can? will?] be no tolerance for acts of this nature on Wikipedia, particularly if appearing to intimidate or discourage another editor or editors. There should be robust action taken against any overt sexism or sexual harassment which might serve to discourage or intimidate another editor or editors.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by DIYeditor ( talk • contribs) 02:13, 7 August 2023 (UTC) Original text restored and updated 13:32, 9 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Harassment of an editor on the basis of race, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, religious or political beliefs, disability, ethnicity, nationality, etc. is not allowed. (from Wikipedia:Harassment)

Updated —DIYeditor ( talk) 03:19, 9 August 2023 (UTC) 13:32, 9 August 2023 (UTC) reply

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Comment by parties:

Strong support. Nederlandse Leeuw ( talk) 20:35, 7 August 2023 (UTC) reply

PS: For arbitration purposes, I think the "brace yourself Bridget" incidident in context, which we seek to examine through your proposed principle of Sexism, sexual harassment, and sexual threats, (...), may be sanctionable per WP:UNCIVIL: Even a single act of severe incivility could result in a block, such as a single episode of extreme verbal abuse or profanity directed at another contributor, or a threat against another person. Other possibly relevant policies such as Wikipedia:No personal attacks and Wikipedia:Harassment are more focussed on legal threats, or threats of off-wiki (physical) violence, neither of which seems applicable to this incident. (And for reasons I have outlined, I do not favour an approach of examining this as discrimination on the basis of sex/gender, because that is putting the characteristics of the complainant rather than the abusive behaviour of the suspect at the centre of the inquiry). (copypasted from Evidence talk comment 21:29, 10 August 2023). Nederlandse Leeuw ( talk) 17:42, 13 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Taking a gender-neutral view sounds fine as an abstract principle, but in reality it is well-documented that women are a small minority of active Wikipedians ( only 9% in 2011) and that sexual aggression from men is one of the major factors deterring women from participating in online projects.

The relevant context here is not discrimination, but hate crime, where the substantive offence is aggravated by being targeted at people who hold frequently-targeted characteristics and/or where the impact is greater. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 18:06, 13 August 2023 (UTC) reply

That women face particular difficulties is true, and important to take into account. But LL also repeatedly misgendered MJL (who explicitly identifies as "they/them") as "he/him". I also recall what MJL documented about the very uncivil things LL previously said about two male Azeri editors, one male Dutch editor, and one male Muslim editor. In other words, it's not just women; LL has been making and could be making very uncivil comments against anyone, including me. Even if LL said this sort of stuff against the most privileged, least marginalised Wikipedian in the world, that would still not make it okay. Therefore, the focus should be on the suspect's abusive behaviour, not on the complainant's characteristics. Nederlandse Leeuw ( talk) 20:16, 13 August 2023 (UTC) reply

I never said or implied it was "just women". BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 20:24, 13 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Comment by others:

The relevance is presumably based on this diff, which has been discussed here. Newyorkbrad ( talk) 22:25, 7 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Sorry I didn't give context. Yes, about that. It was also discussed here at Analysis of apologies. —DIYeditor ( talk) 00:51, 8 August 2023 (UTC) reply

I think this principle could have unintended negative consequences. I'm not accustomed to posting at arbcom and posted my feedback over on the talk page here. @ DIYeditor nudged me to mention it here. CT55555( talk) 21:30, 8 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Saying we will have zero tolerance for any sexism may have an accidental negative impact. Unconscious gender bias is widespread and exists even in women. To make a less sexist environment, we should all accept where we have bias and work to address it. If we say we have zero tolerance for any level of sexism (and I assume therefore bias) then that implies that someone will be banned for admitting it and that will incentivise editors away from admitting error. That will inhibit editors from acknowledging bias and creating an environment of equality.

I suggest we say we will take robust action where there is overt sexism or harassment but would caution away from zero tolerance policies about anything as they tend to be very clumsy policies that don't consider very mild accidental errors that many people (including equity-deserving people) make. CT55555(talk) 20:03, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

@ CT55555: I have no experience drafting anti-discrimination policies so some additional input would definitely be helpful. The reason I thought what I had had written did offer some leeway for honest mistakes was the clause at the end, particularly if appearing to intimidate or discourage another editor or editors which maybe should be "intentionally" but I wasn't sure that made sense either. This was just my first reaction to the "brace yourself Bridget" for which I thought there should be some rule of thumb that would allow a block without any further warning should an admin see fit.

So maybe a second sentence instead of There should be robust action taken against any overt sexism or sexual harassment which might serve to discourage or intimidate another editor or editors? It was definitely not my intent that should someone reveal any arguably sexist belief or behavior they be blocked zero tolerance, because anyone could be the next on the chopping block under that... —DIYeditor ( talk) 21:32, 8 August 2023 (UTC) reply

I'm not an expert, but I hope I have some perspectives that might help.

What I am confident about: Policies that bind admins in all circumstances will generally be unhelpful. Let admins make decisions based on circumstances and permit banning where sexism is overt, harassing, intentional, repeated.

What I think is probably true: I think acknowledging that unconscious bias is widespread, and incentivising learning, encouraging apologies and ownership of errors is good. I think noting that intent is less important than impact is good.

Try to write a principle/policy that works for someone SHOUTING horrible sexism and also someone who is new to editing and conversations about equity accidentally doing something much lesser and make sure the consequences can match the impact and that we create a environment where we can all learn, grow, get better and work towards equity and equality. CT55555( talk) 21:45, 8 August 2023 (UTC) reply

I think CT5555 makes good points here. While I strongly support the proposal, it might be too perfectionist in its current wording. Humans are not perfect. We should strive to minimise sexism, but sanctioning even the mildest forms would be undoable. For the record, I support sanctioning the editor in question for the comment in question against the other editor in question. This is an extreme form of sexism / sexual harassment / threats that is unacceptable. Future jurisprudence will be determining where the threshold between acceptable and unacceptable is; let this case mark an example that is clearly unacceptable. Nederlandse Leeuw ( talk) 22:35, 8 August 2023 (UTC) reply

It would have been better to just try to combine the wording of existing policies. I have never participated in or really looked at an Arbitration Committee process before and I don't know what the right approach is. I meant specifically cases where sexual harassment seems clear and intentional not just that if someone had some belief that others considered biased they should be sanctioned. —DIYeditor ( talk) 02:23, 9 August 2023 (UTC) reply

@ DIYeditor Neither have I, but that's okay. We can always develop new and better principles, and I think your original proposed principle is a great step forward.

I think you and I strongly agree on the importance of this issue. For full disclosure, I find sexual violence/assault/harassment/threats extremely important topics to address, and I have written extensively about them on English Wikipedia in recent years (see for example Sexual consent in law). That is why I take your last-minute Evidence so seriously, and support your original proposed principle so strongly. Except for the words "no tolerance", I think your original wording was very well phrased. Sexism, sexual harassment, and sexual threats currently do not have any mention in the WP:ARBPRINCIPLES yet (except one, which affords way too much protection to the suspect, and puts way too much burden on the complainant), but they really should. I'll explain:

I would therefore very much hope that you would consider restoring your original wording, and just change the words "no tolerance" into something else. Alternately, at least inserting the words Sexism, sexual harassment, and sexual threats somewhere is, I think, a very good idea of yours, and very important for the reasons I've given. As said, I think we strongly agree on the importance of this issue, that's why I take the wording so seriously. Good day. Nederlandse Leeuw ( talk) 10:36, 9 August 2023 (UTC) reply

@ Newyorkbrad I do think we need to focus on the specific wording of the principle for the reasons I have given above. I hope that you'll understand why, or that at least it will give you valuable insights. Good day. Nederlandse Leeuw ( talk) 10:39, 9 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Nederlandse Leeuw I have restored part of the original wording along with the replacement second sentence I proposed to CT55555. This is not a topic I am very familiar with but it sort of fell to me to include the evidence so I thought I'd propose a finding as well. I'm sure the ArbCom can draft wording but you are right that it doesn't hurt to offer them something to work with. I didn't yet realize whether principles were drawn more from existing policies, ArbCom precedents, or tailored to the case ( Wikipedia:Arbitration/Index/Principles is news to me). —DIYeditor ( talk) 13:45, 9 August 2023 (UTC) reply

@ DIYeditor Thanks! I hope I didn't overload you with a wall of text, but this subject is of great importance to me (and am quite familiar with, though the WP:ARBPRINCIPLES are also new to me). I am glad that it is also important to you. I fully agree with the current wording. I'm very glad we could agree on this. Have a good day. Nederlandse Leeuw ( talk) 13:59, 9 August 2023 (UTC) reply

I recall that @ Valereee: wanted to add a clarification on the meaning of that edit summary, but I'm not sure if it was posted. If it wasn't, could it perhaps be added here, or under Analysis of Evidence? – FlyingAce ^✈hello 22:11, 8 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Well, for my part, I have given my interpretation of the meaning of that edit summary. I take it very seriously, and therefore strongly support this principle. Nederlandse Leeuw ( talk) 23:50, 8 August 2023 (UTC) reply

I don't think editors need to focus on the specific wording of the principle. If the arbitrators decide this idea or a related one should be included, there is recognized policy wording that can be used. I still hope one of the arbitrators will ask Laurel Lodged to comment on this edit and edit summary. Newyorkbrad ( talk) 01:40, 9 August 2023 (UTC) reply

I have changed this principle to the wording of Wikipedia:Harassment because I didn't intend to start a discussion about policy wording. —DIYeditor ( talk) 02:59, 9 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Collaboration is required

2) It is necessary for editors to maintain competence in collaboration, cooperation, compromise, dispute resolution, and working with honest differences of opinion.

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Support. Nederlandse Leeuw ( talk) 21:38, 13 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Comment by others:

Nothing new here I don't think, just occurred to me to phrase it this way. —DIYeditor ( talk) 13:56, 13 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Participation in review

3) It is important, even if not technically required, to participate in administrative review of one's activities on Wikipedia when called upon to do so. "Stonewalling" a process is disruptive. The above principle about collaboration also applies to this.

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Nothing groundbreaking. —DIYeditor ( talk) 13:56, 13 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Proposed principles (Waggers)

Civility is a fundamental principle

1) Civility is one of the fundamental principles ( the five pillars) of Wikipedia. No quantity of constructive editing gives someone a licence to disrespect their fellow Wikipedians, even when they disagree, nor to assume bad faith.

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Comment by parties:

Strong support. Nederlandse Leeuw ( talk) 22:00, 7 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Comment by others:

The wording is loosely based on that at WP:5P4. I feel it's an important principle that there should be no trade-off of civility against productivity, and no reluctance to take action out of fear that "we might lose a good editor", which seemed to me to be a common consideration at the AN/I discussion. Waggers TALK 15:30, 7 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Proposed principles (Beccaynr)

Wikipedia is a community

1) Expectations and standards of conduct are developed by the community and reflected in policies and guidelines describing agreed-upon best practices that should be applied with reason and common sense.

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This is developed from the introductory section at Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines. I have slightly adjusted the wording since I initially posted this proposal ('reasoning' to 'reason') to reflect the language in the introductory section more closely. Beccaynr ( talk) 04:16, 8 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Civility

2) Editors are expected to show reasonable courtesy to one another, even during contentious situations and disagreements, and to not engage in personal attacks.

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Comment by parties:

Support. Nederlandse Leeuw ( talk) 16:34, 9 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Comment by others:

This proposal is based on "Editors are expected to show reasonable courtesy to one another, even during contentious situations and disagreements, and not resort to personal attacks." - 2021-09. I added a "to" (and to not), for parallelism in corresponding clauses. I also think "engage in" seems more clear and potentially more neutral than resort to. Beccaynr ( talk) 20:53, 7 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Equality and respect

3) Wikipedia editors and readers are culturally diverse by virtue of their race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, gender or sexual orientation. Comments that demean fellow editors, an article subject, or any other person, on the basis of any of these characteristics are offensive and damage the editing environment for everyone. Such comments, particularly when extreme or repeated after a warning, are grounds for blocking or other sanctions. Harassment of other editors for any reason will not be tolerated and is also grounds for blocking or other sanctions. - 2015-12

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Offensive commentary

4) Repeated use of sarcasm, wordplay formulated to mock another user, casting aspersions on fellow editors, or use of language that can reasonably be anticipated to offend is disruptive, particularly when it distracts from the focus of an ongoing discussion. - 2013-08

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Support. Nederlandse Leeuw ( talk) 16:34, 9 August 2023 (UTC) reply

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Personalizing disputes

5) In content disputes, editors must always comment on the content and not the contributor. Personalising content disputes disrupts the consensus-building process on which Wikipedia depends. - 2021-09

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Comment by parties:

Support. Nederlandse Leeuw ( talk) 16:35, 9 August 2023 (UTC) reply

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Participation on arbitration pages

6) Policy states: "All editors are required to act reasonably, civilly, and with decorum on arbitration case pages, and may face sanctions if they fail to do so." The pages associated with arbitration cases are primarily intended to assist the Arbitration Committee in arriving at a fair, well-informed, and expeditious resolution of each case. While grievances must often be aired during such a case, it is expected that editors will do so without being unnecessarily rude or hostile, and will respond calmly to allegations against them. Accusations of misbehaviour must be backed with clear evidence or not made at all. Editors who conduct themselves inappropriately during a case may be sanctioned by arbitrators or clerks including by warnings, blocks, or bans from further participation in the case. Behaviour during a case may be considered as part of an editor's overall conduct in the matter at hand.

- from the World War II and the history of Jews in Poland final decision

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Proposed principles (Nederlandse Leeuw)

Forum shopping

• " Forum shopping" is the raising of essentially the same issue on multiple noticeboards and talk pages, or to multiple administrators, or any of these repetitively. It is unhelpful to finding and achieving consensus. - 2015-12
  • Wikipedia:Arbitration/Index/Principles#Forum shopping

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Casting aspersions

• It is unacceptable for an editor to routinely accuse others of misbehavior without reasonable cause. Legitimate concerns of fellow editors' conduct should be raised either directly with the editor in question, in a civil fashion, or if necessary on an appropriate noticeboard or dispute-resolution page. Although broad leeway is granted to allow editors to express themselves in their interactions with one another, particularly in dispute resolution, a consistent pattern of making objectively unsupported or exaggerated claims of misconduct can necessitate sanctions or restrictions even if the editor subjectively believes that they are true. - 2009-07
  • Wikipedia:Arbitration/Index/Principles#Casting aspersions

Comment by Arbitrators:

Please don't use {{ excerpt}}. These pages become archives later and excerpt tends to change. Secondly, in this case, excerpt dumps a dozen different proposals on the page. Spend the time to pick one. (The former request goes for your other uses.) Izno ( talk) 17:02, 8 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Comment by parties:

Good point, I'll fix it. Nederlandse Leeuw ( talk) 22:47, 8 August 2023 (UTC) reply

@ Izno  Fixed. Nederlandse Leeuw ( talk) 23:10, 8 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Comment by others:

Evidence sub-pages in user space

• Longstanding consensus at Miscellany for Deletion is that editors may work up drafts in their userspace for the sole purpose of submitting the material as evidence in arbitration cases. However, after the case closes, the sub-pages should be courtesy-blanked or deleted as they are often perceived as attack pages and serve only to memorialise and perpetuate the dispute. Evidence should properly be submitted only on arbitration pages as it is impossible to ensure that all the parties are aware of all the sub-pages that might have a bearing on them. - 2010-10
  • Wikipedia:Arbitration/Index/Principles#Evidence sub-pages in user space
  • Also taking the conditions set out in WP:POLEMIC into account.

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Helpful apologies

• Apologies can be a helpful part in the arbitration process. They should be genuine and sincere apologies, and not tactical/strategic attempts to claim the moral high ground in order to influence the course of the case, or listing what the other person has also done wrong. In interpersonal conflicts, making apologies is not always necessary, but it is good practice when users intend to get along with each other again in the future. It's better to err on the side of making an apology to someone who doesn't think it was necessary than err on the side of not making an apology to someone who felt an apology was due. It is good practice to be self-critical, carefully evaluate your own behaviour, and make an apology if you feel you've done something wrong, even if it hasn't been explicitly demanded by the person you might have wronged. Demanding apologies for severe misconduct can sometimes be justified, but you should always remain self-critical, and see if you should apologise to anyone else even if you feel like you're in a situation where you are justified in demanding apologies of others (perhaps the same people). Most people want to be nice, want to take it seriously if a fellow user expresses being upset, confused, frustrated, sad etc., want to make amends for any mistake they might have made, and keep cooperating amicably. That's an important part of what makes Wikipedia so wonderful and successful. Arbitrators can help with preparation if one of the involved parties wishes to make an apology to another involved party, in order to make it more likely that the intended apology will be helpful to the process.
  • (newly proposed, based on various comments made in this Workshop in July/August 2023)

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

This text is a redaction of my comment of 09:27, 31 July 2023, Beyond My Ken's comment of 19:15, 30 July 2023, and DIYeditor's comment of 13:26, 3 August 2023. The last sentence is what I wish would have happened when I tagged an arb with the question where to post such an apology (21:19, 23 July 2023), and when I asked whether the Workshop/General discussion would be a good place (21:36, 23 July 2023). Having received no reply from that arb or anyone else to this question for 17 hours, while I felt I had to make this apology because I felt bad about the comments I had made, I decided to post it there already and ask whether that was alright by tagging that same arb (14:25, 24 July 2023). The arb in question responded (14:34, 24 July 2023): That's probably fine. If it needs to be moved myself or another drafter will let you know.

I note that Beyond My Ken (19:15, 30 July 2023) had an alternative proposal, which is worth looking into: It might have been much better in this case – and in future cases – that such apologies be made directly between two editors on their user talk pages, and not be submitted as part of a case. In fact, I would urge arbitrators or clerks to collapse this material or remove it to a talk page, where it would have been more appropriately posted in the first place, if it had to be posted on case pages. Although I myself do not plan on making any further formal extensive apologies like this one during this case, I do think that something like this could help ease certain tensions between involved parties, if done the right way. Evidently, some participants felt like the apologies made by me and Laurel Lodged contained flaws which were not conducive to the overall process, and I acknowledge that. This is why I have included some of those remarks into the proposed principle. Further modification is possible if constructive feedback can be given. I'm open to lots of things, as I'm also learning how to do this better. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw ( talk) 21:13, 7 August 2023 (UTC) reply

PS: I might add that my apology in particular could have been much more concise. I added a lot of context that I felt was relevant, but in hindsight probably was not necessary. There's a lot to say about LL's apology, but at least it was concise. Mine should have been as well. Nederlandse Leeuw ( talk) 21:51, 7 August 2023 (UTC) reply

• While I appreciate the thinking, and while apologies may help in incidental cases, it is probably unworkable as a general principle. It would be an open invitation to tactical moves after all. The best general principle I can think of is: "Parties may use the Workshop space for apologizing to each other, but this normally will have no impact on the outcome of the case." Marcocapelle ( talk) 06:20, 11 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Comment by others:

Wikipedia page or topic bans

• A Wikipedia ban is a formal revocation of editing privileges on all or part of Wikipedia. A ban may be temporary and of fixed duration, or indefinite and potentially permanent. When enacting an editing restriction that includes a ban on an editor, administrators should take reasonable steps to ensure that the editor is notified of the particulars of the ban and its duration. Editors that are ‘‘page or’’ topic banned from a section of Wikipedia are expected to cease contributing to that area. User account blocks may be used to enforce violation of ‘‘page or’’ topic bans. Any user can bring an administrator action up for review in the relevant noticeboard. The community can, among other things, lift the block/ban, endorse it or extend it in time and/or scope. - 2009-09
  • Wikipedia:Arbitration/Index/Principles#Wikipedia page or topic bans

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Taking into account that two of the parties involved are currently under WP:EDR, and had been for some time before the current dispute arose. Under #Analysis of evidence posted by User:DanCherek, I wondered why these restrictions have apparently remained unenforced in situations where they arguably should have been. Nederlandse Leeuw ( talk) 23:09, 8 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Comment by others:

Proposed findings of fact (Nederlandse Leeuw)

There is an WP:EDR enforcement problem

1) The fact that BrownHairedGirl and Laurel Lodged, the two editors widely considered to be at the heart of this dispute, are both under active editing restrictions ( WP:EDR), but have repeatedly been found by multiple editors to have been WP:UNCIVIL during this dispute, as well as on several earlier occasions being uncivil (mostly BHG) or emptying categories out of process (only LL), without being sanctioned for it, demonstrates that there is an WP:EDR enforcement problem.

