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Behaviour on this page: Arbitration case pages exist to assist the Arbitration Committee in arriving at a fair, well-informed decision. You are required to act with appropriate decorum during this case. While grievances must often be aired during a case, you are expected to air them without being rude or hostile, and to respond calmly to allegations against you. Accusations of misbehaviour posted in this case must be proven with clear evidence (and otherwise not made at all). Editors who conduct themselves inappropriately during a case may be sanctioned by an arbitrator, clerk, or functionary, without further warning, by being banned from further participation in the case, or being blocked altogether. Personal attacks against other users, including arbitrators or the clerks, will be met with sanctions. Behavior during a case may also be considered by the committee in arriving at a final decision.

1. Casliber
2. Courcelles
3. David Fuchs
4. Hersfold
5. Jclemens
6. Kirill Lokshin
7. Newyorkbrad
8. PhilKnight
9. Risker
10. Roger Davies
11. SirFozzie

Inactive:

1. AGK
2. Elen of the Roads
3. Xeno

Recused:

1. SilkTork

I'd like to apologize to the parties of this case for the delays in posting the proposed decision. Unfortunately, real life does take precedence, and it's been a bit of a bummer of late for both myself and Elen, leaving both of us either unable to get to a computer or without the free time and emotional state needed to review the facts of the case.

I have taken a look through things and compiled some notes; I have a preliminary version of a PD mostly thought out, but it'll likely need another look-through and possibly some clarifying questions to the parties before I'm confident that it's the way to go. Unfortunately, my own real-life commitments won't lessen for the next week or so, so while the date has been pushed back to July 4, it's quite probable it'll take a fair bit longer to have a proposed decision up.

Again, I apologize to all parties to this case for keeping this hanging, but it is largely due to matters beyond my control. (So if you must blame someone, blame the Gods of Karma who have apparently decided my life has been too good recently and needs to suck more.) Hersfold non-admin^{( t/ a/ c)} 17:40, 2 July 2012 (UTC) reply

The Gods of Karma can be real [deleted]s at times, as I think most of us already know, or probably will before long. The only question I might have is about the clarifying questions, and what would be done if for whatever reason one of the parties is unwilling or unable to respond in a timely manner. Otherwise, speaking at least for myself, thanks for the effort, and I hope the gods of karma get their acts together sometime soon and stop targeting good people like you and Elen. John Carter ( talk) 18:02, 2 July 2012 (UTC) reply

I/We'll be sure to give parties enough time to provide informed answers to any questions we need to pose. I'm going to try and post some tomorrow evening or early afternoon on the 4th, but no guarantees. Hersfold non-admin^{( t/ a/ c)} 19:25, 2 July 2012 (UTC) reply

No worries. I'll have intermittent internet access for the next week, but will make time to answer any questions directed my way. Homunculus ( duihua) 20:38, 2 July 2012 (UTC) reply

Sighted. Acknowledged. Understood. Sympathized. TheSoundAndTheFury ( talk) 02:28, 3 July 2012 (UTC) reply

Good to hear back. I eagerly await the questions. Shrigley ( talk) 01:29, 4 July 2012 (UTC) reply

I am travelling this week in real life, and therefore will not be as active, but I will check back from time to time. Colipon+( Talk) 04:20, 4 July 2012 (UTC) reply

I've been reviewing the evidence further, and I don't have any questions for the parties. I should have a proposed decision posted later this evening. Hersfold ^{( t/ a/ c)} 19:23, 8 July 2012 (UTC) reply

On the proposed finding of fact for Homunculus: there is zero evidence that her edits relate primarily to FLG. The evidence that were presented (for example, the quantitative byte count by Ohc) shows two of her "top ten" articles related to FLG. How is that "primarily" to Falun Gong?

Regarding POV-pushing, I don’t see it. When there were Falun Gong practitioner editors involved in this topic, she was like me - moderating their views. This is an editor who scrupulously follows what the sources say and is extremely knowledgeable on this topic. The diffs show this. Diffs also show her editing from many points of view. What evidence is there of POV-pushing, except for the specious personal attacks and imputations by the opposing editors?

One of the difs provided as evidence of this claim was an edit to Lei Feng? I have no idea what the connection is between Lei Feng and Falun Gong. How is that evidence of the finding of fact listed?

My observation is that this is an editor who edits from multiple points of view in order to represent the highest quality academic discourse available on these topics. Where has it ever been shown that this editor has done anything else? You might as well accuse David Ownby, often called the authority on the topic, a Falun Gong POV-pusher.

So let me ask: can we get some actual evidence for this finding of fact? The proposed punishment follows directly from it, yet it is untrue, and has not been shown to be true, or based on any evidence, at all. TheSoundAndTheFury ( talk) 03:55, 9 July 2012 (UTC) reply

To the proposed finding of fact related to my behavior, I do not believe that any compelling evidence has been presented to evince these findings. Specifically:

• Falun Gong is not my primary area of focus; a minority of my edits are related to this subject.

