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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 EvergreenFir at 02:09, 14 February 2015 (UTC)
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
Notification of other potentially interested users
There is apparent disagreement among users and admins on the interpretation of WP:BLPTALK. This stems from the removal of a link on Talk:Gamergate controversy by NorthBySouthBaranof that was originally added by Retartist. Because NorthBySouthBaranof is topic banned from Gamergate, this removal resulted in an Enforcement Request against NorthBySouthBaranof that was closed by HJ Mitchell with no action per WP:BANEX. The basis for the removal was WP:BLP because the link contained very problematic content, the nature of which can be seen in the enforcement request. There was also an Enforcement Request against Retartist for posting the link that was closed by HJ Mitchell with a topic ban. As a result of this enforcement request, the link and other links were REVDELed by East718 per WP:BLP and REVDEL guidelines.
As a direct result of these enforcement requests, a discussion on BLP's talk page (link to specific section) was opened by Ryk72 not named as party due to max of 7 parties, but will be informed of this ARBCOM regarding the interpretation of WP:BLPTALK.
Current wording of BLPTALK for reference
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BLPTALK currently says
References
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Despite the actions of the admins HJ Mitchell and East718, users DHeyward and EncyclopediaBob expressed in my understanding; please correct me if I'm mistaken strong disagreement with the use of BANEX in this manner, suggesting that any links should be allowed to be posted on article talk pages if they are being discussed. I expressed the belief that BLPTALK need tweaking and that not all links are allowed to be posted on non-article spaces (e.g., links from Stormfront should never be posted as they violate BLP policies).
Exact wording of my interpretation and suggested tweak for reference
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BLPTALK needs tweaking. The link that prompted this on GG was not just "contentious", it was libel. BLPTALK should reflect that discussion of RS or at least something that approaches RS (which is also key as the link from GG was not RS) is fine. If, for example, HuffPo has an article with some claims about a politician committing fraud, then the talk page is the right venue to discuss that article. However, not all links are covered by BLPTALK, or shouldn't be. Links to Stormfront would never be acceptable. Links that contain libel or highly disparaging content should never be allowed. Folks seem to be misunderstanding "contentious material" and misrepresenting the example in BLP. Let's clarify it so that if (1) matches the rest of the BLP policy's intent and (2) matches how BLP is being enforced. |
Interpretations of this portion of the BLP policy are clearly divergent. Admins and REVDELers appear to interpret the language differently than some experienced user. Specifically, the current wording of BLPTALK does not explicitly state if some links that would be excluded from articles as BLP violations are also excluded from non-article space. Moreover, it's unclear if BANEX covers the removal of links from non-article spaces. I request that the ARBCOM clarify this issue as part of the BLP decision for the sake of users and admins.
Edit: In response to HJ Mitchell, I wish to be clear that I 100% agree with his and other admins' assessments of the situation and reading of the BLP policy. However, BLPTALK is still rather ambiguous and given the push back from other users I feel that ARBCOM weighing in on this issue and/or suggesting clarified wording of BLPTALK is needed. I chose this venue because of the past ruling and felt an RfC would not be the appropriate way to address this.
I think it's fairly apparent what the letter and spirit of the policy are intended to do — prevent the encyclopedia from being used as a weapon of character assassination or a tool of online trolls. To that end, policy demands that we treat all matters relating to living people with the utmost sensitivity and care. A hopelessly-unreliable source (such as, for instance, a wholly-anonymous webpage, a personal blog or a series of putative screenshots) that contains or is intended to present highly-negative claims, allegations or inferences about living people has no business anywhere on the encyclopedia. It cannot possibly aid the writing of the encyclopedia in any way, because it is categorically forbidden from use in any way. Anything which even stems from it is effectively
fruit of the poison tree. Suggesting, as one editor did, that an inflammatory, anonymous screed full of unsupported attacks, disproven allegations and outright lies about living people (the so-called "dossier") is good background reading (for editors)
evinces a clear and present misunderstanding of
what Wikipedia is about. This sense is longstanding and core to our policy's ultimate goal: ensuring that what the encyclopedia publishes about living people is well-supported, fair, sensitively-written and unsensational — all stemming from the use of highly-reliable sources and the avoidance of slander, gossip, whisper campaigns and rumormongering.
NorthBySouthBaranof (
talk) 05:33, 14 February 2015 (UTC)
I have little to add here. I closed two AE requests where the result was astoundingly obvious (and have been taking flak for it on my talk page since). Posting links to obviously inappropriate material, especially where the source couldn't possibly be considered a reliable source for Wikipedia's purposes is, at best, grossly negligent. I note that Retartist says they did it in good faith and I have no reason to doubt their word, but that's not the sort of conduct we need in difficult topic areas.
I don't see anything to clarify. Four admins (@ Gamaliel, East718, and Timotheus Canens: and I) were in agreement that the material in question was a BLP violation. I asked whether this was an isolated incident or a pattern of mis(conduct|judgement) and was presented with evidence of the latter. It would have taken something miraculous for that thread or the one against NBSB to have been closed any other way.
That will probably be the extent of my comments here unless somebody asks me a direct question. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 02:28, 14 February 2015 (UTC)
The enforcement request for BANEX is a red herring. The issue is whether links, without any statements about the link content (i.e. "Please look here") are BLP violations in and of themselves on a talk page - WP:BLPTALK. No one is repeating the claims on-wiki. There is a very obtuse view that a link can, by itself, be a BLP violation. That's nonsense. We have much stricter policies regarding links in articles, but links provided for discussion can be ignored, or archived without affecting the encyclopedia. There is more disruption by deleting links on talk pages than by ignoring them. Revdel's are even more asinine. The reality is that a talk page discussion that says "Does this link have anything we can use [wwww.example.com]?" is not the same as saying "This link says Person X did Y, can we use it [wwww.example.com]?". The latter should be redacted if the claims are BLP violations, the former should be ignored or commented on but it need not be removed. We can't even control secondary content in sources in articles, so why stifle discussion (or worse, punish editors for trying to start a discussion? If we source NY Times in an article and they decide to have an inline link that leads to characterizations that WP would not publish (i.e. say a criminal charge), that doesn't forever invalidate the source. Papers like the guardian have second level links that are "NAtional Inquire"ish type stories on celebrities.
We don't regulate offsite content or links that are twice removed from articles. This is where talk page links are. No one is reading WP and following the link to validate a claim made on WP. If simply following links were bad, without claims, we would need to guard against the side bar content of sites like The Daily Mail that have a number of "Don't miss" articles. The fact is, if he claim isn't made on WP, the link is immaterial and certainly not a BLP violation. This is longstanding policy to allow for collegial discussion of subjects without fear. That should continue. Those that only delete links on talk pages are being disruptive, not collaborative. Ignore it per WP:BEANS. WP is not responsible for what others say offsite nor is a link any kind of affirmation. We've learned this with links to articles about the ArbCom committee itself. The stories were false. Portraying them as true on WP is problematic. Linking to them without judgement is not. Witch-hunting for those that dared add the link is disruptive.
The sole exception is "outing" and the simple rule of thumb is if the Oversight committee is not going to remove it, it's not a policy violation and it should be left alone. -- DHeyward ( talk) 03:01, 14 February 2015 (UTC)
Just a quick clarification and summary: I have no position on WP: BANEX and whether NBSB's actions complied. I'm unfamiliar with the specifics of that policy. My disagreement with EvergreenFir (and others) seems to be in the application of BLP policy, whether on talk pages under WP:BLPTALK or in article space under WP:BLP. As I understand it, non-BLP-compliant sources may not be used to source BLP material. As it's been applied by a number of admins, non-BLP-compliant sources may not be used to source any material, even non-BLP material, and the linking of such sources is sanctionable. I joined the discussion on WP:BLPTALK in an attempt to bridge the significant gulf between my reading of the policy and its current application. —EncyclopediaBob (talk) 02:50, 14 February 2015 (UTC)
All i want to say is that i posted the links in good faith and was stupid in posting so many links without checking each one -- RetΔrtist ( разговор) 02:14, 14 February 2015 (UTC)
I am working on a statement, which not only addresses all of the principle & policy aspects, but is also below the 500 word limit; in the meantime...
Thanks to:
Clarification:
The discussion initiated at
WT:BLP stemmed from my noticing a number of instances of removal, reversion, and revdeletion of links to sources containing contentious material from article talk pages, citing WP:BLP
. It is not based on one set of deletions claiming
WP:BLP. See:
[2]
I am not concerned by any one instance of this type of removal, reversion or deletion nor by the editors involved. I am concerned by the pattern, and the implications on consensus building if it is to become an accepted practice. I ask those commenting and the Arbitrators to focus on the relevant principles, policies & guidelines. See: WP:5P, WP:CON, WP:BLP (incl. BLPTALK), WP:TPG (incl. WP:TPO) & WP:CRYBLP.
Statement: (placeholder)
The concern is that this type of invocation of WP:BLP is being used to suppress the normal working of the Wikipedia Project; preventing discussion of sources, and improvement of the encyclopedia through consensus. Editors are leveraging WP:BLP to remove good faith links to potential sources (and good faith, sourced, discussion of existing sources). Editors should be able to point (link) to a source, and discuss it's appropriateness without fear of sanction. If a source is not reliable, or not usable for any other reason, that should be decided by consensus, which requires that the source be identifiable (linked) for discussion.
In summary:
W.r.t ArbCom action on this request, I would ask no more than the committee affirm that WP:BLPREMOVE, as it applies to non- mainspace pages, covers only contentious material, not links to external websites (where the contents are not repeated on Wikipedia).
Thanks again for your consideration of this matter. - Ryk72 'c.s.n.s.' 14:08, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
The attention of the Arbitration Committee is drawn to the circumstance that, last night, this page was widely extolled on Twitter by a variety of anonymous accounts bearing GamerGate regalia and celebrating the expected further sanctioning of User:NorthBySouthBaranof which is and has long been their stated goal and plan. There, @theWTFMagazine links to an 8chan thread on that distinguished contributor which begins:
It apparently began twelve hours ago, attracting some 50 posts overnight.
You will be pleased to know that @PalinFreeborn is cheering you on, @FortunateCat is calling on your vigor, @ED_Updates -- doubtless that same people who were so very eager for you to take action against Ryulong that they needed to tell you all about his religious background (avaricious Jew!) and sex life -- is asking User:Jimbo to stiffen your resolve. All are eager to see that you continue steadily on your course and remain firm in your intention.
Look at the progress you have made! Yesterday, a vigorous and lengthy debate on the Talk page has proceeded through an additional 8,000 words of discussion devoted to whether WP:RS shall be disregarded for GamerGate because the entire press is biased against #GamerGate, 2,500 words revisiting the much-discussed question of whether actions associated with the GamerGate hashtag may be excluded because someone says "they were not really GamerGate supporters" and whether GamerGate is a "movement". One of the GamerGate victims had a 550 word libel revdel'd again; as you know, this is hardly a rare occurrence.
You could (and should) have stopped this; instead, you have encouraged it.
I concur with User:NorthBySouthBaranof: GamerGate has handed every little PR shop a textbook on how to pervert Wikipedia. ArbCom has written the textbook for destroying Wikipedia from within.
This flagrant effort to pervert Wikipedia's disciplinary mechanism is not likely to arouse your notice or evoke your concern. The standard discussed below -- that some BLP-violating links are OK on talk pages, some are not, and that the encyclopedia's defender should be less vehement in upholding its rules -- is risible. After all, the matter is a small content dispute: some editors want to use Wikipedia to spread claims appearing in unreliable sources that specific women in software development are sluts and whores. Others think this is clearly prohibited by policy. ArbCom in its majesty, it seems, believes that Wikipedia will be served well by exhaustively and repeatedly discussing the matter on talk pages, on drama boards, and here.
After all, what's the harm? Just a content dispute!
Wikipedia talk pages are a weapon against GamerGates’s victims. Those who object to this continuing outrage are necessarily and inconveniently guilty of battleground behavior and must be driven from Wikipedia, leaving the way clear for the trolls.
Meanwhile, the world awaits a sign of your care for the editors who served this project, or for its victims. http://www.markbernstein.org/Feb15/Press.html MarkBernstein ( talk) 15:40, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
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Is there a reason we didn't topic ban retartist for three months and block them for 24 hours? Protonk ( talk) 18:36, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
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If you are not going to clarify the issue in regards to WP:BLPTALK violations, can you at least explain why it is allowed to be one-sidedly used as some sort of hammer to punish ideological opponents?
There seem to be constant revdels and topic-bans for what seems to be some of the most innocuous thing like posting a link to any articles or trying to discuss something on talk pages regarding certain people (Anita Sarkeesian, Zoe Quinn for instance), but there seems to be a double standard when this applies to other living persons, for instance this personal opinion article from Bustle: [4] accusing someone of criminal behavior of the most vile kind and calling on the Obama administration to arrest and prosecute them has not been interpreted as a BLP violations against living persons.
You also have User:MarkBernstein who has previously been blocked due to statements he made, but was apparently allowed back and is blatantly spreading misinformation about the ArbCom case even in his statement on this very page and has called other editors "rape apologists" on the site he identified as his own [5] [6] and called for sanctions against them before [7] and yet he is still somehow allowed to offer his input, while others are topic-banned or blocked for much less? Is there some sort of stipulation that some people or groups of people deserve protection against any kind of violations of these policies, while other living persons or groups of people don't enjoy the same privileges and can be called anything one wishes without recourse or penalties? |
62.157.60.27 ( talk) 19:09, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
I understand why EvergreenFir brought this here, but the arbitrators have said what needs to be said, and nothing else useful is going to come out of this thread, whether it is closed promptly or a week from now. I suggest the former. Newyorkbrad ( talk) 00:34, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
BLP is for the most part a policy about claims, not about sources. I've brought this up before at the noticeboard Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard/Archive213#Contentious_BLP_content_in_sources_that_are_cited_for_other_reasons. I think everyone should be advised to wait for consensus before redacting links - excepting where the content is illegal or in some way liable to cause imminent harm. Rhoark ( talk) 22:13, 16 February 2015 (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 case request or provide additional information.
While its application needs to be very strict and proactive in mainspace, which is where most people end up looking and where an allegation may sound like it's made in Wikipedia's voice, its application on talk pages and on WP:BLPN needs to be less strict. The policy indirectly acknowledges this, when it says [w]hen material about living persons has been deleted on good-faith BLP objections, any editor wishing to add, restore, or undelete it must ensure it complies with Wikipedia's content policies. If it is to be restored without significant change, consensus must be obtained first. Since to restore what someone else has flagged as a BLP violation you need a consensus, it follow that it is permissible to discuss in good faith possible BLP violations in talk space and on the appropriate noticeboard; after the discussion is over, if it's determined that the material was indeed a violation, then the discussion may be hatted or purged of the offending material, but, again, there needs to be a place where such a discussion can be had without hindrance.
Removal of material without discussion from talk pages or from the relevant noticeboard should be reserved for cases of egregious and uncontroversial BLP violations. This appears to have been one such case. That said, NBSB, you were right on the merits, but your approach still leaves much to be desired. Please move on. Salvio Let's talk about it! 11:13, 14 February 2015 (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 MrX at 03:29, 13 February 2015 (UTC)
(Note: The following was moved from Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#Arzel on Timotheus Canens' suggestion.)
Arzel has a long, well-documented history of abusive and disruptive personal comments. Around seven months ago, Arcom gave a clear warning to Arzel that "continuing to personalize or politicize content disputes is disruptive to the project, and continuing behavior of this nature may lead to further sanctions, up to and including a ban from the project." Unfortunately it has had little sustained effect. Arzel spends a great deal of his Wikipedia time reverting other editor's contributions, complaining about liberal bias, and making insulting claims about editors' intentions. He gravitates to controversial political and news agency articles, but does very little to collaborate with other editors to actually try to improve the articles.
There are other milder examples from the past few months. I don't think there is any point filling the page with addition diffs, but will do so if it helps. Thank you.- Mr X 03:29, 13 February 2015 (UTC)
1. The SLPC makes a really questionable attack on Ben Carson, which was quickly added by MrX when it was noticed. When retracted (which received a lot of attention) we are rewarded with laughs.
2. This is news, yet was added and re-added almost as it happened. and then complained that a notable fact was way POVish.
3. Truthful, and they did lose quite a bit of respect with this. It would have been nice if MrX had added Carson's response originally.
4. Section was title "Long been accused of left-wing bias" and I didn't start it, so I don't know how providing some examples politicized an already politicized section.
5. Virinditas put forth his theories about User:Marteau, I told him to stop.
6 and 7. Maybe a little rough, but MrX's previous comment was not much different. Heat of the moment.
8. You really need to read the entire section to see how a couple of editors apparently really were upset with Emerson while a few of us were trying to maintain BLP standards.
9. Related to Emerson, where it appears that the same story was being pushed into multiple articles as it was happening without any evidence of long lasting notability The article is basically a list of every beef that everyone has with FNC, don't really see how that fits in with WP's purpose.
10. In response to this edit. JamesMLane added it back twice with two other editors removing. Crooks and Liars is not a reliable source for a BLP.
Sections in which I discussed which were called politicizing were politicized before I became involved. My two statements to MrX were probably a little rough for which I apologize, I just wish editors would not use WP to score political points (not specific to MrX), which oftens appears to be the case. Note: I didn't have a chance to go back to MrX's page and didn't see that "warning" until just now.
Just want to point out that the so called warning was not on my talk page and that I didn't know it existed until this complaint.
