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Initiated by Stefka Bulgaria at 09:34, 12 October 2022 (UTC)
I'm not familiar with these appeals; sorry if I didn't fill this correctly. It's been a year since I was topic-banned from editing articles relating to Iranian politics. My edits in other areas (since I was topic-banned) have been constructive, and I've had a good chance to reflect and learn from the issues I had with other editors back then. With everything that's been happening in Iran these last weeks, I think I could be a useful contributor in this area once again. Also, editors I had issues prior to being topic-banned have mostly been topic-banned themselves or blocked for socking, so I don't believe that I would have problems working collaboratively in this area again. Anyways, thank you for your consideration.
They were topic banned because they engaged in bludgeoning, stonewalling, and degrading of discussions.
and filed verbose RfCs in an attempt to railroad preferred changes
. They've done none of that since the topic ban was imposed, but they've done almost nothing else in talk spaces either. Since the case closed they've only made 9 edits to the talk: namespace that were not just page moves or wikiproject tagging (and one of them was a copyedit to their own comment) and 0 edits to the Wikipedia talk:, Template talk:, Category talk: and File talk: namespaces. Almost all their edits in user talk: have been speedy deletion notices (most of their work has been new page patrolling). Their four edits to Draft talk: came today and all are related to moving their personal sandbox to draftspace.
Thryduulf (
talk) 18:09, 12 October 2022 (UTC)
Considering the majority of Stefka Bulgaria's edits were in this topic, I don't find it surprising that their editing activity has decreased. It's hard to find another niche. The Iranian Politics area is a cesspool which suffers from POV editing (including dirty tactics such as WP:GAMING), and a lack of monitoring admins (I don't blame them), which makes it a lot more difficult to adhere to our guidelines (which is mainly why I left that area). While Stefka Bulgaria's hands may not be completely clean (then again, whose are?), I think they did a lot more good in that area than many others, and thus deserves another chance. -- HistoryofIran ( talk) 13:07, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
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Initiated by ToBeFree at 20:09, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
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Wikipedia:Arbitration_enforcement_log/2022#Horn_of_Africa currently contains two entries saying "with an appeal possible in six months". There may be other, similar restrictions elsewhere; I didn't search for more. I'd like to know if such restrictions on appeals are compatible with the WP:AC/DS procedures. ~ ToBeFree ( talk) 20:09, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
I absolutely can not recollect the case, but reading the AE discussion I closed I see that the proposal was indeed "TB which can be appealed in 6 months". I guess what I meant was that the TB is best appealed after 6 months and has very little chances to lead to a successful appeal before that, but I see indeed that this is not what I logged. My apologies.-- Ymblanter ( talk) 20:29, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
Apologies. Of course we shouldn't deny the right of appeal at any time. I thought I'd seen this before and hadn't considered the implications. Doug Weller talk 16:47, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
Agreed that an appeal can be filed immediately so, yes, mea culpa. In the particular case pointed to above, there was some discussion among the commenting admins about a timed t-ban, and that's part of the reason why the 6 months showed up there but I should have timed it to "exactly six months" to make it appealable. The current appeal system, imo, is a good one and I have no problems with it. Also, thanks to ToBeFree for bringing this up because, although on first glance this appears to be merely procedural, it is actually important for ensuring that our messaging be clear and not confusing. -- RegentsPark ( comment) 16:32, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
Took note of this helpful discussion. After overwhelming discussions small time gap can be helpful break for users too for study and reflection about what all went wrong. Bookku ( talk) 13:10, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
My 2c: appeals by sanctioned editors fall essentially into two categories:
As an example of what I mean, see
this DS I had placed with a note appended that said, I have kept the topic area of the ban narrow in the hope that you can learn to edit productively in other areas and even ask for this ban to be rescinded say 3 months from now.
I hope that the committee will not disallow that kind of "limit/encouragement" even while clarifying that I couldn't have (hypothetically) prohibited the editor from appealing the sanction to AN/AE/ARCA at any point they wished.
Abecedare (
talk) 15:33, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
I agree with my colleagues above and below that individual admins obviously cannot obviate all rights of appeal, and that's wording we need to be careful about. However, if memory serves, admins at AE sometimes decline an appeal and simultaneously prohibit AE appeals for a given period of time. And this actually makes sense to me, because it's not about obviating the right of appeal, but rather saying "any appeal at this venue will be unsuccessful for this period of time". Sometimes want to avoid repeated appeals, and the sanctioned user would always have the option of coming to ARCA (I'm assuming this is non-controversial; if diffs are needed, I can dig them up later). It seems logical to say that individual admins may also state that they will not personally consider appeals for a given period, with the user still having the option of appealing to AE, AN, or ARCA. Vanamonde ( Talk) 16:50, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
I came to make largely the same observation as Abecedare. I assume that these time limits on "appeals" were intended to mean that the sanction can be reviewed after that length of time, which is how I've used them in the past. They should not be taken, and I doubt the sanctioning admins intended them to be taken, as preventing the first kind of appeal, which asks other admins/the community/ArbCom to review the sanction because the sanctioned editor feels it is unjust. I would suggest using the term "review" or coming up with another ArbCom/WP policy neologism to distinguish appeals on the grounds that a sanction is no longer necessary. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 19:35, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
Hello. I'm not sure where Worm That Turned's quote of me is from, but it sounds about right. I believe the prevailing understanding is that outright moratoriums on appeals, as opposed to recommendations, are the sole domain of ArbCom (for WP:ACDS; the community for WP:GS). The argument that a consensus of AE admins on the WP:AE board, which obviously is a level higher than a single sanctioning admin, could also do that, is not something I have a strong opinion on. I have a vague recollection of a consensus of AE admins placing ~year'ish moratoriums on certain appellants who appeal, say, every 6 months over the span of years and years. And I've also a vague memory of it sticking without objections. But maybe it was a dream, whose to say?
But even at that event, if an admin were to remove such an appeal, from either AE or AN, the option to still appeal here at ARCA, as Barkeep49 notes below, nonetheless would remain open. At which point the Committee may be prompted to comment on AE board-derived moratoriums. But that has yet to happen as far as I'm able to recall, and overall has not been an issue of note. So this might mostly be theory. By contrast, I have a clear memory of ArbCom itself imposing moratoriums on appeals, I believe very recently even, though, I'm too lazy to look it up. BTW, a while back, Barkeep was wary of having too many AE appeals end up at ARCA, but to that I say: it's probably 80 percent AN, 20 percent AE, and negligible at ARCA, so I wouldn't really worry about it.
Anyway, I rambled for a while, but to reiterate as per the ping: take for example the last TBAN I imposed, currently being appealed (←
live,
permalink), to unanimous opposition I might add. Consider how I phrased it on that user's talk page: Now, while I strongly recommend you wait 6 months before appealing this sanction, you could technically do so immediately. But my sense is that it'll go about as well as your p-block appeals above [...]
(
diff). So that's been my MO, overall. At the least, a single sanctioning admin doesn't have the authority to override the right of appeal.
El_C 17:58, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
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Initiated by Stefka Bulgaria at 09:30, 24 November 2022 (UTC)
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Could you advice if I am able to make corrections to articles that aren't specifically about Iranian politics, but involve companies controlled by the Iranian government? For example, I see that in my absence, sourced information about an Iranian company has been removed from the article with no apparent justification. Would I be able to restore information of that nature?
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Initiated by IntrepidContributor at 16:13, 22 December 2022 (UTC)
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There is a dispute on whether it is due to put the claim that Elon Musk is a "polarizing figure" in Wikivoice in the lead of his BLP, and editors in discussions on the TP and BLPN have highlighted WP:BLP and MOS:LEAD as pertinent policies. I don't have a strong opinion on the matter, but I don't think we should put the claim in Wikipedia's voice when it is only based on a few articles that mention the term in passing, and I don't really think its due in the lead given that only one of these sources is cited in the article's main body.
When I twice restored Anythingyouwant's attempt to attribute the claim [3] [4], and explained my position on the talk page [5] [6], HAL333 replied "yeah that's just your opinion man" [7], twice reverted me [8] [9] and posted an edit warring warning on my talk page threatening to also post on this noticeboard [10]. I take HAL333's warning serious since they have reported me there before [11], so I decided not to revert it a third time and request policy guidance from administrators. When I posted my guidance on WP:AN (a noticeboard for "posting information and issues of interest to administrators"), administrators Black Kite said it was the wrong venue and warned me against edit warring, while administrator Black Kite seems to have accused me of noticeboard spamming [12].
As was noted by Anythingyouwant on the TP [13] and BLPN [14], WP:BLPUNDEL indicates that the content should not have been restored till a consensus was formed. I would appreciate some policy guidance from arbitrators on whether disputed unattributed claims should remain in the lead of BLP articles while the discussions in TP and BLPN are ongoing, and may still be escalated to an RFC. I hope this is the right venue to gain a clear clarification on BLP policy (and the proper enforcement of the policy by administrators). IntrepidContributor ( talk) 14:15, 22 December 2022 (UTC)
I think you may find it was Doug Weller, not myself, that warned you about edit-warring, whilst I merely pointed out that your behaviour could be seen as noticeboard-spamming, which ironically this filing appears to have proved. Black Kite (talk) 16:30, 22 December 2022 (UTC)
Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should opine whether and how the Committee should clarify or amend the decision or provide additional information.
I would appreciate some policy guidance from arbitrators on whether disputed unattributed claims should remain in the lead of BLP articles while the discussions in TP and BLPN are ongoing, and may still be escalated to an RFC.which is a content not conduct question. You seem to be wondering if others (or you) have edit warred. That would be conduct but this is the wrong place for it, and frankly so is AN. You might have more like at the teahouse getting some guidance like that. Barkeep49 ( talk) 21:36, 22 December 2022 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Initiated by El C at 22:44, 23 November 2022 (UTC)
I realize I'm a broken record, but how record broken is this template? Anyway, there was a proposal at AN ( live, permalink) which read:
Proposal: WP:ARBECR (which includes a 500edits/30days restriction) over WP:AA2 and WP:KURDS articles.
That proposal has seen a unanimous 17/17 support, but the proposer (HistoryofIran) and others weren't sure how to affect that resolution. Arb L235 recommended to wait for a WP:CLOSE to do the WP:ARBEE → WP:GS/RUSUKR thing. I said that it'd be better to amend AA2 and KURDS by motion rather than create a new GS with separate logs, alerts, page notices, etc., which is what should have happened with RUSUKR (→ ARBEE).
I think most participants don't really care either way, they just want to see that community consensus affected. Personally, I'm for streamlining rather than adding further to the maze of DS/GS pages, so I'm bringing it here. Needless to say, ARCA is intimidating and has a very high access ceiling (one of the least accessible areas of the project). And I still fucked up that impossible template, but that was always a given (but it sort of displays, so there you go). Thank you for your time and attention. El_C 22:44, 23 November 2022 (UTC)
over WP:AA2 and WP:KURDS articles. El_C 22:56, 23 November 2022 (UTC)
WP:GS/AAKURDS
, a split GS like
WP:GS/RUSUKR — in a couple of years, when ArbCom subsumes it, no one will remember, either! On a separate note: I hesitated on filing this ARCA because the ACE adds a layer to this that I (best clerk) am a bit uncomfortable with. But the ACE just takes so fuckin' long, it really can't be helped (unless whatever is being discussed coincides with the ACE concluding in, like, a week or mere days).
El_C 20:21, 26 November 2022 (UTC)
These are big topic areas to place under ECP. Is there a more narrow topic area that might work better? -- Guerillero Parlez Moi 20:40, 25 November 2022 (UTC)
ECR is pretty draconian and an extreme measure to prevent disruption.
The problem is not inherently with ECR, as I accept it may sometimes–very, very rarely–be appropriate. My concern is: no other lesser restrictions have been considered in that discussion (e.g. a topic-wide semi or ECR on a narrower topic area), no assessment of how many high-quality non-ECP user contributions the topic will lose, and no assessment of the size of administrative burden if a GS is not imposed (which should be a key factor in imposing GS, as otherwise ANI/admins can handle topic disruption as usual). I'm also unsure how this is distinct to other sockpuppeteers who are single-topic focused, we don't fight these with topic-wide ECR. Some of the comments are literally
politician's fallacy (e.g. Surely something must need to be done about this disruption.
)
If ArbCom is to make a motion, it should be due to substantive agreement and not just rubber-stamping. And ArbCom doesn't need to act here, the community can under the auspices of consensus. If the community wants to motion this, they should do so themselves, but I do wish these GS discussions had some more guidance to, well, guide them. With few exceptions, the fate of almost all community-authorised sanctions is that they were not necessary (see their logs for instance). The only other time the community authorised 500/30 was India-Pakistan I think, which turned out to be unnecessary and was repealed last year after several years of being nominally in force. My overarching point in this paragraph is that the community doesn't have too many tools in its toolbox to deal with this kind of disruption, which I accept is a problem, but it tends to use a hammer when it comes to GS authorisation requests. It's relatively surprising, given how conservative the community is with topical actions otherwise.
I would suggest ArbCom substantively review the issue which caused community concern, in line with
WP:AA2/
WP:KURDS and
Wikipedia:Arbitration/Policy#Jurisdiction (The Committee retains jurisdiction over all matters heard by it, including associated enforcement processes, and may, at its sole discretion, revisit any proceeding at any time.
). Not to overrule the community, but to see if ArbCom can identify the locus of problem and form a better tool to deal with these kinds of issues. I think ArbCom is best placed to do this.
I am not familiar enough with the editing in these topic-areas to opine whether ECR, or any other restriction, is warranted, and I defer to the arbitrators, administrators, and other community members who have commented above for knowledge of the recent editing histories on the topics. I do have two short, more general observations to offer, though, paralleling ones I have made before about other geographical topic-areas:
(1) There is an enormous difference between (for example) requiring 500 edits' experience to edit "all articles about disputes between Azerbaijan and Armenia" and requiring 500 edits to edit "all articles about Azerbaijan and all articles about Armenia." The former is limited to the area of conflict; the latter takes in every article, however non-contentious, between the two countries that happen to be in conflict, and unless the situation has deteriorated to the point where most Armenian editors are unable to edit anything without mentioning Azerbaijan and vice versa, is too broad.
(2) There is also an enormous difference between "administrators, in their discretion, may impose ECR on any article in such-and-such topic-area where problems arise" as opposed to "all articles in such-and-such topic-area are now automatically subject to ECR (whether there have been any problems or not). If the Committee decides to proceed with any motions, please consider these thoughts for what they might be worth. Newyorkbrad ( talk) 23:56, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
There was recent discussion at ITN about applying such restrictions to discussion of news items such as the recent missile strike in Poland or a fire in Gaza. This seemed to be technically difficult because such discussions are bundled in dated sections rather than on separate topical pages. And establishing the scope of "broadly construed" didn't seem clear either. So, my impression is that the EC restriction already doesn't work well and so further proliferation should be resisted.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Andrew Davidson ( talk • contribs) 10:20, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
Over on the VP, I've just given a mixed oppose/support on the issue (I'm also not the only oppose, though certainly still close to). ECR is a very severe restriction, and AA2 is a huge scope unless you don't have much of a link to either country. In terms of the general ECR question, I'd support a restriction on the conflict, but not the individual countries (and just accept that a certain amount of gaming will have to be handled by the standard DS regime).