• Evidence and analysis presented:
  • Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/SmallCat dispute/Evidence#Some ANI discussions involving Laurel Lodged by DanCherek regarding LL
  • Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/SmallCat dispute/Evidence#A Prior Community Restriction for BrownHairedGirl Did Not Prevent Any of the Incivility Above by RevelationDirect regarding BHG
  • Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/SmallCat dispute/Evidence#A recent block of BHG for allegedly violating a community sanction was swiftly overturned by Red-tailed hawk regarding BHG
  • Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/SmallCat dispute/Evidence#A 12-hour block of BHG in October 2022 was followed by BHG having her talk page access revoked by Red-tailed hawk regarding BHG
  • Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/SmallCat dispute/Evidence#Fram's report by MJL regarding LL
  • Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/SmallCat dispute/Evidence#BrownHairedGirl engages in bludgeoning and does not respect consensus when it is against her by Trainsandotherthings regarding BHG
  • Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/SmallCat dispute/Evidence#State funerals RM by Thryduulf regarding BHG
  • Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/SmallCat dispute/Evidence#BrownHairedGirl bludgeoned a discussion regarding a Signpost article in January 2022 by SamX regarding BHG
  • Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/SmallCat dispute/Workshop#Analysis of evidence posted by User:DanCherek § "Observations about both & about enforcement" by Nederlandse Leeuw (me) regarding both LL and BHG

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

• (Commentary) The causes of this enforcement problem are unclear (at least to me).
  • MJL provides the suggestion that LL should have been sanctioned for the same stuff he had been temporarily blocked for no fewer than 3 times in the past (2011, 2011, and 2013). It is unclear why no similar block was imposed on LL in 2021; the ANI never formally closed, and no action was taken. DanCherek points out: two editors suggested that further instances should result in a block [27][28]. Others stated that a block would be excessive [29][30], and several editors suggested a topic ban from categories (or a subset of categories) [31][32][33][34][35]. The discussion was archived by a bot without formal closure. LL's EDR, since 2013, only pertain to Irish counties (including categorisation). He is not under a WP:CIVIL editing restriction, but a potential block during the July 2023 for incivility was only prevented after LL was given a warning by an admin, and was strongly recommended to retract certain comments. MJL suggests other pre-2023 civility-related incidents might also have been sanctionable, but these would fall outside his current EDR.
  • For BHG, who has been under a permanent WP:CIVIL behaviour probation since August 2021, there are similar questions, leading Trainsandotherthings to wonder why no sanction was imposed for the March/April 2022 dispute: BHG has shown zero remorse for her actions, stating "For the record, I stand by my judgement on this matter." at ANI. BHG was never blocked or sanctioned for this behavior. Other incidents described by the Evidence of others above also occurred after August 2021, but went unsanctioned. This did happen in October 2022, as evidenced by Red-tailed hawk, who also offered at least a partial explanation for one incident during the ANI in July 2023, when a block was swiftly overturned.

In neither case, however, I have seen others, or personally been able to, explicitly identify the underlying causes of the lack of enforcement of the imposed editing restrictions. I hope more experienced editors are better able to draw such conclusions, as well as propose remedies which work to ensure that enforcement does happen. If the editing restrictions had been enforced every time either one of the involved parties had violated them, this dispute might have been prevented, or kept under control at an earlier stage. Nederlandse Leeuw ( talk) 18:36, 13 August 2023 (UTC) reply

1. Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/SmallCat dispute/Evidence#A recent block of BHG for allegedly violating a community sanction was swiftly overturned: A consensus that a block placed on me as was inappropriate is apparently evidence of my wickedness.
2. Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/SmallCat dispute/Evidence#BrownHairedGirl engages in bludgeoning and does not respect consensus when it is against her: BHG spotted a huge issue, namely Wikipedia'e internal newspaper taking a partisan stand in a war. You may not see that as a problem, but it's a great pity that some editors still want to punish me for making the case that it is a problem. There were two issues to be resolved, which required to venues: ANI for the conduct of the editors, and MFD for the article. It's not my fault that those are separate processes; I just used the established procedures. The MFD was snow closed, which I challenged per the established process at deletion review. The closer of WP:Deletion review/Log/2022 March 27 made no criticism of me, and noted multiple flaws in the speedy close. I never failed to respect the consensus; I stand by my decision to use established processes to challenge the article, and I accept the outcome. I still think that the decisions at AINI and MfD were wrong, but I accept that they have been made through valid processes so I accept the outcome.
   The village pump discussion was a freewheeling discussion with no proposal on the table. many of my comments there were in repose to others asking me to reply.
3. Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/SmallCat dispute/Evidence#State_funerals_RM raises several complex issues spanning multiple venues. i will respond separately.
4. Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/SmallCat dispute/Evidence#BrownHairedGirl bludgeoned a discussion regarding a Signpost article in January 2022 is yet more of the quote-mining which has marred so much of this dispute. I urge the arbs to read the discussion as a whole to see ho I was making a nuanced and reasoned case: WT:Wikipedia Signpost/2022-01-30/Special report#Discuss_this_story.

Please note that Nederlandse Leeuw's approach to this dispute has been to try to punish me for not accepting NL's demands. See e.g. [40] where I rejected NL's "apology", and NL's subsequent pile-on against me, including lot of posts in the last few hours as the deadline approaches. I cannot possibly reply to this lot in the few hours remaining. @ Barkeep49: please can you extend the workshop phase to allow me an opportunity to reply? -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 19:59, 13 August 2023 (UTC) reply

I think that's a fair criticism of my submission, and I've trimmed it accordingly. I agree that the full context of the discussion is needed to properly evaluate that particular incident, which is why I included a link to it in my evidence submission. — SamX [ talk · contribs 20:14, 13 August 2023 (UTC) reply

This proposed finding of fact is not about the conduct by the involved parties in question, but about the perceived response or lack thereof by the community. The conclusion is not new; it is rather a meta-analysis of conclusions reached by others before. Nederlandse Leeuw ( talk) 20:29, 13 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Comment by others:

Proposed principles (Pbsouthwood)

Unsubstantiated claims

1) Wikipedians are expected to assume good faith, but not everyone acts in good faith, and even when acting in good faith can do harm. One of the harms that can be done is unsubstantiated claims of malfeasance by another editor. It can be difficult to rebut a claim which does not provide the evidence which is believed to support the claim, whether or not it is grounded in reality, a misinterpretation of reality or is simply in the mind of the beholder.

To reduce the adverse effects of such claims, when an editor claims malfeasance by another editor, they must, in the same edit, provide the evidence supporting that claim, which they consider necessary and sufficient to uphold that claim as made in that edit. Failure to provide any such evidence is prima facie evidence of bad faith on the part of the claimant and may be sanctioned. Failure to provide sufficient and convincing evidence may result in the claim being repudiated, and the claimant may be warned or reprimanded. Methods of providing such evidence include quotes, diffs and links. Direct quotes must provide sufficient context as may be necessary to avoid misrepresentation and must be linked to the original source if reasonably practicable.

Comment: This may be improved, but hopefully the general idea is conveyed. Please point out any unintended consequences that may arise. Cheers, · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 09:43, 9 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Comment by Arbitrators:

The committee interprets existing policy, it does not, can not, and should not dictate new policy. Beeblebrox ( talk) 15:21, 12 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Comment by parties:

This sounds good on first reading, but it's actually highly problematic, because it shifts the burden from the miscreant to the complainer, making it easier for bad faith editors to game the system. In a case such as WP:Categories for discussion/Log/2023 June 25#People_by_occupation_in_Northern_Ireland, the evidence needed was lengthy and very time-consuming to produce (see User:BrownHairedGirl/Draft_evidence_in_SmallCat_case#PBO_in_Northern_Ireland), whereas it was quick an easy to the nominator to make a nomination based on a misrepresented guideline targeted at the work of one editor. My direct challenges to those abuses brought a prompt end to the tag-teaming and to the vindictive, SMALLCAT-defying nominations. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 12:55, 10 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Comment by others:

Requiring evidence be provided "in the same edit" is too strict as it is not always possible, practical or even in some cases desirable. For example, evidence that is extensive and/or complex may be better presented elsewhere and then linked to, and comments like "please see the evidence presented at <link>" are within the spirit but not letter of this. See WP:ASPERSIONS for some of the previous principles related to this. None of those mention any time period, but if one is desirable something like "promptly" would imo be better. Thryduulf ( talk) 14:01, 9 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Proposed findings of fact (Pbsouthwood)

1) One or more of the parties made unsupported claims of malfeasance against others.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Such a finding should name the specific party/parties and link to examples from evidence. Without that it risks becoming the evidence-free assertion you speak against in the principles. Thryduulf ( talk) 14:03, 9 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Proposed remedies (Pbsouthwood)

Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.

1) {text of proposed remedy} No specific suggestions.

This would be a new behavioural expectation and it would not be reasonable to apply it retrospectively. It would apply to all Wikipedians in future communications on-wiki. It would probably have to go through RfC to have any validity as a guideline, but it may be within Arbcom's remit to impose it as a remedy in specific cases.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Proposed enforcement (Pbsouthwood)

1) Failure to comply nay be enforced by a warning, followed by a topic ban (or partial block? never used one, so not sure how they work.) from the areas in which the remedy is contravened. I suggest the period starts with 24 hours and is doubled with each consecutive enforcement.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Proposed findings of fact (RevelationDirect)

These proposed findings of fact coincide with the section headers of my evidence section originally submitted on 1 August 2023. (The title of #3 has been changed to reflect past tense.) Each proposed finding contains evidence from the Evidence page, as required by WP:ARBGUIDE#Workshop. While I think there are other potential findings, as an involved editor, I’m limiting mine to the ones where I was directly involved with at CFD. - RevelationDirect ( talk) 12:44, 14 August 2023 (UTC) reply

BrownHairedGirl Repeatedly Claims Other Editors are Involved in WP:TAGTEAM Meatpuppetry at CFD

1) On the Evidence page, there is clear indication that BrownHairedGirl repeatedly makes claims of Tag Team Meatpuppetry in the wild outside of the dispute resolution process.

• Supporting information from the Evidence page:
  • This Diff ( CDlink) submitted by Nederlandse Leeuw
  • This Block Quote ( CDlink) about earlier claims of Tag Teaming submitted by Jc37
  • Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/SmallCat dispute/Evidence#BrownHairedGirl Repeatedly Claims Other Editors are Involved in WP:TAGTEAM Meatpuppetry at CFD submitted by RevelationDirect (me)

(Note that some of the linked Diffs may be duplicates.)

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

I never alleged meatpuppetry. I did allege tag-teaming. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 22:50, 16 August 2023 (UTC) reply

• In Wikipedia, "tag-teaming" usually has a specific meaning from WP:TAGTEAM essay which begins "Tag teaming (sometimes also called an editorial camp or gang, factionalism, or a travelling circus) is a controversial[note 1] form of meatpuppetry..." [Emphasis Mine]. It's certainly possible that an accusation of some other type of collusion was intended here but, once again, I'm describing the alleged misconduct I'm accused of in good faith and then being told I got it wrong which is part of the pattern I described below. - RevelationDirect ( talk) 23:58, 16 August 2023 (UTC) reply

  I did NOT allege that RevelationDirect was part of the tag-team. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 00:07, 17 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Comment by others:

BrownHairedGirl Repeatedly Promises to Provide Diffs to Support Claims of WP:TAGTEAM Meatpuppetry

2) On the Evidence page, there is clear evidence that BrownHairedGirl repeatedly promises to back up claims of Tag Team Meatpuppetry and that such evidence would come at least partly in the form of Diffs.

• Supporting information from the Evidence page:
  • This Diff ( CDlink) submitted by QEDK
  • Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/SmallCat dispute/Evidence#BrownHairedGirl Repeatedly Promises to Provide Diffs to Support Claims of WP:TAGTEAM Meatpuppetry submitted by RevelationDirect (me)

(Note that some of the linked Diffs may be duplicates.)

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Diffs to Support Claims of WP:TAGTEAM Meatpuppetry Never Arrived from BrownHairedGirl

3) No Diffs or other evidence to support these claims of Tag Team Meatpuppetry were ever submitted to the Evidence page by BrownHairedGirl.

• Supporting information from the Evidence page:
  • This proposed finding is claiming something did ‘’not’’ happen so there are no Links or Diffs. But if there were, they would be right here on the Evidence page .
  • While not proving a negative, detailed evidence of the unlikeliness of Tag Team Meatpuppetry was submitted by Oculi: Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/SmallCat dispute/Evidence#Evidence presented by Oculi

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

After this ArbComm Opened, BrownHairedGirl Claims that Providing Diffs is Counterproductive

After promising to provide her own Diffs above, BrownHairedGirl began rethinking whether Diffs were a meaningful form of evidence. Based on her subsequent comments on the Workshop page, I don’t think this proposed finding is controversial.

• Supporting information from the Evidence page:
  • Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/SmallCat dispute/Evidence#After this ArbComm Opened, BrownHairedGirl Claims that Providing Diffs is Counterproductive by RevelationDirect (me)

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BrownHairedGirl Repeatedly Does not Assume Good Faith or Competency More Generally for CFD

5) On the Evidence page, it is documented in great detail that neither good faith nor competency are assumed by BrownHairedGirl when engaging with other editors at CFD. jc37, and

• Supporting information from the Evidence page:
  • Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/SmallCat dispute/Evidence#Evidence presented by JaggedHamster submitted by JaggedHamster
  • Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/SmallCat dispute/Evidence#BrownHairedGirl not recognising the importance of being WP:CIVIL submitted by Nederlandse Leeuw
  • Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/SmallCat dispute/Evidence#BHG submitted by Jc37
  • Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/SmallCat dispute/Evidence#BrownHairedGirl's allegations of gaslighting submitted by DanCherek (Note that only some of this evidence is CFD related)
  • Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/SmallCat dispute/Evidence#BrownHairedGirl often makes accusations of malice submitted by DIYeditor (Note that only some of this evidence is CFD related)
  • Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/SmallCat dispute/Evidence#BrownHairedGirl Repeatedly Does not Assume Good Faith or Competency More Generally for CFD submitted by RevelationDirect (me)

(Note that some of the linked Diffs may be duplicates.)

Comment by Arbitrators:

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Comment by others:

Engaging in a Substantive Discussion of SMALLCAT Did Not Stop the Incivility by BrownHairedGirl

6) On the Evidence page, it is documented that discussing the underlying content dispute about SMALLCAT did not stop the incivility from BrownHairedGirl.

• Supporting information from the Evidence page:
  • Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/SmallCat dispute/Evidence#Engaging in a Substantive Discussion of SMALLCAT Did Not Stop the Incivility by BrownHairedGirl submitted by RevelationDirect (me)
  • Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/SmallCat dispute/Evidence#Smallcat at cfd submitted by Oculi (Oculi’s evidence does not explicitly tie the two together but shows that the controversial CFD nominations themselves had substantive discussions.)

Comment by Arbitrators:

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Comment by others:

CFD is Not Usually Contentious Beyond a Couple Editors

7) On the Evidence page, it is documented that Categories for Discussion is not usually a contentious place beyond a couple editors.

• Supporting information from the Evidence page:
  • This description ( CDlink) submitted by Oculi
  • Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/SmallCat dispute/Evidence#CFD is Not Usually Contentious Beyond a Couple Editors submitted by RevelationDirect (me)

(Note: I added “Beyond a Couple Editors” to the section header on the Evidence page after Valeree and Beccaynr provided their evidence about the “Bridget” edit summary.)

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

In a sparsely-attended venue such as CFD, misuse of a guideline may continue unchallenged for some time. That i what happened with SMALLCAT.

A falsehood does become true just because it goes unchallenged for a while. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 20:12, 16 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Comment by others:

(re BHG misuse of a guideline may continue unchallenged for some time) Policies and guidelines are intended to be descriptive of community consensus, which is determined by the outcomes of relevant discussions. If discussions repeatedly reach consensus different to those documented in guidelines then it's likely the guidelines are out of date. Thryduulf ( talk) 20:28, 16 August 2023 (UTC) reply

re Thryduulf: If discussions repeatedly reach consensus different to those documented in guidelines, then one possibility is that the guidelines are out of date. There are other possibilities, such as that discussions are under-notified and have low participation, and hence show only a WP:LOCALCON. (Most of these CFDs which applied a hard numerical threshold had no notification of creators, and very low participation). That's why I repeatedly urged those who sought to apply a hard numerical threshold to open an RFC to seek a broad consensus to change the guideline.
Another possibility is what happened repeatedly, including in the CFDs where I objected: that the local consensus was warped by repeated misrepresentation of the guideline, in this case by citing SMALLCAT in support of nominations which wholly ignored both "with no potential for growth" and the exemption for "a large overall accepted sub-categorization scheme".
It's fine to note what a guideline says and propose a different course of action, with reasons for the exception; but the problem here is the repeated pretences that the guideline says something other than what it actually says. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 21:28, 16 August 2023 (UTC) reply

A Prior Community Restriction for BrownHairedGirl Did Not Prevent Any of the Incivility Above

8) On the Evidence page, it is documented that the community restriction based on BrownHairedGirl’s prior incivility did not work in practice.

• Supporting information from the Evidence page:

Note: While framed more broadly than mine, the There is an WP:EDR enforcement problem proposed findings of fact relies on the same evidence as this one so I’ll defer to avoid a duplicate thread.

Comment by Arbitrators:

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Proposed principles

Universal Code of Conduct

1) The Wikimedia Foundation Universal Code of Conduct applies at all times to all editors, as a legal condition of use of WMF websites, including the English-language Wikipedia. No editor, admin or arbitrator is permitted to disregard the UCoC.

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Accuracy and verifiability

2) Editors are required by the Wikimedia Foundation Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC) to "strive towards accuracy and verifiability" in all their work on Wikipedia.

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Repeated failures of accuracy and verifiability

3) Editors are human, and therefore fallible. Editors may in good faith make errors in which their assertions in articles or in discussions are inaccurate or verifiable. However, when they spot errors in their work or are notified by others of such errors, editors are required by the UCoC to strive to correct their errors and to not repeat them.

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Repeated errors

4) When an editor is notified of an inaccuracy, repeating that inaccuracy is a breach of the UCoC, and hence a form disruption.