• I'm very confident that my edits reflect the ideas in the scholarly literature (and, sometimes, journalistic literature) fairly and holistically. I edit from multiple perspectives in accordance with the prominence, quality, and notability of different views, and make edits that could be construed as both favorable and unfavorable towards the Falun Gong and the Chinese government. My involvement in this namespace has resulted in many of these pages becoming more complete, well sourced, and stable, and I have always sought to edit collaboratively. There were three diffs provided in the proposed finding of fact demonstrating that I engage in point of view editing. Can anyone tell me which points of view which I omitted, or otherwise explain how my edits failed to comply with NPOV based on their own readings of the relevant literature? No one on any of those pages ever did this, and no one has in this forum, either.

• As to the specific diffs: like TSTF, I also have no idea what connection there is between Falun Gong and Lei Feng—the only reference I could find to him in Falun Gong's religious texts actually seem to glorify, rather than denigrate him. But Falun Gong's views are not consistent with the mainstream discourse among historians, and I'm here to represent that discourse; the only comments from other editors on the talk page said that my edits represented the general views of scholars and contributed to the improvement of the page. The edits I made to Falun Gong outside mainland China had the effect of bringing the article from a rather poor C-class article (very incomplete, outdated, with poor sources and neutrality problems) to a very solid B-class article. The material I wrote on Jiang Zemin was very notable, well sourced, and representative of the corpus of literature (most literature, in fact, is quite a bit more scathing; no one has any exculpations to offer on this topic). Anyone who edits honestly on contemporary China has made some edits that reflect poorly on the Chinese government. Similarly, I think anyone who edits articles related to Falun Gong in a comprehensive and honest way will produce depictions that some consider favorable to the practice, precisely because the scholarly literature is, generally speaking, sympathetic (as some of my opponents here have written, journalists and scholars are 'apologists' for Falun Gong, at least viewed through the lens of people who harbor animus towards the group, or who have given weight to the Chinese government's representations). Honest, well informed, and holistic representations of the subject matter should not be grounds for a topic ban simply because some editors feel that the truth reflects well or poorly on a given subject.

• When I've read the writings of colleagues in this field who publish on Falun Gong, I'm regularly struck by the realization that, if these academics wrote on Wikipedia what they publish in peer-reviewed journals, a group of editors would almost certainly label them Falun Gong apologists and seek to have them topic banned. I think that is what has happened here, and I believe it is deleterious to the project.

• The arbitrary manner in which someone can be labelled a POV editor—based entirely on rhetoric, outlandish speculation, and misrepresentations—seems to have the potential to exert a chilling effect on this namespace. If I were so inclined, I could have assembled an equally if not more compelling argument that any editor who has ever worked on this space engages in point of view editing. POV editing becomes a problem when editors edit exclusively from one point of view and/or edit in a manner that is not actually representative of the discourse in reliable sources—something that Ohconfucius, Shrigley and Colipon do, but I do not. It is also a problem when editors demonstrate a consistent pattern of misrepresenting reliable sources in order to unduly advance that point of view—something these three editors do often (Colipon and Ohconfucius actually did this on the workshop page!). Examples (misrepresentations explained on respective talk pages): [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] The problem is further exacerbated when editors demonstrate an unwillingness or inability to discuss contested edits in a reasonable and cordial way—again, a characteristic these three editors share, but I do not.

Ok, back to vacation. Homunculus ( duihua) 07:17, 9 July 2012 (UTC) reply

I'll try to address each point raised:

• The opening sentence, stating "primarily edits articles related to..." was a draft version that I'd meant to remove and replace with the sentence used to open the other two POV findings. This has now been done; apologies.
• In my view, the balance of the edits made by Homunculus was to sway the point of view past neutral, and towards the pro-FG, anti-CPC side of things. I believe that the provided diffs provide examples of that; while some diffs provided in history do appear to attempt to find a balance between the differing viewpoints, more often than not I found edits that stepped over that line.
• As for the Lei Feng edit, note that the Finding also mentions that the edits have the effect of "discredit[ing] the Communist Party of China, [and] its members" in addition to Falun Gong-related topics.
• The way Wikipedia handles things, I regretfully have to agree that a Falun Gong scholar would likely be labelled a POV editor. However, consider for a moment why that would be. I honestly haven't read much of that (focusing mostly on conduct rather than content as per my remit) but I'd imagine that it would focus primarily on the Falun Gong practitioners and their ongoing problems with the Chinese government, and less on why the Chinese government is taking the actions they are. These articles are not, by nature, neutral as Wikipedia defines the term.
• I am aware that misrepresentations have been made, and that is in no small part why I had the workshop page closed for so long. That has been taken into consideration (even though it is not explicitly noted on the workshop) and is in part why Ohconfucious and Coliphon are facing an indefinite topic ban and you are not. Another part is, as you mention, your willingness to discuss matters in a civil manner. However, despite this, I still see a significant amount of evidence that points to POV pushing and that cannot be ignored if this case is to resolve all current issues in this subject area.