I retain my dislike of "dramaboards." I do not see the evidence educed as proof of much at all. I suggest Arzel be told not to make future attacks on editors and that he be told to remove any which other editors tell him could be so considered. A decent acceptance of conflict is essential to reach compromise, while removing opponents will result in unbalanced articles. I would rather live with opponents keeping an eye on my edits than with no opponents and the "truth" ruling all articles, especially BLPs. emended Collect ( talk) 15:38, 13 February 2015 (UTC)
"Crooks and Liars" [9] was not and is not a suitable source for any BLP. emended Collect ( talk) 15:38, 13 February 2015 (UTC)
I have made a point in my editing never to prejudge anyone on the basis of weak evidence. Collect ( talk) 15:41, 13 February 2015 (UTC)
For each of these violations there is likely a reasonable excuse or explanation, but together they and many, many others add up to a long-standing pattern of behavior. It is well established, most recently in the Gamergate case, that a pattern of negative and problematic behavior even in the defense of justice or policy is not acceptable. No one is saying adding poor sources or violating BLP is acceptable, but constantly responding to alleged incidents of such in a manner that is pointy, uncivil, and personalizes disputes is counterproductive and inappropriate. Behavior like this is the reason that political articles are a hornet's nest that many users want to avoid. It poisons the atmosphere of collaborative editing and encourages retaliatory behavior from other editors. We're long past the point that, as Collect suggests, this editor be asked nicely to refrain from such behavior. Gamaliel ( talk) 14:31, 13 February 2015 (UTC)
Anything deemed disruptive because of opposing SPLC's listing of Carson as an extremist simply isn't. It's what should be expected of editors that identify a BLP violation. It was pretty well proven that the addition was in fact erroneous and a BLP violation and editors that upheld that high standard on WP should be commended. BLP trumps everything and getting BLP right is the overriding goal. If that means an editor is uncivil or edit warring or violating a ban, BLP trumps that. Ultimately being right is the underpinning of our BLP policy and why it trumps all the other machinations of process. Processes that protect BLP violating material are to be ignored. The "ultimately correct outcome" is the objective that improves the encyclopedia. -- DHeyward ( talk) 02:30, 14 February 2015 (UTC)
Given the recent inability of the committee to make decision on this page, I suggest that you state that Arzel has engaged in sanctionable misconduct (if you feel he has; I haven't read the diffs) and then refer the matter back to AE for a determination of what exactly the sanction should be. Or even authorise AE to make a determination on whether there is sanctionable misconduct.
ArbCom is good at forcing warring parties apart in complex cases. ArbCom is much less good at handling what are essentially enforcement requests. AE on the other hand is very good at handling enforcement requests, because that's what it does. That's all it does, all day every day. We're also much better at dealing with off-topic comments and other nonsense, meaning that AE requests don't get bogged down in lengthy discussion between non-parties.
The last thing anyone needs is another thread in which thirty people spend a fortnight going round in circles. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 03:07, 14 February 2015 (UTC)
Arzel ( talk · contribs) is indefinitely prohibited from editing any page about or making any edit related to the politics of the United States, broadly construed, across all namespaces. This restriction is enforceable by any uninvolved administrator per the standard provisions. Arzel may request reconsideration of this remedy twelve months after the passing of this motion.
Enacted - -- L235 ( t / c / ping in reply) 23:37, 18 February 2015 (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 RGloucester at 23:57, 13 February 2015 (UTC)
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
I would restate what I had over at AE, but I find that not necessary as I believe most if not all of the Arbitrators here have looked at that. I will say that I was indeed forgetful regarding the proper DS procedure (it has been a minute since I performed one of those actions), and can assure you all I'll get it right the next time I feel it necessary to issue a block of this nature. The only other thing I'll state (even though I already stated this at AE) is that RGloucester himself stated at my talk page that "[Russian editor1996] was nothing but disruptive". Therefore, if he has any further questions regarding why that editor was blocked, he should consult our policies on DE. Happy Presidents Day to you all and it's good to see the system here still working. — Coffee // have a cup // beans // 21:04, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
I'll add what a bit of what I said on RGloucester's talk page:
The issue you want addressed is whether the Committee is happy with IAR being used to impose an out of process discretionary sanction. The sanction being out of process for a few reasons: it wasn't logged (which was fixed after you let them know), there was no alert and they weren't aware by other means, and discretionary sanctions can only be used for "blocks of up to one year in duration" not indefinite. The other issue here is that this block could have been placed as a normal admin action rather than as a discretionary sanction (unlike a TBAN for example). This looks to me like an admin coming back from a break and not familiarising themselves with a procedure which gives them wide ranging powers before using it, obviously that's just a guess though.
Could someone provide a single diff of why Russian editor1996 (RE96) is "plenty disruptive"? Looking at the their contributions I'm not seeing anything -- no POV pushing, no incivility, no edit warring, no posting to noticeboards -- just edits. Not perfect edits? Sure, but isn't that what we -- or at least used to -- encourage with WP:BEBOLD?
If we look at RE96's edit from a year and half ago, we see the addition of a fairly complete infobox, and comparing his additon to the current revision [10] seems to indicate no one has had much of a problem with that.
So the evidence suggests that RE96 is neither an "editor" nor anyone with any malice -- simply a "dabbler," if you will. File:Top_Wikipedians_compared_to_the_rest_of_the_community,_8_January_2014.svg shows us that dabblers have actually performed the overwhelming majority of (67%) of edits to the project. So how is blocking them without prior discussion benefiting the project? If we assume RE96 is a reasonably self-confident person without much of an agenda, why would they bother jumping through unblock hoops when they could simply spend their time somewhere else on the Internet? While I appreciate ya'll's willingness to declare the "arbcom" block an ordinary block, why not do the right thing and simply unblock RE96 until someone can explain why they should be blocked? "IAR" (or "because I felt like it") should not be considered as meeting the requirements of WP:ADMINACCT, nor a legit reason to be blocking folks.
While we're here anyway: Arbcom 2014 stated "Administrators are expected to behave respectfully and civilly in their interactions with others. This requirement is not lessened by perceived or actual shortcomings in the conduct of others. Administrators who egregiously or repeatedly act in a problematic manner, or administrators who lose the trust or confidence of the community, may be sanctioned or have their access removed."
Coffee's statements to RGloucester [11], including why do you seem have a cactus lodged up your ass? ... Jesus christ, give it a rest. Or take it to AE if you like unnecessary drama. ... Hell, not even the editor in question has complained about being blocked. Yet, you're over here advocating for this guy like it's Christmas morning. Whatever floats your boat (I assume, drama)... clearly do not meet that standard. Although quite excessively snarky, I wouldn't say they're "egregious," nor am I aware of chronic history, such that I can argue we're in the admonishment zone, but a emphatic word or two (e.g. "Knock it off") seems appropriate. NE Ent 19:59, 16 February 2015 (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 case request or provide additional information.
While there is a place for IAR in dealing with discretionary sanctions(*), to bypass the need for a warning is not it.
(*)An example being my comment here, in spite of your lack of standing to file this request, since the sanctioned editor has not appealed his restriction. Salvio Let's talk about it! 11:24, 14 February 2015 (UTC)
On 11 February 2015, Coffee ( talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) blocked an editor relying on the discretionary sanctions provisions for Eastern Europe. As a discretionary sanctions block it was out of process as the editor had not been pre-notified of discretionary sanctions for the topic. Accordingly, the prohibitions on modification do not apply and the block may be modified by any uninvolved administrator. Coffee is advised to better familiarize themselves with the discretionary sanctions provisions before using this process again.
Enacted - -- L235 ( t / c / ping in reply) 00:40, 19 February 2015 (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 GoldenRing at 04:55, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
The effect of this amendment would be to add MarkBernstein to the list of editors whose TBANs imposed under the community general sanctions are converted to arbitration-imposed TBANs under the standard topic ban.
I believe it was an oversight of the committee not to do this in the first place. The reason that it happened is that most editors presenting evidence dropped sections concerning MarkBernstein when he was handed a community-imposed topic ban (eg [14], [15]). However, there is ample evidence available of personal attacks and treating Wikipedia as a battleground to add a separate finding of fact and support a separate remedy (eg [16], [17], [18], [19], [20], [21], [22], [23], [24], [25], [26], [27], [28], [29], [30]) if the committee thinks that a more appropriate approach.
The reason this has come up now is that Gamaliel has seen fit to remove MarkBernstein's topic ban. on the basis of private email discussions with him. This seems problematic for several reasons:
you have no intent to stick to separate yourself from the topic area and you will continue to skirt the edges of it and even outright violate it. In addition, your previously stated that you had no interest in continuing to contribute to Wikipedia, and almost every edit you've made since has been in some way related to GamerGate.
The sequence of events has the appearance and effect (though I don't think the intention) of making an end-run around the arbitration case. By TBANning MarkBernstein before evidence was well-developed, waiting for the case to end and then removing the TBAN, the committee has effectively been prevented from considering evidence related to him. I think the right way to deal with this is for the committee to consider the evidence presented above and to consider making the amendments suggested.
Lastly, my apologies if this matter was considered by the committee when coming to a decision. If this is the case, I will happily withdraw the request. As it stands, I can see no indication on the workshop or PD pages that it was considered, and several indications from other editors that they considered it moot because of the indefinite topic ban. GoldenRing ( talk) 04:55, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
@ Gamaliel: To be clear, I named you as a party to this request solely as a courtesy, given your involvement, to invite exactly the sort of comment you have made. I had and have no intention that action would be taken against you regarding this and I do not intend it as an accusation of misconduct on your part. We obviously disagree in our assessment of Mark's editing, but if disagreement was misconduct then where would we be? GoldenRing ( talk) 06:48, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
@ Johnuniq: I don't think that one discussion at Gamaliel's TP, in which I made five edits (not counting the ARCA notification) rises to the level of disruptive chipping away. If the committee disagrees, I will gladly accept a TBAN; I'm not exactly in the habit of bringing these things and don't want to be. I decided to bring this to ARCA rather than AE because I don't think the request fits the pattern of AE, as it requires consideration of what happened around the case itself. GoldenRing ( talk) 07:19, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
Good grief! GoldenRing, greatly aggrieved,
Grouses at my gallant jests, those galling goads
That Gawker, Guardian, and
gazettes aplenty
All gave to Gamergate, and you. I admit:
I hold some strong opinions of Arbcom’s acts
Throughout this case. These I have expressed
Elsewhere quite clearly, and accurately I think;
Audiences, alerted, have predominately agreed.
Generous @Gamaliel patiently posits that
People who think me pernicious, perfidious,
And pretty much perfectly putrid would be
Glad to display my poor noggin on pikes
Or by preference at Kotaku In Action.
Anxiously, admins already anticipate
A trip to AE, where more words may be spent.
An admin convinced, we may head then to AN/I,
And wend back to Arbcom. Oh wondrous wiki!
O’er what? I have had some strong words
For your actions, and indeed some of you have had some for mine.
Jimbo writes that I caused all this stuff from the first,
And Gamaliel writes I am "widely unpopular"
Throughout Wikipedia. I think he means
wildly;
He might not be wrong.
But this project’s not purely a contest for praise.
Policy prefers both firmness and speed
For protecting the blameless who’re prostitutes called,
Whose sex lives are subject to endless discussion
On the project’s talk pages.
This Baranof did.
Off-wiki was Baranof smeared and belittled
Because these benighted he bravely defied.
He better deserved (and deserves) of you all.
Before I conclude, one brief issue I'd raise:
“Behavior” is common to children and beasts,
Not colleagues, and conflicting views, bringing heat,
Can better be handled with courteous care.
“Christian” names, to my ear, can sound rather familiar,
And I don’t recall that we’ve been introduced.
Adversaries adopt (in America) address
That’s more formal. I think Dr. Bernstein is fine.
I did attend Swarthmore: if perchance you’re a Friend
Or don’t like to use titles, my names, please, in full.
(Do you believe these japes should be consigned
To user space? Once read, I do not mind.)
I have already discussed at length with numerous editors my reasoning and my belief that Mark Bernstein has satisfied my concerns regarding the problematic behavior which caused me to impose the topic ban.
I don't believe there is anything problematic with the way I handled the situation. I had extensive email discussions with Mark Bernstein regarding his behavior, how it would change, and what he would do if the sanction was lifted. This is routine. It would have been impossible to have that discussion on-wiki given the heated atmosphere here and the inevitable sniping that would occur. User:HJ Mitchell has topic banned one user from discussion of Mark Bernstein because he was following him around the encyclopedia criticizing him and trying to get him sanctioned, and likely more will follow.
I disagree that this has the effect of "making an end-run around the arbitration case". Off the top of my head, I believe I indefinitely topic banned five users, and I think most of those before the case had started. At least two of those bans became indefinite Arbcom sanctions, so clearly the case provided ample time and opportunity to consider the behavior of any user sanctioned by me. It would be bad form to retroactively sanction a user well after the case was closed. The discretionary sanctions can easily be applied to any ongoing behavior problems from any user editing these articles.
I find the evidence presented here does not warrant a retroactive sanction nor a discretionary one. As initially presented to me on my user talk page, they included the correction of another editor's typo as evidence of problematic behavior and the inaccurate claim that Mark Bernstein's discussion of anti-Semetic comments about him on Twitter was an attack on other Wikipedia editors labeling them anti-Semetic.
Mark Bernstein is widely unpopular on Wikipedia due to his blog posts and the press coverage they have received, and he is even more unpopular on the less savory parts of the internet, who desperately want him sanctioned so they can add Mark Bernstein to their collection of Gamergate trophies and parade his severed head on a pike through the boards of 8Chan. I believe this particular request is sincere and made in good faith, but we can't ignore the context of the request. In this sort of atmosphere, where so many editors are utterly convinced of Mark Bernstein's perfidy and menace, otherwise well-meaning editors are likely to view even the most innocuous statements by him in the worst possible light, as is happening in this request. Gamaliel ( talk) 06:29, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
@ GoldenRing: I didn't interpret your post here as a request for action or an accusation against myself, but I do appreciate your clarification. Gamaliel ( talk) 06:58, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
I noticed the lengthy questioning of Gamaliel at his talk ( permalink) and added my thoughts, including the suggestion that any evidence to show a topic ban would be warranted should be presented at WP:AE. As GoldenRing has instead chosen to involve Arbcom, my request is that some action be taken—if new evidence supports a topic ban against MarkBernstein, it should be imposed; otherwise, GoldenRing should be topic banned because the persistent chipping-away is disruptive. Johnuniq ( talk) 06:56, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
Gamaliel was within his rights to lift the topic ban. I wasn't privy to his conversations with Mark, but in my own email conversations I found Mark to be much more reasonable than he had been made out to be. We were able to reach a gentlemen's agreement that Mark would avoid personally directed comments and I commuted his block to time served, as is my prerogative as the blocking admin. Any fresh misconduct should be brought to AE with dated diffs and a concise explanation of the problem they show.
Meanwhile, BLPs in the topic area are still subject to drive-by attacks from autoconfirmed accounts, so litigating over minor squabbles on talk pages seems to miss the point. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 14:43, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
It seems like an inordinate amount of attention is being paid to MarkBernstein's editing. As Bernstien's editing hasn't been disruptive since the TBAN has been lifted there isn't any need for Committee action. — Strongjam ( talk) 15:39, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
Good grief. There may be nothing actionable in this ARCA request, but I'd be hard pressed to see anything but bad attitude out of Mr Bernstein's current behaviour on Wikipedia with regard to GG issues, even in this very ARCA request with his mocking poetry [47]. It's probably not necessary to point this out, but this doesn't seem to be the kind of behaviour that should be expected or encouraged of Wikipedia editors. I say trout MarkBernstein, warn GoldenRing, and just forget that this request ever happened. // coldacid ( talk| contrib) 19:45, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
In response to Harry Mitchell's statement, I suggest that BLPs in this topic-area be placed on pending changes. This was done for a handful of them when I suggested it on the workshop during the case, but it sounds like it needs to be expanded. Newyorkbrad ( talk) 19:53, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
As someone who has been very critical of Mark's action in the past, I think he's improved his behavior sufficiently for a topic ban to be unnecessary for the time being. While obviously a strongly opinionated person, he is no longer making unfounded attacks on other editors, and is instead taking the much more applaudable and rap battle-esque approach of rebutting their arguments in verse. I am now firmly of the opinion that all statements to Arbcom by involved parties should be written in verse, for the sake of fostering Wikilove, dispute resolution etc. So if we could have a motion declaring that, that would be great. Bosstopher ( talk) 20:05, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
Just wanted to make the observation that looking at the sanctions log, at 2014 GG block log, not all topic bans issued were indefinite and some were just for a period of a week or a few months. Not all editors who were topic ban were included in the Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/GamerGate which clearly identified those editors whose topic bans were commuted into the standard topic ban. Liz Read! Talk! 22:21, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
But then, just today, MarkBernstein does something to deserve this final warning. How many final warnings are there? Please at least log all these as previous sanctions so at least new admins know what they are dealing with. -- DHeyward ( talk) 20:58, 19 February 2015 (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 case request or provide additional information.
Thought unadorned plain prose too bad
for use at ARCA
though haiku are starker
than sonnets or limericks. It's sad!
An inventive young man from Japan
wrote haiku-style
limericks.
Roger Davies talk 13:38, 19 February 2015 (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 Smallbones at 15:56, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
The principle seems to say that we do not have a policy on undisclosed paid editing or that ArbCom and admins cannot even consider enforcing the current policy WP:Terms of use and guideline WP:COI (1st section which repeats the relevant part of the ToU), or perhaps not even any part of the ToU.
WP:Terms of use is clearly Wikipedia policy, stating so itself (since 2009), and being categorized as such, and in a policy navigation box. Denying that this is policy, would be creating policy by fiat, and be a constitutional crisis for Wikipedia (i.e. ToU don't apply here). The principle was not needed to decide the case, so there is no need to even appear to be denying that WP:Terms of use can be considered by ArbCom.
The thread at Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Wifione/Proposed_decision#No_Wikipedia_Policy_on_Paid_Editing.3F discusses this at great length. It says everything that needs to be said IMHO. But do note that IMHO 3 arbs expressed some level of agreement or sympathy with my position in that thread. I'll inform all non-arb participants of that thread, listed above, about this request but don't really think they need to expand upon what they've already said.
Roger Davies, just a small correction, http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Policies does list the TOU as policy:
"Policies
These are all official policies of the Wikimedia Foundation.
Wikimedia wikis
These policies, in addition to the terms of use, apply to all Wikimedia wikis." (my italics)
Carrite, I just can't imagine somebody seriously writing "the community has reaffirmed again and again that there is no prohibition of paid editing per se, the WMF's unilateral tweaking of so-called "Terms of Use" notwithstanding."