In terms of "should it be DS at all" - I have made abundantly clear that I oppose DS subsumption of GS without community agreement, but likewise don't really mind if the community itself would like it all under one banner. Though with all that, Izno's position is not unreasonable and has a lot to say for it. Nosebagbear ( talk) 10:35, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
I'm undecided on the merits of the proposal itself, but I want to push back against
CaptainEek's characterization of the Arab-Israeli conflict as uniquely thorny or that it goes back thousands of years
(case in point: the only way to construe the A-I conflict as thousands of years old is if we include the Roman-Judaean conflict or the early Muslim conquests as part of its scope; we do not apply PIA protection to such articles). Pretty much any ethnic conflict has the propensity to motivate extremely disruptive editing: the question to be answered is whether the level of disruption on Wikipedia merits a given sanction. This should be an assessment of the quality and quantity of edits on Wikipedia alone, not an evaluation of how intractable we believe the actual nationalist conflicts to be. signed,
Rosguill
talk 16:08, 1 December 2022 (UTC)
I don't have an opinion on the need or wisdom of imposing ECP in the area at the time, nor on whether arbcom should take over the community proposal or really anything in the area at this time. But an obvious question if the alts pass, does Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions#Appeals and modifications apply in entirety? I'm particularly thinking of the ARCA aspect. It seems a little weird that people can appeal to arbcom, or for admins to try and get agreement from abcom before modifying sanctions when arbcom is basically saying they're not taking over this it's still only a community decision; and arbcom stopped considering appeals for community sanctions long ago. Nil Einne ( talk) 15:30, 4 December 2022 (UTC)
In the Kurdish-Turkish conflict area I'd expect for years to come some IP or seldomly also an editor claiming (Turkish, Syrian) Kurdistan does not exist or that some Kurdish organization is terrorist. Usually those IPs/editors don't last for long and are reverted rather quickly. Then a 17/17 support vote for the amendment from also experienced editors in the field should be seen as an alert to a problem that needs to be addressed. Maybe they aren't as experienced in ArbCom policy as the Arbs (I've noticed some hesitation in approving the amendments), but they have very likely a point. If you (the Arbs) could find a feasible amendment/measure to the problem, it would bring some calmness to the areas (also the Armenian-Turkish, in which I have less experience) in question. Paradise Chronicle ( talk) 20:15, 16 December 2022 (UTC)
I saw the AN post and then this. I've been mulling this for a while, but I'd like to propose a community or arb DS for Turkey, broadly construed.
The post about the Discord server and subreddit come as no shock as even I have noticed tons of nationalist-oriented SPAs on articles related to Turkey. This spills over into Armenia, Iran, Kurds, Eastern Europe, and Uyghurs. I once asked here if WP:ARBEE applied to Turkey in hopes of finding some tool to help with these editors. I want to go to AN and propose the community sanctions, but worry that might be out of turn if it ends up with the ARBCOM.— Preceding unsigned comment added by EvergreenFir ( talk • contribs) 22:23, 16 December 2022 (UTC)
The nationalist-oriented SPAs are now spilling to articles Aegean dispute, Cyprus and Cyprus–Turkey maritime zones dispute resulting in their indefinite blocks and to article protection level increase. It is a matter of time before SPA pressure for these border topic areas in Turkey's South West and West (Cuprus and Greece) increases, from the moment the border topic areas in Turkey's East and South East (Armenia, Azerbaijan and Kurds respectively) get stricter. It came to my notice that the SPAs are appearing at a time where a growing number of international media is reporting [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] an extremely hostile domestic political rhetoric against these neighboring countries. For these reasons, Wikipedia should consider EvergreenFir's proposal to have whole of Turkey covered, or at least include Greece and Cyprus to them. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ( talk ✉ | contribs ✎) 02:30, 2 January 2023 (UTC)
Noting I've closed the AN proposals as consensus for the sanctions. TonyBallioni ( talk) 03:55, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
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If the community wants to motion this, they should do so themselvesisn't that what happened at AN? So why should ArbCom spend a lot of time making its own determination rather than acknowledging that having parallel ArbCom and Community restrictions is messy and respecting community consensus by incorporating it into ours? Neither of you are opposing the community motion and so absent ArbCom passing these motions these restrictions will still come into effect at some point when someone gets around to closing it and opening the pages, so why not have the simpler method of doing it? Barkeep49 ( talk) 17:49, 26 November 2022 (UTC)
ArbCom is too busy, do it yourselfDecidedly not. It is resolutely "the community wants it, so they should own it", as I have said already.
The following remedy is added to the Kurds and Kurdistan case:
- Extended confirmed restriction
11) The extended confirmed restriction is imposed on all edits and pages related to Kurds and Kurdistan, broadly construed.
The following remedy is added to the Armenia-Azerbaijan 2 case:
- Extended confirmed restriction
3) The extended confirmed restriction is imposed on all edits and pages related to Armenia, Azerbaijan, or related ethnic conflicts, broadly construed.
For administrative simplicity, the section titled "Standard discretionary sanctions" is redesignated as Remedy 4 of the Armenia-Azerbaijan 2 case.
The following remedy is added to the Kurds and Kurdistan case:
- Extended confirmed restriction
11) The committee authorizes using the procedures of remedy 1 to administer a community-imposed extended confirmed restriction in the topic area or any sub-topic. For administrative simplicity, alerts, warnings, and sanctions regarding a community-imposed extended confirmed restriction may be given as if the Arbitration Committee had authorized an extended confirmed restriction. If the community repeals its extended confirmed restriction on this topic area, this remedy will be automatically revoked.
For administrative simplicity, the section titled "Standard discretionary sanctions" is redesignated as Remedy 3 of the Armenia-Azerbaijan 2 case.
The following remedy is added to the Armenia-Azerbaijan 2 case:
- Community-maintained extended confirmed restriction
4) The committee authorizes using the procedures of remedy 3 to administer a community-imposed extended confirmed restriction in the topic area or any sub-topic. For administrative simplicity, alerts, warnings, and sanctions regarding a community-imposed extended confirmed restriction may be given as if the Arbitration Committee had authorized an extended confirmed restriction. If the community repeals its extended confirmed restriction on this topic area, this remedy will be automatically revoked.
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Initiated by Crouch, Swale at 17:48, 1 January 2023 (UTC)
(Edit, Can I have my editing restrictions removed completely please with a probationary matter with an editing plan) I have a list of proposed motions at User:Crouch, Swale/Motions (edit, for if we don't remove completely) so please review each of them and propose a motion for each request to see if it can be relaxed please assuming the restrictions aren't removed completely. The main priority is to allow some (current) parishes to be created, regarding points about creation (1) there was consensus against prohibiting mass creation at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Requests for comment/Article creation at scale/Closing statement from what I can see or at least not consensus (2) there is a consensus that all parishes (apart from perhaps pre 1974 urban parishes) are inherently notable (3) I will create the articles with reasonable content which even if quite a few are created a day doesn't generally fall under mass creation (4) the suggested motions for page creation include the ability for any admin to reduce or revoke the number as well as allow anyone to move unsuitable pages to draftspace (5) we already have things like NPP so any problematic pages can be seen to and all of my 12 creations last year were accepted (6) I haven't been involved in any major problems etc and most editors are happy with my work (7) I have been paying attention to feedback and requests from editors for example here about urban parishes not being notable and modified my list, a later list User:Crouch, Swale/Leicestershire which I am adding things like location, population, when abolished and infoboxes for former parishes but it would be good if I could also create the missing ones apart from as noted category 4 parishes (urban parishes). So please please can I have 1 chance to be allowed to create good articles on parishes. This can start low like say only a few a week and increase and be as well as or instead of the existing 1 article a month on anything.
In 2020 I said:
there is still no evidence that they understand why the restrictions were imposed in the first place. There is no evidence they have understood or listened to the feedback they've been given multiple times already.
In 2021 I said:
I am still not seeing any evidence that Crouch, Swale understands why they were placed under these restrictions and no evidence they understand why previous appeals were declined.
In 2022 I noted that the RFC cited then (and also cited again here) as consensus for creating parish articles does not demonstrate any consensus for anything (other than a general opposition to mass creation). I also noted:
Given that requirements of last year's request have not been met, have seemingly not even been attempted to be met, and recommendations for further discussion by other users since then have also not been followed up, I'm having a hard time understanding why this appeal is being considered?
It is now 2023 and despite there being twelve different proposals for removal or relaxation of the restrictions, not a single one seems to indicate any understanding of why these restrictions were first placed, and why so many years and appeals later they are still active. I'm also seeing no evidence that they've both listened to and understood the feedback from 2020, 2021 or 2022 appeals at least (I've not refreshed my memory of earlier appeals). Unfortunately I have to once again oppose removal of the restrictions. Thryduulf ( talk) 09:03, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should address why or why not the Committee should accept the amendment request or provide additional information.
all parishes (apart from perhaps pre 1974 urban parishes) are inherently notablewas formed? Per my comments the past two years, I am uninterested in doing anything in this appeal except removing the restriction completely (or on a probationary matter where an admin could reimpose as an AE). I know several other arbs share that opinion, as does Primefac whose counsel you sought. Crouch the fact that you come to us with that request plus 12 other ideas, and not having really taken onboard the advice Primefac offered is not a good start. I feel that there are reasonable odds we are still in a WP:WILDFLOWERS situation but look forward to hearing more from Crouch Swale and from other members of the community. Barkeep49 ( talk) 17:54, 1 January 2023 (UTC)
Why doesn't the community want the remaining ~3.5% of low level units in England created how is it in Wikipedia's interest to not cover these?I'm guessing he might have his own answer but since this is something I've tried to express to you before, I want to try again now given my pledge to cut back on participation in the future. The community doesn't care about low level units in England. I put this in bold just to emphasize just how true it is that the community doesn't care one way or another. You, on the other hand, care a great deal. That's fine - there are many things that the community doesn't care about content wise but which happen because of individual editor interest. What the community does care about is your editing and general conduct. This caring about your conduct is why so many arbs have expressed a desire to stop having annual appeals from you and only to consider a full repeal. Your inability to take that feedback on board, in the way you have taken much of the feedback about problems with your editing on board, and to produce an appeal that does what we the arbs and the community more generally has asked of you is why you're being told no. The thing the community does care about (your editing and more relevantly your conduct) isn't meeting community expectations in these annual appeals and patience has (again) run out. Barkeep49 ( talk) 17:35, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
What do I need to do (either in conduct or content creation) that would make you feel it was appropriate to remove the restrictions?The answer, at least for me, is listening to the feedback you've gotten in this discussion and feedback you get before you do your next appeal. And the feedback I see is "ArbCom only wants to consider a repeal of your restriction" (given quite strongly and universally by every arb who has commented) and "We're tired of your annual appeals, so don't try another appeal for at least a couple of years" (given by a few arbs, including me). Related to that second point, getting some feedback from someone on the committee you trust before you do the appeal, like you did with Primefac, is good. The trick is you should try really hard to listen to their feedback and, ask questions if you don't understand, as you've done here with this question I'm answering, or to check that you accurately followed it (which is what you didn't do with Primefac and didn't do with the feedback the committee gave you in at least 2021 and 2022 if not even further back). Barkeep49 ( talk) 18:15, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
Its not even really been made clear what I actually need to do to get a successful appeal anyway.when I could easily offer diffs that show otherwise and by trying to offer another way to do a partial repeal - in reply to an explanation for why you should only ask for a full repeal - you are making a future appeal less likely to be successful. Because I don't want to contribute to you digging yourself in a deeper hole, this will be my last reply to you at this time. Barkeep49 ( talk) 19:08, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
What do I need to do (either in conduct or content creation) that would make you feel it was appropriate to remove the restrictions?- stop pandering.
I have tried to do what people have said to me but I now don't know what else I can do?No, you have not: multiple arbs told you last year, and I said two months ago (see reply to SilkTork below), that you should just come straight out and ask for your restriction to be lifted, that you have held to them for four years and it is time to just get rid of them entirely. Instead, you ignored that advice and wrote two essays worth of haggling when half of us were ready to give you full price from the get-go. You have not tried to do what people said to you. I asked you why you did not do this in the first place, and all you did was say "but I did ask". No, you patently did not.
the annual amendment request is not reassuring. I suggest that the next appeal be your last, and that it seek to simply remove your restriction altogether. I don't like this horsetrading restrictions business. You should make the appeal only when you are confident that you fully understand the process, the expectations, and that your content will not require review. Otherwise, you waste your time and ours. Wait a year, two years, five even. But if I think you're appealing just for the heck of it going forward, I will not take kindly to it. Just because you can appeal in a year doesn't mean you should.I don't see that you have taken this guidance to heart. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n! ⚓ 04:11, 2 January 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Initiated by Callanecc at 23:32, 5 January 2023 (UTC)
Consensus of admins at AE requesting at ArbCom open a new case to examine the Armenia-Azerbaijan area of conflict.
There is a consensus of administrators at AE to refer conflict in the Armenia-Azerbaijan topic area to the Arbitration Committee for you to consider opening a new case. The consensus formed out of a discussion that the issues facing this area of conflict are more complex than can be successfully resolved at AE and require a full case (with evidence and workshop) to determine what measures may help to reduce conflict and improve the editing environment. Noting the amendment request above for an extended-confirmed restriction and the community discussion about the same (which could likely be folded into this), arbitration processes are best suited to resolving the current conflict on these articles by having the full range of remedies available. Effectively AE admins are saying that this is beyond what we're capable of resolving at AE so we're referring it to you under the CT procedure. I intentionally haven't listed any other parties as I (and the rough consensus at AE) believe that identifying parties needs to be part of the initial steps of opening the case, that is the parties in the current AE request are the catalyst for us referring it to you but not the scope of the problem. Callanecc ( talk • contribs • logs) 23:32, 5 January 2023 (UTC)
I'll leave the specifics to my colleagues who have more recent experience in this area but broadly the problem admins have at AE is that we're making decisions based on a limited amount of information (which is vastly different following an evidence phase), with a relatively (to a case) limited timeframe and with relatively (to a case) limited timeframe to examine the conduct of everyone rather than those who are actively reported or doing the reporting. For someone to be reported there generally needs to have been some sort of conflict with someone else which means that the scope of who we're going to be able to identify and make summary decisions about is limited short of us actively searching through a topic area. AE is great at dealing with behavioural issues that are relatively clear or can be easily explained and identified in a limited number of diffs. It isn't great looking at long-term patterns of behaviour are beyond what we would accept but aren't clearly obvious to an independent observer. That, really, is why arbitration cases have long evidence and workshop phases - so that that type of conduct can be identified, evidenced and dealt with. El C made a comment in the AE thread about the issues being ideological rather than personal - that's something that AE will always struggle to resolve in a nuanced way (other than just topic banning everyone and moving on until there's an appeal for doing exactly that) but it's what arbitration cases are designed to do. Other admins will likely have some other ideas but I think the need for a case is to look at the long-term conduct of various editors and do, for lack of a better phrase, a clean-out. Re whether contentious topics is fully implemented, it's largely irrelevant as AE admins could, by custom, always do this, CT just formalised it. Callanecc ( talk • contribs • logs) 00:17, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
@ SilkTork: The intention is that it would be a new case. The reason it came here rather than ARC is the suggestion in the new contentious topics procedure that this is where the Committee would prefer it comes rather than as a case request. Callanecc ( talk • contribs • logs) 02:55, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
@ Barkeep49: In addition to Rosguill's comment below. There might be some scope to do an extended evidence phase and use the extended bit at the start for public & private submissions about who should be parties in the case? Callanecc ( talk • contribs • logs) 04:22, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
@ Brandmeister: The restrictions at WP:GS/RUSUKR now apply to this topic area per this discussion. Callanecc ( talk • contribs • logs) 06:23, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
@ Barkeep49: Generally, discretionary sanctions tend to be very good at resolving issues that can be clearly demonstrated with succinct evidence and where the conduct breaches behavioural guidelines particularly earlier on in an editor's 'career' on Wikipedia. Where an editor has a greater number of edits in a topic area, especially when there's not been serious previous issues, it is much more difficult to effectively determine what's happened, what if any policies (etc) have been breached and what if any sanctions are appropriate, and then to gain a consensus for that. This is mainly due to the amount of evidence which is, can be and really needs to be submitted to demonstrate long-term patterns of disruptive editing, particularly where that editing is tendentious (and especially when the tendentious component we're being asked to adjudicate is related to §2.6, 2.8 or 2.12). This is primarily due to the intricate nature of what needs to be presented and the knowledge needed to determine if any of those things are happening and how serious it is. On the other hand, arbitration cases are designed to allow editors the time and space to present evidence and design responses to it but also, more importantly, to give arbitrators (particularly the drafting arbs who can become more expert than an admin at AE given that's their job) the time to review the evidence in depth, challenge it, ask questions and workshop ideas. AE just isn't, and can't be, set up to do that. That's why arbs get the big bucks. Additionally, the DS/CT decisions an admin makes needs to be able to stand up to review and appeal by other similarly time-poor and non-expert admins at AE and editors at AN. Enforcing admins need to be able to individually justify their enforcement decisions whenever and wherever they're asked (a little overstated sure, but point stands). That might be satisfied by pointing to an AE thread where it's relatively simple but if the admin needs to search through piles of evidence and look for additional evidence that becomes a much more in-depth job. So the decision for an enforcing admin becomes more complex: not just is the enforcement action justified but can they justify it to a less informed group? On the other hand, the Committee points to the case (with its evidence, workshop and proposed decision) and that is the justification for the decision. This is a feature of DS and AE rather than a bug though. Discretionary sanctions, and even more so contentious topics, are designed to give administrators additional options to deal with problems robustly before they become intractable not to give admins super powers, nor to replace the Arbitration Committee. Even with DS/CT there will be times that AE admins need to refer matters to the Committee because of the complex nature of the issue. That isn't a bug of DS/CT that needs to be fixed, it's a feature. It encourages complex issues to go to the Committee rather than being dealt with summarily so that the best decision can be arrived at. Callanecc ( talk • contribs • logs) 23:53, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
@ Robert McClenon: I realise that you're after an arb opinion but as one of the admins involved here I think going ahead with the moderated discussion could be a big help in the topic area and in the case (if one is opened) as it'll help to clarify, and hence separate, the conduct and content issues that are being referenced. Callanecc ( talk • contribs • logs) 08:14, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
The problem that Callanecc describes regarding scope and evidence is correct. At this point, the entrenched editors of AA have been feuding for years, and it is difficult to distinguish tendentious attempts to use AE to win the conflict from legitimate frustration. The consequence is that the par for this course, when it comes to civility and impartiality on the part of AA editors, is extremely low, and editors get away with a lot of kicks below the belt because admins only feel like we can intervene when something happens that is so far beyond the pale that it clearly merits a block all by itself. The subject-area is dominated by editors with POV agendas, to a degree that outstrips almost any other subject on Wikipedia.