I can certainly understand your frustration with this, but unfortunately the way Arbitration goes, usually nobody walks away happy. Should the topic ban pass, I would recommend you continue to do good editorial work elsewhere, and the Committee may be willing to consider an amendment request to terminate the ban earlier than stated. The same applies to Ohconfucious and Coliphon as well, of course, however graver offenses will necessitate greater appeals. Hersfold non-admin^{( t/ a/ c)} 14:09, 9 July 2012 (UTC) reply

Thank you for the thoughtful response. I recognize that arbitration cases are not going to satisfy everyone, and that they have a kind of pyrrhic quality. I also understand that these decisions are not easy, and it is beyond anyone's capacity to engage in a comprehensive analysis of an editor's content contributions in order to measure their compliance with NPOV; to a certain extent, you must trust your instincts on these things. I don't share your view about the nature of the scholarly discourse—historians and political scientists have devoted much energy to attempting to explain and contextualize the Chinese government's decision to suppress of Falun Gong, and I've written about those discourses both on and off Wikipedia. In any case, if it is true that scholars who publish well reviewed books in the most prestigious academic presses would be deemed POV editors for their depictions of this issue, then at least I am in good company. I've always believed that the goal of the NPOV policy is to represent major viewpoints in proportion to their notability, their prominence and quality, and have often warned about the (very natural) tendency to seek false balance on issues such as these. But I suppose we're past the stage where I could seek to adduce to the neutrality of my edits overall and their consistency with the available literature. Thank you also for modifying the proposed finding of fact. What will be will be ;) Homunculus ( duihua) 14:46, 9 July 2012 (UTC) reply

I have two questions about this idea. By what mechanism might an uninvolved administrator be asked to come and decide to place someone on MER, with what oversight, possibility of appeal, and by what standards of judgement? Can it require at least three admins, for example, in order to reduce capricious and arbitrary application of this rule?

Secondly, Hersfold suggests that all editors involved in this case be placed on MER (those left after this carnage). Why? What have I done wrong except get called a bunch of rotten names? I've done nothing wrong at all, certainly nothing that has been presented that would warrant this MER proposal. Just wanted to put that on the table.

Finally, Hersfold says that the process on these pages has become "bold-revert-discuss to bold-revert-revert-revert-[...]-revert-arbitration enforcement." What evidence is there of this? We identified three instances of edit wars, two involving Ohconfucius breaking 3RR, the other where he edit warred on the Tiananmen Square immolation page (because he had to ignore the "moans" of the "suspected Falun Gong meatpuppet"). I believe that this statement does not accurately reflect the dynamics on the pages, nor has it been shown to be the case through presented evidence. The pages are pretty darn stable, actually. Anyone could see that by looking through the history. The actual dynamic is different for different people. For Homunculus and I it's been "talk-edit-talk-edit-edit" (i.e. we go straight to the talk page first, and hash it out). For Colipon it's been "call names-complain-call names." For Ohconfucius and Shrigley it's been something else again (rev-rev-rev-rev for the first; the second is complex). There are very, very significant differences in behavior and attitude between the editors engaged in these pages. Has this fact been overlooked in all the calumny? Edit wars are not part of the problem here, nor have they shown to be. The MER would make sense if edit wars were actually a problem. The problem was a poisoned atmosphere caused solely by the attitudes and behavior of few editors, and that's pretty much all the evidence has shown. TheSoundAndTheFury ( talk) 04:26, 9 July 2012 (UTC) reply

This is intended to be another form of discretionary sanctions - they can be applied by any uninvolved administrator, most commonly by request at an appropriate noticeboard (most commonly Arbitration Enforcement). I don't believe that we've had too many issues with how that has been applied, and it's my hope that we won't with this either. If there are issues (which wouldn't surprise me, honestly, it's a new idea) then the Committee can revisit things then and "fix" any restrictions that have already been placed as needed.

The application of MER on all parties is simply something to consider by enforcement admins; absent any findings of fact for a party's misconduct, it won't be applied as a part of this decision.

This proposal in mainly targeted at edit wars because, honestly, that's the best we can do. We have few useful ways of making anyone "behave" aside from removing them from the area entirely. I can't slap an electric dog collar on them that'll zap them every time they type a rude epithet into the edit window, and if we tried it, you'd be even more up in arms. The Committee has tried civility restrictions and the like in the past, but they've never worked, they've been hated by the community, and they've only served to cause more drama than they've prevented. It's my hope that by forcing more discussion on these pages, the discussion will become more civil out of necessity - or at the least it'll make it easier for reviewing administrators to identify who needs to be shown the door. Hersfold non-admin^{( t/ a/ c)} 14:22, 9 July 2012 (UTC) reply

(e-c) The above comments by TSTF are unrelated to my comments here, and I personally have nothing to say about them one way or another. My questions would be about the process of MER. The first question would be regarding how long to be given to establish consensus of the involved editors. So, for instance, could one editor basically refusing to get to the point the proceedings by refusing to comment one way or another, or by raising questions at the beginning and thereafter refusing to do anything but obstructionably saying "see my earlier comments"? The second would be the "uninvolved editor" to enact changes. Acknowledging that this could be seen as bureaucracy creep, I think it might be most reasonable to have the requests made at AE for edits, and to limit the possibility of such edits to, basically, one of the admins who respond to comments on that page. I say this because I personally think it would be quite possible for one editor to engage in some collusionary deal of "I'll back your ideas if you back mine" regarding some other page. Yeah, call it paranoic, but I think it might be better to set things up to avoid at least allegations of this in the future, which might further complicate the process.