The "WMF's unilateral tweaking" was the largest RFC in history [48]. 1103 users (79.4%) supported the change to the TOU and only 286 against it. That's 4 supports for every 1 against. Folks who say that there is no community support for the TOU either haven't paid attention or want to exclude a large number of the members of our community. If anyone - arbs or otherwise - want to change the outcome so that the TOU is no longer policy, the TOU describe how they can do that. It certainly hasn't been done yet. There's no requirement that another RFC has to be run so that policy can be enforced. Smallbones( smalltalk) 02:07, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
Now, does all of this mean Arbcom has to be the enforcer of All Policies Ever, Including Paid Editing, All the Time? No. But it does mean that Arbcom passed a remedy which is literally false: "[paid editing] is not prohibited by site policies." Perhaps Arbcom meant "disclosed paid editing is not prohibited", a true statement (which would be odd, in a case centered around accusations of undisclosed paid editing, but hey, it could happen); in that case, the statement needs to be clarified so that it is no longer ambiguous. It doesn't appear, looking at the Arb responses thus far, that that is the case, however. At least some Arbs appear to literally believe the Terms of Use don't apply on the English Wikipedia, which is...rather a problem. If this is what Arbcom meant, then I would hope that they would read the documentation they missed and correct their finding.
All that said, however, it looks like this clarification request is pretty likely to go nowhere, whether because the Arbs aren't familiar with local and/or global policy or just because they are reluctant to modify a finding they passed. That could be a problem going forward; it could not be. It depends on whether Arbcom actually believes this policy doesn't exist and intends to base future decisions on that, or whether it just wants us all to go away and stop talking about this finding so it can hear itself think. I'm hoping it's the latter, and I hope that once this furor dies down, Arbcom will quietly avoid handling future paid editing issues as if there were no policy governing them.
When the Terms of Use were changed last year to include a requirement for paid editors to disclose their relationship with clients, this became the English Wikipedia's policy. Since being enacted seven months ago, the various projects have had the opportunity to create alternative policies which would override the ToU. Commons has done so, but to date the community here has not agreed to an alternative. Accordingly, it is incorrect to say that the English Wikipedia does not have a policy in regard to paid editing.
The fix is an easy one - strike the principle, (as it had no particular bearing on the findings), or just strike the first sentence, which would leave us with:
The principle would then be accurate, it would not in any way change the findings, and the principle could then be easily reapplied to future cases. I'm not concerned as to whether or not the committee chooses to enforce the disclosure requirements, but this would bring the principle in line with the current situation on WP. - Bilby ( talk) 00:44, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
The most elegant solution is to strike the principle, as there is neither a related finding of fact nor a related remedy. This leaves the committee free to formulate something more developed if and when a related case arises. Andreas JN 466 17:54, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
The principle is correct as written. Even if ToU enforcement were ArbCom's job (it's not, the WMF employs lawyers for that), there is no clear enforcement mechanism and it's not ArbCom's job to come up with one. The effects of paid editing, on the other hand, (disclosed or otherwise) are very much within ArbCom's remit because there have long been clear policies which enjoy community consensus and specify enforcement mechanisms (for example, we routinely block people for POV pushing or advertising).
There is no need to prove paid editing, and encouraging attempts to do so is to encourage precisely the sort of opposition research that the likes of Phil Sandifer, WillBeback, Racepacket, and others were banned for. There's a reason we ban people for that sort of thing, and we shouldn't be encouraging it—it's entirely possible to push a POV without being paid and to be paid and write neutrally. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 17:22, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
1) Amend your dicta that was unneeded for the case. 2) The TOU is a basis for all kinds of policy on Wikipedia. 3) It's silly for the committee to claim it cannot enforce things without confession, it does it all the time (eg notthere, sockpuppets, etc., etc, etc.). Alanscottwalker ( talk) 16:58, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
HJMitchell's claim of "no clear enforcement mechanism" is plainly untrue, there are only a very few enforcement mechanisms on wikipedia, for all breaches of site norms. There is no need to "prove" any breach (which is what the committee's, "not a court" principal means), there is only the need to have consensus that a duck appears to be a duck. As for whether paid COI runs the unacceptable risk of skewing coverage and making the pedia less reliable, consensus already is that it does (see the guideline), and that consensus is the only one that conforms to the reliable sources on COI and common sense. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 17:36, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
HJMitchell: So? Policy sets out norms. Be neutral, use RS, don't OR are non-self executing norms - but exist for people who don't know what they are doing in writing an encyclopedia. Anti-COI, is just a prophylactic subset, for people unfamiliar with dealing with their own COI. As for evidence that always varies from case to case, suspicious activities and suspicious statements, confession not required. COI rules are not about motive, they are about the appearance of relationship. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 18:00, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
Doug Weller: What policy are you being asked to impose? Your just being asked to cut back on things unneeded for your decision. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 18:27, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
@ DeltaQuad: When you pressed save just now and every other time, you agree to the Terms of Service in WP:TOU. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 22:21, 16 February 2015 (UTC) @ DeltaQuad: It's the agreement we both made when we pressed save and it sets out obligations between us, and every other community member. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 22:34, 16 February 2015 (UTC) @ DeltaQuad::It guides you and me in using this site that is Us - (aka, the community) and it sets out responsibilities that are the way we are to act to the other users and readers - it is meant to be a benefit to others. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 23:21, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
@ DeltaQuad:: I'm not sure what you are asking or arguing but WP:CONEXCEPT would be another manifestation of the relevant consensus in addition to the fact that we all in the community agree to the terms set out. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 00:40, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
@ DeltaQuad:: Well. It would be prudent for arbcom not to make statements that are over-broad and unneeded, and so you should go along with the motion, as you suggest, this is a poor place to 'have it out'. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 01:00, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
@ Roger Davies: Undisclosed paid editing is prohibited by site policy. "By using this site you agree to the Terms of Use" -- Alanscottwalker ( talk) 02:04, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
@ Roger Davies:: It's what we all in the community consent to by using this site. There cannot be a more universal consensus than that. (The page you link to says that the Terms of Use apply to the English Wikipedia site - as does almost every page on English Wikipedia). Alanscottwalker ( talk) 10:30, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
@ Roger Davies:: No one is asking the comitee to declare anything. The purpose of this is in fact to get you to not to declare the principle under discussion. However, because it just took you that many words to qualify the needless and infilicitous principle, the commitee should either qualify or strike. Strike would be simplest. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 15:11, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
@ John Vandenberg: The English Wikipedia community already does have and has used the sanctions against a user under the TOU, [50] so your second paragraph is incorrect, and just makes the retroactive argument all the more needless splitting hairs around a useless principle. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 04:52, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
@ NativeForeigner: The committee is not being asked to enforce the TOU policy, here. Prudence dictates that the committee cross that bridge should you come to it, and that will depend on the facts and circumstances existing when and if that should ever occur. There is usually little consensus about hypotheticals precisely because they have no facts - and issues of enforcement are approached constantly and consistently on this site in the course of specific facts, not hypotheticals. (see eg, [51]) As for "precedent", that is at best a technical truth, here, when the committee's past statements in its decisions are often used and quoted during and in the committee's work. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 13:23, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
@ NativeForeigner: OK, but part of the reason why all this past explaining is problematic is this clause is stated as a general principle, with no application made to facts (findings) or remedies - so it hangs there as a principle without application to the case. As for the FergusM matter, the community mentioned the TOU often as a reason for the enforcement (up to the very end of the ban discussion) and that appears to be consistent in that, that very part of the TOU is in the community's COI guideline (the policy/guideline distinctions seemingly made are also rather odd, considering it does not matter to your decision - guidelines are something you deal in too, when behavioral issues arise). Alanscottwalker ( talk) 20:11, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
@ NativeForeigner: You mention "child protection". I, and perhaps others here, are mystified as to what that has to do with "paid editing." Can you explain? Alanscottwalker ( talk) 12:21, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
@ NativeForeigner: Thanks. Admitting I have never communicated privately with the committee and obviously don't know how the committee privately discusses off-wiki evidence but you would seem to have cases of basically two types, one where the committee decides it can act (combining on wiki and off wiki evidence, or just looking at on-wiki evidence) and the other type, in which case the committee refers it to other organizations or does nothing with it. Even openly labeling an account (which I suppose the committee need not do), as breaching site norms is not problematic. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 12:58, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
@ NativeForeigner: Thanks again, and get some rest. In all these years, we also have not solved the neutrality problem, or the OR problem, or the CopyVIO problem, or the true RS problem, etc, etc. but they are in their nature just something we work on everyday. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 13:38, 22 February 2015 (UTC) @ NativeForeigner: I was going to add this before you responded. so I will add it here, concerning specifically "enforcement", WP:Policies and guidelines says: "editors (including you) enforce and apply policies and guidelines". That responsibility still exists when you are on the committee. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 14:36, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
Reading through everything out of interest, there seems nothing out of place, incorrect, or policy-setting with the clause under consideration. With all due respect to the request initiator, the proposed rephrasing would not magically change the status quo, either, but it would at a minimum result in an error by omission with regard to the committee's responsibilities and powers. I would suggest that the committee decline the request, and if Smallbones really feels the need for ArbCom to have the power and responsiblity of enforcing ToU, that they use the usual channels for changing enwiki policy. // coldacid ( talk| contrib) 19:29, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
In light of Fluffernutter's comment, perhaps the principle should be revised as follows?
6) The Committee has no mandate to sanction editors for disclosed paid editing as it is not prohibited by site policies. The arbitration policy prevents the Committee from creating new policy by fiat. The Committee does have, however, a longstanding mandate to deal with activities often associated with undisclosed paid editing—POV-pushing, misrepresentation of sources, and sometimes sockpuppetry—through the application of existing policy.
This would help clarify that paid editing isn't banned on Wikipedia, but that undisclosed paid editing can lead to ArbCom actions and remedies. // coldacid ( talk| contrib) 20:30, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
New proposal for the revised principle:@ Dougweller: would this address your concerns with the existing motion? // coldacid ( talk| contrib) 15:41, 21 February 2015 (UTC)6) The Committee has no mandate to sanction editors for disclosed paid editing as it is not prohibited by site policies. The arbitration policy prevents the Committee from creating new policy by fiat. The Committee does have, however, a longstanding mandate to deal with activities often associated with undisclosed paid editing—POV-pushing, misrepresentation of sources, and sometimes sockpuppetry—through the application of existing policy. The Committee does not have a mandate to investigate undisclosed paid editing itself.
While the TOU are site wide policy, I believe the "site policies" referred to in the decision were local policies, which, unless something has very drastically changed lately, do not disallow paid editing, undisclosed or otherwise. If that is the case, then the principle is fine as written.
As for the WMF policies taking precedence over local ones, sure they do, but as they are WMF policies, they are not for us to enforce. The WMF must do it themselves as it is their policy. And as they seem unwilling to do so except in egregious cases, the point is moot. KonveyorBelt 17:55, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
This request for amendment seems a transparent attempt to make "policy" by fiat. The fact is, the community has reaffirmed again and again that there is no prohibition of paid editing per se, the WMF's unilateral tweaking of so-called "Terms of Use" notwithstanding. A radical change of policy such as the banning of paid editing needs to come through a community RFC — and good luck with that. The statement on paid editing in the Wifione decision was well considered and accurate, in my opinion. Carrite ( talk) 21:52, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
If arbcom is not taking any stance at this point in time one way or the other they should simply delete the statement in question.
It appears that further discussion is required on this issue by the En community. Is there evidence of a policy against paid undisclosed advocacy editing? Yes sure there is. Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 21:13, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
The principle as written in that case ("The Committee has no mandate to sanction editors for paid editing as it is not prohibited by site policies.") is fine, and the proposed amendment by user:smallbones here is wishful thinking on their behalf. Paid editing is not prohibited, neither by site policy nor by the TOU amendment. The TOU only requires disclosure of paid editing, and that only came into effect after the period of contributions by Wifione that has been determined to be problematic. As far as I know the TOU itself doesnt explain how to handle non-disclosure prior to the TOU amendment, however that was answered on the talk page by the LCA team; see meta:Talk:Terms_of_use#Retrospective.
The TOU allows each community to enforce the TOU (and any other WMF policy), but does not mandate it, and that does not translate into a mandate for the English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee to enforce it either, as that mandate should come from the local community. I would hope that any non-trivial violation of the TOU is referred to the WMF legal team, as a TOU ban can only be made by the WMF as it is their contract with the user. If a person has violated the TOU, they should be banned Wikimedia wide — it is not a site specific policy.
Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should address why or why not the Committee should accept the case request or provide additional information. I'm unfortunately recused from this case for a concern irrelevant to this particular matter, so I'm commenting here. I agree the AC should not make new policy. But it does enforce all aspects of existing policy relating to behavior on the enWP, unless there are specific provision to the contrary. It does not need a statement for each such policy that it falls under the jurisdiction of arbcom. It does automatically. Existing policy is based on the TOU, and the TOU is policy on all matters with relevance to enWP. As it is the basis on which any of us edits in any capacity, it is in fact superior in position to all local policy here, except to the extent where it permits local variation and to the extent that local policy may be regarded as an interpretation or extension of it. The TOU have a policy that undisclosed paid editing is not permitted. This provision permits variation to a limited extent, but the enWP has not (yet) chosen to vary it, and is therefore bound by the statement in the TOU. I would if I could make a specific motion to the effect that To avoid doubt, it is existing policy based on the TOU that undisclosed paid editing is prohibited in the English Wikipedia. Editing in this prohibited manner is editing behavior, and therefore under ArbCom jurisdiction, and so I would if I could make a motion that To avoid doubt, the Arbitration Committee has jurisdiction over undisclosed paid editing, subject as in other matters to superseding office action in particular cases. Wheat Arb Com & the community would do in the way of procedures and standards are secondary matter for subsequent discussion, and I do not think their premature discussion helpful--the first step is to determine the actual policy, and the second to decide how to implement it--or even whether implementation is feasible. I agree that resolution of this case does not require these two statements, but it is usual to give potentially relevant statement of policy, to avoid doubt on the matter. As the question seas raised here, the statements should be made. I intend to propose that the committee make such statements by motion independent of this case, but if it fails to do so, I would urge the community to do so. I do not at the moment propose it to the community, because I still hope to propose these motions from the Committee and take a public vote on them to determine and demonstrate the extent of support they have within the committee. it is obvious that we on arb com think differently on these two issues, and the way to find the current consensus is by such a discussion and vote, and the community has the right to see it. DGG ( talk ) 05:25, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
I am late to this party; sorry for that.
Quick note about me: I work the COIN board a lot, acting on postings there and I (along with Smallbones, who started this request) was involved in discussions at the COI guideline about how to implement the amended ToU in our COI guideline. You can see the changes by which the ToU were added to the guideline in this set of diffs, which were worked out over about three weeks. The Talk page discussion, as you can imagine, was elaborate. We were not able to agree on whether the ToU is WP policy - there were strong views on both sides. What we did with the COI guideline, was basically bow to the ToU, recognizing it as a higher and binding authority on us. (Note: The ToU amendment allows communities under it to enact different approaches to paid editing, which we have not done and which I believe we as a community are not capable of doing; we are too divided. Without enacting our own approach, the ToU is binding on us.)
What has happened since then, is that in practice (the true source of policy), we bring the obligation to disclose paid editing to the attention of editors with an apparent COI all the time, and violations are acted on.
In my view, in practice the Terms of Use are being implemented as policy.
I request that Arbcom consider amending the statement under clarification to state something like:
OR
Please do consider alternative motions before closing this. Thank you. Jytdog ( talk) 22:37, 22 February 2015 (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 case request or provide additional information.
6) While undisclosed paid editing is prohibited by site policies, there is not a current mandate from either the community or the Wikimedia Foundation for the Committee to enforce of this policy. Further, the arbitration policy prevents the Committee from creating new policy by fiat. This should not be interpreted as prohibiting the community from enforcing the site policies around undisclosed paid editing, or from creating a framework to allow the committee to do so. The Committee does have, however, a longstanding mandate to deal with activities often associated with undisclosed paid editing POV-pushing, misrepresentation of sources, and sometimes sockpuppetry—through the application of existing policy.
How does that sound? -- Guerillero | My Talk 06:34, 16 February 2015 (UTC)But, if there is to be a process, it needs to be constructed with the fully informed consent of the community and must not sneaked in like via the back door. In essence, the community needs to agree to each aspect of the following question:
"Do you consent to ArbCom, on the strength of an anonymous email denouncing you, launching a secret and amateur investigation into your private life - to pry into your location, ryour job title and your employer - then to discuss that investigation at length with others on secret mailing lists, and the perhaps site-ban you with no means of appeal?"
Finally, I cannot begin to understand why people are so very keen for ArbCom to create a secret Star Chamber process to tackle paid editing, and then act as judge, jury and executioner when perfectly good and highly transparent processes are already available to deal with POV-pushing, misrepresentation of sources, battlefield conduct and so forth. Roger Davies talk 15:15, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
Principle 6 on paid editing is stricken from the Wifione case.
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 MarkBernstein at 16:11, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
On Friday, March 6, Think Progress published an article by Lauren C. Williams on The ‘Five Horsemen’ Of Wikipedia Paid The Price For Getting Between Trolls And Their Victims. Two days later, I was topic-banned by @ Dreadstar: under the standard AE sanctions, over his concerns regarding this discussion [52] of that article at the Gamergate talk page.
I had requested clarification by email about the intended scope of the standard topic ban. Receiving no pertinent response, I asked on my talk page.
This evoked a vituperative response by email, which I believe to have been sent to you as well, and which is now being discussed at AN/I, which I believe is the appropriate forum. I do not wish to enquire further into that here.
I do not believe the topic ban was proper, just, or expedient. I do not wish to enquire further into that in this place and at this time, though of course you may discuss whatever pleases you.
The underlying question remains: an activist had contacted me that very day, seeking advice for a Wikipedia initiative among her membership and concerned -- not unreasonably -- over the sort of repercussions that were detailed in Think Progress and previously in a number of other newspapers and magazines [53].
Is it your intent that the standard Gamergate topic ban include pages relating to Campus Rape, which might conceivably be construed to be a controversy and arguably is related to gender?
Administrator Masem makes an interesting proposal that the committee find that Campus Rape does not fall under the standard sanctions in general, but it does for me. DHeyward and Thargor Orlando apparently share this fascinating view. This is, of course, a bill of attainder, and is incompatible with the notion of the rule of law.
My question addresses your intent in writing the decision you wrote.
It's not clear to me that the assistance of third parties, involved or otherwise, is helpful for you to determine what you meant to say a scant six weeks ago. Nothing else is at issue here -- although now that the question has been raised so forcefully below, by such august Wikipedians, it might be useful to state whether Wikipedia policy applies alike to all, or whether it can be changed so flexibly to afflict our foes and benefit our pals.