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Proposed findings of fact

BHGbot9

1) Thrydulf's evidence at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/SmallCat dispute/Evidence#BRFA_for_BHGbot9 is misleading because it is incomplete. After disagreeing with Headbomb at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/BHGbot 9, BHG asked for a second opinion: see Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/BHGbot 9 #Other_views_sought. Instead of allowing that to happen, Headbomb piled on and ignored the guidelines I cited i support of my view. Headbomb then closed the BRFA before any other input happened, so i asked BAG to review it: see Wikipedia:Bots/Noticeboard/Archive 16#BHGbot_9_review_sought. Sadly, BAG piled on both support Headbomb's prevention of further input, an in support of Headbomb's odd view that for some reason we should retain the big banner {{ Cleanup bare URLs}} tag on a page where the only URL which could be counted as bare is one which has already been tagged for removal or replacement. That is contrary to the WP:CLEANUPTAG guidance: "If an article has many problems, tag only the highest priority issues" and "Don't insert tags that are similar or redundant".
Since the guidance was on my side, I ran the same code as an ordinary WP:AWB job (without a bot flag) on thousands of articles, and there were no objection from anyone except Headbomb. He raised the issue at Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)/Archive 71#Bot_request_process, where he got no support; his two RFCs were speedily closed. Headbomb then appealed the speedy close of the RFCs: see WP:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive345#Closure review: Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)/Archive 71#Mass addition of Cleanup bare URLs template, where nobody supported re-opening. See also Wikipedia:Bots/Noticeboard/Archive 17#Two_Bot-related_RFCs_at_Wikipedia:Village_pump_(miscellaneous)/Archive_71#Mass_addition_of_Cleanup_bare_URLs_template, where I note Headbomb's aggression at another venue: accusing me of kneecaping Citation bot. The problem throughout all this was that a) Headbomb's aggressive disregard of WP:CLEANUPTAG went unchallenged by BAG, and b) there is no venue to appeal a BAG decision other than to BAG, even when the task has proven uncontroversial. I was saddened and upset by that drama, and am saddened that again BAG's failure to restrain Headbomb and support a stable guideline is cited as some failure by me. I did a big and uncontroversial cleanup job, but got monstered for it.

Comment by Arbitrators:

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Comment by others:

Provisions of SMALLCAT

2) WP:SMALLCAT is explicitly restricted to categories which are "Small with no potential for growth", and there is an exemption for categories which are "a large overall accepted sub-categorization scheme".

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

There is no consensus on how to interpret WP:SMALLCAT. Nederlandse Leeuw ( talk) 00:22, 17 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Comment by others:

Use of SMALLCAT

3) A nomination to delete a category per WP:SMALLCAT must therefore include an assessment of whether it as "potential for growth", and whether it is part of "a large overall accepted sub-categorization scheme".

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

There is no consensus on how to interpret WP:SMALLCAT. Nederlandse Leeuw ( talk) 00:22, 17 August 2023 (UTC) reply

This is not a matter of "interpretation". BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 01:25, 17 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Comment by others:

Abuse of SMALLCAT

4) Oculi and Laurel Lodged repeatedly nominated categories for merger or deletion on the basis of misrepsentations of SMALLCAT, by ignoring both potential for growth and whether the categories were part of a large overall accepted sub-categorization scheme. They continued to do so even after being notified of their errors.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

BrownHairedGirl has no monopoly on WP:PG interpretation, nor the right to be WP:UNCIVIL if anyone disagrees. Nederlandse Leeuw ( talk) 00:22, 17 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Comment by others:

Supporters of abuse of SMALLCAT

5) Marcocapelle, and RevelationDirect continued to support CFD nominations which misrepresented SMALLCAT, even after being notified of their error.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

BrownHairedGirl has no monopoly on WP:PG interpretation, nor the right to be WP:UNCIVIL if anyone disagrees. Nederlandse Leeuw ( talk) 00:22, 17 August 2023 (UTC) reply

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Proposed principles

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Proposed remedies

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Place here items of evidence (with diffs) and detailed analysis

Analysis of March 2020 discussion on discussion thread formatting

The first set of diffs in the evidence from DanCherek is from an incidents' noticeboard discussion on talk thread formatting from March 2020, after an edit war between RexxS and BrownHairedGirl. For a description of the technical details of the disagreement, see my previous analysis of this discussion. The exhibited behaviour in the incidents' noticeboard thread from both disputing parties was frustrating, as they focused narrowly on repeating their own arguments and did not try to understand the other person's point of view. The level of loud accusations set in a larger typeface size by BrownHairedGirl was extreme, though, and not conducive to resolving the dispute. isaacl ( talk) 04:50, 22 July 2023 (UTC) reply

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@ Barkeep49:: Regarding this comment: I do not feel that "violent wording/metaphors" were used by RexxS, though I will agree there were aggressive responses and unflattering personal commentary. isaacl ( talk) 16:32, 1 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Analysis of evidence posted by User:Laurel_Lodged

1. Under the heading "Threats", Laurel_Lodged posted this comment by BHG:

"If that guideline-flouting is upheld, then a DRV is the appropriate venue to review that."

This does not appear to me to be a "threat" of any kind, it appears to be a suggestion then WP:Deletion review (DRV) can be used to resolve a dispute. Floating a suggestion to use a regular Wikipedia process is inherently not threatening.

2. Similarly, in the same edit, under the heading "Assumed revenge / paranoia" is quoted:

"It follows a series if[sic] unpleasant and/or hostile encounters with you since I challenged your huge nominations in which you offered no evidence of having done any WP:BEFORE, and where you ignored my calls for it to be provided."

I am at a loss to see the "assumed revenge" in that statement. It seems more like a statement of factual chronology, albeit characterized by BHG's personal impression of it. Furthermore, describing it as "paranoia" on BHG's part is perilously close to being a personal attack, as statements do not have paranoia, people do. Beyond My Ken ( talk) 19:47, 23 July 2023 (UTC) reply

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Comment by parties:

What is meant by "Threat" here may indeed require some clarification. My second Diff (14:48, 15 June 2023) already addresses this, but this is how I interpreted it at the time (quite important, because this is what motivated me to raise WP:CIVIL issues in the first place):

I now see (this is new information to me) that RevelationDirect later (29 June 2023) concurred with that assessment of mine in a different CfD, where RD expressed (with some understandable frustration and sarcasm) that BHG had again "threatened" the closer to not make a decision BHG would disagree with, or else... she would take it to some other forum like WP:DRV or WP:RFC to overturn whatever the closer decided. ( Diff). LL cites BHG's response to this ( Diff) as yet more evidence of BHG "threatening" the closer, namely, that the closer will be "flouting" the guideline if they close the CfD discussion in a way BHG disagrees with, and therefore possibly liable to sanctions for having violated a guideline. A closer worried about violating a guideline due to making a decision BHG vehemently disagrees with might be intimidated by such remarks into doing whatever BHG thinks should be decided. Therefore, I think RD's and LL's conclusions, which confirm my earlier conclusion, are correct. I hope this provides enough context, and helps everyone here to draw their own conclusions. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw ( talk) 19:50, 23 July 2023 (UTC) reply

What LL appears to mean with "Assumed revenge / paranoia" more clearly requires clarification. I wouldn't say it like that, and I believe LL has not provided as much context as he should have, so that it looks much like a personal attack (which is unacceptable). But if he phrased it differently, and provided more context and evidence, I would probably agree with it. Because BHG has indeed said she felt "hounded" by a "tag team" which was allegedly engaged in "revenge-nominating". Although I have not really seen evidence of "tag-teaming" and "revenge-nominating", I have taken her expression that she felt hounded very seriously (per WP:HOUNDING). It's one of the reasons why I suggested two-way IBANs for her vis-à-vis the three. BHG should be able to edit Wikipedia without being harassed by others (if that is indeed what was going on). Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw ( talk) 20:33, 23 July 2023 (UTC) reply

PS: Meanwhile, LL has clarified several statements. Assumed revenge / paranoia has been changed to Assumed revenge as motive for SmallCat differences. I welcome this clarification, which is helpful for moving the process forward. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw ( talk) 21:31, 23 July 2023 (UTC) reply

PS: I believe Robert McClenon underestimates the seriousness of "intimidating/threatening" the closer. I would recommend him to (re-)read my analysis above. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw ( talk) 12:05, 24 July 2023 (UTC) reply

I'm a little sheepish to weigh in here since the DRV part is where I crossed the line myself into incivility. In the light of day, I no longer see it as a threat but I do think it is better to submit evidence of misconduct to ANI rather than ask CFD closers to evaluate such behavior (or DRV if the closer fails to do so). - RevelationDirect ( talk) 21:16, 31 July 2023 (UTC) reply

• Whether "threat" is the right word or not, it is a bad precedent to state that you do not accept any closure but in your favour. Suppose that everyone would do that.... Marcocapelle ( talk) 05:39, 11 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Comment by others:

I concur with the analysis by User:Beyond My Ken that the mention of DRV was not a threat, and that its characterization as one is mistaken. An error by the closer at CFD should be taken to DRV, just as an error by the closer at AFD should be taken to DRV. I was about to write an Analysis of Evidence to that effect, and so will concur with this one. Robert McClenon ( talk) 01:46, 24 July 2023 (UTC) reply

• Laurel Lodged's evidence contains the following statement regarding BrownHairedGirl's expansion of a CfM nomination:

  I’m still torn between admiration of the talent that it took to do such a mass nom whilst simultaneous reeling in horror when I think of the mindset that could commit such an act.

  This comment about BrownHairedGirl's "mindset" is not acceptable. Laurel Lodged also made an inappropriate remark about BrownHairedGirl's mental health at ANI; it was redacted as a personal attack and he was warned by an administrator that further comments like that would be met with a block (see my evidence). Making the statement quoted above, dripping with hyperbole ("reeling in horror"; "the mindset that could commit such an act"), on an arbitration case page suggests that the warning was not effective. DanCherek ( talk) 23:11, 6 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Analysis of evidence posted by User:DanCherek

Comment by Arbitrators:

I spent yesterday diving deep on Dan's gaslighting evidence, reading not only the diffs but the entire conversations which contained them (and in some cases reading the conversations which spurred the conversations entered into evidence). My observation is that BHG has a strong emotional response to violent wording/metaphors and that other editors have a similar strong emotional response to having their conduct labeled as gaslighting. As best as I can tell the failure to understand the perspective of the other side about why specific words/phrases elicit such a strong emotional response is often some combination of cultural differences among English speaking countries and the personal makeup of the specific editors involved. Barkeep49 ( talk) 16:21, 1 August 2023 (UTC) reply

In response to a comment made by Isaacl elsewhere on this page about this comment, I will add that this is not my only observation about those diff, so it would have been more accurate for me to have said My An observation is that.... I have nearly a page of type written notes about those diffs in fact. However, this observation felt like something useful to note publicly at this point in time. Barkeep49 ( talk) 16:38, 1 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Comment by parties:

• I wholly endorse the findings of DanCherek regarding BrownHairedGirl's allegations of gaslighting. I have been subjected to this myself by BrownHairedGirl. This repetitive WP:UNCIVIL conduct should be sanctioned accordingly. Nederlandse Leeuw ( talk) 11:40, 24 July 2023 (UTC) reply
• I generally concur with the findings of DanCherek regarding Laurel Lodged inappropriately emptying categories out of process, and making inappropriate comments to other participants. LL has shown willingness to retract or rectify inappropriate comments, and thus recognising the importance of being WP:CIVIL (something I can't say about BHG, see my Evidence). But serious consideration should be given to implement one or several of the previously suggested restrictions (temporary blocks or topicbans on categorisation in certain problematic topic areas, such as "Irish counties" and "years in Austria") in order to adequately deal with repetitive inappropriate conduct. But I would oppose banning him from CFD entirely; virtually all my interactions with Laurel Lodged there have been amicable, he is quite productive and makes valuable contributions to the project. Clashes with other editors in certain topic areas, as well as clashes with BHG over SMALLCAT nominations, have been the exception rather than the rule, and a two-way WP:IBAN between BHG and LL has previously gained widespread support at the ANI when I and others proposed it. Nederlandse Leeuw ( talk) 11:40, 24 July 2023 (UTC) reply
• Observations about both & about enforcement: Past and current restrictions for BHG and LL have evidently been insufficient, or have simply been insufficiently enforced. Both LL and BHG are under active WP:EDR:

• Should BrownHairedGirl behave uncivilly or make personal attacks, she may be blocked first for twelve hours and then for a duration at the discretion of the blocking administrator. (...). Indefinite.
• Laurel Lodged is placed under an editing restriction from adding, removing or altering the names or significance of Irish counties (...) Indefinite. Can be removed after 2013-12-20.

I believe that Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2023 July 21#Irish police officers by county, 10 categories created on 24 June 2023 7 June 2023 by BHG and nominated for upmerging per WP:SMALLCAT by LL the same day on 24 June 2023, resulting in vehement opposition from BHG who then arguably engaged in incivility towards LL, not only contributed to a series of escalations (already beginning at the Expatriates CfD in mid-June, if not earlier) which led us to the ANI and this ARC today. (I would like to note that both LL and BHG are from Ireland, and have been at odds about categorisation since at least 2011). I believe that this could have been prevented by enforcing the editing restriction on LL not to interfere with anything to do with Irish counties (which this arguably is), and incivility engaged in by BHG towards LL could have been prevented by enforcing the editing restriction on BHG not to behave uncivilly (which she arguably did). PS: If you wonder whether BHG was really so uncivil towards LL, here are some excerpts:

BHG to LL at the Irish police officers by county CfM

@ Laurel Lodged: Go READ WP:SMALLCAT. You don't even need to read the whole paragraph: Its headline is Small with no no potential for growth. Do you understand what no potential for growth means? You clearly did not do any WP:BEFORE. (...) The whole nomination is at best a act of unintended disruption caused by a failure to do WP:BEFORE. However, I find it very hard to believe that after all your years at CFD you are not aware that WP:SMALLCAT is for categories with "no potential for growth", or that it does not apply to established series. Please end the disruption by promptly withdrawing this nomination. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 13:27, 24 June 2023 (UTC) reply Thanks I would like to offer my thanks to BHG for acknowledging that it was "unintended disruption". It's nice when she assumes that I work in Good Faith. Oh wait...did I just admit to being disruptive. Darn. Sigh. Laurel Lodged ( talk) 13:32, 24 June 2023 (UTC) reply I assume good faith until the assumption becomes untenable, as it has here. But of course it is wholly untrue to say that I was acknowledging that it was "unintended disruption". I said that it is "at best a act of unintended disruption". Please stop abusing CFD as a platform to publish untruths as part of your taunting games. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 13:52, 24 June 2023 (UTC) reply Note that as a demonstration of LL's bad faith, LL made no response to the expansion of the categories, or to my comments about how WP:SMALLCAT supports keeping these categories. Instead, they just posted snark. A good faith editor would at this stage withdraw the nomination, and apologise both the failure to read WP:SMALLCAT and for their lack of WP:BEFORE, BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 14:05, 24 June 2023 (UTC) reply

Now judge that by WP:IDENTIFYUNCIVIL, and draw your own conclusions. My conclusion is that BHG's comments qualify as uncivil, and could have been sanctioned with a twelve-hour block per her behavior probation. At the same time, LL is arguably liable for sanctioning per his topicban due to starting a CfM about Irish counties. These editing restrictions are already in place. Why are they not enforced? Enforcement should prevent conflicts like this. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw ( talk) 11:40, 24 July 2023 (UTC) reply

I think the Irish Police officers categories were created on 7 June 2023 ( diff and diff - 44 categories created in 1 day). 17 days to populate them. Oculi ( talk) 15:07, 24 July 2023 (UTC) reply

Oh. Okay I don't know how I thought BHG created them all on 24 June 2023, and LL nominated 10 of them all on the same day BHG created them, because you are correct that this isn't the case. Thanks for pointing it out.  Fixed Nederlandse Leeuw ( talk) 15:14, 24 July 2023 (UTC) reply

Comment by others:

SilkTork I have provided a diff [41] in my evidence in which BHG quotes the WMF Code of Conduct which explicitly says "psychological manipulation" and "malicious", and in which diff she uses the term "vicious" herself, possibly showing that she does understand this meaning for "gaslighting". —DIYeditor ( talk) 22:58, 26 July 2023 (UTC) reply

I've said this before at the AN/I, but Nederlandse Leeuw is wrong in saying [LL recognizes] the importance of being WP:CIVIL. There isn't any evidence to support that statement. He had to be warned twice by Black Kite about his incivility before finally disengaging. – MJL  ‐Talk‐ ^☖ 17:27, 28 July 2023 (UTC) reply

• I was invited to submit an analysis of my evidence subsection " BrownHairedGirl's allegations of gaslighting". As others have pointed out, when assessing allegations like these, we need to figure out what is meant by " gaslighting" because an increase in the term's usage has diluted its meaning; this Atlantic piece calls this "semantic bleaching". Quoting Merriam-Webster's primary definition, the original meaning is "to psychologically manipulate (a person) usually over an extended period of time so that the victim questions the validity of their own thoughts, perception of reality, or memories and experiences confusion, loss of confidence and self-esteem, and doubts concerning their own emotional or mental stability". Nowadays, as SilkTork mentions below, the term is sometimes used during disagreements without full realization of what it implies.
  In reviewing the discussions referenced in my evidence, I concluded that BrownHairedGirl is aware of the original definition of gaslighting, and when she uses the term, she is alleging that other editors are engaging in the kind of psychological manipulation described in that definition. Here she mentions a "nasty, manipulative attempt to invert the reality"; here she mentions a "nasty reality-inversion trick"; here she mentions a "vicious form of psychological manipulation"; and here she quotes the UCoC as "Psychological manipulation: Maliciously causing someone to doubt their own perceptions, senses, or understanding with the objective to win an argument or force someone to behave the way you want." Each of these reinforces that BrownHairedGirl intended to allege that the other editors in question were engaging in gaslighting as the term was originally used – not that there was merely a disagreement, but that they were trying to insidiously manipulate her by altering her perception of reality.
  Gaslighting is serious, and should be acted upon if it takes place. I will leave it to ArbCom to determine whether the evidence indicates that any of the parties to this case have engaged in psychological manipulation to the point that another editor has questioned their own reality. But my sense is that the allegations, that numerous editors over the years have been intentionally and maliciously messing with her sense of reality, are generally not borne out by the contexts in which they are made. Here, for instance, BrownHairedGirl says that El_C's statement that she is "unrelentingly uncivil and combative" is an instance of gaslighting. I don't think it is; El_C could just as well have quoted the Portals FoF, passed 15 to 0, that she "has repeatedly engaged in personal attacks and assumptions of bad faith".
  This Washington Post column states: "Well-meaning partners, co-workers or family members may not be skilled in resolving conflict in a relationship, but that doesn't mean they're gaslighting — or being gaslighted." I will adapt that as follows: "Well-meaning Wikipedia editors may not be skilled in resolving conflict in a discussion, but that doesn't mean they're gaslighting — or being gaslighted." There's a lot of background context in the disagreements that are referenced in my table of evidence, for sure, and some instances of subpar behavior from involved editors on both sides of a given disagreement. But improper accusations of gaslighting are needlessly escalatory and pretty much guarantee that a collegial resolution will never be reached. DanCherek ( talk) 15:30, 4 August 2023 (UTC) reply
• FWIW, this recent article in The Atlantic may be helpful in distinguishing what is and isn't "gaslighting". Beyond My Ken ( talk) 16:22, 5 August 2023 (UTC) reply

• One could ask BHG to clarify what she means by "gaslighting". I don't think she would lie. · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 07:31, 11 August 2023 (UTC) reply

• I strongly endorse the evidence presented as-is by DanCherek. They convey the crux of the issue and the long history of disruptive behaviour that this case has been brought here for. -- qedk ( t 愛 c) 16:20, 6 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Analysis of evidence posted by User:Oculi

Comment by Arbitrators:

My work today has been to read the various CfDs linked in evidence sections. Oculi's evidence seems to imply BHG is being selective about how she interprets SMALLCAT. But I don't see that. I see a clear through line of how BHG uses realistic potential for growth in the 2020 and 2023 discussions. realistic potential for growth is a subjective standard so different editors are going to reach different conclusions on how to apply in a given instance but that doesn't make any of them wrong. What am I missing?