P.S. In response to Hersfold's own comment, which I was in edit conflict with, considering he is, basically, saying what I said myself above, I clearly think it makes sense. I would still wonder about the possibility of someone basically "stonewalling" with repeated "see my earlier comments" statements as opposed to addressing the matter reasonably one way or another. John Carter ( talk) 14:27, 9 July 2012 (UTC) reply

I would hope that obstructionist behavior such as that could be reasonably enforced through existing policies. Repeated WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT crap would be seen as gaming the system and they'd get blocked fairly quickly. As for the uninvolved editor, I'd rather not designate AE as the go-to place for those requests, as they've got enough to do and (like the Committee) I think prefer not to deal in content. I think best might be a request at one of the village pumps, AN, or adding an RFC tag to the discussion. Also, to clarify, the uninvolved editor is simply there to say "this looks neutral," etc., not to actually make the edit - the restricted editor is still free to do that themselves (so they get credit for their own work) once all the t's are crossed and i's dotted. Hersfold non-admin^{( t/ a/ c)} 14:45, 9 July 2012 (UTC) reply

This proposal seems to have merit, and the clarification here is helpful. There are likely to still be procedural issues arising along the way: eg. what kind of behavior warrants this form of sanction (I imagine less egregious transgressions than those meriting a topic ban), what must an editor do to be cleared of this requirement, what to do when proposals for changes never garner any response (many pages are not widely watched or actively edited), etc. But certainly worth considering as an intermediate remedy for users who appear to engage in patterns of problematic editing, editing without discussion or against consensus, etc. Homunculus ( duihua) 15:00, 9 July 2012 (UTC) reply

Aye. Honestly, you all are guinea pigs/lab rats with this. I am sure there will be some issues, but I am hoping that they'll be relatively minor and can be sorted out by amending the restriction over time. Hopefully at some point this will be another effective solution the Committee can employ for similar cases. To answer your questions, I'm thinking the following (although of course this is being left to administrator's discretion):

• What kind of behavior merits MER - combative/edit warring behavior where discretionary sanctions are not available or have proven to be/can reasonably be expected to be ineffective, but yet conduct does not yet merit a full topic ban.
• How to clear it - demonstrate that your ability to work with consensus and other editors has improved while you've been subject to MER, perhaps by noting that many of your recent suggestions have flown through the consensus discussion without much issue.
• When proposals go unanswered - open an RFC. The intent of this is to require discussion on issues, and highlight alternative means of generating collegial discourse.

Hope this helps. Hersfold non-admin^{( t/ a/ c)} 15:42, 9 July 2012 (UTC) reply

Thanks for these explanations, Hersfold. TheSoundAndTheFury ( talk) 22:32, 9 July 2012 (UTC) reply

I Support MER

MER is a good idea, and very similar to something I proposed in the "workshop" and at earlier AEs. Placing all parties of this arbitration on restrictions effective immediately is also a good idea. Like I said in previous AE cases, I am happy to avail myself to a topic ban should the articles achieve balance in the long term, and I am faithful that administrator oversight will help us get there. I challenge the other 'side' to say the same about themselves.
With Falun Gong-related disputes, much like that of other intractable Wiki-conflicts like PIA, Scientology, and 'race and intelligence', will continue so long as we submit to the view that Wikipedia oversight authorities will only make judgments on behavior and not on content. For dedicated activists, the equation is simple: if 'behavior' is what gets you banned, simply follow the letter of behavioral guidelines, wear your opponents out with wiki-litigation, and the content remains under your control. More 'draconian' measures will have to be put in place to prevent further abuse.
I will even submit that an MER should be conducted on a few Falun Gong articles immediately after this arbtration, since many of them are tainted with advocacy as it stands.
Perhaps most pertinent MER is Shen Yun Performing Arts, which in my view should be re-written entirely by a team of uninvolved users. Colipon+( Talk) 01:29, 10 July 2012 (UTC) reply

Glad you like it. Keep in mind, though, that MER is meant to be applied to individuals, not an article. If this remedy passes, it can be applied to any editor for all topics covering Falun Gong. It's not meant to be targeted for single articles. Hersfold non-admin^{( t/ a/ c)} 14:07, 10 July 2012 (UTC) reply

So, from what I gather, the MER is, at least in some ways anyway, the equivalent of "full protection" applied specifically to individual editors, right? But, of course, the articles themselves will remain under discretionary sanctions, and, presumably, at some point in the future, anyone who might have been subject to discretionary sanctions could be placed on MER as well? John Carter ( talk) 23:55, 10 July 2012 (UTC) reply

That's it exactly. I'm seeing MER as a sort of half-step between standard discretionary sanctions and a full-on topic ban. Hersfold ^{( t/ a/ c)} 01:32, 11 July 2012 (UTC) reply