I’m the editor who asked for MarkBernstein’s perspective on editing the Campus Rape page after reading about the Wikipedia GamerGate debacle. So let me weigh in but I also ask you to be kind: I am new here. I don’t know all the protocols, lingo, and history, and it is a bit intimidating. I'm not even sure where to put this comment so I apologize if I'm putting it in the wrong place. I had hoped, perhaps naively, to at least begin editing the Campus Rape page in obscurity. I’m a bit horrified that it has now become inextricably linked to GamerGate in Wikipedia. The Campus Rape page and sexual assault coverage in general need a lot of help. Many prominent researchers and organizations do not have pages, and coverage is skewed. I would love for some of the experienced editors in this discussion to help.
I loudly echo In the case of Campus Rape, I think the letter, if not the spirit, of the sanction is unclear: Campus Rape is not a “gender-related dispute or controversy.” It is gender-related. That is clear. But, Campus Rape is not, in and of itself, a dispute or controversy. Rape is rape. Campus Rape is campus rape. There are, however, myriad disputes and controversies within the topic of Campus Rape. So, the ban might have have been better described as covering “any gender-related topic.” Such a ban would concede that gender-related topics will, most likely, end up having disputes and controversies, which given the gender imbalance issues that Wikipedia is confronting, seems, unfortunately, a fair assumption.
There's a lot of time and energy being spent debating the boundaries of the sanction. But, there’s a bigger issue here. Do sanctions work? I don’t think so. In the IdeaLab I suggested an alternative resolution to sanctions: apology. I would welcome your feedback on it. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Require_Apologies Beauxlieux ( talk) 17:57, 11 March 2015 (UTC)
Thank you @ Rhoark: for your offer to help. To clarify for @ Cailil: and @ Euryalus: -- I understand that I can edit. When I said that Campus Rape and GamerGate are now linked in Wikipedia, I just meant that for search, history, etc, this page now exists. I meant nothing more than that. Here's the chronology of events. After reading about GamerGate, I contacted @ MarkBernstein: for his perspective. He generously offered to put Campus Rape on his watch list. Then, he got banned and asked for clarification. Why/how are @ Squiggleslash:'s comments redacted? I thought they were really useful. Beauxlieux ( talk) 21:15, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
I am tempted to undo the redacting of @ Squiggleslash:'s comments, but since they did it themselves, I don't think that would be appropriate. I will respect their wishes. The point that they and I were making (and that they made better than I at https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Wikipedia%3AArbitration%2FRequests%2FClarification_and_Amendment&diff=650931140&oldid=650930666 ) is that if arbcon or whoever's responsible thinks that campus rape should be included in the ban, then the better wording would be "gender-related topic." That wording is clearer and avoids the debate in which we unfortunately now find ourselves. Can the arbitrators, or whoever it is that is responsible, change the wording of the ban? I do think @ MarkBernstein: had a legitimate point that the ban is unclear. While there is a way, as some have argued, that campus rape has become, unfortunately, controversial, there is also, and many survivors would fall into this camp, an understanding that campus rape is not at all controversial and that it is delegitimizing to survivors' experience to call campus rape "controversial." Both interpretations have been articulated in this debate already so I'm not going to repeat them. If wikipedia wants to be welcoming to women, then acknowledging the unfortunate reality of many women that rape is rape would be better than debating whether that reality is controversial or not. So, rather than continue the debate, why not sidestep it? The easy solution -- the solution with integrity -- is to change the wording of the ban. I would hope that whoever can make that happen, does. And, thank you in advance for doing it. Beauxlieux ( talk) 21:47, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
This isn't actually related to what Mark's said, but it's such a minor and uncontroversial issue that I don't want to create a separate RCA for it. Apologies to Mark for partially hijacking his ARCA. ArmyLine's topic ban (despite what's incorrectly been written on the GG General sanctions page, was actually given under Arbcom's BLP discretionary sanctions. This means FoF13 is factually innaccurate, as is remedy 12. Could these be ammended to note that ArmyLine was banned under BLP discretionary sanctions, as opposed to GG general sanctions? Bosstopher ( talk) 16:45, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
Given the overly broad topic area and the directive that it be "broadly construed", we were obviously going to be back here. This time around, I would hope that the ArbCom members carefully consider the actual ramifications of whether their actions are going to minimize disruption in the long term or will provide a blueprint for how outside canvassing can be used to disrupt Wikipedia to drive editors away. I hope that any support that comes their way in this dark hour will help them come up with a decision that is actually likely going to do the former while maintaining the basic principles of creating an encyclopedia that everyone, including women, can edit without fear of arbitrary sanctions.-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 16:53, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
So the NFL [55] /] [56] and the US Marines [57] [58] the US Congress [59] [60] Saudi Arabia and Sweden [61] are obviously covered as well, since they have well documented controversies involving gender? -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 03:11, 11 March 2015 (UTC)
For "topic bans" it may or may not be as clear cut as people seem to think, but per @ Courcelles: "If something is covered by the DS, it is covered for all editors equally, there can be no "this set of topics for editor X, and this set for everyone else"." so, as soon as anyone mentions "the NFL cover up of wife beating by players" the DS tag goes on the NFL talk page and people get their alerts? -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 12:04, 11 March 2015 (UTC)
Not to speak for Dreadstar or the Arbs, but the topic ban, as written at MarkBernstein's talk page, is in part for "any gender-related dispute or controversy." This is an incredibly controversial topic anyway, and Mark's own intentions in this clarification is to drag the drama he continually creates within the Gamergate space into the campus rape disputes. The goal of the topic ban is to keep him away from inflaming these topics, not to try and drive him to other ones. I hope the arbs and admins here clarify that this article and his involvement would fall under the relevant sanctions, and perhaps extend this topic ban toward MarkBernstein indefinitely as it should have been back at the original ruling, as he has continually shown himself unable to collaborate constructively in the space due to his personal feelings on the relevant topics of Gamergate, feminism, and Wikipedia's governance. The continued allowance of MarkBernstein to disrupt the proceedings at the relevant articles is a problem that is in need of an overdue solution.
Also, this continued spamming of his blog posts and the ThinkProgress blog post is becoming exhausting and self-promotional, and is arguably becoming an issue of a conflict of interests in and of themselves. Since we're here, it is worth a mention. We wouldn't tolerate it from anyone else.
Clarification on the exact scope of the GG topic ban is needed. This isn't the first time this has been brought up, previously in the Spudt3r case this came up. Personally I feel the wording is too broad, but I appreciate that might of been intentional. — Strongjam ( talk) 17:12, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
Thargor Orlando's statement appears to be yet another attempt to silence dissent and sweep this issue under the rug. It is hardly "spamming" to suggest that a significant media article be included in the In the Media section. The fact that the article is significantly critical of Wikipedia's processes and response to this issue derives the inevitable inference that Thargor's decision to engage in an war to remove it from the In the Media section is intended to cover up inconvenient truths. (I believe the usual term for that is Streisand effect.) While leveling accusations of a "conflict of interest," Thargor interestingly fails to note his own conflict of interest here, in that the article is critical of the position he has relentlessly pushed on-wiki. What he calls "drama" is no more and no less than a thoroughly-justified belief that the encyclopedia's own processes failed those who stood up to defend the project's basic principles from vicious, organized abuse. NorthBySouthBaranof ( talk) 18:18, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
"Broadly construed" really needs to be explained better for this topic. The categories listed for Gamergate controversy currently : Category:2014 controversies, Category:2014 in video gaming, Category:Conflict of interest, Category:Conspiracy theories, Category:Criticism of journalism, Category:Cyberbullying, Category:Women and video games, Category:Hashtags, Category:Internet activism, Category:Internet trolling, Category:Internet vigilantism, Category:Journalism ethics, Category:Video game controversies, Category:Video game journalism, Category:Sexual harassment, Category:Misogyny, Category:2015 in video gaming, Category:2015 controversies Does a Gamergate controversy topic ban include articles sharing these categories? ForbiddenRocky ( talk) 18:53, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
I would argue that Campus Rape would not fall under the GG general sanctions as IDed by ArbCom, for any other editor. But I will argue that in the specific case of Mark, who in the past has been quick to label editors as "rape apologists" tied to the GG situation ( [62], [63] that this clearly shows a strong COI in the area, and that in this specific case for Mark should be an area to avoid, if even voluntarily. -- MASEM ( t) 19:54, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
@Bishonen: The problem with " I hereby propose they be amended to support the efforts of editors who defend living people from slander, instead of thwarting and punishing these editors." is that from the GG arbcom case, there's a difference from enforcing BLP which is meant to prevent WP from introducing claims that are harmful to living person, and actively defending living persons to a point of taking a battleground attitude to anyone with a slightly contrary view, which several editors were doing during GG. We are not here to right wrongs, including when living persons are being negatively attacked off-site, as an an amoral work, we can't let that attitude that we have to defend them on WP override expected civility and consensus building. BLP is strong enough as it is (exempt from 3RR, strict admin actions for severe violations, etc.) that "defending" persons under BLP should not be done on WP. -- MASEM ( t) 01:20, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
@DD2K: "if there were an organized group tying certain Bronys to pedophilia, and said brony people had Wikipedia articles that were being attacked with off-site organization, you would feel much differently." absolutely not. In fact, there are articles that negatively call members of the brony fandom as creepy and approaching that, and those are in our article, but that's because they come from reliable sources and thus appropriate opinions to include to achieve neutrality. I know one can delve into far-less reliable sources and find more accusations, but just as we won't include accusations against BLP from weak RS for GG, we won't do that here, either.
The point of my statement is that fundamental civility and consensus-building policy cannot be overriden in the name of "protecting" someone or any other agenda, which is why ArbCom set up those topic bans (that worked on people pushing agendas from both sides) and the general sanction. BLP is not a shield or a bulldozer; it's a admin tool to prevent WP from introducing slanderous material where unfounded, and it works just fine as long with the strength and weight it had. --
MASEM (
t) 03:22, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
(i) The community Gamergate general sanctions are hereby rescinded and are replaced by standard discretionary sanctions, which are authorized for all edits about, and all pages related to, (a) GamerGate, (b) any gender-related dispute or controversy, (c) people associated with (a) or (b), all broadly construed.
Campus rape is a touchy subject in gender issues and civil issues groups, and because of the spectrum of opinions and how vehemently holders of those opinions can be when they are challenged on them, I think it's safe to say that it would fall under the (i)(b) subclause of the Discretionary sanctions remedy. Whether or not the GG discretionary sanctions should include pages on the subject of campus rape is another issue altogether.
Depending on the size and/or membership of the set of editors both active on pages regarding campus rape and those regarding GamerGate, it may or may not be worthwhile for the arbs to consider making an exception to the GG DS. Honestly I'm not interested in making that determination, nor suggestions towards it, but looking into that may be the way this request should go, if the arbs decide to take any action. // coldacid ( talk| contrib) 19:56, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
@ ForbiddenRocky: I'd argue that yes, GG topic bans do include feminist topics, and I'd even posit that (i)(b) and (i)(c) exist to prevent the GamerGate battleground from spilling out into those topic areas. // coldacid ( talk| contrib) 01:54, 11 March 2015 (UTC)
@ Masem: I'd love to know why you think that campus rape as a topic wouldn't fall under the sanctions. I agree that this is definitely an area that MarkBernstein should avoid, but unless I've been misreading something, somewhere, it seems pretty clear that campus rape would be covered under the areas included in the GG topic bans. // coldacid ( talk| contrib) 01:54, 11 March 2015 (UTC)
@ Squiggleslash: A topic that is prone to raising controversies is by virtue of the frequency of those controversies, controversial itself. As I already mentioned in my reply to ForbiddenRocky, it seems obvious that topics such as campus rape were intentionally scoped into the discretionary sanctions clause for the GG case to avoid the behaviour from the GamerGate controversy article spilling out further into articles covering gender-related issues. I didn't participate in the GG case, but I did observe it; from those observations I drew the conclusion that the DS scope was intended to keep sanctioned editors from disrupting anything gender issues related.
By the way, a look at your recent contributions, and especially this notice raises the question of whether or not you're back to actually contribute to Wikipedia. I hope the former, but that notice certainly implies the latter. // coldacid ( talk| contrib) 15:11, 11 March 2015 (UTC)
@ Beauxlieux: Squiggleslash redacted their own comments, as (based on the change) they felt that their opinion was being misinterpreted. Squiggleslash's comments still remain in the history of the page, however, even if not visible in the ongoing ARCA request. // coldacid ( talk| contrib) 23:04, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
MArkBernstein's topic ban was for continuing to comment on contributors and not content. This was noted by two admins on his talk page and has been noted elsewhere. Notwithstanding his strawman argument about campus rape, of which I can find no substantial contribution by MarkBernstein, his topic ban has nothing to do with it. This is a canard put forth only to muddy the waters. MarkBernstein doesn't appear to be here to build the encyclopedia. -- DHeyward ( talk) 20:34, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
Since Campus rape references both "attitudes towards women" and Christian Hoff Sommers / gender feminism logically it would fall under the topic ban. NE Ent 23:22, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
Answered on their talk [65] NE Ent 00:06, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
I am very concerned that we should not waste the talents of someone like MarkBernstein. While he apparently has trouble disengaging from personalities, or at least understanding how others might perceive what he writes, when working in areas about which he feels strongly, he has a wealth of expertise in the statistical field which can be very productive on Wikipedia.
I don't see Campus rape as being the pacific topic which MarkBernstein hopes. There are fraught conversations about double jeopardy, the role of campus police, notable hoaxes, alleged rapists being "punished" by having to write an essay, how ill-suited campus committees are to understand even the mechanics ("I had to draw a diagram"), whether those who sue universities for wrongful punishment are "entitled", and on, and on.
If this is covered by the sanction under which MarkBernstein finds himself, it is not an area where I would imagine there is any guarantee that the conflict would not recur, especially so soon after recent issues, so a special dispensation would probably be unwise.
I would suggest that other areas such a medicine, climatology and pseudo-science might well benefit from MarkBernstein's statistical expertise.
All the best:
Rich
Farmbrough, 02:37, 11 March 2015 (UTC).
I (and frankly the reliable sources out there) see issues like campus rape (and a whole panoply of other gender issues that are given high profile in the media due to gender politics around them) fall into the category of gender related controversy....any gender controversy is covered - so controversial backlashes against Feminism, the USA bills/laws VWA & ERA, and other topics like Same sex marriage, as well as any future issues like the Chelsea Manning conflict etc etc are already preemptively covered. It is as I understand it a preventative measure so that nothing ever gets to the GG level of disruption on WP again. The Men's rights issue is highly controversial a) in RL and b) for the Men's rights online community's reaction to wikipedia's coverage (exactly like GG).
Beauxlieux ( talk · contribs) - It seems to me that you've been misinformed by Mark. Campus rape or other gender conflicts are not "inextricibly linked to Gamer Gate". What's happen on wikipedia in the past 3 years is that ArbCom have (finaly) started to deal with protracted conflicts on gender related controversies (Chealsea Manning being one, Abortion being another, and GG being the latest). The ruling does not prevent anyone new to wikipedia from editing Campus rape etc. What is under probation is editor behaviour. As long as people play by the rules and don't disrupt articles to make a point - they have nothing to worry about at all. Discretionary Sanctions are like special speed limits in an area that has high traffic, with cops on standby to enforce them - the only people banned from editing them are those topic banned under the gamer gate ruling because they have a s history of escalating disputes in gender related controversies-- Cailil talk 12:02, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
(Redacted)
It would be very difficult to make any contribution to an article on campus rape that would not in some way intersect the controversial matters of statistical prevalence, risk factors, perpetrator demographics, definition of consent, false accusation, due process, or proposed remedies. The whole article must be regarded as a gender-related controversy, and as such MarkBernstein should not be permitted to interact with it. Fortunately, Beauxlieux and her organization need not be uniquely dependent on MarkBernstein to accomplish their goals. I'm sure any member of Wikipedia:WikiProject_Feminism, myself included, would be pleased to help them improve the encyclopedia. We shouldn't let them be used as a human shield against a justified topic ban, and they should consider themselves fortunate to be spared being weaponized for more pointy behavior. Rhoark ( talk) 01:28, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
Topic bans are always intended to be broad enough to avoid the possibility of disruptive editing. "Gender-related" and "controversy" are deliberately broad terms,
says
DGG. But how does such breadth affect an instance where, say, somebody is editing not disruptively, but helpfully, and the broadness of the terms lays them open to being taken to
WP:AE for violating that deliberately broad topic ban, and likely enough sanctioned, as in
this current AE case? Don't you people care, with your deliberately broad terms? Was that not foreseeable? Compare NorthBySouthBaranof's
comment above. I agree with it; indeed, I find it eloquent. I see
Thryduulf has responded to it by inviting NBSB to appeal his topic ban at the end of January next year (bah) or to Jimbo (bah) at any time. The gamergate sanctions are a trainwreck. I hereby propose they be amended to support the efforts of editors who defend living people from slander, instead of thwarting and punishing these editors. This is the page not only for clarification, but also amendment, am I right? Please don't tell me to submit a separate amendment case in triplicate, as
Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy.
Bishonen |
talk 01:03, 13 March 2015 (UTC).
...there's a difference from enforcing BLP which is meant to prevent WP from introducing claims that are harmful to living person, and actively defending living persons...including when living persons are being negatively attacked off-site,... "defending" persons under BLP should not be done on WP.
Absolutely disturbing. I have a strong inclination that if there were an organized group tying certain Bronys to pedophilia, and said brony people had Wikipedia articles that were being attacked with off-site organization, you would feel much differently. The same with some Arbs here, if the people being attacked weren't just some feminist women who act too big for their britches, the case would have looked much different. I don't know if it's the young age of some of the ArbCom members, or if they are just tone deaf. But when you compare the GGTF case and the GG case, it's absurd. Dave Dial ( talk) 02:25, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
@ Masem: - Your response shows that my comment either went right over your head, or you are being purposely obtuse. In fact, this whole episode from start till know shows exactly how systemic bias works on Wikipedia. Regular, good editors are biased and cannot see their own biases. The absurdity of it all would be funny were it not for the consequences involved. Dave Dial ( talk) 13:33, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
Can we now wrap up and close this request, given that nine Arbs, a majority, have pretty much unanimously declared that campus rape is "related to gender and the subject of controversy", thus being within the standard GG topic ban? I'm not very aware of the procedures - what's next and who can close this? starship .paint ~ ¡Olé! 05:26, 15 March 2015 (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 case request or provide additional information.