Additionally, in Expatriates A-G BHG also quotes another part of WP:SMALLCAT unless such categories are part of a large overall accepted sub-categorization scheme which I don't see any attempt to explain how it would not apply in that discussion. The only one who notes the broader implications is Liz with her comment about other recent CfD. Have any of the parties addressed this somewhere (and if it was in the ANI thread that preceded this case, apologies as despite having read that three times already, there's so much going on there that it's possible this detail didn't stick). Barkeep49 ( talk) 18:19, 1 August 2023 (UTC) reply

@ Oculi: I wouldn't expect any changes to the case if that's what you're thinking. I hope BHG reconsiders, but if not we will be proceeding with the evidence that is submitted. Barkeep49 ( talk) 15:25, 2 August 2023 (UTC) reply

@ Nederlandse Leeuw: so what does that sentence of the guideline mean in your interpretation then? Barkeep49 ( talk) 17:37, 3 August 2023 (UTC) reply

@ Nederlandse Leeuw: that's interesting history but I'm not sure I can get behind your suggestion that we just ignore it. From a policy perspective the idea that something has been stable and unchallenged for 17 years and is being used by an editor to support a position does feel like it carries more weight than "no one has known what it's meant for 17 years, it's just been there so we can ignore it". Barkeep49 ( talk) 19:02, 3 August 2023 (UTC) reply

@ Nederlandse Leeuw: and my point is that it wasn't actually interpeted by other parties despite clearly being brought up by BHG, but I am open to being corrected. Barkeep49 ( talk) 20:00, 3 August 2023 (UTC) reply

@ Barkeep49: this aspect is discussed in the thread below (Marcocapelle replied on 21:38, 13 June 2023 I would not consider this a large scheme, e.g. Category:Afghan emigrants has only 21 subcategories, out of potentially over 200 recipient countries. And Category:Immigrants to Iraq only has four.) etc. Marcocapelle ( talk) 14:30, 11 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Comment by parties:

• I wholly endorse the findings of Oculi regarding common practice and consensus at CFD with respect to Upmerging WP:SMALLCATs. In fact, I am surprised by just how accurate Oculi's evidence is, and just how strong the agreement between all of us at CFD was about how to apply the WP:SMALLCAT guideline in practice. Even more surprising is how BHG does not appear to have done WP:BEFORE, and check whether these categories had potential for growth (BHG's main pet peeve when others suggest merging/deleting categories per WP:SMALLCAT) prior to her 19:43, 26 May 2023 CfM nomination (in which I did not participate). I cannot help but express feeling a strong sense of irony at seeing how the same editor – who was constantly reminding us ad nauseam about how she interpreted the passage (no) potential for growth in the WP:SMALLCAT guideline to be prohibiting any deletion or merging of any category under nomination, and that we must do WP:BEFORE, and that it was impossible to believe for her that the nominator of this or that category had done WP:BEFORE – but not following those rules herself when nominating categories for upmerging per WP:SMALLCAT. BHG has no grounds for claiming, well, the high ground. I find it even more surprising now, and even less understandable, why things escalated so quickly at the Expatriates CfD in mid-June 2023. I would like to thank Oculi for carefully gathering and submitting this evidence and analysis. It provides insights I didn't yet have. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw ( talk) 16:13, 24 July 2023 (UTC) reply

Moved from a response to Barkeep49's 18:19 UTC comment I have been attempting a succinct reply but now await reaction to the latest move by BHG. Oculi ( talk) 15:23, 2 August 2023 (UTC) reply

The second part of Barkeep49's query: I was relying on 'consensus at previous cfds' as one does at cfd. I shall add info leading up to Expatriates A-G in my evidence. First part: again, I will add more to the evidence. Oculi ( talk) 10:39, 3 August 2023 (UTC) reply

@ Barkeep49 Have any of the parties addressed this somewhere (...) in the ANI thread[?] Not sure what you mean, but my 20:07, 7 July 2023 comment at the ANI may be relevant: As long as we haven't defined what a large overall accepted sub-categorization scheme actually is, anyone can claim anything is part of such a scheme and thus claim SMALLCAT doesn't apply and the nomination is invalid. That means this text is worthless. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 20:07, 7 July 2023 (UTC). Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw ( talk) 17:35, 3 August 2023 (UTC) reply

@ Barkeep49 I honestly have no idea. The basic text of the WP:SMALLCAT guideline was haphazardly put together in December 2006.

But honestly, I have no idea what they were trying to say, and I believe they also didn't really understand each other. We just ended up with the present text of a large overall accepted sub-categorization scheme when people stopped unilaterally changing it and reverting each other, and up until this day there is disagreement about how to interpret it. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw ( talk) 18:35, 3 August 2023 (UTC) reply

@ Barkeep49 True, we cannot ignore it just because there is disagreement about how to interpret it. It is a guideline to be adhered to for as long as it exists, even though its practical application will be problematic for as long as its meaning is unclear. I certainly support amending it to clarify what it means after this ARC is over. (At Wikipedia talk:Overcategorization#Discussion of Smallcat I've already given some input, although not yet about what to do with this a large overall accepted sub-categorization scheme phrase in particular).

The point is, however, that no single editor has a monopoly on its interpretation, about which there is evidently no consensus. My impression is that BHG believed she did, was entitled to demanding others to agree with her interpretation etc., and that this has been one of the underlying causes to this unfortunate dispute. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw ( talk) 19:23, 3 August 2023 (UTC) reply

@ Barkeep49 it wasn't actually interp[r]eted by other parties Is that so? Well, let's see.

• Oculi opened the Expatriates CfM on 15:38, 13 June 2023.
• BHG's first comment on 18:58, 13 June 2023 was !voting Oppose, invoking this phrase a large overall accepted sub-categorization scheme, and saying amongst other things These cats are indeed part of a large overall accepted sub-categorization scheme (...).
• Marcocapelle replied on 21:38, 13 June 2023 I would not consider this a large scheme, e.g. Category:Afghan emigrants has only 21 subcategories, out of potentially over 200 recipient countries. And Category:Immigrants to Iraq only has four. So Marcocapelle interpreted it.
• BHG replied at 22:00 calling Marcocapelle "disingenuous" because he disagreed with her interpretation: Ah @Marcocapelle, that's disingenuous. Emigrants from Foo to Bar is a huge scheme.
• Marco replied at 03:43, 14 June 2023: I am serious about it. "Large" is ambiguously phrased, what really matters is if editors may reasonably expect that every possible subcategory exists. If that is the case it would of course be silly to upmerge incidental small categories, otherwise not. This is again Marcocapelle interpreting a large overall accepted sub-categorization scheme, but differently than BHG did.

This should be enough to address the idea that only BHG interpreted it, let alone that she has, ever had, or ever will have a monopoly on interpreting it. (And I find it striking that the very first time anyone disagreed with her interpretation, she straightaway resorted to calling that person "disingenuous"). Might that suffice for being corrected? I can name many more examples, but let's just start with these two. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw ( talk) 20:29, 3 August 2023 (UTC) reply

This use of the term "interpretation" is misleading.

My consistent primary objection to these nominations is that they wholly misrepresent SMALLCAT, by ignoring both the "Small with no potential for growth" headline and the exemption "large overall accepted sub-categorization scheme". That is not an "interpretation" of SMALLCAT: it's me upholding the guideline versus some editors who ignore everything after the first word.

Yes, of course both "potential for growth" and "large overall accepted sub-categorization scheme" require some interpretation and subjective judgement. But the nominations based solely on current size are not an "interpretation"; they are a falsification. I do indeed demand that per the UCoC, editors "strive towards accuracy and verifiability" rather than misrepresenting the guideline by ignoring everything after the first word. NL is one of a number of editors who have repeatedly disrupted CFDs by misrepresenting SMALLCAT.

As to Marcocapelle's claim, note that SMALLCAT wording "a large overall accepted sub-categorization scheme". Note esp the word "overall", which clearly requires a wide view, not a narrow focus.

As I later noted at that CFD This Petscan search finds 3,824 categories whose title includes the phrase "emigrants to". That number is now down to 3742, but it's still very large, and arguably huge.

Marcocapelle's comment ignored that overall scheme, and instead cherrypicked a tiny corner of it. I stand by my description of that cherrypicking as disignenuous. The overall scheme is of people who migrated between any pair of over 200 countries, of which almost 150 are represented in the set of nominated categories, but Marcocapelle misrepresented the context -- just as he has repeatedly supported misrepresentations of SMALLCAT.

I chose the term "disingenuous" as being quite mild when compared with any other alternatives which I could justifiably have used to describe Marcocapelle's misrepresentation of the context. Note that "disingenuous" is widely used in parliaments, e.g.

1. 354 uses in 5 years in the UK House of Commons
2. 1,986 uses in 104 years in Dáil Éireann
3. 613 uses in the 24 years of the Scottish Parliament
4. 430 uses since 2011 in the US Senate
5. 81 uses in the Canadian House of Commons (time period unclear)

At CFD, a small but verbose group of editors has made a sustained effort to distract from the substance by repeatedly weaponising civility policy to attack the use of parliamentary language. This hyperactive offence-taking looks like WP:BATTLEGROUND conduct, like an attrition strategy to wear down those who make reasoned objections, and distract attention from the simple core issue that a few editors are systematically misrepresenting SMALLCAT.

The sheer mind-numbing, timewasting effort of challenging these antics and the psychic drain of being repeatedly attacked and smeared is a significant part of why I have decided to semi-retire. I came here to build an encyclopedia, not to spend weeks on end fending off these mega-storms created by editors who are unable or unwilling to accept the plain English meaning of a short, simple, stable guideline. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 15:02, 10 August 2023 (UTC) reply

In reply to Waggers's post of 15:36, 10 August 2023:

This is simple. If we ignore the word "overall", then Marcocapelle has a case. But if we accept that the word "overall" is there, then he has no case.

This is just a re-run of the problem that a small group of editors ignores all but the first of the six words "Small with no potential for growth".

I find it utterly dispiriting that I came here to build an encyclopedia and find myself sucked into a massive drama with people who insist that ignoring parts of a simple guideline is an "intrpreation". The UCoC's requirement to "strive towards accuracy and verifiability" is clear, so we shouldn't have to waste time in absurd debates with editors who don't do that. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 15:58, 10 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Comment by others:

Oculi's evidence is compelling. In my preliminary statement I stated that I broadly agreed with BHG's interpretation of WP:SMALLCAT but the context provided by Oculi here is causing me to reconsider that position. I maintain that the main issue in this case is not whether or not BHG was right or wrong in her interpretation of SMALLCAT, but her incivility towards others in expressing those views not just in this instance but as a long term behaviour pattern. Nevertheless Oculi's evidence provides vital context as to the root of this particular conflict. Waggers TALK 08:36, 1 August 2023 (UTC) reply

I don't quite understand BHG's references to parliaments as if they are places where opposing parties routinely assume good faith of one another, or places that are free of battleground mentalities. Parliaments are intended to be verbal battlegrounds, in some cases deliberately designed to be adversarial. Surely that's not what any of us want the Wikipedia community to be like. But let's not get stuck on that, it's not really relevant to the case.

The "emigrants to" case is certainly worth looking at though. It seems the crux of that matter seems to be whether all "emigrants/immigrants" categories are part of one huge global scheme (BHG's view), or each country's emigrants/immigrants categories form a scheme in their own right (Marcocapelle's view). And of course the real issue for ArbCom isn't which of those two viewpoints is correct but:

• (a) is it disingenuous of Marcocapelle to adopt the latter view?
• (b) is it incivil of BHG to accuse Marcocapelle of being disingenuous for adopting/stating that view?

Waggers TALK 15:36, 10 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Analysis of evidence posted by User:Valereee

Comment by Arbitrators:

I am very undecided on what the evidence says about LL (hence why I asked for it). Let's instead discuss Editor Foo. If when presented with concerns about their conduct Editor Foo substantially changes their behavior to address the concerns without saying anything that's just fine with me. It's great even. If, however, Editor Foo in attempting to discuss this makes things worse such they are advised to just say nothing, that's a cause of concern itself for me because it suggests that they're not going to actually be able to change concerning conduct. Barkeep49 ( talk) 23:52, 26 July 2023 (UTC) reply

Comment by parties:

• Just a brief comment: amongst three instances which Valeree claimed as evidence that Laurel Lodged refuses to communicate, Valeree cited 22:41 July 12 stops responding to pings to direct questions at ANI: here and 15:13 July 13 here. I think that misses the point that LL was told very early on to entirely disengage from the ANI by Black Kite (12:44, 7 July 2023), myself (12:56, 7 July 2023), and possibly others. Laurel Lodged can hardly be expected to simultaneously stay disengaged from 7 July 2023 on and resume responding to questions at the ANI on 12 July and 13 July. ( Schrödinger's smallcat? ^Joke)

Hypothetically: What is editor A, who has been requested by editors B, C and D to completely disengage, to do if A is later tagged by editors E, F and G to answer direct questions? A is at the risk of being accused of "refusing to communicate" by E, F and G if A does not, but accused of "ignoring demands to completely disengage" by B, C and D if A does. Tricky...

I was actually faced by the same dilemma. I decided to respond only once when tagged to answer a direct question and immediately disengaging again; yet, even that appears to have made some other people unhappy. Damned if you do, damned if you don't... Perhaps someone can explain some procedural rules about this? It's unfamiliar terrain to me, so I didn't know what to do either. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw ( talk) 20:35, 24 July 2023 (UTC) reply

@ Nederlandse Leeuw, sorry if I've missed it above, you gave a timestamp but can you give us a diff of that instruction from BK to entirely disengage? Ping @ Black Kite for clarification?

At any rate, what is editor A to do? Editor A can go to editor E's talk and explain that editor B has recommended disengaging, and then explain there. And then Editor A can not immediately resume disputing with editor 0. Valereee ( talk) 20:47, 24 July 2023 (UTC) reply

Ah, yes I suppose you're right that, in such a situation, using each other's talk pages makes sense. Perhaps you were unaware of the fact that BK and I had asked LL to disengage, and therefore had expected him to respond to your questions, and when he didn't, concluded he deliberately refused to communicate? I can see how that may have happened.

Unfortunately the diffs have been suppressed, but I can give you the link and the quotes:

[LL] I suggest you disengage from this ANI completely and let your fellow editors involved in the situation handle it. Black Kite (talk) 12:44, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

@Laurel Lodged Good on you for deleting the material. I recommend you take Black Kite's suggestion and disengage from this ANI, at least for now. We'll take it from here. Have a good day, see you elsewhere. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 12:56, 7 July 2023 (UTC) Nederlandse Leeuw ( talk) 21:28, 24 July 2023 (UTC) reply

Yeah, I'd recommend to people that when someone pings them to a direct question, they should respond, and that that is completely different from unhelpfully contributing to the discussion. Valereee ( talk) 01:15, 25 July 2023 (UTC) reply

Note that LL did the same thing at the case request here: the ignored ping to a direct question is in MJL's section. Valereee ( talk) 12:50, 25 July 2023 (UTC) reply

Ok, so it's recommended to respond to a pinged question? I think that is fair.

But I suppose we cannot require people to respond to a pinged question, can we? If it's a loaded question or suggestive question, like "@ User:Foo Do you still behave uncivilly these days?" In certain cases I think other people are not entitled to an answer, particularly if it is a rather hostile question.

Case in point (at the risk of making this a huge meta-fallacy haha), Editor A states:

@ Editor B Mind explaining how you are not guilty of the exact [allegations] you are willing to condemn Editor C for? Please do so without violating the Tu quoque fallacy yourself. - Editor A

Arguably, Editor A is themselves committing the Tu quoque fallacy against Editor B. Moreover, by pointing this out, I myself might be committing the Tu quoque fallacy against Editor A. (I hope I didn't whahaha. Sorry, I find irony funny). But it's arguably quite a hostile question. I could understand it if Editor B wouldn't want to answer it. And even if so, where would you like Editor B to answer that question? In their Preliminary Statement? We were limited to only 500 words. Editor A in this case was not an involved party. I think Editor B in this case, at this stage, was not required to answer Editor A, who was not entitled to an answer, let alone to a rather hostile question. That's not Editor B refusing to communicate, it's B enjoying the right to remain silent to an uninvolved party they have no obligation to answer at any stage, let alone this preliminary stage that needs to be brief and focused on the essentials of a case, let alone to a rather hostile one. If you were in B's shoes, I think you would agree.

At any rate, feel free to ask me any questions. I tend to be quite responsive, as you might have noticed. I could actually learn from being more concise and sometimes not answering a question I don't need to answer. Nederlandse Leeuw ( talk) 13:03, 26 July 2023 (UTC) reply

Another reason we cannot require editors to reply to direct questions is that this could sometimes conflict with editing restrictions. For example I once pinged an editor based on my knowledge of their previous involvement of previous discussions of related subjects, not knowing that they had an interaction ban with the person who started the section. On this occasion they left me a note on my talk page explaining this but there was no requirement for them to do so. Thryduulf ( talk) 17:05, 26 July 2023 (UTC) reply

I don't think anyone is saying we need to require it, even at active noticeboard discussions. We'd been asked if it was a pattern. Valereee ( talk) 17:19, 26 July 2023 (UTC) reply

Oh now I see the connection. Yes, the question was raised It was alleged at the ARC that Laurel Lodged will just ignore and otherwise attempt to wait out disputes involving them. So my answer stands that LL had been explicitly asked to disengage from the discussion by B, C and D. Then E, F and G tagged him to ask further questions and he answered once, but even that resulted in a negative response from other people who had demanded him to disengage, so yeah. It's difficult, you can't please everyone simultaneously, I guess. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw ( talk) 20:52, 26 July 2023 (UTC) reply

NL, this editor was

1. a named party
2. at a noticeboard discussion
3. and stopped responding to questions that don't seem to be part of an editing restriction?

I get that editors were advising them to stop participating disruptively, and that's good advice. I feel like it shouldn't be extended to "so-and-so told them to stop participating disruptively" as a reason to stop communicating altogether. Valereee ( talk) 23:12, 26 July 2023 (UTC) reply

I think that refusing to continue to communicate at MJL's objection to being misgendered is part of the pattern. For the record, I follow the Golden Rule (i.e. all instances of "he/him" in law are assumed to also mean "she/her"). No. Assuming maleness is not okay. It doesn't help our goals. I've been assumed to be male by multiple other editors who've addressed me as sir, Mr., dude, bro...I try to politely correct the misapprehension and brush off the annoyance, but yeah. It's not very welcoming, and we should encourage people to address other editors by their preferred pronouns. If you don't want to bother with that, just call everyone they/them, very few people object to that.