This may well set the precedent for a model of oversight-based conflict resolution that can be applied on all WP areas of dispute in the future. Though, I would still put forth that targeting specific articles may be just as useful as targeting specific users; but with a volunteer-based project, organizing efforts such as these, which involves serious time commitment for parties who may or may not be interested in the subject area, can be difficult in practice. Colipon+( Talk) 06:28, 13 July 2012 (UTC) reply

In those terms, I really like the idea. Do you envision MER as something that can be imposed by community consensus (such as at WP:AN/I) in lieu of a topic ban, too? - Jorgath ( talk) ^{( contribs)} 19:03, 13 July 2012 (UTC) reply

MER is good

Although I pointed out in my arbitration request statement that there was a distinct lack of pre-arbitration dispute resolution in this case, I do believe MER is suited to the FLG topic area's unique circumstances. Unlike some other contentious topic areas, where activity from new users flares up after media attention, FLG is a relatively niche topic. As Colipon's evidence notes, [18] the alleged SPAs in this case registered their accounts directly after half a dozen FLG activist editors were banned, and have been involved in heavy POV editing ever since. Ohconfucius and Colipon have edited in FLG-space for much longer than I've watched it, so I trust them when they say this pattern is recurrent. Although the ARBFLG2 content disputes involved a lot of talk page discussion, the end result was not satisfactory to most interested editors, because mutual accusations of "misrepresentation of reliable sources" and "non-neutral editing" ended in gridlock.

So how would MER help? I see the primary benefit in the mandate for "approval... from the uninvolved editor" for major edits' neutrality and verifiability. This would hopefully short-circuit the tendency for editors in this area to rapidly make controversial changes, and then to accuse any editor who objects of "filibustering" and "stonewalling". There is the congenital problem on Wikipedia of how "consensus" is decided, but all parties have been crying out for the involvement of outside editors, and to give them a formal, prescribed role is great. I think those editors under MER might appreciate having their edits "approved" as neutral by an outside party, too. This "slow edit" regime would also induce self-awareness about our purpose, which is to serve the reference needs of a disinterested public, rather than to propagandize editors of the opposite viewpoint. The only problem I see with MER is that it targets individual editors, rather than classes of editors or articles. If we seek to protect articles from unbalanced editing, placing a greater requirement on certain editors to have their views represented than others might have unintended consequences. Shrigley ( talk) 21:53, 13 July 2012 (UTC) reply

I've always thought that the best solution is to simply recruit third-party editors who are well-established in the community to 'adjudicate' on some of the more hotly disputed articles. In a way, MER really wades into the realm of adjudicating content and not just behavior, and while I think this is a good precedent to set, it will take a lot of time and energy to comb through the controversy, and perhaps like this ArbCom case, may get bogged down with minor details. It will be a huge time commitment for anyone involved. I suppose one way around this is to hard-lock the most controversial articles or sections (such as ledes) and simply have a few dedicated third-party volunteers to monitor substantive changes. They can choose to 'approve' certain changes and 'reject' others based on their reading of the edit's tone, use of sources, and general adherence to Wikipedia's policies. Of course, those who feel strongly about this topic one way or another will not feel happy about the end result, but we are here to serve our readers, not our editors.
As an aside, I know our friends at Israel-Palestine are watching this case with some degree of interest with regards to the precedents that it will set, so all the more reason to be careful about what we decide here and how it will affect future cases. Colipon+( Talk) 04:44, 14 July 2012 (UTC) reply

OK, I should have thought of this earlier, and didn't, and that is, clearly, my fault if anyone's. However, I did get some agreement from a few of the editors involved, including some that are being considered for banning from the content, to get together individual articles on the notable books on the topic of FG earlier. Having such articles available would make it easier for any new editors who come to the subject to get a better idea of what the books say, how well they were received, what points they might make or might not make that are important, and so on. I have started the basic beginnings of these review articles at User:John Carter/Falun Gong books yesterday. Unfortunately, in many if not most cases, it would also be really useful to actually have read the books, which in most cases I haven't, rather than just the comments about them elsewhere. Ohconfucius I think agreed with the idea, and could be seen as having offered some support to maybe adding material from the books that he has read to the articles. Would it perhaps be possible to allow the banned editors to contribute to the draft articles on that page, clearly under my approval, or with me retaining the right to remove material I find odd or inconsistent with what I have seen elsewhere, prior to their being moved into main article space?