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 75 | ← | Archive 80 | Archive 81 | Archive 82 | Archive 83 | Archive 84 | Archive 85 |
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 EvergreenFir at 02:09, 14 February 2015 (UTC)
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
Notification of other potentially interested users
There is apparent disagreement among users and admins on the interpretation of WP:BLPTALK. This stems from the removal of a link on Talk:Gamergate controversy by NorthBySouthBaranof that was originally added by Retartist. Because NorthBySouthBaranof is topic banned from Gamergate, this removal resulted in an Enforcement Request against NorthBySouthBaranof that was closed by HJ Mitchell with no action per WP:BANEX. The basis for the removal was WP:BLP because the link contained very problematic content, the nature of which can be seen in the enforcement request. There was also an Enforcement Request against Retartist for posting the link that was closed by HJ Mitchell with a topic ban. As a result of this enforcement request, the link and other links were REVDELed by East718 per WP:BLP and REVDEL guidelines.
As a direct result of these enforcement requests, a discussion on BLP's talk page (link to specific section) was opened by Ryk72 not named as party due to max of 7 parties, but will be informed of this ARBCOM regarding the interpretation of WP:BLPTALK.
Current wording of BLPTALK for reference
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BLPTALK currently says
References
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Despite the actions of the admins HJ Mitchell and East718, users DHeyward and EncyclopediaBob expressed in my understanding; please correct me if I'm mistaken strong disagreement with the use of BANEX in this manner, suggesting that any links should be allowed to be posted on article talk pages if they are being discussed. I expressed the belief that BLPTALK need tweaking and that not all links are allowed to be posted on non-article spaces (e.g., links from Stormfront should never be posted as they violate BLP policies).
Exact wording of my interpretation and suggested tweak for reference
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BLPTALK needs tweaking. The link that prompted this on GG was not just "contentious", it was libel. BLPTALK should reflect that discussion of RS or at least something that approaches RS (which is also key as the link from GG was not RS) is fine. If, for example, HuffPo has an article with some claims about a politician committing fraud, then the talk page is the right venue to discuss that article. However, not all links are covered by BLPTALK, or shouldn't be. Links to Stormfront would never be acceptable. Links that contain libel or highly disparaging content should never be allowed. Folks seem to be misunderstanding "contentious material" and misrepresenting the example in BLP. Let's clarify it so that if (1) matches the rest of the BLP policy's intent and (2) matches how BLP is being enforced. |
Interpretations of this portion of the BLP policy are clearly divergent. Admins and REVDELers appear to interpret the language differently than some experienced user. Specifically, the current wording of BLPTALK does not explicitly state if some links that would be excluded from articles as BLP violations are also excluded from non-article space. Moreover, it's unclear if BANEX covers the removal of links from non-article spaces. I request that the ARBCOM clarify this issue as part of the BLP decision for the sake of users and admins.
Edit: In response to HJ Mitchell, I wish to be clear that I 100% agree with his and other admins' assessments of the situation and reading of the BLP policy. However, BLPTALK is still rather ambiguous and given the push back from other users I feel that ARBCOM weighing in on this issue and/or suggesting clarified wording of BLPTALK is needed. I chose this venue because of the past ruling and felt an RfC would not be the appropriate way to address this.
I think it's fairly apparent what the letter and spirit of the policy are intended to do — prevent the encyclopedia from being used as a weapon of character assassination or a tool of online trolls. To that end, policy demands that we treat all matters relating to living people with the utmost sensitivity and care. A hopelessly-unreliable source (such as, for instance, a wholly-anonymous webpage, a personal blog or a series of putative screenshots) that contains or is intended to present highly-negative claims, allegations or inferences about living people has no business anywhere on the encyclopedia. It cannot possibly aid the writing of the encyclopedia in any way, because it is categorically forbidden from use in any way. Anything which even stems from it is effectively
fruit of the poison tree. Suggesting, as one editor did, that an inflammatory, anonymous screed full of unsupported attacks, disproven allegations and outright lies about living people (the so-called "dossier") is good background reading (for editors)
evinces a clear and present misunderstanding of
what Wikipedia is about. This sense is longstanding and core to our policy's ultimate goal: ensuring that what the encyclopedia publishes about living people is well-supported, fair, sensitively-written and unsensational — all stemming from the use of highly-reliable sources and the avoidance of slander, gossip, whisper campaigns and rumormongering.
NorthBySouthBaranof (
talk) 05:33, 14 February 2015 (UTC)
I have little to add here. I closed two AE requests where the result was astoundingly obvious (and have been taking flak for it on my talk page since). Posting links to obviously inappropriate material, especially where the source couldn't possibly be considered a reliable source for Wikipedia's purposes is, at best, grossly negligent. I note that Retartist says they did it in good faith and I have no reason to doubt their word, but that's not the sort of conduct we need in difficult topic areas.
I don't see anything to clarify. Four admins (@ Gamaliel, East718, and Timotheus Canens: and I) were in agreement that the material in question was a BLP violation. I asked whether this was an isolated incident or a pattern of mis(conduct|judgement) and was presented with evidence of the latter. It would have taken something miraculous for that thread or the one against NBSB to have been closed any other way.
That will probably be the extent of my comments here unless somebody asks me a direct question. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 02:28, 14 February 2015 (UTC)
The enforcement request for BANEX is a red herring. The issue is whether links, without any statements about the link content (i.e. "Please look here") are BLP violations in and of themselves on a talk page - WP:BLPTALK. No one is repeating the claims on-wiki. There is a very obtuse view that a link can, by itself, be a BLP violation. That's nonsense. We have much stricter policies regarding links in articles, but links provided for discussion can be ignored, or archived without affecting the encyclopedia. There is more disruption by deleting links on talk pages than by ignoring them. Revdel's are even more asinine. The reality is that a talk page discussion that says "Does this link have anything we can use [wwww.example.com]?" is not the same as saying "This link says Person X did Y, can we use it [wwww.example.com]?". The latter should be redacted if the claims are BLP violations, the former should be ignored or commented on but it need not be removed. We can't even control secondary content in sources in articles, so why stifle discussion (or worse, punish editors for trying to start a discussion? If we source NY Times in an article and they decide to have an inline link that leads to characterizations that WP would not publish (i.e. say a criminal charge), that doesn't forever invalidate the source. Papers like the guardian have second level links that are "NAtional Inquire"ish type stories on celebrities.
We don't regulate offsite content or links that are twice removed from articles. This is where talk page links are. No one is reading WP and following the link to validate a claim made on WP. If simply following links were bad, without claims, we would need to guard against the side bar content of sites like The Daily Mail that have a number of "Don't miss" articles. The fact is, if he claim isn't made on WP, the link is immaterial and certainly not a BLP violation. This is longstanding policy to allow for collegial discussion of subjects without fear. That should continue. Those that only delete links on talk pages are being disruptive, not collaborative. Ignore it per WP:BEANS. WP is not responsible for what others say offsite nor is a link any kind of affirmation. We've learned this with links to articles about the ArbCom committee itself. The stories were false. Portraying them as true on WP is problematic. Linking to them without judgement is not. Witch-hunting for those that dared add the link is disruptive.
The sole exception is "outing" and the simple rule of thumb is if the Oversight committee is not going to remove it, it's not a policy violation and it should be left alone. -- DHeyward ( talk) 03:01, 14 February 2015 (UTC)
Just a quick clarification and summary: I have no position on WP: BANEX and whether NBSB's actions complied. I'm unfamiliar with the specifics of that policy. My disagreement with EvergreenFir (and others) seems to be in the application of BLP policy, whether on talk pages under WP:BLPTALK or in article space under WP:BLP. As I understand it, non-BLP-compliant sources may not be used to source BLP material. As it's been applied by a number of admins, non-BLP-compliant sources may not be used to source any material, even non-BLP material, and the linking of such sources is sanctionable. I joined the discussion on WP:BLPTALK in an attempt to bridge the significant gulf between my reading of the policy and its current application. —EncyclopediaBob (talk) 02:50, 14 February 2015 (UTC)
All i want to say is that i posted the links in good faith and was stupid in posting so many links without checking each one -- RetΔrtist ( разговор) 02:14, 14 February 2015 (UTC)
I am working on a statement, which not only addresses all of the principle & policy aspects, but is also below the 500 word limit; in the meantime...
Thanks to:
Clarification:
The discussion initiated at
WT:BLP stemmed from my noticing a number of instances of removal, reversion, and revdeletion of links to sources containing contentious material from article talk pages, citing WP:BLP
. It is not based on one set of deletions claiming
WP:BLP. See:
[2]
I am not concerned by any one instance of this type of removal, reversion or deletion nor by the editors involved. I am concerned by the pattern, and the implications on consensus building if it is to become an accepted practice. I ask those commenting and the Arbitrators to focus on the relevant principles, policies & guidelines. See: WP:5P, WP:CON, WP:BLP (incl. BLPTALK), WP:TPG (incl. WP:TPO) & WP:CRYBLP.
Statement: (placeholder)
The concern is that this type of invocation of WP:BLP is being used to suppress the normal working of the Wikipedia Project; preventing discussion of sources, and improvement of the encyclopedia through consensus. Editors are leveraging WP:BLP to remove good faith links to potential sources (and good faith, sourced, discussion of existing sources). Editors should be able to point (link) to a source, and discuss it's appropriateness without fear of sanction. If a source is not reliable, or not usable for any other reason, that should be decided by consensus, which requires that the source be identifiable (linked) for discussion.
In summary:
W.r.t ArbCom action on this request, I would ask no more than the committee affirm that WP:BLPREMOVE, as it applies to non- mainspace pages, covers only contentious material, not links to external websites (where the contents are not repeated on Wikipedia).
Thanks again for your consideration of this matter. - Ryk72 'c.s.n.s.' 14:08, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
The attention of the Arbitration Committee is drawn to the circumstance that, last night, this page was widely extolled on Twitter by a variety of anonymous accounts bearing GamerGate regalia and celebrating the expected further sanctioning of User:NorthBySouthBaranof which is and has long been their stated goal and plan. There, @theWTFMagazine links to an 8chan thread on that distinguished contributor which begins:
It apparently began twelve hours ago, attracting some 50 posts overnight.
You will be pleased to know that @PalinFreeborn is cheering you on, @FortunateCat is calling on your vigor, @ED_Updates -- doubtless that same people who were so very eager for you to take action against Ryulong that they needed to tell you all about his religious background (avaricious Jew!) and sex life -- is asking User:Jimbo to stiffen your resolve. All are eager to see that you continue steadily on your course and remain firm in your intention.
Look at the progress you have made! Yesterday, a vigorous and lengthy debate on the Talk page has proceeded through an additional 8,000 words of discussion devoted to whether WP:RS shall be disregarded for GamerGate because the entire press is biased against #GamerGate, 2,500 words revisiting the much-discussed question of whether actions associated with the GamerGate hashtag may be excluded because someone says "they were not really GamerGate supporters" and whether GamerGate is a "movement". One of the GamerGate victims had a 550 word libel revdel'd again; as you know, this is hardly a rare occurrence.
You could (and should) have stopped this; instead, you have encouraged it.
I concur with User:NorthBySouthBaranof: GamerGate has handed every little PR shop a textbook on how to pervert Wikipedia. ArbCom has written the textbook for destroying Wikipedia from within.
This flagrant effort to pervert Wikipedia's disciplinary mechanism is not likely to arouse your notice or evoke your concern. The standard discussed below -- that some BLP-violating links are OK on talk pages, some are not, and that the encyclopedia's defender should be less vehement in upholding its rules -- is risible. After all, the matter is a small content dispute: some editors want to use Wikipedia to spread claims appearing in unreliable sources that specific women in software development are sluts and whores. Others think this is clearly prohibited by policy. ArbCom in its majesty, it seems, believes that Wikipedia will be served well by exhaustively and repeatedly discussing the matter on talk pages, on drama boards, and here.
After all, what's the harm? Just a content dispute!
Wikipedia talk pages are a weapon against GamerGates’s victims. Those who object to this continuing outrage are necessarily and inconveniently guilty of battleground behavior and must be driven from Wikipedia, leaving the way clear for the trolls.
Meanwhile, the world awaits a sign of your care for the editors who served this project, or for its victims. http://www.markbernstein.org/Feb15/Press.html MarkBernstein ( talk) 15:40, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
|
Is there a reason we didn't topic ban retartist for three months and block them for 24 hours? Protonk ( talk) 18:36, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
|
If you are not going to clarify the issue in regards to WP:BLPTALK violations, can you at least explain why it is allowed to be one-sidedly used as some sort of hammer to punish ideological opponents?
There seem to be constant revdels and topic-bans for what seems to be some of the most innocuous thing like posting a link to any articles or trying to discuss something on talk pages regarding certain people (Anita Sarkeesian, Zoe Quinn for instance), but there seems to be a double standard when this applies to other living persons, for instance this personal opinion article from Bustle: [4] accusing someone of criminal behavior of the most vile kind and calling on the Obama administration to arrest and prosecute them has not been interpreted as a BLP violations against living persons.
You also have User:MarkBernstein who has previously been blocked due to statements he made, but was apparently allowed back and is blatantly spreading misinformation about the ArbCom case even in his statement on this very page and has called other editors "rape apologists" on the site he identified as his own [5] [6] and called for sanctions against them before [7] and yet he is still somehow allowed to offer his input, while others are topic-banned or blocked for much less? Is there some sort of stipulation that some people or groups of people deserve protection against any kind of violations of these policies, while other living persons or groups of people don't enjoy the same privileges and can be called anything one wishes without recourse or penalties? |
62.157.60.27 ( talk) 19:09, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
I understand why EvergreenFir brought this here, but the arbitrators have said what needs to be said, and nothing else useful is going to come out of this thread, whether it is closed promptly or a week from now. I suggest the former. Newyorkbrad ( talk) 00:34, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
BLP is for the most part a policy about claims, not about sources. I've brought this up before at the noticeboard Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard/Archive213#Contentious_BLP_content_in_sources_that_are_cited_for_other_reasons. I think everyone should be advised to wait for consensus before redacting links - excepting where the content is illegal or in some way liable to cause imminent harm. Rhoark ( talk) 22:13, 16 February 2015 (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 case request or provide additional information.
While its application needs to be very strict and proactive in mainspace, which is where most people end up looking and where an allegation may sound like it's made in Wikipedia's voice, its application on talk pages and on WP:BLPN needs to be less strict. The policy indirectly acknowledges this, when it says [w]hen material about living persons has been deleted on good-faith BLP objections, any editor wishing to add, restore, or undelete it must ensure it complies with Wikipedia's content policies. If it is to be restored without significant change, consensus must be obtained first. Since to restore what someone else has flagged as a BLP violation you need a consensus, it follow that it is permissible to discuss in good faith possible BLP violations in talk space and on the appropriate noticeboard; after the discussion is over, if it's determined that the material was indeed a violation, then the discussion may be hatted or purged of the offending material, but, again, there needs to be a place where such a discussion can be had without hindrance.
Removal of material without discussion from talk pages or from the relevant noticeboard should be reserved for cases of egregious and uncontroversial BLP violations. This appears to have been one such case. That said, NBSB, you were right on the merits, but your approach still leaves much to be desired. Please move on. Salvio Let's talk about it! 11:13, 14 February 2015 (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 MrX at 03:29, 13 February 2015 (UTC)
(Note: The following was moved from Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#Arzel on Timotheus Canens' suggestion.)
Arzel has a long, well-documented history of abusive and disruptive personal comments. Around seven months ago, Arcom gave a clear warning to Arzel that "continuing to personalize or politicize content disputes is disruptive to the project, and continuing behavior of this nature may lead to further sanctions, up to and including a ban from the project." Unfortunately it has had little sustained effect. Arzel spends a great deal of his Wikipedia time reverting other editor's contributions, complaining about liberal bias, and making insulting claims about editors' intentions. He gravitates to controversial political and news agency articles, but does very little to collaborate with other editors to actually try to improve the articles.
There are other milder examples from the past few months. I don't think there is any point filling the page with addition diffs, but will do so if it helps. Thank you.- Mr X 03:29, 13 February 2015 (UTC)
1. The SLPC makes a really questionable attack on Ben Carson, which was quickly added by MrX when it was noticed. When retracted (which received a lot of attention) we are rewarded with laughs.
2. This is news, yet was added and re-added almost as it happened. and then complained that a notable fact was way POVish.
3. Truthful, and they did lose quite a bit of respect with this. It would have been nice if MrX had added Carson's response originally.
4. Section was title "Long been accused of left-wing bias" and I didn't start it, so I don't know how providing some examples politicized an already politicized section.
5. Virinditas put forth his theories about User:Marteau, I told him to stop.
6 and 7. Maybe a little rough, but MrX's previous comment was not much different. Heat of the moment.
8. You really need to read the entire section to see how a couple of editors apparently really were upset with Emerson while a few of us were trying to maintain BLP standards.
9. Related to Emerson, where it appears that the same story was being pushed into multiple articles as it was happening without any evidence of long lasting notability The article is basically a list of every beef that everyone has with FNC, don't really see how that fits in with WP's purpose.
10. In response to this edit. JamesMLane added it back twice with two other editors removing. Crooks and Liars is not a reliable source for a BLP.
Sections in which I discussed which were called politicizing were politicized before I became involved. My two statements to MrX were probably a little rough for which I apologize, I just wish editors would not use WP to score political points (not specific to MrX), which oftens appears to be the case. Note: I didn't have a chance to go back to MrX's page and didn't see that "warning" until just now.
Just want to point out that the so called warning was not on my talk page and that I didn't know it existed until this complaint.