@ Laurel Lodged, FFR: instead of treating people as you'd like to be treated, maybe try treating them as they'd like to be treated. You may like to be assumed male. I don't. Valereee ( talk) 18:50, 28 July 2023 (UTC) reply

Response by LL I don't know if I'm permitted to respond here - this is all very new and legalistic. Delete it if it's not permitted. @ Valereee: does not like my philosophy of "treating people as you'd like to be treated"; that's his/her/their privilege. In defence of the philosophy, it is enjoined by a notable personage and by Holy Scripture. I don't know who advocates Valereee's preferred philosophy of "treating them as they'd like to be treated"; perhaps it's sufficient that Valereee finds it personally fulfilling. Personally, I could not see myself adopting it as it would place an intolerable burden on me. How would I possibly know how each person that I encounter would like to be treated? I'm a mere man, not an omniscient or angelic being. I think that it was Mr. Justice Bryan — the medieval English jurist — who first made the rule that "the Devil Himself Knows Not the Mind of Man". I'll stick to what I know (me, myself & I) and leave idle speculation as to intent to others. It's not up to me nor anyone else to say which of the two philosophies is the better. As I recall, I mis-gendered MJL once; this was enough to set an avalanche of righteous outrage tumbling down the mountain, inundating wiki with many gigabytes of vitriol and dire denouncements. When did this case decide to go off on a tangent about unintentional mis-gendering? How could it possibly be germane to BHG's behaviour? Goodnight. Laurel Lodged ( talk) 21:27, 28 July 2023 (UTC) reply

Well Laurel, if I could give a word of advice: I would prefer to treat someone else how they wish to be treated, rather than how I wish to be treated. (Edit: Re-reading the exchange above, I fully agree with what Valereee said about this). For instance, there are certain jokes people are allowed to make about me, but I think I should not make those/such jokes about certain other people (e.g. people who may have had traumatic experiences, or have a different background, gender, identity, ability etc.). That all depends on context and on those other people; I cannot assume myself as a universal standard when it comes to deciding which jokes are acceptable. Therefore, I reject the Golden Rule as falling short of dealing properly with many ethical situations in which I should actually treat certain other people differently than myself. An argument from religious authorities doesn't seem too impressive to inform modern ethics anyway. Finally: a good rule of thumb is to use gender-neutral language such as singular they until you know someone else's preferred pronouns. That's the best way to avoid misgendering. E.g. it was actually during the ANI when I noticed people referring to RevelationDirect as "she/her"; I had until that point believed RD to be male, but referred to RD with "they/them" just in case, as I do by default to anyone about whom I don't know it. When I checked, I could confirm it, and I have referred to RD with "she/her" ever since. I hope this is helpful for you. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw ( talk) 06:44, 29 July 2023 (UTC) reply

PS: I see MJL has already made this point below. Well, I guess it may help if you, @ Laurel Lodged, also hear it from me. :) I think considering an apology would be a good idea just to clear up this misunderstanding.

More to the point of the case, several people (including but not limited to MJL, Black Kite and Valereee) have suggested or implied that it might be a good idea to express certain apologies for potential incivility to BHG herself, as I did below. I think you've already made good steps by removing certain comments or rephrasing assertions. An explicit apology may be even better at this stage. Even if BHG may never make an apology from her side. Even if it may also be that BHG will reject your apology if it does not include an acknowledgement of her interpretation of WP:SMALLCAT and WP:BEFORE to be correct (which I believe to be the reason why BHG rejected RD's apology and my apology to her, as I analysed below yesterday), it will be sign of your goodwill, and a demonstration that you do find being WP:CIVIL important (just as I do). Whether or not you should be making an apology to BHG, MJL or anyone else, and for what, is your call to make. (Compare how RD, I and EI C did not think we owed BHG an apology merely for disagreeing with her interpretation of certain policies and guidelines, so we didn't make such an apology). I can't decide that for you. Good day, Nederlandse Leeuw ( talk) 07:07, 29 July 2023 (UTC) reply

Comment by others:

I'm commenting here to say I've seen the above discussion and will be presenting evidence sometime soon as to how LL responds to editor concerns in order to directly address barkeep's question.
I will also point out that, while no one is required to respond to a ping per WP:NOTREQUIRED, the absence of a response can itself be taken as a reply when it can be shown the editor has intentionally ignored the question. – MJL  ‐Talk‐ ^☖ 21:53, 27 July 2023 (UTC) reply

@ Laurel Lodged: The scope of the case is regarding the conduct of the named parties (of which you are included).
I really don't know how to respond to this because you really don't seem to know or care about any of the concerns I've consistently tried to outline about you.
For example, you say that your misgendering was unintentional, but you never apologized for it. You only tried to justify your decision to use he/him after the fact. Even now, when Valereee tried to tell you to just use they/them for people you don't know how to address, you respond by referring to her with his/her/their as if his is even an option for someone who just told you they aren't male.
It's all rather ridiculous. – MJL  ‐Talk‐ ^☖ 22:35, 28 July 2023 (UTC) reply

Analysis of evidence from User:Marcocapelle

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Analysis of evidence presented by Beccaynr

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• Copypasted from Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/SmallCat dispute/Evidence#make a short addition:

• Valereee (20:47, 5 August 2023): (...) to me it looks like what's in evidence is "Calling BHG 'Bridget' is mocking her'" while I'm arguing there's much more there.
• Newyorkbrad (05:01, 6 August 2023): If I were still on the Committee I would want the "Bridget" edit summary explained, particularly by LL as the person who made it. Some preliminary Googling suggests it's fairly appalling. The taunting of BHG in that edit itself, particularly the first and last numbered points, also fails to impress.
• Nederlandse Leeuw (15:08, 6 August 2023): (...) For my part, I have just examined the origin and meaning of the phase "Brace yourself, Bridget", and how it is applied in practice. The way Laurel Lodged wrote it in his edit summary of 16:32, 19 June 2023, in an Ireland-related CfR started by LL on 16 June 2023 (so after significant tensions had already happened at the Expatriates CfM the day before), and LL had already said several things belittling BHG in the same CfR, I fully acknowledge that the "Brace yourself Bridget" comment in the edit summary is really inappropriate, offensive, and mocking. To be completely honest, one might even interpret it as an indirect rape threat / rape joke if all context and circumstances are considered. If so, that is absolutely unacceptable! Even if it wasn't intended like that, it could be readily interpreted like that. It's not funny or clever at all in the given circumstances. Laurel Lodged should have been aware of this, and never written it. I think this is sanctionable, and something to be seriously looked at. (...)

• Copypasted from Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/SmallCat dispute/Evidence#"brace yourself Bridget":

• Bastun (15:22, 9 August 2023): (...) on one level, it's the punchline to a rather facile joke. On another level? Well, why would Bridget need to brace herself? Because she's about to get ******, that's why. Which was presumably the meaning LL was going for.
• Nederlandse Leeuw (15:30, 9 August 2023): Yes, which is why I have taken the interpretation that this was meant as a rape threat / rape "joke", which should be sanctioned. DIYeditor, CT55555 and I have agreed on a proposed principle to examine it as "Sexism, sexual harassment, and sexual threats, (...)."
• Tamzin (15:36, 9 August 2023): Sure, I wasn't saying it's "only a joke". My point was to explain the reference, for those—I'm guessing most people without exposure to Irish culture—who might think it's simply "brace yourself" followed by an alliterative feminine name (...)
• RevelationDirect (15:52, 9 August 2023): I was unaware of the idiom and appreciate the context.
• Nederlandse Leeuw (15:59, 9 August 2023): I was also unaware. It wasn't until the afternoon of 6 August when I looked the phrase up in various contexts, and then at the context in which LL used it against BHG that I fully understood the implications and why several people here said it was "extremely offensive", but (for now understandable reasons) preferred not to say more explicitly what it was about. I hope those people don't mind too much that I have made it explicit in order for other people to understand what we're talking about here. I also believe that the non-Irish people in the CfD discussion (Marcocapelle and Oculi) were unaware of its meaning, and thus didn't realise how offensive and threatening it could be in the given circumstances.

These seem to be some of the most relevant comments already made by various people on the Evidence talk page. Nederlandse Leeuw ( talk) 16:13, 9 August 2023 (UTC) reply

• In response to what User:DanCherek writes below, I can confirm that I have not responded based on the edit summary. I cannot recall if I have seen the edit summary at all, but if I had I would not have understood it at the time. Marcocapelle ( talk) 05:23, 11 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Comment by others:

Regarding Evidence presented by Beccaynr#Laurel Lodged, Marcocapelle, and Oculi conduct toward BrownHairedGirl (and "brace yourself Bridget" incident), I think it's likely that Marcocapelle and Oculi's comments in the CfD discussion were made in response to Laurel Lodged's comments in that discussion, and not his edit summary. (A relevant distinction, since much of the current evidence/analysis/discussion has been focused on the edit summary itself.) My impression is that when an editor decides to participates in a deletion discussion, they're more likely to read the existing discussion on the XfD page, rather than inspect diffs and edit summaries in the page history – particularly at CfD, where all discussions on a given day are put on the same page (rather than transcluded), resulting in a busy page history. DanCherek ( talk) 16:48, 10 August 2023 (UTC) reply

(ec) Thank you for noting the limitations of the evidence presented, DanCherek; from my view, the evidence shows LL wrote the edit summary, but the evidence does not demonstrate conclusively that any of the other participants in the discussion were reacting to the edit summary. My goal was to offer context, and your analysis is appreciated for helping articulate this aspect. However, I also added context because beyond the edit summary, comments toward BHG by LL, Marcocapelle, and Oculi, in the context of the comment from the admin about behaviour, as well as LL's July 30 statement about his conduct toward BHG, may be relevant evidence to consider. Beccaynr ( talk) 05:49, 11 August 2023 (UTC) reply

I have updated the heading to add an and before "brace yourself Bridget" - reflecting on this now, there seemed to be a potential (and unintended) connotation about the group that the evidence does not appear to support. On another note, participants in active discussions may add discussions to their watchlists, so the potential for the edit summary to be viewed existed when LL wrote it. Beccaynr ( talk) 08:01, 11 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Analysis of Laurel Lodged-related evidence - I submitted three sets of evidence related to LL that I think can be read as evidence of a pattern of conduct. From my view, the 19 June "brace yourself Bridget" edit summary is offensive and extreme, regardless of whether it is directly aimed at BHG or is commentary about BHG, and regardless of whether it was immediately viewed or only found later. Based on evidence and related discussions on arbitration case pages, the phrase can be understood as a sexually violent, gender-based, and culturally-specific reference. As an edit summary available for anyone to view, the phrase appears to have a capacity to damage the editing environment for everyone, as noted in the proposed Equality and respect principle. I also think it may be useful to consider this evidence in the context of other evidence of LL's conduct, including but not limited to what I have submitted.

I also highlighted the 30 July statement by LL about his conduct toward BHG. This statement appears to admit a pattern of premeditated 'sarcastic,' 'mocking,' and 'ridiculing' conduct aimed at BHG during discussions, as well as a 'self-aware' inability for LL to promise to stop such conduct. From my view, the statement suggests a modus operandi for conduct towards an editor that LL believes is showing "vanity and pride in her skills", and seems to describe a personalized pattern of conduct LL says he did for "years" and may continue. As echoed in the proposed Offensive commentary principle, this conduct could impact all discussion participants, as bystanders and/or as future targets if LL decides other editors show "vanity and pride in [their] skills", and if, as LL seems to indicate in his statement, LL is "unable to resist" a similar campaign of making personalized offensive commentary. Based on LL's explanation, it does not seem fair to assume LL's conduct may be limited only to BHG; it seems more reasonable to conclude such conduct could be directed at any editor.

I also added evidence related to a 28 July Workshop interaction between LL, Valereee, and MJL; the context also seems relevant, e.g. the full statement by Valereee in the first diff presented, and evidence related to LL misgendering MJL (also referred to in DanCherek's evidence as use of incorrect pronouns). Evidence I presented includes LL's response to what from my view includes Valereee offering feedback about community standards of conduct. LL's 28 July comment is part of why I proposed a new principle, Wikipedia is a community, because from my view, if there is a repeated failure to acknowledge the community environment, and an insistence on individual standards of conduct without consideration for how this may conflict with agreed-upon best practices, including civility, there may be an ongoing risk of disruption to the community. Beccaynr ( talk) 21:10, 11 August 2023 (UTC) reply

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Apology from Nederlandse Leeuw to BrownHairedGirl

@ BrownHairedGirl: I would hereby like to formally apologise for two comments I made to you at the ANI. The first dates from 22:16, 7 July 2023, and was a poor joke about some typos you had made in your comment of 21:02, 7 July 2023. For background, ever since the morning of 7 July 2023, I had been trying to be diplomatic between you and "the three" (RD, LL and Oculi), and seeking a solution to prevent future conflicts between the 4 of you. I had been trying (and partially failing) understand what you were trying to say and do.

I believed that several of your comments were be counter-productive to making your case that you had not engaged in incivility, or at least that it should not be sanctioned, and that we should (also) look at the conduct of "the three" whom you alleged to be "tag-teaming", "revenge-nominating" and "hounding" you. While I still see no evidence of the former two, I have taken your accusation of WP:HOUNDING very seriously, because I believe Wikipedia should be our harassment-free virtual workplace (15:46, 7 July 2023): If you genuinely feel hounded as you say (...) I may support such sanctions, because I do not want you to be subjected to hounding while you're working on Wikipedia. This should be a harassment-free virtual workplace. At numerous other occasions, I had emphasised that I want you here on Wikipedia (06:26, 7 July 2023; 08:31, 7 July 2023; 12:38, 7 July 2023; 13:10, 7 July 2023; 13:43, 7 July 2023; 16:16, 7 July 2023), to be able to write and edit about the topics you care about, even offering to cooperate on topics of mutual interest. But, with the recommendation that you do "damage control" and accept certain restrictions that would hopefully prevent future conflicts with "the three" for your and their own good (whether restrictions, and which ones, are a good idea or not, is still undetermined).

My frustration grew throughout the day as you and I failed to agree on several findings of fact, and on ways forward, the impression that I got that you did not seem to understand what I was trying to say and do, and my apparent failure to understand what you were trying to say and do. (I also saw frustration on your side; you appeared to think I couldn't be an "ally" of yours or otherwise helping you in your situation without agreeing with your interpretation of WP:SMALLCAT, which I found irrelevant in the given situation of an ANI about concerns about your conduct). In particular, that you were rapidly replying to participants with repetitive accusations of "tag-teaming" and "revenge-nominating" without evidence, as well as more comments which could serve to confirm you were engaging in incivility, instead of carefully preparing your defence (which I wished you good luck in doing early on): I would further advise BHG to give priority to sifting through those diffs and carefully writing her response before mounting a defence. This comment appears to have been written in great haste (hence also lots of typos, which is uncharacteristic; the BrownHairedGirl I know writes very carefully), (...) Good luck; I understand that you are a bit stressed now, but I think I and most editors here genuinely mean well and are trying to find a workable solution for us all. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 11:44, 7 July 2023 (UTC). reply

Finally, when late at night, you posted a comment on 21:02, 7 July 2023, accusing me of several things (see Evidence presented by DanCherek § Nederlandse Leeuw), and I still saw you rapidly responding and making accusations without evidence (now against me) filled with typos that I found funny, I lost my patience and made a joke about your typos that was poor in taste. I then went on seriously, going over 4 options of ways forward for you, again suggesting you should do damage control so that you could keep editing Wikipedia about topics you like, adding that I was giving up my role as a diplomat, and was joining 'the opposition'. I thought my joke was acceptable humour, somewhat relaxing a tense situation, but in hindsight, I needlessly aggravated the tensions between you and me, so my joke was counterproductive. You misinterpreted my option to voluntarily retire as NL is overtly trying to drive me off Wikipedia etirely, suggesting that I retire. I wasn't, but in hindsight I should have known better after first poking fun at you (I tried mitigating the impact by clarifying it on 08:34, 8 July 2023). This was exacerbated by the fact that I had unintentionally apparently insulted you over the state of your keyboard (which I knew nothing about, but which you blamed the typos on). On 08:34, 8 July 2023, I tried to address this new information, first by saying that is not our problem, but yours (which may have been true, but was possibly insensitive to say), then by suggesting you correct your typos after posting, or to have your keyboard repaired, or buy a new one (which I meant as amicable and helpful).

Nevertheless, my last remark is the one I regret most, and I wish to apologise most for, namely that it would be your own fault if people would mock you for having a dying keyboard. I shouldn't have said that. I understand how appalled you were by it (18:16, 8 July 2023). I apologise for it without reservation. I hope you don't doubt my sincerity. No amount of incivility you may have directed at me or others can justify me saying this. It was my own failure to adequately deal with the frustration and with what I regarded as unfair accusations that led me to say something I shouldn't have. I'm sorry.

What I've learnt is that I should be more careful about trying too hard to solve this whole situation on my own. (This has a lot to do with me feeling responsible for having, in my understanding, set off a chain of events that led us to the ANI because I was (one of) the first to raise civility issues (14:48, 15 June 2023). I felt like I had to bring the process, that I thought I had put in motion, to a good conclusion, but took on too much responsibility). Several editors pointed me to WP:BADGER and WP:BLUDGEON, which I had never heard about, but I realised that they were right that it applied to me at the ANI. I should also be more careful when editing late at night; when I'm tired, I'm somewhat more prone to lose my patience, and I have more difficulty being the good Wikipedian I'm really trying to be, and the example I'm trying to set. And I'm grateful that most fellow editors expressed that my conduct had been civil and amicable so far; I strive to uphold that. I really hope this ARC will lead to an outcome which will prevent future conflicts between us. I felt that me making this apology to you would be necessary in order to do that. I am still open to working together with you on topics we both care about, should you be interested. Have a good day, and good luck with preparing your defence. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw ( talk) 14:24, 24 July 2023 (UTC) reply

@ Nederlandse Leeuw: Thank you for trying to aologise. But the basis of your apology is so radically different to the facts that I am unable to accept it.
The overall problem is that I have seen no stage in the whole saga when you have, as you claim, been trying to be a diplomat or mediator or conciliator, despite your claims since this came to Arbcom. On the contrary, you have repeatedly tred to stoke conflict and to attack me.
E.g. at WP:Categories for discussion/Log/2023 June 13#Expatriates_A-G, you posted at length [43] to stoke conflict, by accusing me of
a) using DRV for sort of 'intimidating' the closer;
b)Made three allegatios agaist me of ABF.
Note that you entirely avoided any substantive comment on the core reasons I oposed the nominations: the sheer scale of this nomination makes it impossible to believe that the nominator has done WP:BEFORE to ensure that these categories all fulfill WP:SMALLCAT which is for "Small with no potential for growth". You addressed neither the nomination's failure to respect anyting other than the first word of SMALLCAT not the impossibility of believing that the nominator had checked potential for growth. Instead of asking why I made that assertion, you went stright to attacking me for making it. If you want to resolve a dispute, the way to respnd to an assertion that seems problematic is to ask for explanation; that way, the dialoge may reach agreement. But instead, you adopted the dispute-escalation path of adding an extra layer of dispute, over whether I assumed bad faith.
Nonetheless, I explained [44] to NL why I had found impossible to believe that the nominator has done WP:BEFORE to ensure that these categories all fulfill WP:SMALLCAT.
Yet at ANI, you repeated that assertion in full, without noting my explanation. (the diffs are unavailable, but see my response timestamped 09:54, 7 July 2023 in the archive WP:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1134#BrownHairedGirl's_lack_of_civility_in_CFD). That was dispute escalation, and your replies escalated it further. You continued to try to frame it all a he-said/she-said dispute, while repeatedly failing to engage with the very simple core point: that Oculi's nomination at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2023 June 13#Expatriates_A-G wholly misrepresented SMALLCAT by ignoring all of the 100+ word guideline apart from its first word "small". Instead, in that long discussion between us at ANI, you repeatedly demanded that I either recuse myself from all SMALLCAT-related discussions, or be topic-banned from them.
And as to your claims that you made "jokes" which you regret: no. The reality is that having preached at me about civitty, you set out to mock me and to invite other editors to mock me.
It has taken me over an hour of diff-farming my way through multiple old discussions to write this reply. I don't have the energy or inclination to do more of this. The core issue here is and always has been very very simple: that CFD nominations which cite WP:SMALLCAT but are based solely on the current size of a category are invalid because they ignore everything after the first word of the headline Small with no potential for growth, and they unambiguously flout SMALLCAT's clear assertion "Note also that this criterion does not preclude all small categories". No amount of diff-farming will alter the fact that this is all entirely about why some editors repeatedly misrepresent that short and simple guideline.
So I have no wish to collaborate with you on anything at all. My experience of you so far has all been of this SMALLCAT-related dispute, in which you have repeatedly complicated a very simple issue about a unusually short guideline into a vast, sprawling, multi-pronged timesink of a dispute which is being conducted in a way that cannot resolve the simple underlying issue, which I summarise as "Do the words in WP:SMALLCAT mean what they say?". I wish you well, but I want to work with editors who solve problems rather than escalating dramas. So I want to WP:DISENGAGE from you entirely. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 16:13, 24 July 2023 (UTC) reply

• @ MJL I think you are right. (Btw, you may use "he/him/his" pronouns for me if you prefer, but singular "they" is also fine). As I've said in my Preliminary statement, in my Apology above, and in several comments in my talk section, this is the first time I've ever been involved in an ANI and an ARC. I didn't know how things worked. But I felt an overwhelming responsibility to do my part to make things right again because I was (one of) the first to raise WP:CIVIL issues, and therefore that I had to make sure that this dispute had a good conclusion. I didn't know anything about WP:BLUDGEON/ WP:BADGER. Even now that I do, I still find myself mistakenly trying to give too much input. I care so much about having a healthy work environment here on Wikipedia, for everyone, including for BHG. But in hindsight, yes, I was taking on too much responsibility, trying to do too much to fix this situation all on my own, while never having been in this situation before. As a result, my attempts to be diplomatic were based on good intentions, but a lot of them may indeed have been misguided, unfortunately. Sorry about that. Nederlandse Leeuw ( talk) 17:22, 4 August 2023 (UTC) reply

  @ MJL To tell you the truth, my former boss called me today (at around 11:30 UTC) to congratulate me on having found a new job at a different employer. I told her about this conduct dispute on Wikipedia, and how I had tried to fix everything myself, but had actually tried too hard. She laughed and applauded, saying that's exactly how she knew me when I worked for her.