Additionally, in a thread that is closed but still at the top of AN which describes an off-wiki campaign to POV-push in favor of Turkish viewpoints affecting AA and other topics of interest to aggrieved Turkish nationalists. While a few editors have been blocked and broad 30/500 protections have been authorized, the elephant in the room is that ZaniGiovanni has accused various other editors active in AA of playing an active role in organizing this and other pro-Azerbaijan or pro-Turkey POV campaigns. I think an ArbCom case is necessary in order to evaluate the evidence that ZG has collected. Adjudicating AE cases for edit warring or tendentious use of sources while these accusations lay hanging across the entire topic area (and, given the AN thread, potentially others as well) feels a bit like flagging a player for being offsides while the goalposts are being stolen. signed, Rosguill talk 01:54, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
I agree entirely with the issues brought up by Callanecc and Rosguill. The problems in this area have gone beyond what AE can handle by sanctioning a few bad actors. And of course, AE cannot review private evidence of off-wiki collusion as ArbCom can. Like the community (as shown by the recent ECP request), AE admins are at wits' end in dealing with this topic area.
To answer the question from SilkTork and the others, the intent here is a referral to ArbCom as laid out in the new contentious topic procedures. At this point, I don't think any of us know exactly what that even looks like, and who should be on the list of parties to the case is also not yet determined. While the immediate AE request precipitating this involved a dispute between two editors, the problems in the area go much deeper than that and involve many other editors. So I think the request is to open a new case, but also to determine what the scope and participants should be, hence why the request is here rather than just as a new case request. Seraphimblade Talk to me 03:43, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
There's one particular ongoing pattern in the AA area that I think is worth considering - the usage of sleeper accounts as has been noticed e.g. here ("gaming autoconfirmed then going into hibernation"). Such accounts may look like sockpuppets, but are often found to be unrelated to each other, consuming editors' time and efforts at WP:SPI. Perhaps implementation of what has been done in WP:GS/RUSUKR, Remedy A (opening discussions only to extended-confirmed editors, while comments by other editors can be removed) is warranted per WP:GAME. What do admins and arbitrators think of that? Brandmeister talk 08:40, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
I've been targeted by Abrvagl for the longest time now whether in AE or otherwise; during the first month since my tban expired (15th November), my name has been involved in at least 3 reports already by ideologically opposing editors [31], [32], [33]. None of these have resulted in sanctions, neither did Abrvagl's subpar reports throughout 2022. For the longest time I wanted to comment about the Azerbaijani off-wiki meatpuppet groups but I couldn't because of WP:OUTING. Even when I got the 2 month tban during my own close challenge (when I said 8 out of 8 Oppose users were Azerbaijani or az-wiki admins), I couldn't directly provide evidence of canvassing groups because I'd had to brake outing. I hope I can speak freely here. The users I've identified canvassing through social media/off-wiki groups are Abrvagl, Solavirum (indeffed for socking), Qızılbaş and Rəcəb Yaxşı. These are the ones I intend to provide evidence for. There is broader involvement by additional accounts, but I've been unable to tie considerable off-wiki canvassing/disruption to any other editors in particular. ZaniGiovanni ( talk) 19:13, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
Even here, their comment indicates that they continue to believe that it is OK to oppose RfC votes based on the editors' assumed ethnicity, despite them being Tbanned for that exact case., be sure you can prove it. The only thing my comment above indicates regarding the RFC is that it's not OK to canvass. For future reference to ArbCom/admins, this isn't the first time Abrvagl makes baseless accusations in their comments so I hope something like this doesn't pass further in here and Abrvagl finally starts being more diligent especially when making such blatant accusations with no foundation, considering my comment is literally above for everyone to read.
I don't have any comments on the canvassing allegations. I've never done any canvassing, nor do I have any off-wiki contacts with the other named editors.– I'd expect you to deny off-wiki canvassing, but I don't think it's going to help you. ZaniGiovanni ( talk) 11:21, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
These things are simpler to understand and harder to solve than most understand. There is a contest out in the real world. With Wikipedia being influential, each side works to help their side in the real world contest by tilting the Wiki article. An unacknowledged common milder form of wp:gaming / wp:wikilawyering. And if done in a sufficiently wiki-saavy way one doesn't smacked and can keep doing it. And maybe get your opponents smacked. And the articles stay contentious forever, or at least as long as the real world contest continues. Evolution of policies and guidance is probably needed more than an arbcom case. It should be "Your #1 priority should be top quality of he article" rather than the above-described stuff. If you can make a finding like this within policies and guidelines, maybe you could fix things on this topic and have a template for fixes elsewhere. Or maybe in areas of this case you see a possibility of uncovering egregious offenses not easily visible and use normal remedies. Otherwise I'd recommend not taking unless you see a clear possibility of what you may accomplish. Sincerely, North8000 ( talk) 21:43, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
The issue that led to this situation is already clearly described in Wikipedia's policies and guidelines: It's a case of long-term Tendentious and Civil POV Push editing behaviour by one of the most active editors of AA2 that cannot be correctly stated in a few diffs, and as a result, the community is facing difficulty dealing with it. The issues with civil POV pushing and tendentious editing are one of the main problems I'd like to see the committee tackle to, at the very least, prevent the toxicity that currently dominates almost every discussion going on in AA2.
ZaniGiovanni is a user who has displayed prejudice and battlefield behaviour since day one of their editing. There is also serious and extensive evidence of meat puppetry raised against ZaniGiovanni, which I believe the committee should review in conjunction with this case. ZaniGiovanni, who was warned for being uncivil (apparently only to their "ideological opponents") 2 times ( [34]; [35]) this year alone, continues to demonstrate the same battlefield-like behaviour despite the numerous Warnings, Bans, and Topic-Bans. Even here, their comment indicates that they continue to believe that it is OK to oppose RfC votes based on the editors' assumed ethnicity, despite them being Tbanned for that exact case.
As far as I'm aware, there is no other editor who has received as many complaints, warnings, or bans in AA2 in such a short amount of time as ZaniGiovanni. If several editors are reporting and complaining about ZaniGiovanni, then perhaps there's a reason for that (one that goes beyond them being ideologically opposing editors
). Is it not worth taking a step back and objectively evaluating the broader picture rather than victimising ZaniGiovanni based on the subjective beliefs that there is a
cabal out to get rid of them?
I don't have any comments on the canvassing allegations. I've never done any canvassing, nor do I have any off-wiki contacts with the other named editors. A b r v a g l ( PingMe) 10:59, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
I am not currently active in the area, but I dealt a lot with the editing area, including my past experience in the Russian Wikipedia - where indeed we had to deal with off-wiki coordination, so may be my perspective could be useful to the Committee. We have two groups of users which are absolutely hostile to each other. No Armenian editor would ever voluntarily agree that Nagorno-Karabakh is part of Azerbaijan, even as a statement of fact, no Azerbaijani editor would ever voluntarily agree it is not. They are not capable of talking to each other in any constructive way, only under a threat of an immediate block and sometimes even despite this threat. They have their own sets of reliable sources which one side accepts and the opposite site does not. They would be reverting the articles to their preferred version forever, until the articles get protected or put under a severe restriction such as 0RR. It is usually not about two users which can not get along - if one of them is blocked another user would come to take their place. And nothing has changed here in the last 15 years. On the other hand, I just do not see what the ArbCom can do here - all the tools are already available, and in my opinion should be applied consistently to all editors in the topic area - topic bans, and then blocks and site bans if they do not learn. I am sceptical about what the actual content of a perspective case could be.-- Ymblanter ( talk) 12:46, 13 January 2023 (UTC)
First, I have moderated Armenia-Azerbaijan discussions at DRN in the past, and will in the near future provide links to them as evidence if there is a case. Second, I am in the process of starting another moderated discussion at DRN, and think that the arbitrators should be aware of this case. The case is at Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard#Massacres_of_Azerbaijanis_in_Armenia_(1917–1921). The participants are:
Should I attempt to conduct moderated discussion, or is this discussion being overtaken by arbitration? Robert McClenon ( talk) 08:01, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
As can be seen, these cases involve some of the usual participants, including Grandmaster, Brandmeister, and the banned user Steverci, as well as Chipmunkdavis and CuriousGolden. I haven't reviewed the record to determine which side if either they were on. I will provide links to earlier disputes in the near future.
Some of the arbitrators asked me to open the DRN case request for mediation, before they decided whether to open a third arbitration case on Armenia and Azerbaijan. I opened the case and began mediation, stating what the ground rules were for mediation, and asking the parties to state briefly what the article content issues were. The content issues included questions about thirteen sources. Normally questions about sources are about whether they are reliable, but, in this dispute, they were more about whether the sources were neutral. (Perhaps our policies and guidelines on sources need to be clarified to recognize that source reliability and source neutrality are different considerations but are both important.) The sources were listed in an inquiry at the reliable source noticeboard. When presumably neutral volunteers at RSN offered their opinions as to the sources, some of the editors disagreed at RSN. At this point, it appeared that this dispute was not one that could be readily resolved at DRN, and I closed it as failed.
Armenia and Azerbaijan has already been determined to be a contentious topic. Like several other contentious topics, it is subject to battleground editing because the area on the Earth has been a real battleground, in this case, for a century. The community has not been able to resolve disputes in this area effectively. Mediation at DRN is one of the community dispute resolution mechanisms that is not effective (because editors will not accept third-party advice as to neutrality of sources).
When ArbCom opens a third case on this contentious topic, it should ask at least two questions. First, are there any particular editors who are tendentious in this area, and who should be topic-banned? Second, should any new or modified enforcement procedures be adopted? ArbCom should open a third case in this area. Robert McClenon ( talk) 05:40, 26 January 2023 (UTC)
look at the long-term conduct of various editors and do, for lack of a better phrase, a clean-out, but to me that doesn't really solve the problem. If there are editors with conduct problems, an arb case can deal with them, but that doesn't do anything about the next group of disruptive editors who wade into the topic area, and we're just setting ourselves up to have to do more of these cases. If we need to have AA3, we can have AA3, but I want to understand how this will differ from AA2 and what we can do in order to prevent us from having to do AA4.
The Arbitration Committee agrees to open a case with the name Armenia-Azerbaijan 3. The parties, drafting arb(s), timetable, and structure will be communicated to the clerks following this motion passing (see ArbCom procedures).
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
I'm requesting that my t-ban be amended to allow me to edit main space only, concerning Gender & Sexuality related pages. I make this request, so that I don't erroneously edit a page that may have any connection to the gender/sex topic. For example: If I were to fix a spelling error (nothing to do with gender/sex) on the Nicola Sturgeon page? I wouldn't want an editor (or editors) complaining, because Sturgeon is connected to the Bryson case. PS - At the very least give me clarification, so I won't have to check nearly every page (from top to bottom) before editing, to make sure there's zero connection to the topic-in-question, if it's decided not to remove my t-ban from main space. GoodDay ( talk) 21:02, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
Yes, I will make an effort in 'toning down' edit summaries. That being said, I will be avoiding the gender/sex area of pages, even if my proposed amendment is passed. GoodDay ( talk) 22:02, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
@ Izno: where would I make such an amendment request? I'm still not fully up to speed on the recent changes from DS to CT. GoodDay ( talk) 22:05, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
Izno, I'm asking that my t-ban be amended so that I'm restricted only from the talkpages/discussions in the Gen/Sex area. At the moment, (I assume) I can't edit the pages (for example) Jordan Peterson or Justin Trudeau 'at all', because they're directly or indirectly connected to the Gen/Sex topic area. If Trudeau was to announce his pending resignation? I wouldn't know if I could edit his page concerning his resignation (assuming it had nothing to do with Gen/Sex), because he brought up the preference of using "people kind" in the past. GoodDay ( talk) 22:30, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
I can't compel arbitrators to amend my t-ban. Amending it or not, is entirely Arbcom's choice. I'm merely asking that it be made slightly easier for me, when editing pages. I'm certain that we're all in agreement that my t-ban is a preventative measure & so I'm trying to persuade arbitrators that there's no longer a need to t-ban me from main space, concerning the Gen/Sex topic area. GoodDay ( talk) 22:37, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
@ Barkeep49: may I transfer this request as is (no alterations), over to WP:AE? GoodDay ( talk) 22:44, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
@ Sideswipe9th: I just would feel (figuratively) safer & less stressed, if I didn't have to check over every article I edited. At the moment, I avoid (for example) editing bios like Sturgeon, Peterson, Rowlings (etc) as I already know they're connected to the Gen/Sex topic area, be it pre-tban participation 'or' Youtube observation. However, not 'every' bio page is so well known to be connected to that topic area. GoodDay ( talk) 22:57, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
Per Barkeep's advice. I'm requesting this amendment request be withdrawn. I'll make the request at WP:AE. GoodDay ( talk) 22:59, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
The two relevant AE requests for this are the initial TBAN and the January 2023 appeal. Not withstanding the point made by Izno on the review standards, I'd repeat what I said in January in that I would be open to being convinced that a "everything but the article space" TBAN could work, pending some assurances on edit summaries that were written in the same style as what lead to his TBAN (examples [36], [37]). Sideswipe9th ( talk) 21:34, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
This seems an absurd request to me. GoodDay seems to be asking for permission to edit articles without taking the time to read them first.
action is no longer reasonably necessary to prevent damage or disruption. ARCA cannot consider this. Barkeep49 ( talk) 22:40, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Initiated by Anythingyouwant at 10:45, 23 February 2023 (UTC)
Rationale for Lifting Topic Ban (about 980 words)….
Over eleven years ago, I was topic-banned from abortion articles. [39] I have faithfully complied with that topic-ban, but it recently slipped my mind; no one objected to my recent edit which did not actually remove or change any material, but rather was part of a series of edits trimming redundant material on a variety of subjects in that BLP. Before I make any more slip-ups, I would like to request the topic-ban be lifted.