I retain my dislike of "dramaboards." I do not see the evidence educed as proof of much at all. I suggest Arzel be told not to make future attacks on editors and that he be told to remove any which other editors tell him could be so considered. A decent acceptance of conflict is essential to reach compromise, while removing opponents will result in unbalanced articles. I would rather live with opponents keeping an eye on my edits than with no opponents and the "truth" ruling all articles, especially BLPs. emended Collect ( talk) 15:38, 13 February 2015 (UTC)
"Crooks and Liars" [9] was not and is not a suitable source for any BLP. emended Collect ( talk) 15:38, 13 February 2015 (UTC)
I have made a point in my editing never to prejudge anyone on the basis of weak evidence. Collect ( talk) 15:41, 13 February 2015 (UTC)
For each of these violations there is likely a reasonable excuse or explanation, but together they and many, many others add up to a long-standing pattern of behavior. It is well established, most recently in the Gamergate case, that a pattern of negative and problematic behavior even in the defense of justice or policy is not acceptable. No one is saying adding poor sources or violating BLP is acceptable, but constantly responding to alleged incidents of such in a manner that is pointy, uncivil, and personalizes disputes is counterproductive and inappropriate. Behavior like this is the reason that political articles are a hornet's nest that many users want to avoid. It poisons the atmosphere of collaborative editing and encourages retaliatory behavior from other editors. We're long past the point that, as Collect suggests, this editor be asked nicely to refrain from such behavior. Gamaliel ( talk) 14:31, 13 February 2015 (UTC)
Anything deemed disruptive because of opposing SPLC's listing of Carson as an extremist simply isn't. It's what should be expected of editors that identify a BLP violation. It was pretty well proven that the addition was in fact erroneous and a BLP violation and editors that upheld that high standard on WP should be commended. BLP trumps everything and getting BLP right is the overriding goal. If that means an editor is uncivil or edit warring or violating a ban, BLP trumps that. Ultimately being right is the underpinning of our BLP policy and why it trumps all the other machinations of process. Processes that protect BLP violating material are to be ignored. The "ultimately correct outcome" is the objective that improves the encyclopedia. -- DHeyward ( talk) 02:30, 14 February 2015 (UTC)
Given the recent inability of the committee to make decision on this page, I suggest that you state that Arzel has engaged in sanctionable misconduct (if you feel he has; I haven't read the diffs) and then refer the matter back to AE for a determination of what exactly the sanction should be. Or even authorise AE to make a determination on whether there is sanctionable misconduct.
ArbCom is good at forcing warring parties apart in complex cases. ArbCom is much less good at handling what are essentially enforcement requests. AE on the other hand is very good at handling enforcement requests, because that's what it does. That's all it does, all day every day. We're also much better at dealing with off-topic comments and other nonsense, meaning that AE requests don't get bogged down in lengthy discussion between non-parties.
The last thing anyone needs is another thread in which thirty people spend a fortnight going round in circles. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 03:07, 14 February 2015 (UTC)
Arzel ( talk · contribs) is indefinitely prohibited from editing any page about or making any edit related to the politics of the United States, broadly construed, across all namespaces. This restriction is enforceable by any uninvolved administrator per the standard provisions. Arzel may request reconsideration of this remedy twelve months after the passing of this motion.
Enacted - -- L235 ( t / c / ping in reply) 23:37, 18 February 2015 (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 RGloucester at 23:57, 13 February 2015 (UTC)
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
I would restate what I had over at AE, but I find that not necessary as I believe most if not all of the Arbitrators here have looked at that. I will say that I was indeed forgetful regarding the proper DS procedure (it has been a minute since I performed one of those actions), and can assure you all I'll get it right the next time I feel it necessary to issue a block of this nature. The only other thing I'll state (even though I already stated this at AE) is that RGloucester himself stated at my talk page that "[Russian editor1996] was nothing but disruptive". Therefore, if he has any further questions regarding why that editor was blocked, he should consult our policies on DE. Happy Presidents Day to you all and it's good to see the system here still working. — Coffee // have a cup // beans // 21:04, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
I'll add what a bit of what I said on RGloucester's talk page:
The issue you want addressed is whether the Committee is happy with IAR being used to impose an out of process discretionary sanction. The sanction being out of process for a few reasons: it wasn't logged (which was fixed after you let them know), there was no alert and they weren't aware by other means, and discretionary sanctions can only be used for "blocks of up to one year in duration" not indefinite. The other issue here is that this block could have been placed as a normal admin action rather than as a discretionary sanction (unlike a TBAN for example). This looks to me like an admin coming back from a break and not familiarising themselves with a procedure which gives them wide ranging powers before using it, obviously that's just a guess though.
Could someone provide a single diff of why Russian editor1996 (RE96) is "plenty disruptive"? Looking at the their contributions I'm not seeing anything -- no POV pushing, no incivility, no edit warring, no posting to noticeboards -- just edits. Not perfect edits? Sure, but isn't that what we -- or at least used to -- encourage with WP:BEBOLD?
If we look at RE96's edit from a year and half ago, we see the addition of a fairly complete infobox, and comparing his additon to the current revision [10] seems to indicate no one has had much of a problem with that.
So the evidence suggests that RE96 is neither an "editor" nor anyone with any malice -- simply a "dabbler," if you will. File:Top_Wikipedians_compared_to_the_rest_of_the_community,_8_January_2014.svg shows us that dabblers have actually performed the overwhelming majority of (67%) of edits to the project. So how is blocking them without prior discussion benefiting the project? If we assume RE96 is a reasonably self-confident person without much of an agenda, why would they bother jumping through unblock hoops when they could simply spend their time somewhere else on the Internet? While I appreciate ya'll's willingness to declare the "arbcom" block an ordinary block, why not do the right thing and simply unblock RE96 until someone can explain why they should be blocked? "IAR" (or "because I felt like it") should not be considered as meeting the requirements of WP:ADMINACCT, nor a legit reason to be blocking folks.
While we're here anyway: Arbcom 2014 stated "Administrators are expected to behave respectfully and civilly in their interactions with others. This requirement is not lessened by perceived or actual shortcomings in the conduct of others. Administrators who egregiously or repeatedly act in a problematic manner, or administrators who lose the trust or confidence of the community, may be sanctioned or have their access removed."
Coffee's statements to RGloucester [11], including why do you seem have a cactus lodged up your ass? ... Jesus christ, give it a rest. Or take it to AE if you like unnecessary drama. ... Hell, not even the editor in question has complained about being blocked. Yet, you're over here advocating for this guy like it's Christmas morning. Whatever floats your boat (I assume, drama)... clearly do not meet that standard. Although quite excessively snarky, I wouldn't say they're "egregious," nor am I aware of chronic history, such that I can argue we're in the admonishment zone, but a emphatic word or two (e.g. "Knock it off") seems appropriate. NE Ent 19:59, 16 February 2015 (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 case request or provide additional information.
While there is a place for IAR in dealing with discretionary sanctions(*), to bypass the need for a warning is not it.
(*)An example being my comment here, in spite of your lack of standing to file this request, since the sanctioned editor has not appealed his restriction. Salvio Let's talk about it! 11:24, 14 February 2015 (UTC)
On 11 February 2015, Coffee ( talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) blocked an editor relying on the discretionary sanctions provisions for Eastern Europe. As a discretionary sanctions block it was out of process as the editor had not been pre-notified of discretionary sanctions for the topic. Accordingly, the prohibitions on modification do not apply and the block may be modified by any uninvolved administrator. Coffee is advised to better familiarize themselves with the discretionary sanctions provisions before using this process again.
Enacted - -- L235 ( t / c / ping in reply) 00:40, 19 February 2015 (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 GoldenRing at 04:55, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
The effect of this amendment would be to add MarkBernstein to the list of editors whose TBANs imposed under the community general sanctions are converted to arbitration-imposed TBANs under the standard topic ban.
I believe it was an oversight of the committee not to do this in the first place. The reason that it happened is that most editors presenting evidence dropped sections concerning MarkBernstein when he was handed a community-imposed topic ban (eg [14], [15]). However, there is ample evidence available of personal attacks and treating Wikipedia as a battleground to add a separate finding of fact and support a separate remedy (eg [16], [17], [18], [19], [20], [21], [22], [23], [24], [25], [26], [27], [28], [29], [30]) if the committee thinks that a more appropriate approach.
The reason this has come up now is that Gamaliel has seen fit to remove MarkBernstein's topic ban. on the basis of private email discussions with him. This seems problematic for several reasons:
you have no intent to stick to separate yourself from the topic area and you will continue to skirt the edges of it and even outright violate it. In addition, your previously stated that you had no interest in continuing to contribute to Wikipedia, and almost every edit you've made since has been in some way related to GamerGate.
The sequence of events has the appearance and effect (though I don't think the intention) of making an end-run around the arbitration case. By TBANning MarkBernstein before evidence was well-developed, waiting for the case to end and then removing the TBAN, the committee has effectively been prevented from considering evidence related to him. I think the right way to deal with this is for the committee to consider the evidence presented above and to consider making the amendments suggested.
Lastly, my apologies if this matter was considered by the committee when coming to a decision. If this is the case, I will happily withdraw the request. As it stands, I can see no indication on the workshop or PD pages that it was considered, and several indications from other editors that they considered it moot because of the indefinite topic ban. GoldenRing ( talk) 04:55, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
@ Gamaliel: To be clear, I named you as a party to this request solely as a courtesy, given your involvement, to invite exactly the sort of comment you have made. I had and have no intention that action would be taken against you regarding this and I do not intend it as an accusation of misconduct on your part. We obviously disagree in our assessment of Mark's editing, but if disagreement was misconduct then where would we be? GoldenRing ( talk) 06:48, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
@ Johnuniq: I don't think that one discussion at Gamaliel's TP, in which I made five edits (not counting the ARCA notification) rises to the level of disruptive chipping away. If the committee disagrees, I will gladly accept a TBAN; I'm not exactly in the habit of bringing these things and don't want to be. I decided to bring this to ARCA rather than AE because I don't think the request fits the pattern of AE, as it requires consideration of what happened around the case itself. GoldenRing ( talk) 07:19, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
Good grief! GoldenRing, greatly aggrieved,
Grouses at my gallant jests, those galling goads
That Gawker, Guardian, and
gazettes aplenty
All gave to Gamergate, and you. I admit:
I hold some strong opinions of Arbcom’s acts
Throughout this case. These I have expressed
Elsewhere quite clearly, and accurately I think;
Audiences, alerted, have predominately agreed.
Generous @Gamaliel patiently posits that
People who think me pernicious, perfidious,
And pretty much perfectly putrid would be
Glad to display my poor noggin on pikes
Or by preference at Kotaku In Action.
Anxiously, admins already anticipate
A trip to AE, where more words may be spent.
An admin convinced, we may head then to AN/I,
And wend back to Arbcom. Oh wondrous wiki!
O’er what? I have had some strong words
For your actions, and indeed some of you have had some for mine.
Jimbo writes that I caused all this stuff from the first,
And Gamaliel writes I am "widely unpopular"
Throughout Wikipedia. I think he means
wildly;
He might not be wrong.
But this project’s not purely a contest for praise.
Policy prefers both firmness and speed
For protecting the blameless who’re prostitutes called,
Whose sex lives are subject to endless discussion
On the project’s talk pages.
This Baranof did.
Off-wiki was Baranof smeared and belittled
Because these benighted he bravely defied.
He better deserved (and deserves) of you all.
Before I conclude, one brief issue I'd raise:
“Behavior” is common to children and beasts,
Not colleagues, and conflicting views, bringing heat,
Can better be handled with courteous care.
“Christian” names, to my ear, can sound rather familiar,
And I don’t recall that we’ve been introduced.
Adversaries adopt (in America) address
That’s more formal. I think Dr. Bernstein is fine.
I did attend Swarthmore: if perchance you’re a Friend
Or don’t like to use titles, my names, please, in full.
(Do you believe these japes should be consigned
To user space? Once read, I do not mind.)
I have already discussed at length with numerous editors my reasoning and my belief that Mark Bernstein has satisfied my concerns regarding the problematic behavior which caused me to impose the topic ban.
I don't believe there is anything problematic with the way I handled the situation. I had extensive email discussions with Mark Bernstein regarding his behavior, how it would change, and what he would do if the sanction was lifted. This is routine. It would have been impossible to have that discussion on-wiki given the heated atmosphere here and the inevitable sniping that would occur. User:HJ Mitchell has topic banned one user from discussion of Mark Bernstein because he was following him around the encyclopedia criticizing him and trying to get him sanctioned, and likely more will follow.
I disagree that this has the effect of "making an end-run around the arbitration case". Off the top of my head, I believe I indefinitely topic banned five users, and I think most of those before the case had started. At least two of those bans became indefinite Arbcom sanctions, so clearly the case provided ample time and opportunity to consider the behavior of any user sanctioned by me. It would be bad form to retroactively sanction a user well after the case was closed. The discretionary sanctions can easily be applied to any ongoing behavior problems from any user editing these articles.
I find the evidence presented here does not warrant a retroactive sanction nor a discretionary one. As initially presented to me on my user talk page, they included the correction of another editor's typo as evidence of problematic behavior and the inaccurate claim that Mark Bernstein's discussion of anti-Semetic comments about him on Twitter was an attack on other Wikipedia editors labeling them anti-Semetic.
Mark Bernstein is widely unpopular on Wikipedia due to his blog posts and the press coverage they have received, and he is even more unpopular on the less savory parts of the internet, who desperately want him sanctioned so they can add Mark Bernstein to their collection of Gamergate trophies and parade his severed head on a pike through the boards of 8Chan. I believe this particular request is sincere and made in good faith, but we can't ignore the context of the request. In this sort of atmosphere, where so many editors are utterly convinced of Mark Bernstein's perfidy and menace, otherwise well-meaning editors are likely to view even the most innocuous statements by him in the worst possible light, as is happening in this request. Gamaliel ( talk) 06:29, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
@ GoldenRing: I didn't interpret your post here as a request for action or an accusation against myself, but I do appreciate your clarification. Gamaliel ( talk) 06:58, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
I noticed the lengthy questioning of Gamaliel at his talk ( permalink) and added my thoughts, including the suggestion that any evidence to show a topic ban would be warranted should be presented at WP:AE. As GoldenRing has instead chosen to involve Arbcom, my request is that some action be taken—if new evidence supports a topic ban against MarkBernstein, it should be imposed; otherwise, GoldenRing should be topic banned because the persistent chipping-away is disruptive. Johnuniq ( talk) 06:56, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
Gamaliel was within his rights to lift the topic ban. I wasn't privy to his conversations with Mark, but in my own email conversations I found Mark to be much more reasonable than he had been made out to be. We were able to reach a gentlemen's agreement that Mark would avoid personally directed comments and I commuted his block to time served, as is my prerogative as the blocking admin. Any fresh misconduct should be brought to AE with dated diffs and a concise explanation of the problem they show.
Meanwhile, BLPs in the topic area are still subject to drive-by attacks from autoconfirmed accounts, so litigating over minor squabbles on talk pages seems to miss the point. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 14:43, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
It seems like an inordinate amount of attention is being paid to MarkBernstein's editing. As Bernstien's editing hasn't been disruptive since the TBAN has been lifted there isn't any need for Committee action. — Strongjam ( talk) 15:39, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
Good grief. There may be nothing actionable in this ARCA request, but I'd be hard pressed to see anything but bad attitude out of Mr Bernstein's current behaviour on Wikipedia with regard to GG issues, even in this very ARCA request with his mocking poetry [47]. It's probably not necessary to point this out, but this doesn't seem to be the kind of behaviour that should be expected or encouraged of Wikipedia editors. I say trout MarkBernstein, warn GoldenRing, and just forget that this request ever happened. // coldacid ( talk| contrib) 19:45, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
In response to Harry Mitchell's statement, I suggest that BLPs in this topic-area be placed on pending changes. This was done for a handful of them when I suggested it on the workshop during the case, but it sounds like it needs to be expanded. Newyorkbrad ( talk) 19:53, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
As someone who has been very critical of Mark's action in the past, I think he's improved his behavior sufficiently for a topic ban to be unnecessary for the time being. While obviously a strongly opinionated person, he is no longer making unfounded attacks on other editors, and is instead taking the much more applaudable and rap battle-esque approach of rebutting their arguments in verse. I am now firmly of the opinion that all statements to Arbcom by involved parties should be written in verse, for the sake of fostering Wikilove, dispute resolution etc. So if we could have a motion declaring that, that would be great. Bosstopher ( talk) 20:05, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
Just wanted to make the observation that looking at the sanctions log, at 2014 GG block log, not all topic bans issued were indefinite and some were just for a period of a week or a few months. Not all editors who were topic ban were included in the Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/GamerGate which clearly identified those editors whose topic bans were commuted into the standard topic ban. Liz Read! Talk! 22:21, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
But then, just today, MarkBernstein does something to deserve this final warning. How many final warnings are there? Please at least log all these as previous sanctions so at least new admins know what they are dealing with. -- DHeyward ( talk) 20:58, 19 February 2015 (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 case request or provide additional information.
Thought unadorned plain prose too bad
for use at ARCA
though haiku are starker
than sonnets or limericks. It's sad!
An inventive young man from Japan
wrote haiku-style
limericks.
Roger Davies talk 13:38, 19 February 2015 (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 Smallbones at 15:56, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
The principle seems to say that we do not have a policy on undisclosed paid editing or that ArbCom and admins cannot even consider enforcing the current policy WP:Terms of use and guideline WP:COI (1st section which repeats the relevant part of the ToU), or perhaps not even any part of the ToU.
WP:Terms of use is clearly Wikipedia policy, stating so itself (since 2009), and being categorized as such, and in a policy navigation box. Denying that this is policy, would be creating policy by fiat, and be a constitutional crisis for Wikipedia (i.e. ToU don't apply here). The principle was not needed to decide the case, so there is no need to even appear to be denying that WP:Terms of use can be considered by ArbCom.
The thread at Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Wifione/Proposed_decision#No_Wikipedia_Policy_on_Paid_Editing.3F discusses this at great length. It says everything that needs to be said IMHO. But do note that IMHO 3 arbs expressed some level of agreement or sympathy with my position in that thread. I'll inform all non-arb participants of that thread, listed above, about this request but don't really think they need to expand upon what they've already said.
Roger Davies, just a small correction, http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Policies does list the TOU as policy:
"Policies
These are all official policies of the Wikimedia Foundation.
Wikimedia wikis
These policies, in addition to the terms of use, apply to all Wikimedia wikis." (my italics)
Carrite, I just can't imagine somebody seriously writing "the community has reaffirmed again and again that there is no prohibition of paid editing per se, the WMF's unilateral tweaking of so-called "Terms of Use" notwithstanding."