  Because, amongst other things, I was the one who took the initiative of revising the Employee Handbook (staff manual) when I pointed out several issues with the texts relating to... staff conduct. In September last year, I requested permission to do so, which she granted, and many of my proposed amendments were actually approved a few weeks ago. My former colleagues said I left that company with better guidelines on how to treat each other with respect, and what to do in cases of misconduct.

  I thought I could follow-up that experience here online when I raised WP:CIVIL issues. Turns out that dispute resolution on English Wikipedia was a lot more complicated than I could have imagined. Things worked differently here. E.g. me taking the initiative trying to fix lots of stuff could actually amount to WP:BADGER or WP:BLUDGEON. I had no idea. Oops... Nederlandse Leeuw ( talk) 19:12, 4 August 2023 (UTC) reply

  @ MJL Thank you for your kind words and advice, I'll take them to heart! Nederlandse Leeuw ( talk) 19:45, 4 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Comment by others:

@ BrownHairedGirl: I don't know if you want to hear this, but I think NL genuinely thinks they've been mediating/diplomatic throughout this whole process. If they had more experience, the outcome might've resulted in something more positive, but I don't think NL obviously had that here. You might take what NL's been saying as more-or-less concern trolling (I've had that impression at least a few times throughout this case; though I've since dismissed it), but I see it more as someone who was way in over the head and thought they had a chance to get to the heart of this dispute. In reality, it's like you said; NL more had the effect of escalating things (though I don't believe they even realized it).
I understand you wouldn't want to work with NL in the future, but I did want to state my belief in their misguided good intentions here. – MJL  ‐Talk‐ ^☖ 16:00, 4 August 2023 (UTC) reply

@ Nederlandse Leeuw: I mean, don't beat yourself up too much about it. I've been there myself, in fact. Just try to grow and learn from this experience, and hopefully you'll never find yourself at AN/I or Arbcom again (which are places you never want to be if you can help it lol).
I'm not sure what else I can say to you that might make you cheer up, but please know I don't hold anything you did against you. Wikipedia is a complicated place, and the right way to respond to disputes is never always the most clear (especially if you're new). If you ever need advice for the future, just post to my talk page. This isn't the right place to have that kind of discussion. – MJL  ‐Talk‐ ^☖ 19:37, 4 August 2023 (UTC) reply

In reply to @ MJL's comment of 16:00, 4 August 2023:

I can understand why MJL might be tempted to conclude that Nederlandse Leeuw was acting in good faith. However, from where I see it:

1. As noted by the essay WP:Competence is required, editors need "the ability to understand their own abilities and competencies, and avoid editing in areas where their lack of skill or knowledge causes them to create significant errors for others to clean up".
   In this case, Nederlandse Leeuw not only got way out of their depth; they pursued their lack of knowledge with aggressive ferocity.
2. NL was overtly vindictive, repeatedly trying to intimidate and bully me for challenging their abuse of a short, simple guideline
3. A good faith editor does not even consider inviting mockery of another editor for having a dying keyboard, as NL did at ANI. A belated apology may be considered in mitigation of remedies, but it does not redeem such overt bullying.
4. Even now, nearly two months after their first raising of the issue, NL is still unrepentant about their aggressive attempt to depict a mention of deletion review as intimidation; they actually doubled down on it, even tho they knew that RevelationDirect had already issued a very belated and disappointingly terse apology.
5. A good faith editor does not make false claims that anothe editor has made sectarian religious comments on Wikipedia, and does not even consider speculating on another editor's private religious beliefs.
6. Even now, nearly two months of intense drama after I first raised the issue of SMALLCAT-defiance at WP:Categories for discussion/Log/2023 June 13#Expatriates_A-G, Nederlandse Leeuw has still not retracted either their abuse of the guideline or their demands that I be sanctioned for upholding it.

This sustained, aggressive, highly-verbose failure to understand has wasted many hours of my time, and has caused me intense stress.

RevelationDirect's repeated use of the propaganda technique of quote-mining to radically misrepresent my efforts to resolve the substantive dispute (see analysis at User:BrownHairedGirl/Draft evidence in SmallCat case#RevelationDirect_quote_mining) triggered a massive pile-on at ANI; as usual with quote-mining, the mud sticks even when the full context is revealed, which is why contextomy is such a highly-effective and widely-used propaganda technique, and why in this case it triggered a block of me.

That led to an RFAR based on a re-run of the quote-mining, where allegations were piled on against me, and where I was constrained by word count from replying to put them in context. I was told by Barkeep49 that I could present my evidence in the case itself. But when I drafted my evidence, and found that a huge amount of detail was needed to document the sustained SMALLCAT-defiance andnd the vindictive reprisals and the tag-teaming and the quote-mining and the the double-standards applied by Oculi in their reprisals, I was told that the Arbs would consider at most 5,000 words for my evidence, maybe as low as 2,500. After some 90,000 words at ANI alone, plus probably as much again at mutiple CFDs, it is wholly unreasonable to demand that my evidence omit piles of material which I consider crucial, let alone that the word limit would also prevent me from addressing the evidence posted by others. It is deplorable that any remotely scholarly project would exclude detailed scrutiny of contextomy.

I have published my draft evidence at User:BrownHairedGirl/Draft evidence in SmallCat case, but Barkeep49 stated today that this will not be considered as evidence: [45] People can link to whatever they want. That doesn't make it suddenly part of evidence that is considered. In emails on behalf of Arbcom, Barkeep49 repeatedly defended the contextomy of diff-farming, inisisting that "the diff is the context". (No: a diff shows only a small fragment of the immediately-preceding discussion; the context is often much wider). I like Barkeep, but these Arbcom decisions which Barkeep has conveyed with great courtesy are not good.

So, whether by design or by error or by over-zealous application of precedent, I have already been stitched up. Marcocapelle has posted an edited version of my evidence, which I have glanced at. It strips most of the context, rendering crucial parts meaningless, and omits crucial tables such as my documentation of the history of SMALLCAT-defiance, of Oculi's double-standards on category size and of RevelationDirect's extensive quote-mining. And in any case, given Marcocapelle's long history of SMALLCAT-defiance, and their support for Oculi's overtly vindictive CFD nomination of my work at WP:Categories for discussion/Log/2023 August 2#Irish astrophysicists, and their attempt above to rig this Arbitration by excluding the very SMALLCAT-defiance which is at the core of the dispute, it would be foolish to assume that their edited version is a fair summary of my draft. Even if ayone is inclined to regard Marcocapelle's now-deleted-by-an-arb [46] efforts as a good faith gesture, it is apalling to have a situation when their one party's case is avaialble only after being filtered by an opposing party.

Meanwhile, issues wholly unrelated to SMALLCAT are permitted on the evidence page (e.g. by Thryduulf), and I have no space to offer evidence in response. Even if I was allowed space, the sheer time and energy to respond to every part of this Arbcom-approved pile-on would be a massive burden. There is no penalty for anyone uninvolved who chooses to use this "arbitration" see if they can make muck stick, like Thryduulf's denunciation of me for repeatly reminding editors to apply the actual policy on article titles, or his misrepreentation of my point at BRFA.

This is exhausting and exasperating. I spent over 100 hours working on my draft evidence, time which has been wholly wasted. I spent as much time again in countless attempts at CFDs and at ANI repeatedly trying to explain the very simple content of the 112-word SMALLCAT guideline to editors who are wholly unable or unwilling to accept that ignoring everything after the first of 112 words is a radical misrepresentation, not an interpretation. I faced a massive barrage of sustained attacks for everything from mentioning DRV to using the phrase "really really really" several times to challenge sustained illogicalities. I have been mocked for everything from having a dying keyboard to being an Irish woman (see LL's mention [47] of the parody sex manual "Brace yourself Bridget"). I have faced intrusive speculation into my private religious beliefs (or lack thereof), and have been falsely accused of posting sectarian religious comentary (both by NL, on this page). I have had a faux aplogy which calle me vain. I have been assailed by admin Jc37 for politely qustioning another admin's decision to overlook Oculi comparing me to Dante's Inferno, and falsely accused of making an ad hominem attack when the only ad hominem connet of my post was a link to a vicious attack on me. I have had my unrelated productive work subjected to vindictive disruption by Laurel Lodged (see User:BrownHairedGirl/Draft evidence in SmallCat case#2023: TFD 2016 revisited). I have been monstered and threatened at ANI by an admin whose total failure to understand even that my complaint was not CFD-related did not deter them from falsely asserting that I was engaged in bad-faith disruption. They were not even included by Arbcom as a party to the case, thereby excluding any possibility of a remedy.

It's bad enough that this rampage by the SMALLCAT-defiers has wasted so much time that I could have been using for productive tasks such as completing the documentation of the innovative series of over 100 self-updating navboxes which I developed as part of a successful collaboration at WT:WikiProject Ireland#TD_and_MEP_articles_and_the_'s-par'_template ( permalink), or drafting the WP:IMOS additions I suggested at the end of WT:WikiProject Ireland#Organisation_of_constituencies ( permalink)finishing the task I began at WT:WikiProject Ireland#IMOS_COUNTIES_cleanup permalink, let alone starting on my next goals of writing more articles on Irish by-elections (only 31 of the 136 curretly have a standalone article) and taking 2021 Dublin Bay South by-election to FA after I already got it approved as a GA.

But that's much less important than how this massive mauling has taken a huge toll on my physical, mental and emotional health. My sleep is messed up, I am having nightmares and panic attacks, I have difficulty eating healthy food, and I look haggard: all stress symptoms because I have been monstered for upholding the actual wording of a simple 112-word guideline, and refused to be bullied into silence by Oculi, Laurel Lodged, Nederlandse Leeuw, RevelationDirect and others. The huge time needed for all this has required me to neglect some real-life responsibilities, which I now need to remedy.

That is far too high a price to pay even for the noble goal of building a free encyclopedia. So after 17 years, I have decided to go into immediate semi-retirement. That means that I may do the occasional drive-by small edits, at a much lower rate than I did over the last winter (see the "Statistics by months" at https://en.wikiscan.org/user/BrownHairedGirl), but nothing substantial.

I might perhaps be persuaded to reconsider if Arbcom astonishes me by firmly upholding the UCoC, but even then I will have to be wary. This drama follows other related dramas over the last few years which have solidified my growing view that Wikipedia is now a hostile environment for editors who work within their competences and who uphold basic encyclopedic principles such as the UCoC requirement to "strive towards accuracy and verifiability".

The deplorable practice of the informal fallacy of quote-mining is hardwired into both ANI and Arbcom, when it should be vigorously denounced and excised. Instead, those who assert clear falsehoods are repeatedly supported in their demands to say whatever they like, and mobs assail those who challenge them. In some parts of Wikipedia, esp at ANI and at under-scrutinised venues such as CFD, it seems that those who are unwilling or unable to "strive towards accuracy and verifiability" are in a clear majority. This dispute has solidified my growing fear that Wikipedia is reaching or has already reached some sort of tipping point, where significant chunks of it have been captured by editors who for whatever reason(s) do not habitually apply sufficient intellectual rigour (and crucially do not accept such rigour from others) to allow critical debate to correct even very simple errors such as SMALLCAT-defiance. That breaks the fundamental assumption of correction-by-scrutiny which underpins most of our internal processes such as CFD, where UCoC-defying guideline misrepresentation has allowed many months of UCoC-defying arbitrary deletion on a huge scale of the volunteer work of other editors.

It is terrible that Arbcom is unable or unwilling to allow proper scrutiny of the whole problem, and tries to condense it all into diff-farming. But the real problem is the much broader and deeper cultural failure that failed to nip in the bud many months ago the persistent SMALLCAT-defiance, and instead allowed a simple error to balloon into a sprawling time-sink of a monster dispute. There was a time 15 years ago, when such self-correction did work at CFD, but these days are long gone. Arbcom, being elected, is itself a product of that cultural failure: it includes some great people, but it doesn't swim against the aggressively anti-intellectual tide which not only degrades the 'pedia but cruelly misleads editors into believing that it's fine to claim like Humpty Dumpty that a text means whatever they want it to mean. In fact, a detailed scholarly analsysis of Arbcom (by Florian Grisel of the Oxford Centre for Socio-Legal Studies), describes how Arbcom is in practice an exercise in measuring "social capital"; in cruder words, Arbcom gives the mob what it wants. Grisel notes how "individuals leverage their dominant position within Wikipedia’s society by first transforming content disputes into conduct disputes", which is precisely what has happened in Arbcom's decision to accept RevelationDirect's deeply deceptive but highly effective quote-mined framing of this case as a "conduct dispute" rather than a problem of the systemic misrepresentation of SMALLCAT.

Wikipedia badly needs some of the merciless tutors who in my first term at university ruthlessly shredded us in front our peers for that sort of error, and went on to set us up to shred each other's work for such basic failings, and later for much more subtle or complex errors. Wikipedia does the oppoite; it repeatedly indulges and defends abysmal standards in even the most basic scholarly tasks, and resolves dispute by sanctioning the o. This is not the track record of a court, and nor is it arbitration. As Grisel concludes, "the Arbitration Committee resolves disputes by cancelling them". Arbcom's framing of this dispute allows the cancellation of BHG.

After more than 17 years here and nearly 3 million edits, I still have a huge personal commitment to the magnificent goal of Wikipedia and to the great innovation it brought to human knowledge-building. But I have concluded that continuing to participate when it has turned so sour would amount to a sunk cost fallacy. It seems that being here means that I am required to indulge and devote enormous amounts of time to blow-by-blow debating of the false assertions of people who in any other context I would rigorously avoid, who are permitted even here during an arbitrtation process, and who are actively encouraged to deflect fro te sustance by quote-mining. That doesn't advance the goals that brought me here, and it damages my health and well-being.

So I have lingered too long in a broken place. My mistake, but now I'm out. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 11:10, 5 August 2023 (UTC) reply

I have published my draft evidence at User:BrownHairedGirl/Draft evidence in SmallCat case, but Barkeep49 stated today that this will not be considered as evidence [...] So, whether by design or by error or by over-zealous application of precedent, I have already been stitched up. You have not been "stitched up", you are just being held to the same standards as everybody else: Evidence must be presented on the evidence page. This has been explicitly stated more than once, including in the formal notification on your talk page when the case opened: Evidence that you wish the arbitrators to consider should be added to the evidence subpage, at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/SmallCat dispute/Evidence.

Meanwhile, issues wholly unrelated to SMALLCAT are permitted on the evidence page (e.g. by Thryduulf) The scope of this case is not the SMALLCAT dispute but, as stated on every case page, it is conduct of named parties. The detailed explanation of the scope, linked from every page of this case, states While the case is entitled "SmallCat dispute" because it was that dispute which spurred the case, the Arbitration Committee will be taking a comprehensive look at the conduct of the named parties including, but not limited to, small categories. Thryduulf ( talk) 11:55, 5 August 2023 (UTC) reply

I'm sorry to hear that university tutors acted that way; that doesn't sound like somewhere I would have thrived. - RevelationDirect ( talk) 04:21, 11 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Apology from Laurel_Lodged to BHG

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

My thanks to @ Nederlandse Leeuw: for reminding me of my obligations in common charity. A better Christian than I would not have needed such a reminder. For how can I expect justice in this case whilst denying what is right and just in the case of BHG? Matthew 5:23–24 seems to be pertinent. What I say now is not done in the hope that it will influence the outcome of this case; I have a fair idea already of the direction that the decision will go. Rather I do so because it is the right thing do, and BHG, while not without sin herself, is still a person with feelings - feelings that my actions have hurt. So then, I have written things to @ BrownHairedGirl: and about BHG that cannot fail to have hurt her. While baiting — probably mutual baiting — was involved that might explain some of those things, it is irrelevant nor can it ever serve as a real excuse. I ought to have avoided the temptation to be sarcastic and to use mockery to undermine her arguments; in failing to rise above these base urgings, I caused her hurt. Above all, of the many things that I have written over the years that caused offense, the worst (and least effective!) things were those that ridiculed her insights and skills. Everybody is aware of her skills. No. They were written to touch on what I knew to be her weakest point - her vanity and pride in her skills. It mattered little that what I wrote was inaccurate or not really worked out; the point was that I knew in advance that the barb would drive home. In that knowledge lies the offence and my guilt. I apologise for causing the hurt. It was wrong. I promise to not offend in this way again. I offer this promise whether or not it is reciprocated. It is also offered in the sad self-awareness that I may be unable to resist future provocations, despite best intentions. Laurel Lodged ( talk) 18:58, 30 July 2023 (UTC) reply

Analysis of apologies

I am genuinely sad and disappointed that my sincere apology has not been accepted ( Diff). No matter what context and nuance I provide, no matter how amicable and diplomatic I try to be, and make amends for two mistaken comments I made, BHG apparently does not accept any apologies unless I agree with her interpretation of WP:SMALLCAT and WP:BEFORE, which I found and still find irrelevant in the given situation of an ANI (and now an ARC) centred about concerns about BHG's conduct per WP:CIVIL.