And, yeah, I think it might help if ArbCom indicated in its decision that maybe it would be in our interests to recruit more editors to the topic. Right now, based on the proposed decision, that maybe TSTF, Shrigley, and maybe a few other editors, perhaps including myself, and I have to think that a large number of editors who might come to the topic might be as determined POV pushers as any of those who have left the topic. Particularly if it were possible to find editors who want to help on the subject but don't actually care much about it one way or another, that would be wonderful. John Carter ( talk) 15:12, 9 July 2012 (UTC) reply

Thank you for proposing this. It has the potential to be a very useful resource, and though my own annotated bibliography takes a different approach (author-focused, rather than book-focused, as many people have written a great deal of journal articles as well), I would like the opportunity to offer suggestions to yours; there are a few books and reviews I can think of off-hand that you've not yet included. I imagine I'm also one of the only editors who has actually read the books you list (well, I'm part way through The Cultural Economy of Falun Gong in China—it's excellent, by the way), so I would hope I could contribute in some form on userspace, even if subject to a topic ban. It is helpful to have more editors involved, though I would certainly hope that they care enough about the issue to read multiple books; it is not very useful when casual editors read a single article and attempt to force it onto a page with no concept of the balance of points of views involved. But anyone who takes the time to read many books will invariably become invested in the subject, and at some point liable to come under scrutiny and possible topic bans on that basis. It's a bit of a dilemma, though perhaps an annotated bibliography could help address this problem. Homunculus ( duihua) 15:29, 9 July 2012 (UTC) reply

I don't know that any of this is really within the Committee's realm; I certainly agree that fresh blood would be a benefit, however it's an individual editor's decision to participate in a given area. I don't think that encouragement from the Committee will do much to change that decision. Hersfold non-admin^{( t/ a/ c)} 15:56, 9 July 2012 (UTC) reply

The evidence cited by the committee in its findings of fact comes in the form of individual diffs. They therefore obscure the fact that some editors have been more active in editing Falun Gong topics than others - as a proportion of a user's edits, and overall.

Most of the evidence against Colipon accused him of incivil talk page comments, and editors on all sides seem to acknowledge this propensity for discussion, rather than direct editing. Even then, an AE admin has characterized these comments as comparatively mild and unworthy of sanction.

Considering his habits, it might be more accurate then to say that "Colipon has been active in discussing", rather than editing, articles related to the Falun Gong movement. Because while it may be easy to infer patterns of POV editing for someone with a large amount of edits in the namespace, like Homunculus, it is harder to separate Colipon's editing from the surrounding content and editorial disputes.

Since the problem seems to be isolated around talking about Falun Gong, might Colipon's topic ban be more carefully targeted to this purpose? I don't mean that Colipon should edit Falun Gong articles without discussion, which he seems disinclined to do anyway. Rather, I think that Colipon should be able to edit articles in his usual domain of Chinese politics, including Communist Party officials, even if the page contains a sliver of Falun Gong-ness, provided he does not touch or talk about it.

We have had the problem before of "broadly construed" topic bans trapping an editor on an article that does not organically relate to Falun Gong; the case of User:PCPP and Confucius Institutes was discussed in workshop. Since Colipon, as well as Ohconfucius, have not demonstrated problems outside of FLG-space, in contrast to Homunculus with Lei Feng etc., could their topic bans be more narrowly or normally construed? Shrigley ( talk) 17:19, 9 July 2012 (UTC) reply

Each of the editors facing sanctions would be able to, if sanctioned, edit any Chinese-related article provided that the article does not fall within the area of the "Falun Gong movement and/or the prosecution thereof". If there is a possibility that an article could be considered within this area, it would be best avoided by these editors. Broadly interpreted topic bans are the norm at Arbitration to avoid lawyering and loopholes, and I see no reason to change that in this case for any of the proposed topic bans. Hersfold non-admin^{( t/ a/ c)} 17:35, 9 July 2012 (UTC) reply

It should also be noted that action regarding a violation of a ban has to be taken by the AE enforcement editors, and I have seen myself on that page some of the enforcers realize that there are grey areas and some articles and edits which are theoretically within the scope of an arbitration decision, but which as individual edits really aren't. So, in general, articles about Communist China would only be within the scope of this ban if the content of the article, and generally the specific content that a given banned editor edited, dealt in a significant way with Falun Gong. As a rather extreme example, if someone banned from Scientology were the first person to introduce text to wikipedia's article on Tom Cruise indicating he is kinda short, that would almost certainly be found to not be a violation of the topic ban from Scientology, unless the material specific related in some direct way to Scientology, in some way I personally can't for the life of me imagine. John Carter ( talk) 18:11, 9 July 2012 (UTC) reply

The "broadly construed" means that if reasonable people could disagree about whether or not something is related to the topic, it is considered to be related. All participants must be aware of it. My very best wishes ( talk) 12:59, 14 July 2012 (UTC) reply

The Falun Gong 2 PD is unique in that it seeks to topic-ban users whose primary area of interest is not Falun Gong, and who have only sparingly edited articles related to Falun Gong.

Reviewing past bans in the topic area, the following users were sanctioned with bans:

• Sam Luo (indef)
• Tomanada (indef)
• Asdfg12345 (6 month, indef)
• Olaf Stephanos (6 month, indef)
• HappyInGeneral (6 month, indef)
• Dilip Rajeev (indef)

Above six users were all single-purpose accounts.

In addition, two editors, PCPP (4 month) and Simon223 (revert parole), were given lesser sanctions, for their involvement in FLG-space, but were not SPAs. Arguably both were engaged in conduct that is prima facie much worse than what has been presented against Ohconfucius and myself. We also note that even the most egregious offenders of the FLG space were first handed out only 6-month topic bans before being indeff'ed.