The "WMF's unilateral tweaking" was the largest RFC in history [48]. 1103 users (79.4%) supported the change to the TOU and only 286 against it. That's 4 supports for every 1 against. Folks who say that there is no community support for the TOU either haven't paid attention or want to exclude a large number of the members of our community. If anyone - arbs or otherwise - want to change the outcome so that the TOU is no longer policy, the TOU describe how they can do that. It certainly hasn't been done yet. There's no requirement that another RFC has to be run so that policy can be enforced. Smallbones( smalltalk) 02:07, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
Now, does all of this mean Arbcom has to be the enforcer of All Policies Ever, Including Paid Editing, All the Time? No. But it does mean that Arbcom passed a remedy which is literally false: "[paid editing] is not prohibited by site policies." Perhaps Arbcom meant "disclosed paid editing is not prohibited", a true statement (which would be odd, in a case centered around accusations of undisclosed paid editing, but hey, it could happen); in that case, the statement needs to be clarified so that it is no longer ambiguous. It doesn't appear, looking at the Arb responses thus far, that that is the case, however. At least some Arbs appear to literally believe the Terms of Use don't apply on the English Wikipedia, which is...rather a problem. If this is what Arbcom meant, then I would hope that they would read the documentation they missed and correct their finding.
All that said, however, it looks like this clarification request is pretty likely to go nowhere, whether because the Arbs aren't familiar with local and/or global policy or just because they are reluctant to modify a finding they passed. That could be a problem going forward; it could not be. It depends on whether Arbcom actually believes this policy doesn't exist and intends to base future decisions on that, or whether it just wants us all to go away and stop talking about this finding so it can hear itself think. I'm hoping it's the latter, and I hope that once this furor dies down, Arbcom will quietly avoid handling future paid editing issues as if there were no policy governing them.
When the Terms of Use were changed last year to include a requirement for paid editors to disclose their relationship with clients, this became the English Wikipedia's policy. Since being enacted seven months ago, the various projects have had the opportunity to create alternative policies which would override the ToU. Commons has done so, but to date the community here has not agreed to an alternative. Accordingly, it is incorrect to say that the English Wikipedia does not have a policy in regard to paid editing.
The fix is an easy one - strike the principle, (as it had no particular bearing on the findings), or just strike the first sentence, which would leave us with:
The principle would then be accurate, it would not in any way change the findings, and the principle could then be easily reapplied to future cases. I'm not concerned as to whether or not the committee chooses to enforce the disclosure requirements, but this would bring the principle in line with the current situation on WP. - Bilby ( talk) 00:44, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
The most elegant solution is to strike the principle, as there is neither a related finding of fact nor a related remedy. This leaves the committee free to formulate something more developed if and when a related case arises. Andreas JN 466 17:54, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
The principle is correct as written. Even if ToU enforcement were ArbCom's job (it's not, the WMF employs lawyers for that), there is no clear enforcement mechanism and it's not ArbCom's job to come up with one. The effects of paid editing, on the other hand, (disclosed or otherwise) are very much within ArbCom's remit because there have long been clear policies which enjoy community consensus and specify enforcement mechanisms (for example, we routinely block people for POV pushing or advertising).
There is no need to prove paid editing, and encouraging attempts to do so is to encourage precisely the sort of opposition research that the likes of Phil Sandifer, WillBeback, Racepacket, and others were banned for. There's a reason we ban people for that sort of thing, and we shouldn't be encouraging it—it's entirely possible to push a POV without being paid and to be paid and write neutrally. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 17:22, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
1) Amend your dicta that was unneeded for the case. 2) The TOU is a basis for all kinds of policy on Wikipedia. 3) It's silly for the committee to claim it cannot enforce things without confession, it does it all the time (eg notthere, sockpuppets, etc., etc, etc.). Alanscottwalker ( talk) 16:58, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
HJMitchell's claim of "no clear enforcement mechanism" is plainly untrue, there are only a very few enforcement mechanisms on wikipedia, for all breaches of site norms. There is no need to "prove" any breach (which is what the committee's, "not a court" principal means), there is only the need to have consensus that a duck appears to be a duck. As for whether paid COI runs the unacceptable risk of skewing coverage and making the pedia less reliable, consensus already is that it does (see the guideline), and that consensus is the only one that conforms to the reliable sources on COI and common sense. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 17:36, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
HJMitchell: So? Policy sets out norms. Be neutral, use RS, don't OR are non-self executing norms - but exist for people who don't know what they are doing in writing an encyclopedia. Anti-COI, is just a prophylactic subset, for people unfamiliar with dealing with their own COI. As for evidence that always varies from case to case, suspicious activities and suspicious statements, confession not required. COI rules are not about motive, they are about the appearance of relationship. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 18:00, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
Doug Weller: What policy are you being asked to impose? Your just being asked to cut back on things unneeded for your decision. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 18:27, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
@ DeltaQuad: When you pressed save just now and every other time, you agree to the Terms of Service in WP:TOU. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 22:21, 16 February 2015 (UTC) @ DeltaQuad: It's the agreement we both made when we pressed save and it sets out obligations between us, and every other community member. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 22:34, 16 February 2015 (UTC) @ DeltaQuad::It guides you and me in using this site that is Us - (aka, the community) and it sets out responsibilities that are the way we are to act to the other users and readers - it is meant to be a benefit to others. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 23:21, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
@ DeltaQuad:: I'm not sure what you are asking or arguing but WP:CONEXCEPT would be another manifestation of the relevant consensus in addition to the fact that we all in the community agree to the terms set out. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 00:40, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
@ DeltaQuad:: Well. It would be prudent for arbcom not to make statements that are over-broad and unneeded, and so you should go along with the motion, as you suggest, this is a poor place to 'have it out'. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 01:00, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
@ Roger Davies: Undisclosed paid editing is prohibited by site policy. "By using this site you agree to the Terms of Use" -- Alanscottwalker ( talk) 02:04, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
@ Roger Davies:: It's what we all in the community consent to by using this site. There cannot be a more universal consensus than that. (The page you link to says that the Terms of Use apply to the English Wikipedia site - as does almost every page on English Wikipedia). Alanscottwalker ( talk) 10:30, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
@ Roger Davies:: No one is asking the comitee to declare anything. The purpose of this is in fact to get you to not to declare the principle under discussion. However, because it just took you that many words to qualify the needless and infilicitous principle, the commitee should either qualify or strike. Strike would be simplest. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 15:11, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
@ John Vandenberg: The English Wikipedia community already does have and has used the sanctions against a user under the TOU, [50] so your second paragraph is incorrect, and just makes the retroactive argument all the more needless splitting hairs around a useless principle. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 04:52, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
@ NativeForeigner: The committee is not being asked to enforce the TOU policy, here. Prudence dictates that the committee cross that bridge should you come to it, and that will depend on the facts and circumstances existing when and if that should ever occur. There is usually little consensus about hypotheticals precisely because they have no facts - and issues of enforcement are approached constantly and consistently on this site in the course of specific facts, not hypotheticals. (see eg, [51]) As for "precedent", that is at best a technical truth, here, when the committee's past statements in its decisions are often used and quoted during and in the committee's work. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 13:23, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
@ NativeForeigner: OK, but part of the reason why all this past explaining is problematic is this clause is stated as a general principle, with no application made to facts (findings) or remedies - so it hangs there as a principle without application to the case. As for the FergusM matter, the community mentioned the TOU often as a reason for the enforcement (up to the very end of the ban discussion) and that appears to be consistent in that, that very part of the TOU is in the community's COI guideline (the policy/guideline distinctions seemingly made are also rather odd, considering it does not matter to your decision - guidelines are something you deal in too, when behavioral issues arise). Alanscottwalker ( talk) 20:11, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
@ NativeForeigner: You mention "child protection". I, and perhaps others here, are mystified as to what that has to do with "paid editing." Can you explain? Alanscottwalker ( talk) 12:21, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
@ NativeForeigner: Thanks. Admitting I have never communicated privately with the committee and obviously don't know how the committee privately discusses off-wiki evidence but you would seem to have cases of basically two types, one where the committee decides it can act (combining on wiki and off wiki evidence, or just looking at on-wiki evidence) and the other type, in which case the committee refers it to other organizations or does nothing with it. Even openly labeling an account (which I suppose the committee need not do), as breaching site norms is not problematic. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 12:58, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
@ NativeForeigner: Thanks again, and get some rest. In all these years, we also have not solved the neutrality problem, or the OR problem, or the CopyVIO problem, or the true RS problem, etc, etc. but they are in their nature just something we work on everyday. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 13:38, 22 February 2015 (UTC) @ NativeForeigner: I was going to add this before you responded. so I will add it here, concerning specifically "enforcement", WP:Policies and guidelines says: "editors (including you) enforce and apply policies and guidelines". That responsibility still exists when you are on the committee. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 14:36, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
Reading through everything out of interest, there seems nothing out of place, incorrect, or policy-setting with the clause under consideration. With all due respect to the request initiator, the proposed rephrasing would not magically change the status quo, either, but it would at a minimum result in an error by omission with regard to the committee's responsibilities and powers. I would suggest that the committee decline the request, and if Smallbones really feels the need for ArbCom to have the power and responsiblity of enforcing ToU, that they use the usual channels for changing enwiki policy. // coldacid ( talk| contrib) 19:29, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
In light of Fluffernutter's comment, perhaps the principle should be revised as follows?
6) The Committee has no mandate to sanction editors for disclosed paid editing as it is not prohibited by site policies. The arbitration policy prevents the Committee from creating new policy by fiat. The Committee does have, however, a longstanding mandate to deal with activities often associated with undisclosed paid editing—POV-pushing, misrepresentation of sources, and sometimes sockpuppetry—through the application of existing policy.
This would help clarify that paid editing isn't banned on Wikipedia, but that undisclosed paid editing can lead to ArbCom actions and remedies. // coldacid ( talk| contrib) 20:30, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
New proposal for the revised principle:@ Dougweller: would this address your concerns with the existing motion? // coldacid ( talk| contrib) 15:41, 21 February 2015 (UTC)6) The Committee has no mandate to sanction editors for disclosed paid editing as it is not prohibited by site policies. The arbitration policy prevents the Committee from creating new policy by fiat. The Committee does have, however, a longstanding mandate to deal with activities often associated with undisclosed paid editing—POV-pushing, misrepresentation of sources, and sometimes sockpuppetry—through the application of existing policy. The Committee does not have a mandate to investigate undisclosed paid editing itself.
While the TOU are site wide policy, I believe the "site policies" referred to in the decision were local policies, which, unless something has very drastically changed lately, do not disallow paid editing, undisclosed or otherwise. If that is the case, then the principle is fine as written.
As for the WMF policies taking precedence over local ones, sure they do, but as they are WMF policies, they are not for us to enforce. The WMF must do it themselves as it is their policy. And as they seem unwilling to do so except in egregious cases, the point is moot. KonveyorBelt 17:55, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
This request for amendment seems a transparent attempt to make "policy" by fiat. The fact is, the community has reaffirmed again and again that there is no prohibition of paid editing per se, the WMF's unilateral tweaking of so-called "Terms of Use" notwithstanding. A radical change of policy such as the banning of paid editing needs to come through a community RFC — and good luck with that. The statement on paid editing in the Wifione decision was well considered and accurate, in my opinion. Carrite ( talk) 21:52, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
If arbcom is not taking any stance at this point in time one way or the other they should simply delete the statement in question.
It appears that further discussion is required on this issue by the En community. Is there evidence of a policy against paid undisclosed advocacy editing? Yes sure there is. Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 21:13, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
The principle as written in that case ("The Committee has no mandate to sanction editors for paid editing as it is not prohibited by site policies.") is fine, and the proposed amendment by user:smallbones here is wishful thinking on their behalf. Paid editing is not prohibited, neither by site policy nor by the TOU amendment. The TOU only requires disclosure of paid editing, and that only came into effect after the period of contributions by Wifione that has been determined to be problematic. As far as I know the TOU itself doesnt explain how to handle non-disclosure prior to the TOU amendment, however that was answered on the talk page by the LCA team; see meta:Talk:Terms_of_use#Retrospective.
The TOU allows each community to enforce the TOU (and any other WMF policy), but does not mandate it, and that does not translate into a mandate for the English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee to enforce it either, as that mandate should come from the local community. I would hope that any non-trivial violation of the TOU is referred to the WMF legal team, as a TOU ban can only be made by the WMF as it is their contract with the user. If a person has violated the TOU, they should be banned Wikimedia wide — it is not a site specific policy.
Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should address why or why not the Committee should accept the case request or provide additional information. I'm unfortunately recused from this case for a concern irrelevant to this particular matter, so I'm commenting here. I agree the AC should not make new policy. But it does enforce all aspects of existing policy relating to behavior on the enWP, unless there are specific provision to the contrary. It does not need a statement for each such policy that it falls under the jurisdiction of arbcom. It does automatically. Existing policy is based on the TOU, and the TOU is policy on all matters with relevance to enWP. As it is the basis on which any of us edits in any capacity, it is in fact superior in position to all local policy here, except to the extent where it permits local variation and to the extent that local policy may be regarded as an interpretation or extension of it. The TOU have a policy that undisclosed paid editing is not permitted. This provision permits variation to a limited extent, but the enWP has not (yet) chosen to vary it, and is therefore bound by the statement in the TOU. I would if I could make a specific motion to the effect that To avoid doubt, it is existing policy based on the TOU that undisclosed paid editing is prohibited in the English Wikipedia. Editing in this prohibited manner is editing behavior, and therefore under ArbCom jurisdiction, and so I would if I could make a motion that To avoid doubt, the Arbitration Committee has jurisdiction over undisclosed paid editing, subject as in other matters to superseding office action in particular cases. Wheat Arb Com & the community would do in the way of procedures and standards are secondary matter for subsequent discussion, and I do not think their premature discussion helpful--the first step is to determine the actual policy, and the second to decide how to implement it--or even whether implementation is feasible. I agree that resolution of this case does not require these two statements, but it is usual to give potentially relevant statement of policy, to avoid doubt on the matter. As the question seas raised here, the statements should be made. I intend to propose that the committee make such statements by motion independent of this case, but if it fails to do so, I would urge the community to do so. I do not at the moment propose it to the community, because I still hope to propose these motions from the Committee and take a public vote on them to determine and demonstrate the extent of support they have within the committee. it is obvious that we on arb com think differently on these two issues, and the way to find the current consensus is by such a discussion and vote, and the community has the right to see it. DGG ( talk ) 05:25, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
I am late to this party; sorry for that.
Quick note about me: I work the COIN board a lot, acting on postings there and I (along with Smallbones, who started this request) was involved in discussions at the COI guideline about how to implement the amended ToU in our COI guideline. You can see the changes by which the ToU were added to the guideline in this set of diffs, which were worked out over about three weeks. The Talk page discussion, as you can imagine, was elaborate. We were not able to agree on whether the ToU is WP policy - there were strong views on both sides. What we did with the COI guideline, was basically bow to the ToU, recognizing it as a higher and binding authority on us. (Note: The ToU amendment allows communities under it to enact different approaches to paid editing, which we have not done and which I believe we as a community are not capable of doing; we are too divided. Without enacting our own approach, the ToU is binding on us.)
What has happened since then, is that in practice (the true source of policy), we bring the obligation to disclose paid editing to the attention of editors with an apparent COI all the time, and violations are acted on.
In my view, in practice the Terms of Use are being implemented as policy.
I request that Arbcom consider amending the statement under clarification to state something like:
OR
Please do consider alternative motions before closing this. Thank you. Jytdog ( talk) 22:37, 22 February 2015 (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 case request or provide additional information.
6) While undisclosed paid editing is prohibited by site policies, there is not a current mandate from either the community or the Wikimedia Foundation for the Committee to enforce of this policy. Further, the arbitration policy prevents the Committee from creating new policy by fiat. This should not be interpreted as prohibiting the community from enforcing the site policies around undisclosed paid editing, or from creating a framework to allow the committee to do so. The Committee does have, however, a longstanding mandate to deal with activities often associated with undisclosed paid editing POV-pushing, misrepresentation of sources, and sometimes sockpuppetry—through the application of existing policy.
How does that sound? -- Guerillero | My Talk 06:34, 16 February 2015 (UTC)But, if there is to be a process, it needs to be constructed with the fully informed consent of the community and must not sneaked in like via the back door. In essence, the community needs to agree to each aspect of the following question:
"Do you consent to ArbCom, on the strength of an anonymous email denouncing you, launching a secret and amateur investigation into your private life - to pry into your location, ryour job title and your employer - then to discuss that investigation at length with others on secret mailing lists, and the perhaps site-ban you with no means of appeal?"
Finally, I cannot begin to understand why people are so very keen for ArbCom to create a secret Star Chamber process to tackle paid editing, and then act as judge, jury and executioner when perfectly good and highly transparent processes are already available to deal with POV-pushing, misrepresentation of sources, battlefield conduct and so forth. Roger Davies talk 15:15, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
Principle 6 on paid editing is stricken from the Wifione case.
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 MarkBernstein at 16:11, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
On Friday, March 6, Think Progress published an article by Lauren C. Williams on The ‘Five Horsemen’ Of Wikipedia Paid The Price For Getting Between Trolls And Their Victims. Two days later, I was topic-banned by @ Dreadstar: under the standard AE sanctions, over his concerns regarding this discussion [52] of that article at the Gamergate talk page.
I had requested clarification by email about the intended scope of the standard topic ban. Receiving no pertinent response, I asked on my talk page.
This evoked a vituperative response by email, which I believe to have been sent to you as well, and which is now being discussed at AN/I, which I believe is the appropriate forum. I do not wish to enquire further into that here.
I do not believe the topic ban was proper, just, or expedient. I do not wish to enquire further into that in this place and at this time, though of course you may discuss whatever pleases you.
The underlying question remains: an activist had contacted me that very day, seeking advice for a Wikipedia initiative among her membership and concerned -- not unreasonably -- over the sort of repercussions that were detailed in Think Progress and previously in a number of other newspapers and magazines [53].
Is it your intent that the standard Gamergate topic ban include pages relating to Campus Rape, which might conceivably be construed to be a controversy and arguably is related to gender?
Administrator Masem makes an interesting proposal that the committee find that Campus Rape does not fall under the standard sanctions in general, but it does for me. DHeyward and Thargor Orlando apparently share this fascinating view. This is, of course, a bill of attainder, and is incompatible with the notion of the rule of law.
My question addresses your intent in writing the decision you wrote.
It's not clear to me that the assistance of third parties, involved or otherwise, is helpful for you to determine what you meant to say a scant six weeks ago. Nothing else is at issue here -- although now that the question has been raised so forcefully below, by such august Wikipedians, it might be useful to state whether Wikipedia policy applies alike to all, or whether it can be changed so flexibly to afflict our foes and benefit our pals.