I have no plans to edit abortion articles again, but in case I do, I promise to comply with Wikipedia policies and guidelines just as I’ve complied with the topic-ban (excepting the recent slip-up). Also, if I make any policy edits based upon my experience at abortion-related articles, I PROMISE to never cite those policy edits at abortion-related articles, regardless of whether other editors have approved my policy edits, or whether the policy edits merely make explicit what is already implicit. Also, I PROMISE to carefully make sure that when I quote material, I will check the most recent version of that source. These promises would have prevented the situations that got me in hot water.
Even if ArbCom was 100% correct back then, the promises I’ve made above should prevent this from becoming a lifetime topic-ban. But the truth is that ArbCom was not 100% correct. I will now explain why.
ArbCom cited two specific instances of my editing in 2011: (1) allegedly manipulating sources to present a POV contra sourcing guidelines; and (2), allegedly manipulating policy pages to further a point in a dispute.
Regarding allegation (1), it was imperfect both procedurally and substantively. Procedurally, I objected that “ MastCell is flagrantly violating the 500-word limitation on evidence… If there is additional evidence, it can be presented by the thousands of editors who have not yet hit 500 words.” [40] The evidence against me relied upon by ArbCom as to allegation (1) was all in excess of those allowed word limits. [41] I assumed that ArbCom would not rely upon evidence presented in violation of a rule that I and other editors were required to follow, and which protects editors from each other.
As to the substance of allegation (1), I accurately quoted a definition from the 1979 edition of Black’s Law Dictionary that had been a gift to me, and I indicated in my edit the year of that edition; I was aware there had been later editions of that dictionary, but mistakenly assumed that the later editions were directed at adding further words or adding further definitions. That was my mistake, I should have looked at --- and quoted --- the most recent edition, but I was not aware that the newest edition was any different in this respect than the 1979 edition; it was not intentional, and the footnote I gave was accurate. Others made mistakes with Black’s Law Dictionary as well, they thanked me for correcting them, and I did not consider dragging them to ArbCom to be topic-banned. Contrary to MastCell’s accusation, I fully supported and did not object to using the updated definition from Black’s: ”An editor has updated the info to 2009, which of course is fine”. MastCell told ArbCom “AYW now objects to quoting Black's” but that’s wrong, I kept saying we should use Black’s: “it seems like Black's is enough for now”. MastCell instead took a single sentence fragment of mine out of context: I said, “Anyway, putting aside Black's, it seems crystal clear from the Oxford English Dictionary that….” Obviously, I was not remotely suggesting that our Wikipedia article should put Black’s aside; rather, I was digressing at the talk page to talking about another dictionary too. [42]
Regarding allegation (2), the pertinent policy says, “Editing a policy to support your own argument in an active discussion may be seen as gaming the system, especially if you do not disclose your involvement in the argument when making the edits.” See WP:PGBOLD. My policy edit conformed to this rule about bold policy edits: I forthrightly disclosed in my edit summary that the policy edit arose from an article I had been editing that day. Additionally, I edited the policy not because I wanted it to support my own argument at an article, but rather because it seemed helpful to editors everywhere at Wikipedia to make explicit what was already implicit in the policy. From day one I have explained that it was a policy clarification rather than a policy change, and ArbCom has never denied it. Even if it had been a substantive policy change, it was a reasonable one, not made for future use at any particular article. I did mention it at that same abortion article weeks later, when the issue came up again, but I doubt it was the same “active discussion” within the meaning of WP:PGBOLD and ArbCom never addressed this. Also, before I cited the clarified policy at the abortion talk page, another editor had already reviewed the policy clarification and made edits that he thought were sufficient. [43] I was ultimately unable to make the policy clarification because, for example, another editor felt it was already implicit in the policy, i.e. “already adequately covered in the first bullet point of the NOCON section.” [44] [45]
This topic-ban has been used to help justify other unrelated actions against me, and conversely they may be used to extend this one. All I ask is that people please read the promises I have made above, and if that is insufficient then review the facts of this case described above. If you must consider other unrelated cases, the most recent one was removal last summer of a 4-year TBAN (my two offenses were criticism of another editor at my user talk which I deleted prior to the TBAN, and also enforcement of BLP policy instead of ignoring all rules). Incidentally, I think that I filed a previous appeal in this case several years ago. Anythingyouwant ( talk) 11:26, 23 February 2023 (UTC)
“I didn't do a search in Google scholar or anywhere else for ‘termination of pregnancy destruction’ or anything like that. I don't know why you think I did….”That was no lie. You quote MastCell as then explaining to me that the URL for one of the dictionaries I inserted into a note (on both 11 Oct and again on 12 Oct) included that phrase in its URL, but you inexplicably delete my response to MastCell of 13 Oct at 04:26:
"The phrase 'termination of a pregnancy with destruction' is an exact quote from the source, and it should be extremely obvious that I already knew what the source said. I was not using that [phrase] to search for sources, but rather to go back to that particular source to get more info about it. Regarding setting up a set of sources that support my point of view or my proposed wording, that assertion is false. I simply want this Wikipedia article to recognize the minority view in the medical community. Since our Note already had several sources reflecting the minority view, and since our lead continued to ignore and deny that minority view, I added more refs to the Note reflecting the minority view. I was not seeking a lead that parrots the minority view, only a lead that does not flatly deny the minority view.Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:26, 13 October 2011 (UTC)"In other words, I had already found the source in question (American Heritage Medical Dictionary, c. 2008), and was merely using a phrase from that source (that I had written down) to return to that same source. It was not a search term because I was not looking for search results, I was only seeking to return to a source that I had already found. Thus, none of the other three sources that I used on Oct 11 and Oct 12 (in order to expand the already-enormous note at the end of the lead sentence) had that phrase in their URLs. Moreover, those reputable books did not reflect my POV, they reflected a significant minority POV that should have been recognized in the lead sentence by merely including the word "typically" or "usually" or "often" in the lead sentence (I was not alone in making that argument), as explained in the answer to MastCell that you carefully omitted. After I added a few sources to the Note (on 12 Oct), 6 of the 8 listed "other medical dictionaries" then described the minority view, whereas before my edit 3 of 5 had done so. The main reason I added three more was to counteract the imbalance in the lead sentence, which gave no hint that a minority view even existed. If the lead sentence had been corrected (by merely including the word "typically" or "usually" or "often"), then I had no objection to trimming the Note, which in any event was hugely excessive in size, quoting 24 (yes, two dozen) definitions of abortion. Anythingyouwant ( talk) 06:29, 4 March 2023 (UTC)
The substance of this appeal demonstrates that Anythingyouwant has learned nothing and will continue to cause the same problems if unbanned. Amazingly, the Arbs recognize this but are still considering some form of an unban—which would be grossly irresponsible if not outright administrative malpractice.
I've been here nearly two decades and I have never encountered an editor who has caused more sustained damage to the project than Anythingyouwant. There has never, to my knowledge, been an editor who demonstrated more comprehensively that he's incapable of editing neutrally or engaging honestly with his fellow editors in a topic area.
I know of two outstanding, highly productive editors (one an admin) who quit Wikipedia specifically because of the frustration of dealing with his unchecked tendetiousness in the abortion topic area (and a third who left in part, but not solely, for that reason). Those editors haven't been replaced—they're just gone, a major loss for the project. You can expect more such losses if he's allowed back.
Anythingyouwant's removal from the topic area was followed by an immediate, dramatic, and sustained improvement in the editing environment which continues to this day. The abortion topic area remains surprisingly orderly despite recent events. The Abortion case was arguably one of ArbCom's most successful interventions.
The passage of time alone has never been, and should never be, sufficient by itself to lift a sanction. There has to be some evidence that things will be different this time around. Anythingyouwant refuses to admit any issues on his part and relitigates the case with the same misrepresentations he pushed 10 years ago. To say I'm disappointed that ArbCom is considering this appeal would be a gross understatement. It's incredibly disrepectful to people who have been victims of Anythingyouwant's tendentiousness, or even those who simply want to edit constructively in the topic area. MastCell Talk 18:49, 28 February 2023 (UTC)
I'd recommend against removing the topic ban. First, a battleground attitude permeates this request. A big chunk of the request is re-litigating how the previous decisions were unfair. I'd have considered the request more convincing if the last 5 paragraphs of the initial appeal had been completely left off. Second, I note it morphed (in a singles sentence) from "I have no plans to edit abortion articles again" to "but in case I do...", and then lists how they will edit abortion-related articles. So the first sentence can be roughly translated as "I plan to edit abortion-related articles again". Third, it seems likely they will bring this battleground approach with them when they re-enter the area, subjecting other editors to a more difficult collaboration environment. We should be imposing more topic bans on editors who can't seem to prevent themselves from taking a battleground approach, not removing them. Keep the topic ban, and make clear that once every 20,000 article edits, we'll be understanding if they accidentally violate it. -- Floquenbeam ( talk) 17:32, 23 February 2023 (UTC)
As one of the drafting arbs in that decision, I would like to support this. Goodness knows 11 years is a huge amount of time, and I would expect that all of us have grown and developed since then. Still, I agree with Floquenbeam's point on how the request is worded, and thus cannot support. Jclemens ( talk) 08:11, 26 February 2023 (UTC)
@
Anythingyouwant: IMO it's difficult to argue "manipulated sources to present a POV contra sourcing guidelines
" <snipped> "hence manipulating policy pages to further a point in a dispute.
" was not a finding of dishonesty. Yes you disagree with the conclusions of that case, but an editor should not need to provide any more evidence for something which was already a well established fact. From what I can tell, no one is particularly in agreement with you that you proved anything although it is true there's also an aspect of 'not interested in considering this'. But even with that in mind, your continually insistence that your proved anything even after the general response has been, 'no you didn't' IMO adds to the concerns you will not be able to edit productively in the area. If even now over 10 years later you continue to insist your editing was not highly problematic, and still cannot take on board the feedback that it was, why should we be believe you won't return to a similar pattern of editing? Perhaps you won't repeat the specific mistakes you made last time since you have been told these were wrong even if you cannot understand why, but can be sure you won't do something else equally or even more problematic which isn't quite the same as what you now understand you should not do? The fact you've been able to edit without much problem in other areas is great, but I would not have confidence this will hold over into an area where you insist your editing was acceptable when it was not.
Nil Einne (
talk) 11:50, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
I recognize that this editor's appeal isn't structured in the way we usually want them to be, but I see that multiple Arbitrators have made a note of the legalistic tactic being valid if unusual. I also remember what a nightmare the Abortion topic area was at the time, but I make no statement on whether the initial ban was right or wrong as my memory isn't that good and the evidence seems inconclusive. What I will say is that it seems like Anythingyouwant has made a solid effort to comply with his ban for over a decade, and been far more successful than other bans that the Committee has ended. While it seems that the proposal to lift the ban is leaning towards failing, I do believe that an alternate motion to set up a probation should be considered if it does fail. I will also note that it only takes one administrator to reinstitute the topic ban under WP:CTOP, and as far as I'm aware the topic area has settled in recent years so I think it could be handled. The Wordsmith Talk to me 02:20, 4 March 2023 (UTC)
Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should address why or why not the Committee should accept the amendment request or provide additional information.
because [you] dare to doubt whether the ban should have been imposed in the first place- which not for nothing I think was correctly imposed on you. It's because the way you went about disagreeing with that ban now doesn't inspire confidence in me that that you could negotiate the types of situations that got you in trouble in the past today. Barkeep49 ( talk) 20:52, 25 February 2023 (UTC)
I might not do much during (and after) that [probationary] perioddoesn't inspire a ton of confidence in me that the probation would be useful. — Wug· a·po·des 22:25, 25 February 2023 (UTC)
I make no apologies for presenting it, and would do the same again in any future request to lift this topic ban, then I am only more certain that your topic ban should remain in place because even constructive criticism seems to be lost on you.But let's put that aside for a second and just try and understand the substance of your appeal. It's painfully obvious you're trying to have it both ways, and once we pin it down it should be obvious why the opposition doesn't care to relitigate 10-year-old facts already decided. Your primary argument is that we can trust you to not cause harm in the topic area you have been banned from. If we do not trust you or your promises---that is, if we believe there is a substantial risk you would cause harm---then we ought to find that the original TBAN was placed in error based on a re-review of previous findings of fact. So here's the critical flaw in your argument: if I find you so cantankerous and untrustworthy that I'm not willing to lift your TBAN, then why on earth would I want to let you run amok based on a technicality?But let's humor you and actually dig in to the FoF you seem to think was in error. The FoF reads, in its entirety:
You indisputably were the subject of a previous arbitration decision, and you were were restricted in 2007 because of your disruption in the topic area. So you clearly weren't a squeaky clean editor here; what's the argument "yeah, I deserved the restriction the first time, but the second time was an injustice that should have never happened". That's a hard sell, but let's keep going. You point out 3 concerns with the FoF that I can tell. First is that MastCell had too many words in his section; honestly, I don't care who broke word limits 12 years ago and it's a horrible reason to overturn a TBAN. If you're being disruptive, you'll get sanctioned; we're not a court and you're not going to get off because someone said too many words a decade ago. Second you contend that you didn't manipulate sources to POV push and the FoF is wrong in that regard. Having read the whole discussion I don't think it paints you in the positive light you may want. Let's highlight part of that discussion:7) Anythingyouwant, under his previous username Ferrylodge, has been previously sanctioned by the Arbitration Committee in November 2007 for his involvement in Abortion-related disputes. The basis for this included disruptive editing at pregnancy and abortion related articles. [46] [47] He has manipulated sources to present a POV contra sourcing guidelines. [48] He has edited the page on consensus on July 10 [49], giving the reason for an article he edited that day (presumably abortion which was the only contentious one [50], and then referred to it-as-policy 20 days later, hence manipulating policy pages to further a point in a dispute. [51] The policy change was removed by KillerChihuahua. [52]
[...]I've decided to go ahead in a few minutes and insert some medical dictionary sources. Anythingyouwant (talk) 21:47, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
Done. Now 6 of the 8 listed "other medical dictionaries" allow for abortion after viability, unlike our lead. Anythingyouwant (talk) 22:27, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
Please answer me this: Are there are dictionaries that you looked up that you did not add? If so, why not? Also, is there any particular reason you are doing a google scholar search for "termination of pregnancy destruction" instead of doing a more systematic listing of, say, all Credo Reference medical dictionaries? NW (Talk) 02:12, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
I didn't do a search in Google scholar or anywhere else for "termination of pregnancy destruction" or anything like that. I don't know why you think I did. WP:NPOV instructs us to proportionately cover what significant reliable sources say. My purpose in adding further medical dictionary definitions was to point out that a significant minority of them do not deny there's such a thing as abortion after viability; I was not attempting to confirm that a majority do deny that, which has already been established here. So the sources I picked out were picked out for this reason.Anythingyouwant (talk) 03:09, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
Er... the URL you added here was clearly obtained by searching for the phrase "termination of a pregnancy with destruction". And why set up a situation where "6 of 8 listed sources" (i.e., a majority) support your wording, when you know that it's a minority view? How is that "proportionate"? MastCell Talk 03:58, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
[...]BTW, NuclearWarfare, why did you include tons of dictionaries in your Note, including a dictionary of "cultural literacy" and a dictionary of philosophy, but not a single legal dictionary? Any objection if I include one? Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:45, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
Is there some reason why you chose the 1979 edition of Black's Law Dictionary to cite here? It looks like the most recent edition of Black's was published in 2009 - why not use the definition from the current edition, rather than one from 30+ years ago? Are they different (I don't have immediate access)? MastCell Talk 16:57, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
Obviously, I had access to the 1979 edition and not the 2009 edition (I own the former and not the latter). An editor has updated the info to 2009, which of course is fine. Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:53, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
Proposed:
The indefinite topic ban of Anythingyouwant ( talk · contribs) from abortion-related pages is lifted.
For this motion there are 14 active arbitrators. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 8 support or oppose votes are a majority.