Moreover, Ohconfucius and myself are veteran editors with uninterrupted clean records. Unlike previous banned users, I have never even received a 'warning' in the FLG area, let alone any sanctions. Considering these mitigating circumstances, the PD on indefinite topic bans would seem unreasonable.

Moreover, we should ask ourselves about the utility of topic bans on users who are reluctant to edit Falun Gong in the first place. In my case, save a few edits at Shen Yun, I have not edited any Falun Gong articles for two years, and topic-ban or not, I do not plan to go back.

Finally, the characterization that my edits have the effect of being 'pro-CCP' is inaccurate. The Bo Xilai dispute deals with Bo personally, not the CCP as an organization, and the Shen Yun edits do not involve the CCP whatsoever, and deal solely with Shen Yun's advertising practices. The Sima Nan edits deal with Christopher Hitchens' claim about Li Hongzhi, and again has nothing to do with the CCP. No other evidence to prove this 'finding' has been presented. Portraying this as FLG vs CCP is incorrect and obstructs our understanding of the dispute. This is the most serious concern. I ask this false 'finding of fact' to be altered or removed. Colipon+( Talk) 20:30, 9 July 2012 (UTC) reply

I'm sorry to see that the propensity for factual misrepresentation has carried on.

• PCPP was banned for four months, and then indefinitely banned after infractions continued
• Ohconfucius does not have an "uninterrupted clean record." He has multiple previous blocks for edit warring, "exceptional incivility," and attempting to circumvent injunctions by editing logged off. He's also facing scrutiny for repeating prior problematic behaviors here.
• It is not the case that Colipon's only edits to article space related to Falun Gong in the last two years were at Shen Yun. here he deletes well sourced a notable information; here he (apparently with full knowledge) violated WP:BLP and makes an exceptional claim about Falun Gong's founder (I say with full knowledge because he was involved in previous talk page discussions where material was shown to be a violation of WP:BLP, WP:V and WP:RS). His edits in article space are admittedly very rare, but uniformly unhelpful; talk page comments acutely more so.
• Colipon has received multiple warnings to cease making personal comments and accusations of bad faith on talk pages, and failed to heed them. These warnings may not have come through AE, but they are warnings nonetheless. [19] [20] [21] [22] [23]

I trust the attempt to strike the high moral posture by talking of his willingness to quit the articles does not fool anyone. In October 2011 [24] for example he wrote "I am even offering myself up to the chopping block just so Wikipedia can achieve NPOV on this sensitive topic. ... I have enough faith that third-party editing to the article will achieve the same degree of neutrality that I myself have tried to achieve during my involvement there, that I am able to opt out of such an editing process altogether. Can any "pro-Falun Gong" editors say the same? I dare you to say yes so you can prove yourselves to be "neutral" parties" and later " I am willing to ban myself from editing the article. If this still makes you think I am some sort of sinister operative working for the Communist Party's propaganda department, fine. I don't really care. I'm happy not ever touching Falun Gong again." This trope was pulled last time in an attempt to have the presiding admin ban the Falun Gong practitioner users. Colipon immediately reneged on the idea. What does that say? Amusingly, I was for a short time one of these "third parties," but when the Falun Gong guys were banned, and I began to challenge Colipon's manipulation of sources and clearly anti-Falun Gong agenda editing through careful reading of source material (documented in Colipon's own evidence against me! [25] [26] [27] [28] [29]), I suddenly became another "meatpuppet" sent by the Falun Gong! Does anyone else see how ridiculous this all is? It is equivalent to my calling him a "50 center" (a Party hack that writes posts for 50 cents) or a "Chinese nationalist". Nevermind it not being true. The label has no other purpose than to attack and degrade an opposing party. I hope everyone sees through this rhetorical manipulation. I'm sorry for the curt tone here, it's not my favorite style, but at this point - really? TheSoundAndTheFury ( talk) 03:39, 10 July 2012 (UTC) reply

Contrasting my 'counterparties', my only involvement in article space (i.e. not talk space) related to Falun Gong were in articles which only tenuously dealt with Falun Gong. Had the Falun Gong content not been gratuitously inserted by my counterparties to articles such as Bo Xilai, I would not have touched Falun Gong material with a ten-foot pole. Similarly, all above warnings were issued by users who had very evident POV-pushing tendencies on the pages, and thus cannot be taken as an authoritative form of caution as a note from an uninvolved third party. Colipon+( Talk) 04:25, 10 July 2012 (UTC) reply

Colipon: When someone asks you, then tells you, to stop calling them names, you should just stop calling them names. It doesn't matter who it is. TheSoundAndTheFury ( talk) 04:35, 10 July 2012 (UTC) reply

[30]. SilkTork is a user with "very evident POV-pushing tendencies"? Anyways, the repeated use of ad hominems to dismiss the legitimate concerns of other editors is precisely part of the problem. Homunculus ( duihua) 04:37, 10 July 2012 (UTC) reply

Not SilkTork no, sorry. He is an editor in good standing. Colipon+( Talk) 04:43, 10 July 2012 (UTC) reply

By which you're implying the other parties to this case are not in good standing? That's enough, Coliphon.