I’m the editor who asked for MarkBernstein’s perspective on editing the Campus Rape page after reading about the Wikipedia GamerGate debacle. So let me weigh in but I also ask you to be kind: I am new here. I don’t know all the protocols, lingo, and history, and it is a bit intimidating. I'm not even sure where to put this comment so I apologize if I'm putting it in the wrong place. I had hoped, perhaps naively, to at least begin editing the Campus Rape page in obscurity. I’m a bit horrified that it has now become inextricably linked to GamerGate in Wikipedia. The Campus Rape page and sexual assault coverage in general need a lot of help. Many prominent researchers and organizations do not have pages, and coverage is skewed. I would love for some of the experienced editors in this discussion to help.
I loudly echo In the case of Campus Rape, I think the letter, if not the spirit, of the sanction is unclear: Campus Rape is not a “gender-related dispute or controversy.” It is gender-related. That is clear. But, Campus Rape is not, in and of itself, a dispute or controversy. Rape is rape. Campus Rape is campus rape. There are, however, myriad disputes and controversies within the topic of Campus Rape. So, the ban might have have been better described as covering “any gender-related topic.” Such a ban would concede that gender-related topics will, most likely, end up having disputes and controversies, which given the gender imbalance issues that Wikipedia is confronting, seems, unfortunately, a fair assumption.
There's a lot of time and energy being spent debating the boundaries of the sanction. But, there’s a bigger issue here. Do sanctions work? I don’t think so. In the IdeaLab I suggested an alternative resolution to sanctions: apology. I would welcome your feedback on it. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Require_Apologies Beauxlieux ( talk) 17:57, 11 March 2015 (UTC)
Thank you @ Rhoark: for your offer to help. To clarify for @ Cailil: and @ Euryalus: -- I understand that I can edit. When I said that Campus Rape and GamerGate are now linked in Wikipedia, I just meant that for search, history, etc, this page now exists. I meant nothing more than that. Here's the chronology of events. After reading about GamerGate, I contacted @ MarkBernstein: for his perspective. He generously offered to put Campus Rape on his watch list. Then, he got banned and asked for clarification. Why/how are @ Squiggleslash:'s comments redacted? I thought they were really useful. Beauxlieux ( talk) 21:15, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
I am tempted to undo the redacting of @ Squiggleslash:'s comments, but since they did it themselves, I don't think that would be appropriate. I will respect their wishes. The point that they and I were making (and that they made better than I at https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Wikipedia%3AArbitration%2FRequests%2FClarification_and_Amendment&diff=650931140&oldid=650930666 ) is that if arbcon or whoever's responsible thinks that campus rape should be included in the ban, then the better wording would be "gender-related topic." That wording is clearer and avoids the debate in which we unfortunately now find ourselves. Can the arbitrators, or whoever it is that is responsible, change the wording of the ban? I do think @ MarkBernstein: had a legitimate point that the ban is unclear. While there is a way, as some have argued, that campus rape has become, unfortunately, controversial, there is also, and many survivors would fall into this camp, an understanding that campus rape is not at all controversial and that it is delegitimizing to survivors' experience to call campus rape "controversial." Both interpretations have been articulated in this debate already so I'm not going to repeat them. If wikipedia wants to be welcoming to women, then acknowledging the unfortunate reality of many women that rape is rape would be better than debating whether that reality is controversial or not. So, rather than continue the debate, why not sidestep it? The easy solution -- the solution with integrity -- is to change the wording of the ban. I would hope that whoever can make that happen, does. And, thank you in advance for doing it. Beauxlieux ( talk) 21:47, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
This isn't actually related to what Mark's said, but it's such a minor and uncontroversial issue that I don't want to create a separate RCA for it. Apologies to Mark for partially hijacking his ARCA. ArmyLine's topic ban (despite what's incorrectly been written on the GG General sanctions page, was actually given under Arbcom's BLP discretionary sanctions. This means FoF13 is factually innaccurate, as is remedy 12. Could these be ammended to note that ArmyLine was banned under BLP discretionary sanctions, as opposed to GG general sanctions? Bosstopher ( talk) 16:45, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
Given the overly broad topic area and the directive that it be "broadly construed", we were obviously going to be back here. This time around, I would hope that the ArbCom members carefully consider the actual ramifications of whether their actions are going to minimize disruption in the long term or will provide a blueprint for how outside canvassing can be used to disrupt Wikipedia to drive editors away. I hope that any support that comes their way in this dark hour will help them come up with a decision that is actually likely going to do the former while maintaining the basic principles of creating an encyclopedia that everyone, including women, can edit without fear of arbitrary sanctions.-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 16:53, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
So the NFL [55] /] [56] and the US Marines [57] [58] the US Congress [59] [60] Saudi Arabia and Sweden [61] are obviously covered as well, since they have well documented controversies involving gender? -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 03:11, 11 March 2015 (UTC)
For "topic bans" it may or may not be as clear cut as people seem to think, but per @ Courcelles: "If something is covered by the DS, it is covered for all editors equally, there can be no "this set of topics for editor X, and this set for everyone else"." so, as soon as anyone mentions "the NFL cover up of wife beating by players" the DS tag goes on the NFL talk page and people get their alerts? -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 12:04, 11 March 2015 (UTC)
Not to speak for Dreadstar or the Arbs, but the topic ban, as written at MarkBernstein's talk page, is in part for "any gender-related dispute or controversy." This is an incredibly controversial topic anyway, and Mark's own intentions in this clarification is to drag the drama he continually creates within the Gamergate space into the campus rape disputes. The goal of the topic ban is to keep him away from inflaming these topics, not to try and drive him to other ones. I hope the arbs and admins here clarify that this article and his involvement would fall under the relevant sanctions, and perhaps extend this topic ban toward MarkBernstein indefinitely as it should have been back at the original ruling, as he has continually shown himself unable to collaborate constructively in the space due to his personal feelings on the relevant topics of Gamergate, feminism, and Wikipedia's governance. The continued allowance of MarkBernstein to disrupt the proceedings at the relevant articles is a problem that is in need of an overdue solution.
Also, this continued spamming of his blog posts and the ThinkProgress blog post is becoming exhausting and self-promotional, and is arguably becoming an issue of a conflict of interests in and of themselves. Since we're here, it is worth a mention. We wouldn't tolerate it from anyone else.
Clarification on the exact scope of the GG topic ban is needed. This isn't the first time this has been brought up, previously in the Spudt3r case this came up. Personally I feel the wording is too broad, but I appreciate that might of been intentional. — Strongjam ( talk) 17:12, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
Thargor Orlando's statement appears to be yet another attempt to silence dissent and sweep this issue under the rug. It is hardly "spamming" to suggest that a significant media article be included in the In the Media section. The fact that the article is significantly critical of Wikipedia's processes and response to this issue derives the inevitable inference that Thargor's decision to engage in an war to remove it from the In the Media section is intended to cover up inconvenient truths. (I believe the usual term for that is Streisand effect.) While leveling accusations of a "conflict of interest," Thargor interestingly fails to note his own conflict of interest here, in that the article is critical of the position he has relentlessly pushed on-wiki. What he calls "drama" is no more and no less than a thoroughly-justified belief that the encyclopedia's own processes failed those who stood up to defend the project's basic principles from vicious, organized abuse. NorthBySouthBaranof ( talk) 18:18, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
"Broadly construed" really needs to be explained better for this topic. The categories listed for Gamergate controversy currently : Category:2014 controversies, Category:2014 in video gaming, Category:Conflict of interest, Category:Conspiracy theories, Category:Criticism of journalism, Category:Cyberbullying, Category:Women and video games, Category:Hashtags, Category:Internet activism, Category:Internet trolling, Category:Internet vigilantism, Category:Journalism ethics, Category:Video game controversies, Category:Video game journalism, Category:Sexual harassment, Category:Misogyny, Category:2015 in video gaming, Category:2015 controversies Does a Gamergate controversy topic ban include articles sharing these categories? ForbiddenRocky ( talk) 18:53, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
I would argue that Campus Rape would not fall under the GG general sanctions as IDed by ArbCom, for any other editor. But I will argue that in the specific case of Mark, who in the past has been quick to label editors as "rape apologists" tied to the GG situation ( [62], [63] that this clearly shows a strong COI in the area, and that in this specific case for Mark should be an area to avoid, if even voluntarily. -- MASEM ( t) 19:54, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
@Bishonen: The problem with " I hereby propose they be amended to support the efforts of editors who defend living people from slander, instead of thwarting and punishing these editors." is that from the GG arbcom case, there's a difference from enforcing BLP which is meant to prevent WP from introducing claims that are harmful to living person, and actively defending living persons to a point of taking a battleground attitude to anyone with a slightly contrary view, which several editors were doing during GG. We are not here to right wrongs, including when living persons are being negatively attacked off-site, as an an amoral work, we can't let that attitude that we have to defend them on WP override expected civility and consensus building. BLP is strong enough as it is (exempt from 3RR, strict admin actions for severe violations, etc.) that "defending" persons under BLP should not be done on WP. -- MASEM ( t) 01:20, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
@DD2K: "if there were an organized group tying certain Bronys to pedophilia, and said brony people had Wikipedia articles that were being attacked with off-site organization, you would feel much differently." absolutely not. In fact, there are articles that negatively call members of the brony fandom as creepy and approaching that, and those are in our article, but that's because they come from reliable sources and thus appropriate opinions to include to achieve neutrality. I know one can delve into far-less reliable sources and find more accusations, but just as we won't include accusations against BLP from weak RS for GG, we won't do that here, either.
The point of my statement is that fundamental civility and consensus-building policy cannot be overriden in the name of "protecting" someone or any other agenda, which is why ArbCom set up those topic bans (that worked on people pushing agendas from both sides) and the general sanction. BLP is not a shield or a bulldozer; it's a admin tool to prevent WP from introducing slanderous material where unfounded, and it works just fine as long with the strength and weight it had. --
MASEM (
t) 03:22, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
(i) The community Gamergate general sanctions are hereby rescinded and are replaced by standard discretionary sanctions, which are authorized for all edits about, and all pages related to, (a) GamerGate, (b) any gender-related dispute or controversy, (c) people associated with (a) or (b), all broadly construed.
Campus rape is a touchy subject in gender issues and civil issues groups, and because of the spectrum of opinions and how vehemently holders of those opinions can be when they are challenged on them, I think it's safe to say that it would fall under the (i)(b) subclause of the Discretionary sanctions remedy. Whether or not the GG discretionary sanctions should include pages on the subject of campus rape is another issue altogether.
Depending on the size and/or membership of the set of editors both active on pages regarding campus rape and those regarding GamerGate, it may or may not be worthwhile for the arbs to consider making an exception to the GG DS. Honestly I'm not interested in making that determination, nor suggestions towards it, but looking into that may be the way this request should go, if the arbs decide to take any action. // coldacid ( talk| contrib) 19:56, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
@ ForbiddenRocky: I'd argue that yes, GG topic bans do include feminist topics, and I'd even posit that (i)(b) and (i)(c) exist to prevent the GamerGate battleground from spilling out into those topic areas. // coldacid ( talk| contrib) 01:54, 11 March 2015 (UTC)
@ Masem: I'd love to know why you think that campus rape as a topic wouldn't fall under the sanctions. I agree that this is definitely an area that MarkBernstein should avoid, but unless I've been misreading something, somewhere, it seems pretty clear that campus rape would be covered under the areas included in the GG topic bans. // coldacid ( talk| contrib) 01:54, 11 March 2015 (UTC)
@ Squiggleslash: A topic that is prone to raising controversies is by virtue of the frequency of those controversies, controversial itself. As I already mentioned in my reply to ForbiddenRocky, it seems obvious that topics such as campus rape were intentionally scoped into the discretionary sanctions clause for the GG case to avoid the behaviour from the GamerGate controversy article spilling out further into articles covering gender-related issues. I didn't participate in the GG case, but I did observe it; from those observations I drew the conclusion that the DS scope was intended to keep sanctioned editors from disrupting anything gender issues related.
By the way, a look at your recent contributions, and especially this notice raises the question of whether or not you're back to actually contribute to Wikipedia. I hope the former, but that notice certainly implies the latter. // coldacid ( talk| contrib) 15:11, 11 March 2015 (UTC)
@ Beauxlieux: Squiggleslash redacted their own comments, as (based on the change) they felt that their opinion was being misinterpreted. Squiggleslash's comments still remain in the history of the page, however, even if not visible in the ongoing ARCA request. // coldacid ( talk| contrib) 23:04, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
MArkBernstein's topic ban was for continuing to comment on contributors and not content. This was noted by two admins on his talk page and has been noted elsewhere. Notwithstanding his strawman argument about campus rape, of which I can find no substantial contribution by MarkBernstein, his topic ban has nothing to do with it. This is a canard put forth only to muddy the waters. MarkBernstein doesn't appear to be here to build the encyclopedia. -- DHeyward ( talk) 20:34, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
Since Campus rape references both "attitudes towards women" and Christian Hoff Sommers / gender feminism logically it would fall under the topic ban. NE Ent 23:22, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
Answered on their talk [65] NE Ent 00:06, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
I am very concerned that we should not waste the talents of someone like MarkBernstein. While he apparently has trouble disengaging from personalities, or at least understanding how others might perceive what he writes, when working in areas about which he feels strongly, he has a wealth of expertise in the statistical field which can be very productive on Wikipedia.
I don't see Campus rape as being the pacific topic which MarkBernstein hopes. There are fraught conversations about double jeopardy, the role of campus police, notable hoaxes, alleged rapists being "punished" by having to write an essay, how ill-suited campus committees are to understand even the mechanics ("I had to draw a diagram"), whether those who sue universities for wrongful punishment are "entitled", and on, and on.
If this is covered by the sanction under which MarkBernstein finds himself, it is not an area where I would imagine there is any guarantee that the conflict would not recur, especially so soon after recent issues, so a special dispensation would probably be unwise.
I would suggest that other areas such a medicine, climatology and pseudo-science might well benefit from MarkBernstein's statistical expertise.
All the best:
Rich
Farmbrough, 02:37, 11 March 2015 (UTC).
I (and frankly the reliable sources out there) see issues like campus rape (and a whole panoply of other gender issues that are given high profile in the media due to gender politics around them) fall into the category of gender related controversy....any gender controversy is covered - so controversial backlashes against Feminism, the USA bills/laws VWA & ERA, and other topics like Same sex marriage, as well as any future issues like the Chelsea Manning conflict etc etc are already preemptively covered. It is as I understand it a preventative measure so that nothing ever gets to the GG level of disruption on WP again. The Men's rights issue is highly controversial a) in RL and b) for the Men's rights online community's reaction to wikipedia's coverage (exactly like GG).
Beauxlieux ( talk · contribs) - It seems to me that you've been misinformed by Mark. Campus rape or other gender conflicts are not "inextricibly linked to Gamer Gate". What's happen on wikipedia in the past 3 years is that ArbCom have (finaly) started to deal with protracted conflicts on gender related controversies (Chealsea Manning being one, Abortion being another, and GG being the latest). The ruling does not prevent anyone new to wikipedia from editing Campus rape etc. What is under probation is editor behaviour. As long as people play by the rules and don't disrupt articles to make a point - they have nothing to worry about at all. Discretionary Sanctions are like special speed limits in an area that has high traffic, with cops on standby to enforce them - the only people banned from editing them are those topic banned under the gamer gate ruling because they have a s history of escalating disputes in gender related controversies-- Cailil talk 12:02, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
(Redacted)
It would be very difficult to make any contribution to an article on campus rape that would not in some way intersect the controversial matters of statistical prevalence, risk factors, perpetrator demographics, definition of consent, false accusation, due process, or proposed remedies. The whole article must be regarded as a gender-related controversy, and as such MarkBernstein should not be permitted to interact with it. Fortunately, Beauxlieux and her organization need not be uniquely dependent on MarkBernstein to accomplish their goals. I'm sure any member of Wikipedia:WikiProject_Feminism, myself included, would be pleased to help them improve the encyclopedia. We shouldn't let them be used as a human shield against a justified topic ban, and they should consider themselves fortunate to be spared being weaponized for more pointy behavior. Rhoark ( talk) 01:28, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
Topic bans are always intended to be broad enough to avoid the possibility of disruptive editing. "Gender-related" and "controversy" are deliberately broad terms,
says
DGG. But how does such breadth affect an instance where, say, somebody is editing not disruptively, but helpfully, and the broadness of the terms lays them open to being taken to
WP:AE for violating that deliberately broad topic ban, and likely enough sanctioned, as in
this current AE case? Don't you people care, with your deliberately broad terms? Was that not foreseeable? Compare NorthBySouthBaranof's
comment above. I agree with it; indeed, I find it eloquent. I see
Thryduulf has responded to it by inviting NBSB to appeal his topic ban at the end of January next year (bah) or to Jimbo (bah) at any time. The gamergate sanctions are a trainwreck. I hereby propose they be amended to support the efforts of editors who defend living people from slander, instead of thwarting and punishing these editors. This is the page not only for clarification, but also amendment, am I right? Please don't tell me to submit a separate amendment case in triplicate, as
Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy.
Bishonen |
talk 01:03, 13 March 2015 (UTC).
...there's a difference from enforcing BLP which is meant to prevent WP from introducing claims that are harmful to living person, and actively defending living persons...including when living persons are being negatively attacked off-site,... "defending" persons under BLP should not be done on WP.
Absolutely disturbing. I have a strong inclination that if there were an organized group tying certain Bronys to pedophilia, and said brony people had Wikipedia articles that were being attacked with off-site organization, you would feel much differently. The same with some Arbs here, if the people being attacked weren't just some feminist women who act too big for their britches, the case would have looked much different. I don't know if it's the young age of some of the ArbCom members, or if they are just tone deaf. But when you compare the GGTF case and the GG case, it's absurd. Dave Dial ( talk) 02:25, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
@ Masem: - Your response shows that my comment either went right over your head, or you are being purposely obtuse. In fact, this whole episode from start till know shows exactly how systemic bias works on Wikipedia. Regular, good editors are biased and cannot see their own biases. The absurdity of it all would be funny were it not for the consequences involved. Dave Dial ( talk) 13:33, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
Can we now wrap up and close this request, given that nine Arbs, a majority, have pretty much unanimously declared that campus rape is "related to gender and the subject of controversy", thus being within the standard GG topic ban? I'm not very aware of the procedures - what's next and who can close this? starship .paint ~ ¡Olé! 05:26, 15 March 2015 (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 case request or provide additional information.