This is an archive of past Clarification and Amendment requests. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to file a new clarification or amendment request, you should follow the instructions at the top of this page. |
Archive 120 | Archive 121 | Archive 122 | Archive 123 | Archive 124 | Archive 125 | Archive 126 |
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Initiated by Stefka Bulgaria at 09:34, 12 October 2022 (UTC)
I'm not familiar with these appeals; sorry if I didn't fill this correctly. It's been a year since I was topic-banned from editing articles relating to Iranian politics. My edits in other areas (since I was topic-banned) have been constructive, and I've had a good chance to reflect and learn from the issues I had with other editors back then. With everything that's been happening in Iran these last weeks, I think I could be a useful contributor in this area once again. Also, editors I had issues prior to being topic-banned have mostly been topic-banned themselves or blocked for socking, so I don't believe that I would have problems working collaboratively in this area again. Anyways, thank you for your consideration.
They were topic banned because they engaged in bludgeoning, stonewalling, and degrading of discussions.
and filed verbose RfCs in an attempt to railroad preferred changes
. They've done none of that since the topic ban was imposed, but they've done almost nothing else in talk spaces either. Since the case closed they've only made 9 edits to the talk: namespace that were not just page moves or wikiproject tagging (and one of them was a copyedit to their own comment) and 0 edits to the Wikipedia talk:, Template talk:, Category talk: and File talk: namespaces. Almost all their edits in user talk: have been speedy deletion notices (most of their work has been new page patrolling). Their four edits to Draft talk: came today and all are related to moving their personal sandbox to draftspace.
Thryduulf (
talk) 18:09, 12 October 2022 (UTC)
Considering the majority of Stefka Bulgaria's edits were in this topic, I don't find it surprising that their editing activity has decreased. It's hard to find another niche. The Iranian Politics area is a cesspool which suffers from POV editing (including dirty tactics such as WP:GAMING), and a lack of monitoring admins (I don't blame them), which makes it a lot more difficult to adhere to our guidelines (which is mainly why I left that area). While Stefka Bulgaria's hands may not be completely clean (then again, whose are?), I think they did a lot more good in that area than many others, and thus deserves another chance. -- HistoryofIran ( talk) 13:07, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
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Initiated by ToBeFree at 20:09, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
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Enforcing administrators:
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Wikipedia:Arbitration_enforcement_log/2022#Horn_of_Africa currently contains two entries saying "with an appeal possible in six months". There may be other, similar restrictions elsewhere; I didn't search for more. I'd like to know if such restrictions on appeals are compatible with the WP:AC/DS procedures. ~ ToBeFree ( talk) 20:09, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
I absolutely can not recollect the case, but reading the AE discussion I closed I see that the proposal was indeed "TB which can be appealed in 6 months". I guess what I meant was that the TB is best appealed after 6 months and has very little chances to lead to a successful appeal before that, but I see indeed that this is not what I logged. My apologies.-- Ymblanter ( talk) 20:29, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
Apologies. Of course we shouldn't deny the right of appeal at any time. I thought I'd seen this before and hadn't considered the implications. Doug Weller talk 16:47, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
Agreed that an appeal can be filed immediately so, yes, mea culpa. In the particular case pointed to above, there was some discussion among the commenting admins about a timed t-ban, and that's part of the reason why the 6 months showed up there but I should have timed it to "exactly six months" to make it appealable. The current appeal system, imo, is a good one and I have no problems with it. Also, thanks to ToBeFree for bringing this up because, although on first glance this appears to be merely procedural, it is actually important for ensuring that our messaging be clear and not confusing. -- RegentsPark ( comment) 16:32, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
Took note of this helpful discussion. After overwhelming discussions small time gap can be helpful break for users too for study and reflection about what all went wrong. Bookku ( talk) 13:10, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
My 2c: appeals by sanctioned editors fall essentially into two categories:
As an example of what I mean, see
this DS I had placed with a note appended that said, I have kept the topic area of the ban narrow in the hope that you can learn to edit productively in other areas and even ask for this ban to be rescinded say 3 months from now.
I hope that the committee will not disallow that kind of "limit/encouragement" even while clarifying that I couldn't have (hypothetically) prohibited the editor from appealing the sanction to AN/AE/ARCA at any point they wished.
Abecedare (
talk) 15:33, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
I agree with my colleagues above and below that individual admins obviously cannot obviate all rights of appeal, and that's wording we need to be careful about. However, if memory serves, admins at AE sometimes decline an appeal and simultaneously prohibit AE appeals for a given period of time. And this actually makes sense to me, because it's not about obviating the right of appeal, but rather saying "any appeal at this venue will be unsuccessful for this period of time". Sometimes want to avoid repeated appeals, and the sanctioned user would always have the option of coming to ARCA (I'm assuming this is non-controversial; if diffs are needed, I can dig them up later). It seems logical to say that individual admins may also state that they will not personally consider appeals for a given period, with the user still having the option of appealing to AE, AN, or ARCA. Vanamonde ( Talk) 16:50, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
I came to make largely the same observation as Abecedare. I assume that these time limits on "appeals" were intended to mean that the sanction can be reviewed after that length of time, which is how I've used them in the past. They should not be taken, and I doubt the sanctioning admins intended them to be taken, as preventing the first kind of appeal, which asks other admins/the community/ArbCom to review the sanction because the sanctioned editor feels it is unjust. I would suggest using the term "review" or coming up with another ArbCom/WP policy neologism to distinguish appeals on the grounds that a sanction is no longer necessary. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 19:35, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
Hello. I'm not sure where Worm That Turned's quote of me is from, but it sounds about right. I believe the prevailing understanding is that outright moratoriums on appeals, as opposed to recommendations, are the sole domain of ArbCom (for WP:ACDS; the community for WP:GS). The argument that a consensus of AE admins on the WP:AE board, which obviously is a level higher than a single sanctioning admin, could also do that, is not something I have a strong opinion on. I have a vague recollection of a consensus of AE admins placing ~year'ish moratoriums on certain appellants who appeal, say, every 6 months over the span of years and years. And I've also a vague memory of it sticking without objections. But maybe it was a dream, whose to say?
But even at that event, if an admin were to remove such an appeal, from either AE or AN, the option to still appeal here at ARCA, as Barkeep49 notes below, nonetheless would remain open. At which point the Committee may be prompted to comment on AE board-derived moratoriums. But that has yet to happen as far as I'm able to recall, and overall has not been an issue of note. So this might mostly be theory. By contrast, I have a clear memory of ArbCom itself imposing moratoriums on appeals, I believe very recently even, though, I'm too lazy to look it up. BTW, a while back, Barkeep was wary of having too many AE appeals end up at ARCA, but to that I say: it's probably 80 percent AN, 20 percent AE, and negligible at ARCA, so I wouldn't really worry about it.
Anyway, I rambled for a while, but to reiterate as per the ping: take for example the last TBAN I imposed, currently being appealed (←
live,
permalink), to unanimous opposition I might add. Consider how I phrased it on that user's talk page: Now, while I strongly recommend you wait 6 months before appealing this sanction, you could technically do so immediately. But my sense is that it'll go about as well as your p-block appeals above [...]
(
diff). So that's been my MO, overall. At the least, a single sanctioning admin doesn't have the authority to override the right of appeal.
El_C 17:58, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
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Initiated by Stefka Bulgaria at 09:30, 24 November 2022 (UTC)
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Could you advice if I am able to make corrections to articles that aren't specifically about Iranian politics, but involve companies controlled by the Iranian government? For example, I see that in my absence, sourced information about an Iranian company has been removed from the article with no apparent justification. Would I be able to restore information of that nature?
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Initiated by IntrepidContributor at 16:13, 22 December 2022 (UTC)
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There is a dispute on whether it is due to put the claim that Elon Musk is a "polarizing figure" in Wikivoice in the lead of his BLP, and editors in discussions on the TP and BLPN have highlighted WP:BLP and MOS:LEAD as pertinent policies. I don't have a strong opinion on the matter, but I don't think we should put the claim in Wikipedia's voice when it is only based on a few articles that mention the term in passing, and I don't really think its due in the lead given that only one of these sources is cited in the article's main body.
When I twice restored Anythingyouwant's attempt to attribute the claim [3] [4], and explained my position on the talk page [5] [6], HAL333 replied "yeah that's just your opinion man" [7], twice reverted me [8] [9] and posted an edit warring warning on my talk page threatening to also post on this noticeboard [10]. I take HAL333's warning serious since they have reported me there before [11], so I decided not to revert it a third time and request policy guidance from administrators. When I posted my guidance on WP:AN (a noticeboard for "posting information and issues of interest to administrators"), administrators Black Kite said it was the wrong venue and warned me against edit warring, while administrator Black Kite seems to have accused me of noticeboard spamming [12].
As was noted by Anythingyouwant on the TP [13] and BLPN [14], WP:BLPUNDEL indicates that the content should not have been restored till a consensus was formed. I would appreciate some policy guidance from arbitrators on whether disputed unattributed claims should remain in the lead of BLP articles while the discussions in TP and BLPN are ongoing, and may still be escalated to an RFC. I hope this is the right venue to gain a clear clarification on BLP policy (and the proper enforcement of the policy by administrators). IntrepidContributor ( talk) 14:15, 22 December 2022 (UTC)
I think you may find it was Doug Weller, not myself, that warned you about edit-warring, whilst I merely pointed out that your behaviour could be seen as noticeboard-spamming, which ironically this filing appears to have proved. Black Kite (talk) 16:30, 22 December 2022 (UTC)
Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should opine whether and how the Committee should clarify or amend the decision or provide additional information.
I would appreciate some policy guidance from arbitrators on whether disputed unattributed claims should remain in the lead of BLP articles while the discussions in TP and BLPN are ongoing, and may still be escalated to an RFC.which is a content not conduct question. You seem to be wondering if others (or you) have edit warred. That would be conduct but this is the wrong place for it, and frankly so is AN. You might have more like at the teahouse getting some guidance like that. Barkeep49 ( talk) 21:36, 22 December 2022 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Initiated by El C at 22:44, 23 November 2022 (UTC)
I realize I'm a broken record, but how record broken is this template? Anyway, there was a proposal at AN ( live, permalink) which read:
Proposal: WP:ARBECR (which includes a 500edits/30days restriction) over WP:AA2 and WP:KURDS articles.
That proposal has seen a unanimous 17/17 support, but the proposer (HistoryofIran) and others weren't sure how to affect that resolution. Arb L235 recommended to wait for a WP:CLOSE to do the WP:ARBEE → WP:GS/RUSUKR thing. I said that it'd be better to amend AA2 and KURDS by motion rather than create a new GS with separate logs, alerts, page notices, etc., which is what should have happened with RUSUKR (→ ARBEE).
I think most participants don't really care either way, they just want to see that community consensus affected. Personally, I'm for streamlining rather than adding further to the maze of DS/GS pages, so I'm bringing it here. Needless to say, ARCA is intimidating and has a very high access ceiling (one of the least accessible areas of the project). And I still fucked up that impossible template, but that was always a given (but it sort of displays, so there you go). Thank you for your time and attention. El_C 22:44, 23 November 2022 (UTC)
over WP:AA2 and WP:KURDS articles. El_C 22:56, 23 November 2022 (UTC)
WP:GS/AAKURDS
, a split GS like
WP:GS/RUSUKR — in a couple of years, when ArbCom subsumes it, no one will remember, either! On a separate note: I hesitated on filing this ARCA because the ACE adds a layer to this that I (best clerk) am a bit uncomfortable with. But the ACE just takes so fuckin' long, it really can't be helped (unless whatever is being discussed coincides with the ACE concluding in, like, a week or mere days).
El_C 20:21, 26 November 2022 (UTC)
These are big topic areas to place under ECP. Is there a more narrow topic area that might work better? -- Guerillero Parlez Moi 20:40, 25 November 2022 (UTC)
ECR is pretty draconian and an extreme measure to prevent disruption.
The problem is not inherently with ECR, as I accept it may sometimes–very, very rarely–be appropriate. My concern is: no other lesser restrictions have been considered in that discussion (e.g. a topic-wide semi or ECR on a narrower topic area), no assessment of how many high-quality non-ECP user contributions the topic will lose, and no assessment of the size of administrative burden if a GS is not imposed (which should be a key factor in imposing GS, as otherwise ANI/admins can handle topic disruption as usual). I'm also unsure how this is distinct to other sockpuppeteers who are single-topic focused, we don't fight these with topic-wide ECR. Some of the comments are literally
politician's fallacy (e.g. Surely something must need to be done about this disruption.
)
If ArbCom is to make a motion, it should be due to substantive agreement and not just rubber-stamping. And ArbCom doesn't need to act here, the community can under the auspices of consensus. If the community wants to motion this, they should do so themselves, but I do wish these GS discussions had some more guidance to, well, guide them. With few exceptions, the fate of almost all community-authorised sanctions is that they were not necessary (see their logs for instance). The only other time the community authorised 500/30 was India-Pakistan I think, which turned out to be unnecessary and was repealed last year after several years of being nominally in force. My overarching point in this paragraph is that the community doesn't have too many tools in its toolbox to deal with this kind of disruption, which I accept is a problem, but it tends to use a hammer when it comes to GS authorisation requests. It's relatively surprising, given how conservative the community is with topical actions otherwise.
I would suggest ArbCom substantively review the issue which caused community concern, in line with
WP:AA2/
WP:KURDS and
Wikipedia:Arbitration/Policy#Jurisdiction (The Committee retains jurisdiction over all matters heard by it, including associated enforcement processes, and may, at its sole discretion, revisit any proceeding at any time.
). Not to overrule the community, but to see if ArbCom can identify the locus of problem and form a better tool to deal with these kinds of issues. I think ArbCom is best placed to do this.
I am not familiar enough with the editing in these topic-areas to opine whether ECR, or any other restriction, is warranted, and I defer to the arbitrators, administrators, and other community members who have commented above for knowledge of the recent editing histories on the topics. I do have two short, more general observations to offer, though, paralleling ones I have made before about other geographical topic-areas:
(1) There is an enormous difference between (for example) requiring 500 edits' experience to edit "all articles about disputes between Azerbaijan and Armenia" and requiring 500 edits to edit "all articles about Azerbaijan and all articles about Armenia." The former is limited to the area of conflict; the latter takes in every article, however non-contentious, between the two countries that happen to be in conflict, and unless the situation has deteriorated to the point where most Armenian editors are unable to edit anything without mentioning Azerbaijan and vice versa, is too broad.
(2) There is also an enormous difference between "administrators, in their discretion, may impose ECR on any article in such-and-such topic-area where problems arise" as opposed to "all articles in such-and-such topic-area are now automatically subject to ECR (whether there have been any problems or not). If the Committee decides to proceed with any motions, please consider these thoughts for what they might be worth. Newyorkbrad ( talk) 23:56, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
There was recent discussion at ITN about applying such restrictions to discussion of news items such as the recent missile strike in Poland or a fire in Gaza. This seemed to be technically difficult because such discussions are bundled in dated sections rather than on separate topical pages. And establishing the scope of "broadly construed" didn't seem clear either. So, my impression is that the EC restriction already doesn't work well and so further proliferation should be resisted.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Andrew Davidson ( talk • contribs) 10:20, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
Over on the VP, I've just given a mixed oppose/support on the issue (I'm also not the only oppose, though certainly still close to). ECR is a very severe restriction, and AA2 is a huge scope unless you don't have much of a link to either country. In terms of the general ECR question, I'd support a restriction on the conflict, but not the individual countries (and just accept that a certain amount of gaming will have to be handled by the standard DS regime).