On a general note: making apologies is not always necessary, but in interpersonal conflicts it is a good thing to do if you intend to get along with each other again in the future (as I have been intending with BHG). It's better to err on the side of making an apology to someone who doesn't think it was necessary than the side of not making an apology to someone who felt an apology was due. (A great example of erring on the good side can be found at the Preliminary statements between two uninvolved parties: Thanks, I appreciate the kind words. But I was not "offended" and do not require an apology, though I'm happy to accept one.) It is good practice to be self-critical, carefully evaluate your own behaviour, and make an apology if you feel you've done something wrong, even if it hasn't been explicitly demanded by the person you might have wronged. (This is what has led me to post the apology above). Demanding apologies for severe misconduct can sometimes be justified, but one should always remain self-critical, and see if you should apologise to anyone else even if you feel like you're in a situation where you are justified in demanding apologies of others (perhaps the same people). For me personally it is unusual to directly demand an apology of someone else; I tend to think they should take the initiative themselves by understanding how I respond by expressions of being upset, confused, frustrated, sad, etc. Most fellow editors here on Wikipedia recognise those signals and say sorry or something in such a situation, which I really appreciate, even when I feel it was unnecessary. Most people want to be nice, make amends for any mistake and keep cooperating amicably, and that's an important part of what makes Wikipedia so wonderful and successful.

Unfortunately, this sincere apology of mine to BHG, as well as the apology previously made by RevelationDirect to BHG ( Diff), as well as several rectifications and retractions made by Laurel Lodged at ANI and ARC, as well as several apologies made for relatively minor mistakes by some other editors to certain other editors, and the latter accepting such apologies or even saying such apologies aren't really necessary (just Ctrl+F for "apolog", e.g. at the Preliminary statements), stand in stark contrast to BHG demanding apologies from lots of people, but never making any apologies to anyone whatsoever thoughout this process, as far as I can tell. While BHG's conduct is at the centre of this whole dispute, she has been the person demanding apologies the most, and making apologies the least. Again if we Ctrl+F just the Preliminary statements, BHG says things such as:

A competent, good faith admin would the have at least apologised for their error

No editor, let alone an admin, should be allowed to demonstrate the uncomprehending, unapologetic aggression which [X] displayed here

[My] complaint [is] about the misconduct of an admin who failed to read, failed to apologise, and assumed bad faith

the malice is clear from [X]'s failure to apologise at the time

At the ANI, if we again Ctrl+F for "apolog", what do we find? BHG demanding apologies from others, sometimes receiving apologies from others, but not making any apologies to anyone herself:

Apologies demanded (directly or indirectly)

BHG: A goo[d] faith editor would at this stage withdraw the nomination, an[d] apologise Diff

BHG: you make no apology for entirely omtting to menton [pet peeve]

BHG: I am sad to see the lack of apology

BHG: I would also hope that per WP:ADMINACCT any admin would apologise for their repeated error about the nature of my complaint, rather than issuing a warning.

BHG: [X], this exchange would have ended long ago if you had had the courtesy to simply apologise for your error.

Some responses:

X: Negative, BHG, that is not an error of note here and you are owed no apology.

BHG to X: So you not only fail to apologose for your error, (...)

BHG to X: You have had ample opportnity to demstrate your good faith by apologising for your error. But you didn't; you chose to act like someone of bad faith.

Apologies received

RevelationDirect: apologized on BrownHairedGirl's talk page ( Diff)

Some responses

Y to RevelationDirect: I have to say, while I have not read everything, you really seem to have tried to keep collegiate discussion open with BHG. Yes, you both seem to clearly disagree on certain policy/guidelines, and you did lose your cool a few times, but you apologized and came back to the table to discuss. I don't think those discussions would win awards for positivity, but to me, it looks like you have tried.

Apologies made

(none as far as I can tell, but I stand to be corrected if I have missed anything)

Other comments

I myself didn't demand anything, but I suggested it might have been a good idea for BHG to apologise for certain things she just might have done wrong in a situation where she was (and still is) being accused of WP:UNCIVIL conduct, because I believed what she was doing (and that I was trying to warn her against) was counter-productive: [Y]ou're undermining your case by recklessly criticising the very people who are saying you should be more WP:CIVIL. If you entered this conversation being all nice to everyone and apologising for any offence you might have caused, your case might have been credible, but we're seeing the opposite.

I previously contrasted RD's apology and LL's retractions/rectifications with BHG's lack of apology as well (this is the closest I've ever got to demanding an apology of BHG; ideally, everyone should take the initiative themselves): I note that nom herself has admitted to having been uncivil on at least one occasion, but having apologised for it to BHG. She recognises the importance of WP:CIVIL. (...) I finally note that BHG has not admitted to any wrongdoing whatsoever so far, let alone apologised for it. She does not recognise the importance of WP:CIVIL. (This later became the focus of my Evidence).

Meanwhile, we see several other editors making apologies or saying "sorry" to each other for relatively minor mistakes, and sometimes discussing whether BHG should make an apology to, or receive an apology from, some party or another. (E.g. LL saying BHG should apologise for certain things, and [Z] saying LL should apologise to BHG for certain things. Whether they should is not up for me to say; as said, it's often better if everyone themselves figures out whether an apology is due, and err on the side of making apologies that were neither demanded nor expected than the side of not making apologies where they were felt due).

Analysing the pattern

The pattern that I see is as follows, noting that what a policy or guideline says is not necessarily the same as how BHG believes it should be interpreted (although she seems not to be aware that those could be two different things):

1. If someone does not act in accordance with the way BHG interprets a policy or guideline, BHG feels she can demand an apology from said person. (In the examined examples, this is usually WP:SMALLCAT and/or WP:BEFORE, but never WP:CIVIL).
2. If said person "fails" to apologise for not acknowledging that BHG's interpretation of a policy or guideline is correct, BHG states this as evidence that said person has acted or is acting in bad faith.
3. If said person makes an apology to BHG which does not include an acknowledgement that BHG's interpretation of a policy or guideline is correct, BHG rejects the apology. If BHG's subsequent calls for an apology by said person to do so are still not heeded, BHG also states this as evidence that said person has acted or is acting in bad faith.

The basic question here is: Is BHG always right? Answer: No, not always. It's well-understood that Everyone makes mistakes, including BHG. Therefore, we cannot assume BHG's interpretation of policies and guidelines to always be right etc. Therefore, I think this approach is untenable, because BHG does not have a monopoly on interpreting policies and guidelines (certainly not so long and heavily contested as SMALLCAT; I refer to jc37's Evidence on that). Nor is she in a position to demand an apology of anyone who disagrees with her interpretation of policies and guidelines, nor do I think it is justified to accuse anyone of acting in bad faith if they don't.

So, why did BHG reject RevelationDirect's apology and my apology to her?

I think the fact that, because RevelationDirect's apology and my apology above to BHG did not include an acknowledgement that BHG's interpretation of a policy or guideline is correct, BHG rejected our apologies ( Diff; Diff). But that wasn't what RD and I intended to apologise for; we tried to apologise for having potentially not been WP:CIVIL towards BHG. However, because BHG does not appear to be recognising the importance of being WP:CIVIL, even if incivility is ever directed against herself, such apologies are useless to BHG and she rejects them.

BHG told RD: Frankly, I am utterly sick of wasting time on your tedious obsession with so-called "civility issues" while you evade the two issues of substance (...): (1) The systematic misrepresentation of WP:SMALLCAT by you and others who repeatedly chose to wholly disregard both the "no potential for growth" and "established series" parts of WP:SMALLCAT; (2) The recent malicious tag-teaming to apply that warped-and-twisted take on SMALLCAT to categories newly created by me.

BHG's rejection of my apology above is almost entirely dedicated to her demand that I acknowledge her interpretation of certain policies and guidelines: The core issue here is and always has been very very simple: that CFD nominations which cite WP:SMALLCAT but are based solely on the current size of a category are invalid because [pet peeve]. Almost every sentence in her rejection is about "SMALLCAT", potential for growth, "BEFORE" or some other policy or guideline unrelated to WP:CIVIL, with the exception of two passing sentences which are actually relevant to my apology to her about civility: And as to your claims that you made "jokes" which you regret: no. The reality is that having preached at me about civitty, you set out to mock me and to invite other editors to mock me. While I found it of central importance to apologise for this, it seems to be of no consequence to BHG, because she then goes on: My experience of you so far has all been of this SMALLCAT-related dispute, in which you have repeatedly complicated a very simple issue about a unusually short guideline into a vast, sprawling, multi-pronged timesink of a dispute which is being conducted in a way that cannot resolve the simple underlying issue, which I summarise as "Do the words in WP:SMALLCAT mean what they say?. So everything is all about her interpretation of policies and guidelines being correct, and the rest of us having to acknowledge it as correct, and having to apologise to her as long as we do not acknowledge it as correct; everything else is just irrelevant and a waste of time, including being WP:CIVIL and apologies for potential incivility, apparently. RD and me raising the importance of civility is making things needlessly "tedious" or "complicated", it merely "evades" or distracts from what BHG actually does find important.

Closing remarks

I'll close by emphasising that rules about apologies are not set in stone, but apologies or just saying "sorry" are good practice to help people get along again in the future after a conflict; that I may have missed good examples because I searched only for variations of the words "apology" and "apologise"/"apologize" (or that the examples could have been skewed in my favour; evidently, I am an involved party); and that for my part, I have seriously and sincerely tried to do my part with the apology to BHG posted above. She has now said she wants to disengage from me entirely, which makes me sad and disappointed, but I will accept and respect that. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw ( talk) 12:22, 28 July 2023 (UTC) reply

PS: I welcome the fact that Laurel Lodged has now also made an apology to BrownHairedGirl ( Diff) at my suggestion, and indirectly the suggestion of others (see above under analysis of Valereee's evidence). I would have worded several things differently; e.g. I wouldn't have invoked the Bible (I'm not a Christian myself, and millions of other Wikipedians aren't; Christian ethics are not something we all have in common). I also get the impression BHG may, in fact, not be a Christian herself, as she has been quite critical of particularly the Catholic Church and the Pope, so I'm not sure if this helps. (Beyond My Ken might have a point that this could come across as claiming the moral high ground rather than being part of the apology, but I believe Laurel Lodged to be sincere in his Christian beliefs, and if this motivates him to be a better Wikipedian for himself, without holier than thou expressions, great.) However, I appreciate the sentiment of expressing regret for having potentially been uncivil to a fellow editor. I think this further demonstrates that LL recognises the importance of being WP:CIVIL, even if sometimes failing at it himself. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw ( talk) 09:27, 31 July 2023 (UTC) reply

I have just posted [48] to explain why I reject LL's "apology".

This post is record my horror that Nederlandse Leeuw has used this page to speculate on my religious beliefs. My religious beliefs or lack of them are none of NL's business. Nor have I used en.wp to spout opinions critical of particularly the Catholic Church and the Pope. This intrusion and misrepresentation reinforces my desire to disengage from NL. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 11:16, 4 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Comment by others:

• @BrownHairedGirl: I will include evidence of Nederlandse Leeuw mocking the keyboard/typing issue and being warned about BLUDGEONing the process which may (if you choose) spare you the time and space to focus on defending accusations against you and/or your interpretation of SMALLCAT. —DIYeditor ( talk) 16:54, 24 July 2023 (UTC) reply
• Comment regarding the apologies: Regarding the series of apologies above, it appears to me that at some point they cease to become true apologies, and instead become strategic attempts to claim the moral high ground in order to influence the course of the case. That is a rather cynical view, I know, but I have found that in life the cynical view is often the most accurate one.
  Please note that I am not accusing any particular editor of doing anything malevolent or devious, and that I am not pretending to be able to read the minds of anyone and know their thoughts or intentions, I am merely making an observation about the appearance to me of what I have read here.
  It might have been much better in this case – and in future cases – that such apologies be made directly between two editors on their user talk pages, and not be submitted as part of a case. In fact, I would urge arbitrators or clerks to collapse this material or remove it to a talk page, where it would have been more appropriately posted in the first place, if it had to be posted on case pages. Beyond My Ken ( talk) 19:15, 30 July 2023 (UTC) reply
• LL's apology seems backhanded and 'holier than thou' and I am wondering why it is here. As far as I can tell, Laurel Lodged calls on some kind of Christian morality to say that they are sorry for taking advantage of BHG's proud and vain nature to goad her. Apologies usually don't involve listing what the other person has also done wrong or their sins, but I'm not a Christian so maybe I don't understand how that works. Contrary to Beyond My Ken I think that "apology" from LL should not only be left there uncollapsed, but considered for context on their interaction with BrownHairedGirl. —DIYeditor ( talk) 13:26, 3 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Response from BHG. For the record, I do not accept Larel Lodged's "apology".
First, a paragraph of apology is wholly insufficient remedy for the decade of taunting, rants and false accusations I have endured from LL. See an example from 7 years ago at WP:Templates for discussion/Log/2016 March 3#Template:S-par/ie/oi, where inter alia LL accused me [49] of deplorable behaviour for demonstrating a solution to the problems; and posted at rant [50] comparing me with a Roman Emperor (see the edit summary Roma locuta est, causa finita est. Note that 7 years later, LL drew attention to their 2016 disruption in an attempt to disrupt a productive collaboration at WT:IRELAND: details at User:BrownHairedGirl/Draft evidence in SmallCat case#2023:_TFD_2016_revisited.
Secondly, this is in fact a non-apology apology, sometimes called a backhanded apology, nonpology, or fauxpology. LL uses the framework of a supposed apology to insult my charater what I knew to be her weakest point - her vanity and pride in her skills, and warns that LL won't actally stop. They may be unable to resist future provocations, despite best intentions. That tries to justify their behaviour as due to "provocation" by what LL described as my insights and skills.
In other words, LL describes themself as somone who sees another person's insights and skills as "provocation". That overtly anti-intellectual mindset is wholly incompatible with the intellectual exercise of building an encyclopedia, where the insights and skills of editors should be valued rather than treated as a vice which provokes attack. LL's resentment of the skills of others is a fundamental hostility to the goals of Wikipedia.
Thirdly, LL's apology is directed only at me, appearing to cast their misconduct as something which occurs only as a product of their interactions with me. However, LL has a long history of diatribes against other editors, attributing the motives which they have not in any way asserted. See e.g. umpteen CFDs related to County Dublin, where LL repeatedly responds to reasoned debate by falsely alleging that other editors are motivated by "irridentism" or "nostalgia" or "uber-nationalism". Two examples, 11 years apart:

1. WP:Categories for discussion/Log/2010 December 8#Fingal, where LL wrote [51] an oppose to a nomination by Fayenatic london: Such editors have a romantic attachment to the former local government area and have been consistent in pursuing their nostalgic editing over the years. Their fallback conceit in pursuit of "Dublinia Irridenta" is that, while the administrative entity was abolished, the county remains, in some ghostly form, in the hearts and minds of all true Dubliners.
2. WP:Categories for discussion/Log/2021 December 31#Category:Baronies_in_Fingal where LL wrote [52]in reply to BHG While irridentists would like to cling to the uber-nationalist notion of "32 counties" and "A nation once again", that just is not the case

So no, I do not accept this non-apology by LL. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 11:06, 4 August 2023 (UTC) reply

You could rightly say that the apology seems like bullying. I was wondering if nationalism (or religion) would come up and how much that has to do with any of this. I haven't looked into it in enough detail to discern what "sides" people are on. —DIYeditor ( talk) 11:16, 4 August 2023 (UTC) reply

@ DIYeditor: The debates about Dublin categories are nothing whatsoever to do with nationalism or religion. They are about a county which was subdivided for administrative purposes, but which continues to be used by state and non-state reliable sources as a geographical division, which is how it is used on wikipedia categories. (see e.g. this Google search which finds nearly 240 uses on the Irish government's domain gov.ie)

The only editor to try to bring either nationalism or religion into the debates is Laurel Lodged, who for more than a decade has repeatedly tried to pin on other editors views which they do not hold and have not expressed. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 11:43, 4 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Ok, that is another kind of bullying. —DIYeditor ( talk) 11:50, 4 August 2023 (UTC) reply

@ DIYeditor: in my view it is significantly worse than bullying. It is an attempt to poison the whole discussion and the wider atmosphere by stoking political divisions which other editors have wholly avoided.

In the mid-2000s, there was an almighty running battle around Irish topics, esp those relating to The Troubles. That dispute was resolved by WP:Requests for arbitration/The Troubles, which removed some bad actors and created sanctions for any editors who misbehaved in future. Since then, Irish editors from all sides have repeatedly resolved contentious issues through civil debate, both through WP:IECOLL and elsewhere (e.g. WP:WikiProject_Ireland/CatNavProposal#Summing_up_the_initial_discussion in 2018, where I and other editors proactively sought input from Norhern Ireland, and found a win-win formula).

But Laurel Lodged repeatedly tries to restart the fire. The same temperature raising conduct by LL can be seen for example at WP:Categories for discussion/Log/2023 June 16#Emigrants_from_Ireland_(1801-1923), in which LL

1. [53] Let's not go down BHG rabbit holes
2. [54], where LL atriutes to me a goal I woukd deplore That sounds like an attempt to de-ligitimise the entire Category:Emigrants from former countries tree structure., and accuses me of trying to hijack this nom
3. [55] LL announces It's my anointed role in Wiki to make BHG sigh and repeats the allegation that my ALT1 proposal is an attempt to de-ligitimise the entire Category:Emigrants from former countries tree structure.
4. [56] LL makes a formatting edit with the edit summary brace yourself Bridget, an apparent attempt to mock me for being an Irish woman. (It appears to refer to this book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Brace-Yourself-Bridget-Official-Manual/dp/0312094302)

Not that these antics are endorsed [57] by Marcocapelle, who response to my objection by saying LL tries to keep some humour in this discussion and you take it far too seriously. Of course I take it seriously! The discussion is part of building an encyclopedia, which is serious work. Editors want to engage in taunting games should induge that tanting urge somewhere other than in an encyclopedic project. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 13:42, 4 August 2023 (UTC) reply

@ BrownHairedGirl: I hope that you decide to make a brief catalog of things like this and put it on the Evidence page. I am at my limit for evidence I can include and don't necessarily have the energy to diligently look into each of these items. "Brace yourself Bridget" seems extremely offensive to me if indeed directed at you, and in light of LLs seeming propensity to continue such personal attacks/incivility at ANI and here (with the "apology") I think it really should be considered by the committee. That sectarianism may also be involved makes it all the more important for it to be considered. —DIYeditor ( talk) 05:26, 5 August 2023 (UTC) reply

"Brace Yourself Bridget" is supposedly the Irish definition of foreplay. It's often extended as "Brace yourself Bridget, this might get rough". It's a joke about marital rape and stereotypes of the Irish that decades ago was part of a comedy act. Valereee ( talk) 11:24, 5 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Question to Barkeep49

@ Barkeep49: I submitted some evidence of LL ignoring a dispute involving him. I have a little over 100 words left, so I'll ask if it would also be helpful to provide a history of LL emptying categories out of process? I wouldn't need an extension for that, but I don't want to waste time providing evidence for something the committee isn't particularly interested in looking at. – MJL  ‐Talk‐ ^☖ 18:32, 28 July 2023 (UTC) reply

Alternatively, I can further present evidence as to how LL handles conduct disputes. – MJL  ‐Talk‐ ^☖ 18:34, 28 July 2023 (UTC) reply

Those are both useful areas for the committee to consider. Please advise if you would need a small extension @ MJL. Barkeep49 ( talk) 00:55, 30 July 2023 (UTC) reply

I'll draft for both then and request an extension if necessary at the appropriate place. Thank you for the response. – MJL  ‐Talk‐ ^☖ 02:24, 30 July 2023 (UTC) reply

Earlier Apology from RevelationDirect to BrownHairedGirl

I also crossed the line with WP:CIVILITY and WP:AGF with this second half of this edit ( Diff). I have stricken it & retracted it ( Diff) and separately apologized on BrownHairedGirl's talk page ( Diff). Her response to that apology seemes reasonable to me.