In terms of "should it be DS at all" - I have made abundantly clear that I oppose DS subsumption of GS without community agreement, but likewise don't really mind if the community itself would like it all under one banner. Though with all that, Izno's position is not unreasonable and has a lot to say for it. Nosebagbear ( talk) 10:35, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
I'm undecided on the merits of the proposal itself, but I want to push back against
CaptainEek's characterization of the Arab-Israeli conflict as uniquely thorny or that it goes back thousands of years
(case in point: the only way to construe the A-I conflict as thousands of years old is if we include the Roman-Judaean conflict or the early Muslim conquests as part of its scope; we do not apply PIA protection to such articles). Pretty much any ethnic conflict has the propensity to motivate extremely disruptive editing: the question to be answered is whether the level of disruption on Wikipedia merits a given sanction. This should be an assessment of the quality and quantity of edits on Wikipedia alone, not an evaluation of how intractable we believe the actual nationalist conflicts to be. signed,
Rosguill
talk 16:08, 1 December 2022 (UTC)
I don't have an opinion on the need or wisdom of imposing ECP in the area at the time, nor on whether arbcom should take over the community proposal or really anything in the area at this time. But an obvious question if the alts pass, does Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions#Appeals and modifications apply in entirety? I'm particularly thinking of the ARCA aspect. It seems a little weird that people can appeal to arbcom, or for admins to try and get agreement from abcom before modifying sanctions when arbcom is basically saying they're not taking over this it's still only a community decision; and arbcom stopped considering appeals for community sanctions long ago. Nil Einne ( talk) 15:30, 4 December 2022 (UTC)
In the Kurdish-Turkish conflict area I'd expect for years to come some IP or seldomly also an editor claiming (Turkish, Syrian) Kurdistan does not exist or that some Kurdish organization is terrorist. Usually those IPs/editors don't last for long and are reverted rather quickly. Then a 17/17 support vote for the amendment from also experienced editors in the field should be seen as an alert to a problem that needs to be addressed. Maybe they aren't as experienced in ArbCom policy as the Arbs (I've noticed some hesitation in approving the amendments), but they have very likely a point. If you (the Arbs) could find a feasible amendment/measure to the problem, it would bring some calmness to the areas (also the Armenian-Turkish, in which I have less experience) in question. Paradise Chronicle ( talk) 20:15, 16 December 2022 (UTC)
I saw the AN post and then this. I've been mulling this for a while, but I'd like to propose a community or arb DS for Turkey, broadly construed.
The post about the Discord server and subreddit come as no shock as even I have noticed tons of nationalist-oriented SPAs on articles related to Turkey. This spills over into Armenia, Iran, Kurds, Eastern Europe, and Uyghurs. I once asked here if WP:ARBEE applied to Turkey in hopes of finding some tool to help with these editors. I want to go to AN and propose the community sanctions, but worry that might be out of turn if it ends up with the ARBCOM.— Preceding unsigned comment added by EvergreenFir ( talk • contribs) 22:23, 16 December 2022 (UTC)
The nationalist-oriented SPAs are now spilling to articles Aegean dispute, Cyprus and Cyprus–Turkey maritime zones dispute resulting in their indefinite blocks and to article protection level increase. It is a matter of time before SPA pressure for these border topic areas in Turkey's South West and West (Cuprus and Greece) increases, from the moment the border topic areas in Turkey's East and South East (Armenia, Azerbaijan and Kurds respectively) get stricter. It came to my notice that the SPAs are appearing at a time where a growing number of international media is reporting [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] an extremely hostile domestic political rhetoric against these neighboring countries. For these reasons, Wikipedia should consider EvergreenFir's proposal to have whole of Turkey covered, or at least include Greece and Cyprus to them. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ( talk ✉ | contribs ✎) 02:30, 2 January 2023 (UTC)
Noting I've closed the AN proposals as consensus for the sanctions. TonyBallioni ( talk) 03:55, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should address why or why not the Committee should accept the amendment request or provide additional information.
If the community wants to motion this, they should do so themselvesisn't that what happened at AN? So why should ArbCom spend a lot of time making its own determination rather than acknowledging that having parallel ArbCom and Community restrictions is messy and respecting community consensus by incorporating it into ours? Neither of you are opposing the community motion and so absent ArbCom passing these motions these restrictions will still come into effect at some point when someone gets around to closing it and opening the pages, so why not have the simpler method of doing it? Barkeep49 ( talk) 17:49, 26 November 2022 (UTC)
ArbCom is too busy, do it yourselfDecidedly not. It is resolutely "the community wants it, so they should own it", as I have said already.
The following remedy is added to the Kurds and Kurdistan case:
- Extended confirmed restriction
11) The extended confirmed restriction is imposed on all edits and pages related to Kurds and Kurdistan, broadly construed.
The following remedy is added to the Armenia-Azerbaijan 2 case:
- Extended confirmed restriction
3) The extended confirmed restriction is imposed on all edits and pages related to Armenia, Azerbaijan, or related ethnic conflicts, broadly construed.
For administrative simplicity, the section titled "Standard discretionary sanctions" is redesignated as Remedy 4 of the Armenia-Azerbaijan 2 case.
The following remedy is added to the Kurds and Kurdistan case:
- Extended confirmed restriction
11) The committee authorizes using the procedures of remedy 1 to administer a community-imposed extended confirmed restriction in the topic area or any sub-topic. For administrative simplicity, alerts, warnings, and sanctions regarding a community-imposed extended confirmed restriction may be given as if the Arbitration Committee had authorized an extended confirmed restriction. If the community repeals its extended confirmed restriction on this topic area, this remedy will be automatically revoked.
For administrative simplicity, the section titled "Standard discretionary sanctions" is redesignated as Remedy 3 of the Armenia-Azerbaijan 2 case.
The following remedy is added to the Armenia-Azerbaijan 2 case:
- Community-maintained extended confirmed restriction
4) The committee authorizes using the procedures of remedy 3 to administer a community-imposed extended confirmed restriction in the topic area or any sub-topic. For administrative simplicity, alerts, warnings, and sanctions regarding a community-imposed extended confirmed restriction may be given as if the Arbitration Committee had authorized an extended confirmed restriction. If the community repeals its extended confirmed restriction on this topic area, this remedy will be automatically revoked.
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Initiated by Crouch, Swale at 17:48, 1 January 2023 (UTC)
(Edit, Can I have my editing restrictions removed completely please with a probationary matter with an editing plan) I have a list of proposed motions at User:Crouch, Swale/Motions (edit, for if we don't remove completely) so please review each of them and propose a motion for each request to see if it can be relaxed please assuming the restrictions aren't removed completely. The main priority is to allow some (current) parishes to be created, regarding points about creation (1) there was consensus against prohibiting mass creation at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Requests for comment/Article creation at scale/Closing statement from what I can see or at least not consensus (2) there is a consensus that all parishes (apart from perhaps pre 1974 urban parishes) are inherently notable (3) I will create the articles with reasonable content which even if quite a few are created a day doesn't generally fall under mass creation (4) the suggested motions for page creation include the ability for any admin to reduce or revoke the number as well as allow anyone to move unsuitable pages to draftspace (5) we already have things like NPP so any problematic pages can be seen to and all of my 12 creations last year were accepted (6) I haven't been involved in any major problems etc and most editors are happy with my work (7) I have been paying attention to feedback and requests from editors for example here about urban parishes not being notable and modified my list, a later list User:Crouch, Swale/Leicestershire which I am adding things like location, population, when abolished and infoboxes for former parishes but it would be good if I could also create the missing ones apart from as noted category 4 parishes (urban parishes). So please please can I have 1 chance to be allowed to create good articles on parishes. This can start low like say only a few a week and increase and be as well as or instead of the existing 1 article a month on anything.
In 2020 I said:
there is still no evidence that they understand why the restrictions were imposed in the first place. There is no evidence they have understood or listened to the feedback they've been given multiple times already.
In 2021 I said:
I am still not seeing any evidence that Crouch, Swale understands why they were placed under these restrictions and no evidence they understand why previous appeals were declined.
In 2022 I noted that the RFC cited then (and also cited again here) as consensus for creating parish articles does not demonstrate any consensus for anything (other than a general opposition to mass creation). I also noted:
Given that requirements of last year's request have not been met, have seemingly not even been attempted to be met, and recommendations for further discussion by other users since then have also not been followed up, I'm having a hard time understanding why this appeal is being considered?
It is now 2023 and despite there being twelve different proposals for removal or relaxation of the restrictions, not a single one seems to indicate any understanding of why these restrictions were first placed, and why so many years and appeals later they are still active. I'm also seeing no evidence that they've both listened to and understood the feedback from 2020, 2021 or 2022 appeals at least (I've not refreshed my memory of earlier appeals). Unfortunately I have to once again oppose removal of the restrictions. Thryduulf ( talk) 09:03, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should address why or why not the Committee should accept the amendment request or provide additional information.
all parishes (apart from perhaps pre 1974 urban parishes) are inherently notablewas formed? Per my comments the past two years, I am uninterested in doing anything in this appeal except removing the restriction completely (or on a probationary matter where an admin could reimpose as an AE). I know several other arbs share that opinion, as does Primefac whose counsel you sought. Crouch the fact that you come to us with that request plus 12 other ideas, and not having really taken onboard the advice Primefac offered is not a good start. I feel that there are reasonable odds we are still in a WP:WILDFLOWERS situation but look forward to hearing more from Crouch Swale and from other members of the community. Barkeep49 ( talk) 17:54, 1 January 2023 (UTC)
Why doesn't the community want the remaining ~3.5% of low level units in England created how is it in Wikipedia's interest to not cover these?I'm guessing he might have his own answer but since this is something I've tried to express to you before, I want to try again now given my pledge to cut back on participation in the future. The community doesn't care about low level units in England. I put this in bold just to emphasize just how true it is that the community doesn't care one way or another. You, on the other hand, care a great deal. That's fine - there are many things that the community doesn't care about content wise but which happen because of individual editor interest. What the community does care about is your editing and general conduct. This caring about your conduct is why so many arbs have expressed a desire to stop having annual appeals from you and only to consider a full repeal. Your inability to take that feedback on board, in the way you have taken much of the feedback about problems with your editing on board, and to produce an appeal that does what we the arbs and the community more generally has asked of you is why you're being told no. The thing the community does care about (your editing and more relevantly your conduct) isn't meeting community expectations in these annual appeals and patience has (again) run out. Barkeep49 ( talk) 17:35, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
What do I need to do (either in conduct or content creation) that would make you feel it was appropriate to remove the restrictions?The answer, at least for me, is listening to the feedback you've gotten in this discussion and feedback you get before you do your next appeal. And the feedback I see is "ArbCom only wants to consider a repeal of your restriction" (given quite strongly and universally by every arb who has commented) and "We're tired of your annual appeals, so don't try another appeal for at least a couple of years" (given by a few arbs, including me). Related to that second point, getting some feedback from someone on the committee you trust before you do the appeal, like you did with Primefac, is good. The trick is you should try really hard to listen to their feedback and, ask questions if you don't understand, as you've done here with this question I'm answering, or to check that you accurately followed it (which is what you didn't do with Primefac and didn't do with the feedback the committee gave you in at least 2021 and 2022 if not even further back). Barkeep49 ( talk) 18:15, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
Its not even really been made clear what I actually need to do to get a successful appeal anyway.when I could easily offer diffs that show otherwise and by trying to offer another way to do a partial repeal - in reply to an explanation for why you should only ask for a full repeal - you are making a future appeal less likely to be successful. Because I don't want to contribute to you digging yourself in a deeper hole, this will be my last reply to you at this time. Barkeep49 ( talk) 19:08, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
What do I need to do (either in conduct or content creation) that would make you feel it was appropriate to remove the restrictions?- stop pandering.
I have tried to do what people have said to me but I now don't know what else I can do?No, you have not: multiple arbs told you last year, and I said two months ago (see reply to SilkTork below), that you should just come straight out and ask for your restriction to be lifted, that you have held to them for four years and it is time to just get rid of them entirely. Instead, you ignored that advice and wrote two essays worth of haggling when half of us were ready to give you full price from the get-go. You have not tried to do what people said to you. I asked you why you did not do this in the first place, and all you did was say "but I did ask". No, you patently did not.
the annual amendment request is not reassuring. I suggest that the next appeal be your last, and that it seek to simply remove your restriction altogether. I don't like this horsetrading restrictions business. You should make the appeal only when you are confident that you fully understand the process, the expectations, and that your content will not require review. Otherwise, you waste your time and ours. Wait a year, two years, five even. But if I think you're appealing just for the heck of it going forward, I will not take kindly to it. Just because you can appeal in a year doesn't mean you should.I don't see that you have taken this guidance to heart. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n! ⚓ 04:11, 2 January 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Initiated by Callanecc at 23:32, 5 January 2023 (UTC)
Consensus of admins at AE requesting at ArbCom open a new case to examine the Armenia-Azerbaijan area of conflict.
There is a consensus of administrators at AE to refer conflict in the Armenia-Azerbaijan topic area to the Arbitration Committee for you to consider opening a new case. The consensus formed out of a discussion that the issues facing this area of conflict are more complex than can be successfully resolved at AE and require a full case (with evidence and workshop) to determine what measures may help to reduce conflict and improve the editing environment. Noting the amendment request above for an extended-confirmed restriction and the community discussion about the same (which could likely be folded into this), arbitration processes are best suited to resolving the current conflict on these articles by having the full range of remedies available. Effectively AE admins are saying that this is beyond what we're capable of resolving at AE so we're referring it to you under the CT procedure. I intentionally haven't listed any other parties as I (and the rough consensus at AE) believe that identifying parties needs to be part of the initial steps of opening the case, that is the parties in the current AE request are the catalyst for us referring it to you but not the scope of the problem. Callanecc ( talk • contribs • logs) 23:32, 5 January 2023 (UTC)
I'll leave the specifics to my colleagues who have more recent experience in this area but broadly the problem admins have at AE is that we're making decisions based on a limited amount of information (which is vastly different following an evidence phase), with a relatively (to a case) limited timeframe and with relatively (to a case) limited timeframe to examine the conduct of everyone rather than those who are actively reported or doing the reporting. For someone to be reported there generally needs to have been some sort of conflict with someone else which means that the scope of who we're going to be able to identify and make summary decisions about is limited short of us actively searching through a topic area. AE is great at dealing with behavioural issues that are relatively clear or can be easily explained and identified in a limited number of diffs. It isn't great looking at long-term patterns of behaviour are beyond what we would accept but aren't clearly obvious to an independent observer. That, really, is why arbitration cases have long evidence and workshop phases - so that that type of conduct can be identified, evidenced and dealt with. El C made a comment in the AE thread about the issues being ideological rather than personal - that's something that AE will always struggle to resolve in a nuanced way (other than just topic banning everyone and moving on until there's an appeal for doing exactly that) but it's what arbitration cases are designed to do. Other admins will likely have some other ideas but I think the need for a case is to look at the long-term conduct of various editors and do, for lack of a better phrase, a clean-out. Re whether contentious topics is fully implemented, it's largely irrelevant as AE admins could, by custom, always do this, CT just formalised it. Callanecc ( talk • contribs • logs) 00:17, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
@ SilkTork: The intention is that it would be a new case. The reason it came here rather than ARC is the suggestion in the new contentious topics procedure that this is where the Committee would prefer it comes rather than as a case request. Callanecc ( talk • contribs • logs) 02:55, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
@ Barkeep49: In addition to Rosguill's comment below. There might be some scope to do an extended evidence phase and use the extended bit at the start for public & private submissions about who should be parties in the case? Callanecc ( talk • contribs • logs) 04:22, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
@ Brandmeister: The restrictions at WP:GS/RUSUKR now apply to this topic area per this discussion. Callanecc ( talk • contribs • logs) 06:23, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
@ Barkeep49: Generally, discretionary sanctions tend to be very good at resolving issues that can be clearly demonstrated with succinct evidence and where the conduct breaches behavioural guidelines particularly earlier on in an editor's 'career' on Wikipedia. Where an editor has a greater number of edits in a topic area, especially when there's not been serious previous issues, it is much more difficult to effectively determine what's happened, what if any policies (etc) have been breached and what if any sanctions are appropriate, and then to gain a consensus for that. This is mainly due to the amount of evidence which is, can be and really needs to be submitted to demonstrate long-term patterns of disruptive editing, particularly where that editing is tendentious (and especially when the tendentious component we're being asked to adjudicate is related to §2.6, 2.8 or 2.12). This is primarily due to the intricate nature of what needs to be presented and the knowledge needed to determine if any of those things are happening and how serious it is. On the other hand, arbitration cases are designed to allow editors the time and space to present evidence and design responses to it but also, more importantly, to give arbitrators (particularly the drafting arbs who can become more expert than an admin at AE given that's their job) the time to review the evidence in depth, challenge it, ask questions and workshop ideas. AE just isn't, and can't be, set up to do that. That's why arbs get the big bucks. Additionally, the DS/CT decisions an admin makes needs to be able to stand up to review and appeal by other similarly time-poor and non-expert admins at AE and editors at AN. Enforcing admins need to be able to individually justify their enforcement decisions whenever and wherever they're asked (a little overstated sure, but point stands). That might be satisfied by pointing to an AE thread where it's relatively simple but if the admin needs to search through piles of evidence and look for additional evidence that becomes a much more in-depth job. So the decision for an enforcing admin becomes more complex: not just is the enforcement action justified but can they justify it to a less informed group? On the other hand, the Committee points to the case (with its evidence, workshop and proposed decision) and that is the justification for the decision. This is a feature of DS and AE rather than a bug though. Discretionary sanctions, and even more so contentious topics, are designed to give administrators additional options to deal with problems robustly before they become intractable not to give admins super powers, nor to replace the Arbitration Committee. Even with DS/CT there will be times that AE admins need to refer matters to the Committee because of the complex nature of the issue. That isn't a bug of DS/CT that needs to be fixed, it's a feature. It encourages complex issues to go to the Committee rather than being dealt with summarily so that the best decision can be arrived at. Callanecc ( talk • contribs • logs) 23:53, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
@ Robert McClenon: I realise that you're after an arb opinion but as one of the admins involved here I think going ahead with the moderated discussion could be a big help in the topic area and in the case (if one is opened) as it'll help to clarify, and hence separate, the conduct and content issues that are being referenced. Callanecc ( talk • contribs • logs) 08:14, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
The problem that Callanecc describes regarding scope and evidence is correct. At this point, the entrenched editors of AA have been feuding for years, and it is difficult to distinguish tendentious attempts to use AE to win the conflict from legitimate frustration. The consequence is that the par for this course, when it comes to civility and impartiality on the part of AA editors, is extremely low, and editors get away with a lot of kicks below the belt because admins only feel like we can intervene when something happens that is so far beyond the pale that it clearly merits a block all by itself. The subject-area is dominated by editors with POV agendas, to a degree that outstrips almost any other subject on Wikipedia.
Additionally, in a thread that is closed but still at the top of AN which describes an off-wiki campaign to POV-push in favor of Turkish viewpoints affecting AA and other topics of interest to aggrieved Turkish nationalists. While a few editors have been blocked and broad 30/500 protections have been authorized, the elephant in the room is that ZaniGiovanni has accused various other editors active in AA of playing an active role in organizing this and other pro-Azerbaijan or pro-Turkey POV campaigns. I think an ArbCom case is necessary in order to evaluate the evidence that ZG has collected. Adjudicating AE cases for edit warring or tendentious use of sources while these accusations lay hanging across the entire topic area (and, given the AN thread, potentially others as well) feels a bit like flagging a player for being offsides while the goalposts are being stolen. signed, Rosguill talk 01:54, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
I agree entirely with the issues brought up by Callanecc and Rosguill. The problems in this area have gone beyond what AE can handle by sanctioning a few bad actors. And of course, AE cannot review private evidence of off-wiki collusion as ArbCom can. Like the community (as shown by the recent ECP request), AE admins are at wits' end in dealing with this topic area.
To answer the question from SilkTork and the others, the intent here is a referral to ArbCom as laid out in the new contentious topic procedures. At this point, I don't think any of us know exactly what that even looks like, and who should be on the list of parties to the case is also not yet determined. While the immediate AE request precipitating this involved a dispute between two editors, the problems in the area go much deeper than that and involve many other editors. So I think the request is to open a new case, but also to determine what the scope and participants should be, hence why the request is here rather than just as a new case request. Seraphimblade Talk to me 03:43, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
There's one particular ongoing pattern in the AA area that I think is worth considering - the usage of sleeper accounts as has been noticed e.g. here ("gaming autoconfirmed then going into hibernation"). Such accounts may look like sockpuppets, but are often found to be unrelated to each other, consuming editors' time and efforts at WP:SPI. Perhaps implementation of what has been done in WP:GS/RUSUKR, Remedy A (opening discussions only to extended-confirmed editors, while comments by other editors can be removed) is warranted per WP:GAME. What do admins and arbitrators think of that? Brandmeister talk 08:40, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
I've been targeted by Abrvagl for the longest time now whether in AE or otherwise; during the first month since my tban expired (15th November), my name has been involved in at least 3 reports already by ideologically opposing editors [31], [32], [33]. None of these have resulted in sanctions, neither did Abrvagl's subpar reports throughout 2022. For the longest time I wanted to comment about the Azerbaijani off-wiki meatpuppet groups but I couldn't because of WP:OUTING. Even when I got the 2 month tban during my own close challenge (when I said 8 out of 8 Oppose users were Azerbaijani or az-wiki admins), I couldn't directly provide evidence of canvassing groups because I'd had to brake outing. I hope I can speak freely here. The users I've identified canvassing through social media/off-wiki groups are Abrvagl, Solavirum (indeffed for socking), Qızılbaş and Rəcəb Yaxşı. These are the ones I intend to provide evidence for. There is broader involvement by additional accounts, but I've been unable to tie considerable off-wiki canvassing/disruption to any other editors in particular. ZaniGiovanni ( talk) 19:13, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
Even here, their comment indicates that they continue to believe that it is OK to oppose RfC votes based on the editors' assumed ethnicity, despite them being Tbanned for that exact case., be sure you can prove it. The only thing my comment above indicates regarding the RFC is that it's not OK to canvass. For future reference to ArbCom/admins, this isn't the first time Abrvagl makes baseless accusations in their comments so I hope something like this doesn't pass further in here and Abrvagl finally starts being more diligent especially when making such blatant accusations with no foundation, considering my comment is literally above for everyone to read.
I don't have any comments on the canvassing allegations. I've never done any canvassing, nor do I have any off-wiki contacts with the other named editors.– I'd expect you to deny off-wiki canvassing, but I don't think it's going to help you. ZaniGiovanni ( talk) 11:21, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
These things are simpler to understand and harder to solve than most understand. There is a contest out in the real world. With Wikipedia being influential, each side works to help their side in the real world contest by tilting the Wiki article. An unacknowledged common milder form of wp:gaming / wp:wikilawyering. And if done in a sufficiently wiki-saavy way one doesn't smacked and can keep doing it. And maybe get your opponents smacked. And the articles stay contentious forever, or at least as long as the real world contest continues. Evolution of policies and guidance is probably needed more than an arbcom case. It should be "Your #1 priority should be top quality of he article" rather than the above-described stuff. If you can make a finding like this within policies and guidelines, maybe you could fix things on this topic and have a template for fixes elsewhere. Or maybe in areas of this case you see a possibility of uncovering egregious offenses not easily visible and use normal remedies. Otherwise I'd recommend not taking unless you see a clear possibility of what you may accomplish. Sincerely, North8000 ( talk) 21:43, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
The issue that led to this situation is already clearly described in Wikipedia's policies and guidelines: It's a case of long-term Tendentious and Civil POV Push editing behaviour by one of the most active editors of AA2 that cannot be correctly stated in a few diffs, and as a result, the community is facing difficulty dealing with it. The issues with civil POV pushing and tendentious editing are one of the main problems I'd like to see the committee tackle to, at the very least, prevent the toxicity that currently dominates almost every discussion going on in AA2.
ZaniGiovanni is a user who has displayed prejudice and battlefield behaviour since day one of their editing. There is also serious and extensive evidence of meat puppetry raised against ZaniGiovanni, which I believe the committee should review in conjunction with this case. ZaniGiovanni, who was warned for being uncivil (apparently only to their "ideological opponents") 2 times ( [34]; [35]) this year alone, continues to demonstrate the same battlefield-like behaviour despite the numerous Warnings, Bans, and Topic-Bans. Even here, their comment indicates that they continue to believe that it is OK to oppose RfC votes based on the editors' assumed ethnicity, despite them being Tbanned for that exact case.
As far as I'm aware, there is no other editor who has received as many complaints, warnings, or bans in AA2 in such a short amount of time as ZaniGiovanni. If several editors are reporting and complaining about ZaniGiovanni, then perhaps there's a reason for that (one that goes beyond them being ideologically opposing editors
). Is it not worth taking a step back and objectively evaluating the broader picture rather than victimising ZaniGiovanni based on the subjective beliefs that there is a
cabal out to get rid of them?
I don't have any comments on the canvassing allegations. I've never done any canvassing, nor do I have any off-wiki contacts with the other named editors. A b r v a g l ( PingMe) 10:59, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
I am not currently active in the area, but I dealt a lot with the editing area, including my past experience in the Russian Wikipedia - where indeed we had to deal with off-wiki coordination, so may be my perspective could be useful to the Committee. We have two groups of users which are absolutely hostile to each other. No Armenian editor would ever voluntarily agree that Nagorno-Karabakh is part of Azerbaijan, even as a statement of fact, no Azerbaijani editor would ever voluntarily agree it is not. They are not capable of talking to each other in any constructive way, only under a threat of an immediate block and sometimes even despite this threat. They have their own sets of reliable sources which one side accepts and the opposite site does not. They would be reverting the articles to their preferred version forever, until the articles get protected or put under a severe restriction such as 0RR. It is usually not about two users which can not get along - if one of them is blocked another user would come to take their place. And nothing has changed here in the last 15 years. On the other hand, I just do not see what the ArbCom can do here - all the tools are already available, and in my opinion should be applied consistently to all editors in the topic area - topic bans, and then blocks and site bans if they do not learn. I am sceptical about what the actual content of a perspective case could be.-- Ymblanter ( talk) 12:46, 13 January 2023 (UTC)
First, I have moderated Armenia-Azerbaijan discussions at DRN in the past, and will in the near future provide links to them as evidence if there is a case. Second, I am in the process of starting another moderated discussion at DRN, and think that the arbitrators should be aware of this case. The case is at Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard#Massacres_of_Azerbaijanis_in_Armenia_(1917–1921). The participants are:
Should I attempt to conduct moderated discussion, or is this discussion being overtaken by arbitration? Robert McClenon ( talk) 08:01, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
As can be seen, these cases involve some of the usual participants, including Grandmaster, Brandmeister, and the banned user Steverci, as well as Chipmunkdavis and CuriousGolden. I haven't reviewed the record to determine which side if either they were on. I will provide links to earlier disputes in the near future.
Some of the arbitrators asked me to open the DRN case request for mediation, before they decided whether to open a third arbitration case on Armenia and Azerbaijan. I opened the case and began mediation, stating what the ground rules were for mediation, and asking the parties to state briefly what the article content issues were. The content issues included questions about thirteen sources. Normally questions about sources are about whether they are reliable, but, in this dispute, they were more about whether the sources were neutral. (Perhaps our policies and guidelines on sources need to be clarified to recognize that source reliability and source neutrality are different considerations but are both important.) The sources were listed in an inquiry at the reliable source noticeboard. When presumably neutral volunteers at RSN offered their opinions as to the sources, some of the editors disagreed at RSN. At this point, it appeared that this dispute was not one that could be readily resolved at DRN, and I closed it as failed.
Armenia and Azerbaijan has already been determined to be a contentious topic. Like several other contentious topics, it is subject to battleground editing because the area on the Earth has been a real battleground, in this case, for a century. The community has not been able to resolve disputes in this area effectively. Mediation at DRN is one of the community dispute resolution mechanisms that is not effective (because editors will not accept third-party advice as to neutrality of sources).
When ArbCom opens a third case on this contentious topic, it should ask at least two questions. First, are there any particular editors who are tendentious in this area, and who should be topic-banned? Second, should any new or modified enforcement procedures be adopted? ArbCom should open a third case in this area. Robert McClenon ( talk) 05:40, 26 January 2023 (UTC)
look at the long-term conduct of various editors and do, for lack of a better phrase, a clean-out, but to me that doesn't really solve the problem. If there are editors with conduct problems, an arb case can deal with them, but that doesn't do anything about the next group of disruptive editors who wade into the topic area, and we're just setting ourselves up to have to do more of these cases. If we need to have AA3, we can have AA3, but I want to understand how this will differ from AA2 and what we can do in order to prevent us from having to do AA4.
The Arbitration Committee agrees to open a case with the name Armenia-Azerbaijan 3. The parties, drafting arb(s), timetable, and structure will be communicated to the clerks following this motion passing (see ArbCom procedures).
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
I'm requesting that my t-ban be amended to allow me to edit main space only, concerning Gender & Sexuality related pages. I make this request, so that I don't erroneously edit a page that may have any connection to the gender/sex topic. For example: If I were to fix a spelling error (nothing to do with gender/sex) on the Nicola Sturgeon page? I wouldn't want an editor (or editors) complaining, because Sturgeon is connected to the Bryson case. PS - At the very least give me clarification, so I won't have to check nearly every page (from top to bottom) before editing, to make sure there's zero connection to the topic-in-question, if it's decided not to remove my t-ban from main space. GoodDay ( talk) 21:02, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
Yes, I will make an effort in 'toning down' edit summaries. That being said, I will be avoiding the gender/sex area of pages, even if my proposed amendment is passed. GoodDay ( talk) 22:02, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
@ Izno: where would I make such an amendment request? I'm still not fully up to speed on the recent changes from DS to CT. GoodDay ( talk) 22:05, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
Izno, I'm asking that my t-ban be amended so that I'm restricted only from the talkpages/discussions in the Gen/Sex area. At the moment, (I assume) I can't edit the pages (for example) Jordan Peterson or Justin Trudeau 'at all', because they're directly or indirectly connected to the Gen/Sex topic area. If Trudeau was to announce his pending resignation? I wouldn't know if I could edit his page concerning his resignation (assuming it had nothing to do with Gen/Sex), because he brought up the preference of using "people kind" in the past. GoodDay ( talk) 22:30, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
I can't compel arbitrators to amend my t-ban. Amending it or not, is entirely Arbcom's choice. I'm merely asking that it be made slightly easier for me, when editing pages. I'm certain that we're all in agreement that my t-ban is a preventative measure & so I'm trying to persuade arbitrators that there's no longer a need to t-ban me from main space, concerning the Gen/Sex topic area. GoodDay ( talk) 22:37, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
@ Barkeep49: may I transfer this request as is (no alterations), over to WP:AE? GoodDay ( talk) 22:44, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
@ Sideswipe9th: I just would feel (figuratively) safer & less stressed, if I didn't have to check over every article I edited. At the moment, I avoid (for example) editing bios like Sturgeon, Peterson, Rowlings (etc) as I already know they're connected to the Gen/Sex topic area, be it pre-tban participation 'or' Youtube observation. However, not 'every' bio page is so well known to be connected to that topic area. GoodDay ( talk) 22:57, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
Per Barkeep's advice. I'm requesting this amendment request be withdrawn. I'll make the request at WP:AE. GoodDay ( talk) 22:59, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
The two relevant AE requests for this are the initial TBAN and the January 2023 appeal. Not withstanding the point made by Izno on the review standards, I'd repeat what I said in January in that I would be open to being convinced that a "everything but the article space" TBAN could work, pending some assurances on edit summaries that were written in the same style as what lead to his TBAN (examples [36], [37]). Sideswipe9th ( talk) 21:34, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
This seems an absurd request to me. GoodDay seems to be asking for permission to edit articles without taking the time to read them first.
action is no longer reasonably necessary to prevent damage or disruption. ARCA cannot consider this. Barkeep49 ( talk) 22:40, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Initiated by Anythingyouwant at 10:45, 23 February 2023 (UTC)
Rationale for Lifting Topic Ban (about 980 words)….
Over eleven years ago, I was topic-banned from abortion articles. [39] I have faithfully complied with that topic-ban, but it recently slipped my mind; no one objected to my recent edit which did not actually remove or change any material, but rather was part of a series of edits trimming redundant material on a variety of subjects in that BLP. Before I make any more slip-ups, I would like to request the topic-ban be lifted.