I regret the comment and am embarrassed by how long it was up before I struck it. - RevelationDirect ( talk) 20:44, 31 July 2023 (UTC) reply

@ RevelationDirect Thanks for bringing this up. I notice that your analysis of how BHG responded to your apology differs a bit from how I analysed her response to your apology (see #Analysis of apologies above). I'm curious how you concluded that, and what you think of my conclusions.

Detailed explanation of what I think

Because what I am reading is that you apologised for having assumed bad faith on BHG, and she said (11:55, 30 June 2023): Thanks, @RevelationDirect ... but you have left in place the first part which falsely asserts that I "threatened" the closer. You [h]ave also not struck your bogus allegation that I engaged in WP:POINT disruption. And so on. So I interpreted it as only a partial acceptance of your apology (which seeme[d] reasonable to you, and also to me). But immediately after that, she went on to argue you should retract and apologise for more stuff. You responded (12:17, 30 June 2023) with openly wondering what else you should be apologising for, but being unsure what else to say or do to satisfy BHG's concerns. This resulted ( 12:34, 30 June 2023) in BHG bringing up several of her (what I regard as) pet peeves. This one comment by BHG blatantly disregarded your original concerns about assuming good faith and civility, and your apologising for it; instead, BHG sought to steer the conversation towards trying to have you publicly acknowledge that her interpretation of WP:SMALLCAT and other policies and guidelines is correct, while implicitly saying WP:CIVIL should remain unenforced. I have taken this 12:34 BHG comment as a central piece in my Evidence of BrownHairedGirl not recognising the importance of being WP:CIVIL (especially the really really really really really really really really really really really really.... part). Are you sure this is a "reasonable" response from BHG overall? Because to be honest, the only words of BHG that I, personally, find reasonable in her 11:55 and 12:34 comments are: Thanks, @RevelationDirect (partial acceptance of your apology) I also do no know whether you are a part of the tag team. (a statement she later repeatedly contradicted by asserting without evidence that you were/are part of alleged "tag team" , which allegedly also included LL and Oculi); and I am sad about tis, 'cos I have mostly enjoyed our previous interactions. (acknowledging good cooperation in the past; something she did not remember about me, even though I remember it about her) The rest of it is her trying to argue that she is correct about minute details of certain policies and guidelines, and not really about how to treat each other with respect and civility. Her 14:27, 30 June 2023 post scriptum was yet more of the same, trying to expound her view of how categorisation should be done, how LL did it all wrong and how there was allegedly an LL/Oculi tag team which was "vindictive" and "attacked" and "targeted" BHG, and that you were essentially in league with them. Those are some pretty bold and hostile claims, and quite unrelated to what you wanted to talk about, let alone apologise for. At 02:48, 2 July 2023, you made another attempt to try to get back to the civility issues: Let's put a pin in our WP:SMALLCAT perspectives for now since I think there are two WP:5P4 civility issues where we're more likely to find common ground... But BHG's response of 10:57, 2 July 2023 to this was an astonishingly rude rejection of the importance of civility in favour of returning the conversation to her pet peeves: Frankly, I am utterly sick of wasting time on your tedious obsession with so-called "civility issues" while you evade the two issues of substance. (...), I have also included this comment in my Evidence of BHG not finding civility important, even though you wanted to apologise to her for possibly not having been civil to her. What I see time and again is BHG apparently not being interested in such apologies. All she seems to want is for you to acknowledge her interpretation of certain policies and guidelines as correct.

Do you also see this pattern? I think you duly apologised, and I appreciate that very much. But I'm curious if you might agree with me that her overall response to your apology wasn't very "reasonable"? Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw ( talk) 16:18, 1 August 2023 (UTC) reply

My whole discussion on BHG's talk page was under the "Apologies for CFD comment" header but I only consider my initial post and BHG's first line of her response to be the true apology part of that discussion. (She thanked me but indicated that she thought the apology was incomplete which is a reasonable reply.) From there the broader conversation did become increasingly problematic from my perspective. - RevelationDirect ( talk) 23:29, 1 August 2023 (UTC) reply

It is quite surreal to see this discussion of "apologies" and "civility" by RevelationDirect and Nederlandse Leeuw, both of whom have declined requests to retract their allegations my mention of the possible need for a WP:Deletion review to address the abuse of a simple guideline presented any closer with intiimdation (Nederlandse Leeuw, diff]) or a threat (RevelationDirect, diff]). BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 12:02, 4 August 2023 (UTC) reply

You're right, the "threat" section of that Diff was also out of line, not just the part of the post I already struck. I (belatedly) apologize for that whole comment without qualification. - RevelationDirect ( talk) 12:43, 4 August 2023 (UTC) reply

I will not retract that statement. In fact, I will repeat it: I think you shouldn't be sort of 'intimidating' the closer by warning that you will take it to WP:DRV before any decision has even been made. A closer needs to be able to make a decision without any beforehand pressure from any editor involved that there will be negative consequences if they make a decision which any editor involved disagrees with. I do not regret it, I think that was and is the right thing to say about such conduct. This is precisely what motivated me to raise the importance of being WP:CIVIL in the first place, because such conduct would create a hostile work environment for closers. Nederlandse Leeuw ( talk) 16:31, 4 August 2023 (UTC) reply

@ Nederlandse Leeuw: per WP:CONLEVEL and WP:ROUGHCONSENSUS, a closer is obliged to weigh the debate against policy and guidelines, rather than just count heads. Note that WP:CONLEVEL says that "For instance, unless they can convince the broader community that such action is right, participants in a WikiProject cannot decide that some generally accepted policy or guideline does not apply to articles within its scope."

That was what was happening at WP:Categories for discussion/Log/2023 June 13#Expatriates_A-G: a bunch of editors, including the nominator and Nederlandse Leeuw [58] (and Marcocapelle [59]) had wholly ignored both the "Small with no potential for growth" and "large overall accepted sub-categorization scheme" parts of WP:SMALLCAT, treating it as if consisted of noting more than the opening word "small". I specifically noted that in a reply [60] to NL: I hope that the closer will do their WP:NOTAVOTE job and discard all the !votes which flagrantly ignore the guidelines.

Given that the whole debate was a standoff between me upholding the actual guideline and a bunch of editors who ignored all but first of the 112 words of SMALLCAT, any closer was going to be faced with a stark choice between either a) overruling the !votes of those such as NL, Marcocapelle and Oculi who were abusing SMALLCAT, or b) breaching WP:NOTVOTE and WP:CONLEVEL by just counting heads. As a highly-experienced closer myself (and veteran of many deletion reviews, from all angles), I knew that there was no middle way.

Whichever path the closer chose would shock one side or the other, so a deletion review was likely. A closer who had genuinely tried to apply WP:NOTVOTE and WP:CONLEVEL need fear no reprimand, even if the close had been overturned.

My "Note to closer" [61] outlined the asked the CONLEVEL/NOTVOTE issues and asked Please can you therefore hold off implementing any close to allow the DRV to happen first. In other words, I outline the starkness of the choice, the issues likely to need a deletion review, and asked the closer not so set the bots to work until the issue had been finally resolved. Note that when an AFD is closed as delete, each deleted article can be restored with one action; but implementing a CFD merge requires a bot to not just delete each category page, but also to engage in a lot of hard-to-revert edits to every article in each category. In this case, there would have been about 1,000 actions to revert if the close was overturned after the bot had gotten to work, and in my experience of doing that job, it involves many hours work for whoever implements the overturn. The work is made much harder by the fact that even after the minimum 7 days for a deletion review, many articles will have been edited further, which often prevents the use of tools such as rollback or undo. I have log exerience of fiding multiple articles where it takes several minutes to restore just the one article. very closer of a CFD (or any other XFD or RM) should be aware at all times that their close may be reviewed at Deletion review or Move review, so the noting of that possibility adds nothing new: DRV is always part of the environment for any closer. Therefore a mention of a possible deletion review cannot in any way create a hostile work environment (as Nederlandse Leeuw claimed) for any closer who understands the basic point that any XFD/RM close may be reviewed. What does create a hostile work environment is Nederlandse Leeuw's ABF decision to smear as intimidation a request to the closer to allow any deletion review to have the option of overturning a close without many hours of avoidable clerical works (see WP:FAIT), and to bully me into not using the community's long-stablished procedures for reviewing the weighing of consensus.

Sadly, Nederlandse Leeuw' motives for this were very clear: they wanted me to deist from upholding the actual SMALLCAT guideline. That was reinforced at ANI, where NL demanded that I be topic-banned from WP:SMALLCAT-related discussions (ANI revision history unavailable, so no diffs, but search Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1134 for "14:09, 7 July 2023"). So any intimidation was in fact NL trying to intimidate BHG for upholding the consensus-building process against editors such as NL who radically misrepresent a short, simple, stable guideline.

I am thoroughly sick of how hundreds of hours of my time in the last few months has been taken in repeatedly defending a stable guideline and stale consensus-building procedures against this sort of ill-informed attack designed to suppress opposition to systematic SMALLCAT-defiance. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 19:20, 4 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Pattern of Engagement at ArbComm

My overall thesis is that, rather than providing evidence at dispute resolution, BrownHairedGirl was sprinkling accusations of misconduct against me and others in the wild where they can't be addressed. In other words, BrownHairedGirl should have filed an ANI against me for WP:TAGTEAM meatpuppetry or whatever and provided her evidence right up front that I could then respond to. BrownHairedGirl continues to make it challenging to get at the root of the issue with her pattern of engagement here at ArbComm:

Rather than BrownHairedGirl providing clear evidence against me on the Evidence page, I continue to have to shadow box vague claims. This makes it hard to defend myself because I’m not sure if I’m Laurel Lodged’s meatpuppet, or his mascot, just under his spell somehow, or what. That’s why I begged BrownHairedGirl to use her allotted evidence against me specifically ( Diff). When I tried my best to summarize the vague accusations, my edit was labeled as a ... "straw man" .... ( Diff).

Rather than engaging with this case under the set rules, BrownHairedGirl focuses on critiquing ArbComm. ( Diff) It’s a little difficult to hear how unfair it is that ArbComm only allotted BrownHairedGirl 5,000 words of evidence while I make do with 2,000. I still made no objection to her 20,000 word request though ( Diff).

Rather than distilling her ideas onto the Evidence page, BrownHairedGirl repeatedly points to her much longer draft evidence on her user page ( Diff). But that page has more blow-by-blow retellings and reiterations of earlier claims than it does evidence. When a summary of this was briefly entered into evidence, I only needed a short reply to refute it. ( Diff) I still have no objection to formally including this draft evidence.

Rather than respond to the specific Diffs I placed on the Evidence page about her, BrownHairedGirl raises epistemological questions about the nature of quotes in general. ( Diff) My Diffs do indeed quote very narrowly to stay within my word count limits but I added ellipses (…) before and after quotes to make it clear they were pulled from larger conversations. I also provided the links to the original discussions and encourage that they be reviewed in their entirety. ( CDlink)

Rather than disputing my central thesis at this Workshop, BrownHairedGirl seems to brag about it: ..."My direct challenges to those abuses brought a prompt end to the tag-teaming and to the vindictive, SMALLCAT-defying nominations." ( Diff) (The full conversation is above) Making accusations in the wild to shut down dialogue is why I came to ArbComm in the first place, not because of SMALLCAT.

Barkeep49 assured me that ArbComm handles evaluating behavior during the case so, if this analysis is outside my purview, go ahead and collapse it or delete it entirely. - RevelationDirect ( talk) 13:05, 13 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Lemme take RevelationDirect's points one-by-one

1. For the umpteenth time, I did not allege that RevelationDirect was a meatpuppet or part of a tagteam. I did assert that RevelationDirect was an "attack dog" for the tag team, noting inter alia how RD had falsely accused me of "threatening" the closer, an allegation which RD finally withdrew on this page
2. I called that request a straw man because that's what it is. I never accused RD of being a meatpuppet or part of a tagteam or under undue influence.
3. RD says that only needed a short reply to refute it, i.e. to refute my allegation of tag-teaming. But they took only one part of my wider evidence, and RD's claimed refutation [62] refutes nothing. The fact that LL an Oculi disagreed there is not evidence that they didn't collude elsewhere, even if only a my-enemy's-enemy basis.
4. Rather than respond to the specific Diffs I placed on the Evidence page about her, BrownHairedGirl raises epistemological questions about the nature of quotes in general. False: I did indeed raise important epistemological questions about the nature of quotes, but that is a supplement to the detailed evidence at User:BrownHairedGirl/Draft evidence in SmallCat case#RevelationDirect_quote_mining, where I have written a detailed exposure and analysis of RevelationDirect's use of the propaganda tactic of quote-mining. That section alone would take up almost all of the highest extended word count on offer from Arbcom, which is one of the main reasons I don't accept the limit: I'd have to either omit that crucial evidence or omit early everything else.
5. RevelationDirect notes that I asserted that My direct challenges to those abuses brought a prompt end to the tag-teaming and to the vindictive, SMALLCAT-defying nominations. RD still seems to think that there is something bad about ending such abuses.
   These were not accusations in the wild to shut down dialogue: they were challenges to an abuse of process which needed to be made at the CFD, so that other participants and (crucially) the closer would be aware that was a significant dispute about the nature of the nomination, an they were backed by evidence which RD chose ignore in favour of quote-mining where they painstakingly edited my posts to remove anything that explained why I made those allegations, even removing parts of sentences (see User:BrownHairedGirl/Draft evidence in SmallCat case#RevelationDirect_quote_mining). Far from BHG trying to to shut down dialogue, it was RD who repeatedly tried to shut down dialogue, both at WP:Categories for discussion/Log/2023 June 25#People_by_occupation_in_Northern_Ireland (see e.g. [63]) and on my talk, when they insisted that we do not discuss substance. [64], but instead focus on "civility issues".
   The reason that RD came to ANI and then Arbcom is that they preferred quote-mining to manufacture civility complaints rather than addressing any of the substance of the tag-teaming abuse and of RD's own systematic abuse of SMALLCAT. Given Oculi produced at ANI a search which shows how RevelationDirect abused SMALLCAT in over a hundred CFDs, it's not hard to see how RevelationDirect had motive to drag so many people into such a huge quote-mined storm, and to try to deflect attention from their own sustained misconduct.
   Note too that at the CFD: People by occupation in Northern Ireland where this exploded, Laurel Lodged's SMALLCAT-defying nomination was supported only by Oculi and RevelationDirect: I and six other editors opposed it. That happened after I had shown the SMALLCAT-defiance and the tag-teaming and the targeting of BHG's work. It seems that RevelationDirect is still annoyed that the consensus supported me rather than RevelationDirect.

BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 17:47, 13 August 2023 (UTC) reply

• I do not agree with BHG stating: The reason that RD came to ANI and then Arbcom is that they preferred quote-mining to manufacture civility complaints, especially I do not agree with "manufacture". The complaints are very real and the issue is that BHG does not want to talk about them. In addition, RD has been totally transparant about shortening the quotes to what is relevant for WP:CIVILITY, so it does not make sense to suggest something bad happened. Marcocapelle ( talk) 12:57, 14 August 2023 (UTC) reply

  I don't think anyone uninvolved has the time to relive all these disputes in detail. It's not accurate to dismiss it as "quote mining" or "cherry picking" or "contextomy" to try to break it down to the few best examples of why one thinks someone else is problematic. The arbs are more than capable of drawing their own conclusions. If anything, insisting that everyone look at every detail of a step by step timeline obfuscates the issues much more than picking the best diffs to make a case.

  BHG doesn't need to refute every single accusation at all. Ideally what should happen is a case be made about patterns and generalizations rather than specifics, with a few key examples to make the case. This does not seem anti-intellectual or unfair. That people she disagrees with might have a CIR or similar issue in applying policies is a perfectly valid point, but I don't think it would take 20,000 words to make that case. I am saddened to see BHG let this go without incorporating proper evidence, and this page having turned into a proxy evidence location. —DIYeditor ( talk) 13:16, 14 August 2023 (UTC) reply

New arbprinciples

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

• As we examine this case, I am interested seeing any evidence that might be presented on:
  • It was alleged at the ARC that Laurel Lodged will just ignore and otherwise attempt to wait out disputes involving them. Is there evidence or counter evidence about this allegation?
  • Are there examples of BHG having productive disagreements with other editors?
• Barkeep49 ( talk) 14:43, 24 July 2023 (UTC) reply

• User:DanCherek, thank you for the list of the number of occasions where BHG has used the term gaslighting - this is useful. I note that you have prefaced this with a definition which includes the term "malevolent". Are you suggesting that BHG was [accusing others of]* being malevolent? If not, then perhaps a link to our article on Gaslighting which expands upon possible readings and understandings of the term, and removing "malevolent" from your preface, would less worrisome. Meanwhile, some analysis of the gaslighting evidence, if you feel up to it, would be helpful. SilkTork ( talk) 18:21, 24 July 2023 (UTC) reply

  *I mistyped originally. SilkTork ( talk) 10:14, 25 July 2023 (UTC) reply

  I saw that as an attempt of drawing the distinction that this section of the Gaslighting article is drawing. Perhaps rephrasing in taht way would be helpful. Barkeep49 ( talk) 18:26, 24 July 2023 (UTC) reply

  The term gaslighting is often used just to indicate disagreement, which is outlined in our article: "frequently used to describe ordinary disagreements". I'd be interested to see an analysis which indicated that BHG was suggesting that others were deliberately trying to physiologically harm them, or, on the other hand, indicated that BHG was meaning little more than others were confusing and frustrating them because of disagreements. Without a closer understanding of BHG's own understanding of the term "gaslighting" it's difficult to assess the weight of BHG's use of the term. SilkTork ( talk) 10:14, 25 July 2023 (UTC) reply

• Thanks User:Robert McClenon for your observation - I find that interesting. Do you feel that deletion discussions should be considered for designating as a Contentious topic? If so, do you feel that might be better as an ArbCom decision or as a community decision? SilkTork ( talk) 10:36, 25 July 2023 (UTC) reply
• With the evidence phase closed I am curious for workshop submissions that are:
  • New principles that could be appropriate for this case. I feel like there are several exisiting ones we'll reuse but it also feels like there could be a need for something that doesn't exist.
  • Remedies that aren't reminders/warnings/admonishments, iBans, TBans, sitebans, or ArbCom assumption of (or application to other parties of) BHG's civility restriction. I suspect we're going to end up with remedies that are just various applications of the 5 categories I've listed above. However, if there are other ideas I think, unlike in many cases, I'm open to hearing them. And to be clear I am most definitely not interested in people posing specific application of those 5 remedies above (e.g. Proposed TBan for Foo, Siteban for Bar, iBan for Foo & Bar). That's not doing anything the Arbs can't do themselves and can cause needless friction, when more productive discussion can happen at the proposed decision phase. Barkeep49 ( talk) 16:10, 5 August 2023 (UTC) reply