I have no plans to edit abortion articles again, but in case I do, I promise to comply with Wikipedia policies and guidelines just as I’ve complied with the topic-ban (excepting the recent slip-up). Also, if I make any policy edits based upon my experience at abortion-related articles, I PROMISE to never cite those policy edits at abortion-related articles, regardless of whether other editors have approved my policy edits, or whether the policy edits merely make explicit what is already implicit. Also, I PROMISE to carefully make sure that when I quote material, I will check the most recent version of that source. These promises would have prevented the situations that got me in hot water.
Even if ArbCom was 100% correct back then, the promises I’ve made above should prevent this from becoming a lifetime topic-ban. But the truth is that ArbCom was not 100% correct. I will now explain why.
ArbCom cited two specific instances of my editing in 2011: (1) allegedly manipulating sources to present a POV contra sourcing guidelines; and (2), allegedly manipulating policy pages to further a point in a dispute.
Regarding allegation (1), it was imperfect both procedurally and substantively. Procedurally, I objected that “ MastCell is flagrantly violating the 500-word limitation on evidence… If there is additional evidence, it can be presented by the thousands of editors who have not yet hit 500 words.” [40] The evidence against me relied upon by ArbCom as to allegation (1) was all in excess of those allowed word limits. [41] I assumed that ArbCom would not rely upon evidence presented in violation of a rule that I and other editors were required to follow, and which protects editors from each other.
As to the substance of allegation (1), I accurately quoted a definition from the 1979 edition of Black’s Law Dictionary that had been a gift to me, and I indicated in my edit the year of that edition; I was aware there had been later editions of that dictionary, but mistakenly assumed that the later editions were directed at adding further words or adding further definitions. That was my mistake, I should have looked at --- and quoted --- the most recent edition, but I was not aware that the newest edition was any different in this respect than the 1979 edition; it was not intentional, and the footnote I gave was accurate. Others made mistakes with Black’s Law Dictionary as well, they thanked me for correcting them, and I did not consider dragging them to ArbCom to be topic-banned. Contrary to MastCell’s accusation, I fully supported and did not object to using the updated definition from Black’s: ”An editor has updated the info to 2009, which of course is fine”. MastCell told ArbCom “AYW now objects to quoting Black's” but that’s wrong, I kept saying we should use Black’s: “it seems like Black's is enough for now”. MastCell instead took a single sentence fragment of mine out of context: I said, “Anyway, putting aside Black's, it seems crystal clear from the Oxford English Dictionary that….” Obviously, I was not remotely suggesting that our Wikipedia article should put Black’s aside; rather, I was digressing at the talk page to talking about another dictionary too. [42]
Regarding allegation (2), the pertinent policy says, “Editing a policy to support your own argument in an active discussion may be seen as gaming the system, especially if you do not disclose your involvement in the argument when making the edits.” See WP:PGBOLD. My policy edit conformed to this rule about bold policy edits: I forthrightly disclosed in my edit summary that the policy edit arose from an article I had been editing that day. Additionally, I edited the policy not because I wanted it to support my own argument at an article, but rather because it seemed helpful to editors everywhere at Wikipedia to make explicit what was already implicit in the policy. From day one I have explained that it was a policy clarification rather than a policy change, and ArbCom has never denied it. Even if it had been a substantive policy change, it was a reasonable one, not made for future use at any particular article. I did mention it at that same abortion article weeks later, when the issue came up again, but I doubt it was the same “active discussion” within the meaning of WP:PGBOLD and ArbCom never addressed this. Also, before I cited the clarified policy at the abortion talk page, another editor had already reviewed the policy clarification and made edits that he thought were sufficient. [43] I was ultimately unable to make the policy clarification because, for example, another editor felt it was already implicit in the policy, i.e. “already adequately covered in the first bullet point of the NOCON section.” [44] [45]
This topic-ban has been used to help justify other unrelated actions against me, and conversely they may be used to extend this one. All I ask is that people please read the promises I have made above, and if that is insufficient then review the facts of this case described above. If you must consider other unrelated cases, the most recent one was removal last summer of a 4-year TBAN (my two offenses were criticism of another editor at my user talk which I deleted prior to the TBAN, and also enforcement of BLP policy instead of ignoring all rules). Incidentally, I think that I filed a previous appeal in this case several years ago. Anythingyouwant ( talk) 11:26, 23 February 2023 (UTC)
“I didn't do a search in Google scholar or anywhere else for ‘termination of pregnancy destruction’ or anything like that. I don't know why you think I did….”That was no lie. You quote MastCell as then explaining to me that the URL for one of the dictionaries I inserted into a note (on both 11 Oct and again on 12 Oct) included that phrase in its URL, but you inexplicably delete my response to MastCell of 13 Oct at 04:26:
"The phrase 'termination of a pregnancy with destruction' is an exact quote from the source, and it should be extremely obvious that I already knew what the source said. I was not using that [phrase] to search for sources, but rather to go back to that particular source to get more info about it. Regarding setting up a set of sources that support my point of view or my proposed wording, that assertion is false. I simply want this Wikipedia article to recognize the minority view in the medical community. Since our Note already had several sources reflecting the minority view, and since our lead continued to ignore and deny that minority view, I added more refs to the Note reflecting the minority view. I was not seeking a lead that parrots the minority view, only a lead that does not flatly deny the minority view.Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:26, 13 October 2011 (UTC)"In other words, I had already found the source in question (American Heritage Medical Dictionary, c. 2008), and was merely using a phrase from that source (that I had written down) to return to that same source. It was not a search term because I was not looking for search results, I was only seeking to return to a source that I had already found. Thus, none of the other three sources that I used on Oct 11 and Oct 12 (in order to expand the already-enormous note at the end of the lead sentence) had that phrase in their URLs. Moreover, those reputable books did not reflect my POV, they reflected a significant minority POV that should have been recognized in the lead sentence by merely including the word "typically" or "usually" or "often" in the lead sentence (I was not alone in making that argument), as explained in the answer to MastCell that you carefully omitted. After I added a few sources to the Note (on 12 Oct), 6 of the 8 listed "other medical dictionaries" then described the minority view, whereas before my edit 3 of 5 had done so. The main reason I added three more was to counteract the imbalance in the lead sentence, which gave no hint that a minority view even existed. If the lead sentence had been corrected (by merely including the word "typically" or "usually" or "often"), then I had no objection to trimming the Note, which in any event was hugely excessive in size, quoting 24 (yes, two dozen) definitions of abortion. Anythingyouwant ( talk) 06:29, 4 March 2023 (UTC)
The substance of this appeal demonstrates that Anythingyouwant has learned nothing and will continue to cause the same problems if unbanned. Amazingly, the Arbs recognize this but are still considering some form of an unban—which would be grossly irresponsible if not outright administrative malpractice.
I've been here nearly two decades and I have never encountered an editor who has caused more sustained damage to the project than Anythingyouwant. There has never, to my knowledge, been an editor who demonstrated more comprehensively that he's incapable of editing neutrally or engaging honestly with his fellow editors in a topic area.
I know of two outstanding, highly productive editors (one an admin) who quit Wikipedia specifically because of the frustration of dealing with his unchecked tendetiousness in the abortion topic area (and a third who left in part, but not solely, for that reason). Those editors haven't been replaced—they're just gone, a major loss for the project. You can expect more such losses if he's allowed back.
Anythingyouwant's removal from the topic area was followed by an immediate, dramatic, and sustained improvement in the editing environment which continues to this day. The abortion topic area remains surprisingly orderly despite recent events. The Abortion case was arguably one of ArbCom's most successful interventions.
The passage of time alone has never been, and should never be, sufficient by itself to lift a sanction. There has to be some evidence that things will be different this time around. Anythingyouwant refuses to admit any issues on his part and relitigates the case with the same misrepresentations he pushed 10 years ago. To say I'm disappointed that ArbCom is considering this appeal would be a gross understatement. It's incredibly disrepectful to people who have been victims of Anythingyouwant's tendentiousness, or even those who simply want to edit constructively in the topic area. MastCell Talk 18:49, 28 February 2023 (UTC)
I'd recommend against removing the topic ban. First, a battleground attitude permeates this request. A big chunk of the request is re-litigating how the previous decisions were unfair. I'd have considered the request more convincing if the last 5 paragraphs of the initial appeal had been completely left off. Second, I note it morphed (in a singles sentence) from "I have no plans to edit abortion articles again" to "but in case I do...", and then lists how they will edit abortion-related articles. So the first sentence can be roughly translated as "I plan to edit abortion-related articles again". Third, it seems likely they will bring this battleground approach with them when they re-enter the area, subjecting other editors to a more difficult collaboration environment. We should be imposing more topic bans on editors who can't seem to prevent themselves from taking a battleground approach, not removing them. Keep the topic ban, and make clear that once every 20,000 article edits, we'll be understanding if they accidentally violate it. -- Floquenbeam ( talk) 17:32, 23 February 2023 (UTC)
As one of the drafting arbs in that decision, I would like to support this. Goodness knows 11 years is a huge amount of time, and I would expect that all of us have grown and developed since then. Still, I agree with Floquenbeam's point on how the request is worded, and thus cannot support. Jclemens ( talk) 08:11, 26 February 2023 (UTC)
@
Anythingyouwant: IMO it's difficult to argue "manipulated sources to present a POV contra sourcing guidelines
" <snipped> "hence manipulating policy pages to further a point in a dispute.
" was not a finding of dishonesty. Yes you disagree with the conclusions of that case, but an editor should not need to provide any more evidence for something which was already a well established fact. From what I can tell, no one is particularly in agreement with you that you proved anything although it is true there's also an aspect of 'not interested in considering this'. But even with that in mind, your continually insistence that your proved anything even after the general response has been, 'no you didn't' IMO adds to the concerns you will not be able to edit productively in the area. If even now over 10 years later you continue to insist your editing was not highly problematic, and still cannot take on board the feedback that it was, why should we be believe you won't return to a similar pattern of editing? Perhaps you won't repeat the specific mistakes you made last time since you have been told these were wrong even if you cannot understand why, but can be sure you won't do something else equally or even more problematic which isn't quite the same as what you now understand you should not do? The fact you've been able to edit without much problem in other areas is great, but I would not have confidence this will hold over into an area where you insist your editing was acceptable when it was not.
Nil Einne (
talk) 11:50, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
I recognize that this editor's appeal isn't structured in the way we usually want them to be, but I see that multiple Arbitrators have made a note of the legalistic tactic being valid if unusual. I also remember what a nightmare the Abortion topic area was at the time, but I make no statement on whether the initial ban was right or wrong as my memory isn't that good and the evidence seems inconclusive. What I will say is that it seems like Anythingyouwant has made a solid effort to comply with his ban for over a decade, and been far more successful than other bans that the Committee has ended. While it seems that the proposal to lift the ban is leaning towards failing, I do believe that an alternate motion to set up a probation should be considered if it does fail. I will also note that it only takes one administrator to reinstitute the topic ban under WP:CTOP, and as far as I'm aware the topic area has settled in recent years so I think it could be handled. The Wordsmith Talk to me 02:20, 4 March 2023 (UTC)
Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should address why or why not the Committee should accept the amendment request or provide additional information.
because [you] dare to doubt whether the ban should have been imposed in the first place- which not for nothing I think was correctly imposed on you. It's because the way you went about disagreeing with that ban now doesn't inspire confidence in me that that you could negotiate the types of situations that got you in trouble in the past today. Barkeep49 ( talk) 20:52, 25 February 2023 (UTC)
I might not do much during (and after) that [probationary] perioddoesn't inspire a ton of confidence in me that the probation would be useful. — Wug· a·po·des 22:25, 25 February 2023 (UTC)
I make no apologies for presenting it, and would do the same again in any future request to lift this topic ban, then I am only more certain that your topic ban should remain in place because even constructive criticism seems to be lost on you.But let's put that aside for a second and just try and understand the substance of your appeal. It's painfully obvious you're trying to have it both ways, and once we pin it down it should be obvious why the opposition doesn't care to relitigate 10-year-old facts already decided. Your primary argument is that we can trust you to not cause harm in the topic area you have been banned from. If we do not trust you or your promises---that is, if we believe there is a substantial risk you would cause harm---then we ought to find that the original TBAN was placed in error based on a re-review of previous findings of fact. So here's the critical flaw in your argument: if I find you so cantankerous and untrustworthy that I'm not willing to lift your TBAN, then why on earth would I want to let you run amok based on a technicality?But let's humor you and actually dig in to the FoF you seem to think was in error. The FoF reads, in its entirety:
You indisputably were the subject of a previous arbitration decision, and you were were restricted in 2007 because of your disruption in the topic area. So you clearly weren't a squeaky clean editor here; what's the argument "yeah, I deserved the restriction the first time, but the second time was an injustice that should have never happened". That's a hard sell, but let's keep going. You point out 3 concerns with the FoF that I can tell. First is that MastCell had too many words in his section; honestly, I don't care who broke word limits 12 years ago and it's a horrible reason to overturn a TBAN. If you're being disruptive, you'll get sanctioned; we're not a court and you're not going to get off because someone said too many words a decade ago. Second you contend that you didn't manipulate sources to POV push and the FoF is wrong in that regard. Having read the whole discussion I don't think it paints you in the positive light you may want. Let's highlight part of that discussion:7) Anythingyouwant, under his previous username Ferrylodge, has been previously sanctioned by the Arbitration Committee in November 2007 for his involvement in Abortion-related disputes. The basis for this included disruptive editing at pregnancy and abortion related articles. [46] [47] He has manipulated sources to present a POV contra sourcing guidelines. [48] He has edited the page on consensus on July 10 [49], giving the reason for an article he edited that day (presumably abortion which was the only contentious one [50], and then referred to it-as-policy 20 days later, hence manipulating policy pages to further a point in a dispute. [51] The policy change was removed by KillerChihuahua. [52]
[...]I've decided to go ahead in a few minutes and insert some medical dictionary sources. Anythingyouwant (talk) 21:47, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
Done. Now 6 of the 8 listed "other medical dictionaries" allow for abortion after viability, unlike our lead. Anythingyouwant (talk) 22:27, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
Please answer me this: Are there are dictionaries that you looked up that you did not add? If so, why not? Also, is there any particular reason you are doing a google scholar search for "termination of pregnancy destruction" instead of doing a more systematic listing of, say, all Credo Reference medical dictionaries? NW (Talk) 02:12, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
I didn't do a search in Google scholar or anywhere else for "termination of pregnancy destruction" or anything like that. I don't know why you think I did. WP:NPOV instructs us to proportionately cover what significant reliable sources say. My purpose in adding further medical dictionary definitions was to point out that a significant minority of them do not deny there's such a thing as abortion after viability; I was not attempting to confirm that a majority do deny that, which has already been established here. So the sources I picked out were picked out for this reason.Anythingyouwant (talk) 03:09, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
Er... the URL you added here was clearly obtained by searching for the phrase "termination of a pregnancy with destruction". And why set up a situation where "6 of 8 listed sources" (i.e., a majority) support your wording, when you know that it's a minority view? How is that "proportionate"? MastCell Talk 03:58, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
[...]BTW, NuclearWarfare, why did you include tons of dictionaries in your Note, including a dictionary of "cultural literacy" and a dictionary of philosophy, but not a single legal dictionary? Any objection if I include one? Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:45, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
Is there some reason why you chose the 1979 edition of Black's Law Dictionary to cite here? It looks like the most recent edition of Black's was published in 2009 - why not use the definition from the current edition, rather than one from 30+ years ago? Are they different (I don't have immediate access)? MastCell Talk 16:57, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
Obviously, I had access to the 1979 edition and not the 2009 edition (I own the former and not the latter). An editor has updated the info to 2009, which of course is fine. Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:53, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
Proposed:
The indefinite topic ban of Anythingyouwant ( talk · contribs) from abortion-related pages is lifted.
For this motion there are 14 active arbitrators. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 8 support or oppose votes are a majority.