First off, this line of conversation is over, and further attacks by any editor will not be tolerated.

Secondly, in answer to your original question, Coliphon, the short answer is "no". It is not the intention of these findings of fact to portray this dispute in stark black-and-white terms - while I don't think it's terribly far off the mark, given the conflict between Falun Gong and the Chinese Government, stating such without taking full context into account would be naïve. What they are meant to do is highlight the POV-pushing effects of the edits of the named editors. What you and the other editors who have made similar appeals have failed to realize is that, as in every arbitration case, the diffs provided after each finding are not intended to portray a full, all-inclusive view of the problematic edits. Nor would it be practical to do so. The provided diffs are only meant to provide a few examples, in part to provide context for future editors reading through the decision to provide context for the decision. If they wish to peruse further information, they can read through the evidence pages. Hersfold non-admin^{( t/ a/ c)} 15:12, 10 July 2012 (UTC) reply

With all due respect, though, the Sima Nan and Shen Yun edits do not even tangentially relate to the CCP, and are totally independent of it. If they did indeed have a POV-pushing effect, the maximum at which that should be construed is reflecting more negatively on Falun Gong, not more positively on the CCP. The travails of Falun Gong on wiki-space is more accurately framed as one of Falun Gong and all its critics, not Falun Gong and the CCP. Colipon+( Talk) 16:18, 10 July 2012 (UTC) reply

Thereby making my point that it is not an all-inclusive list of diffs, but merely examples. Hersfold non-admin^{( t/ a/ c)} 18:20, 10 July 2012 (UTC) reply

The Bo Xilai edits clearly discuss Falun Gong's lawsuits against himself, not against the Communist Party. If one reviews all the diffs from original evidence presented against me by TSTF, this is the only edit that can be remotely construed as even related to the Communist Party, let alone "improve its appearance". The vast majority of evidence against me consists of talk page comments nonetheless, as Shrigley points out above, so this finding should reflect that I had been active predominantly on talk pages but less on editing the articles themselves. Colipon+( Talk) 18:58, 10 July 2012 (UTC) reply

I am not really sure that what we see here, in this Wikidrama, a "conflict between Falun Gong and the Chinese Government" and respectively bashing between two POV camp supporters. I am not an expert on Chinese politics, but according to scholarly sources I have reviewed, master Li teachings to his followers initially defined narrow set of specific personas within Chinese government as reincarnation of evil demons from hell, later FG ideology shifted into objection to current Chinese regime generally. In the West they find this ideology handy politically. And don't get me wrong Chinese government suppression is not a love festival. The party said that Qigong fever has to be cured! Sometimes a suspected Zhong Gong activist could disappear from "free" Hong Kong. This is the long arm of the communist regime. What is strange to me is that we do not see any disruption (i.e. Arb cases) in the Wikipedia Zhong Gong topic. ZG article does appear as impartial and neutral. Generally, propaganda is an art. Go figure it out, maybe Zhong Gong followers need to manipulate media better? AgadaUrbanit ( talk) 19:30, 10 July 2012 (UTC) reply

I am not sure what is meant by "The travails of Falun Gong on wiki-space is more accurately framed as one of Falun Gong and all its critics, not Falun Gong and the CCP". None of the parties involved in this dispute are Falun Gong members. The content issues in dispute here are all intrinsically related to Chinese politics and the Communist Party's campaign against Falun Gong—that includes Shen Yun (which the Chinese government tries to delegitimize and interfere with internationally), Sima Nan (described in RS as a government-backed critic of Falun Gong), and Bo Xilai (a Chinese official who was indicted for carrying out the Communist Party's policies on Falun Gong). Were it not for the actions taken by the Chinese government to suppress the group, there is little reason to believe that Falun Gong would be a controversial topic.

@Agada, your interpretation above does not make much sense to me, and I fail to see how it's supposed to be illuminating. Homunculus ( duihua) 19:55, 10 July 2012 (UTC) reply

I can see some substance to some of the above statements. I think it is a bit of an oversimplification to seem to try to reduce this exclusively to "pro-CCP" and "pro-FG" sides. Over its history, there have been, and I think remain, some serious questions regarding the "cult"-like nature of Falun Gong, even outside the Chinese government and so far as I can see even in recent years. They may not be the best supported arguments, admittedly, but they exist. Yes, the CCP has criticized Shen Yun, and even taken some action against it in Australia that I remember, but they are far from being the only ones who have criticized it. Most of the articles by arts reporters in the US as I remember spoke with at best qualified praise, about Shen Yun as well. I think that the fact that some of the editors involved seem to take this "one side or the other" stance might be one of the reasons for the existing sanctions. I agree that, at this point, there would likely be little reason to believe FG would even exist as an active concern, rather than fade into obscurity like other Qigong movements, were it not for the CCP. I also agree with Agada that FG does seem to have much better publicity than other groups like Zhong Gong. In fact, academic journals have regularly remarked upon how effective a political advocacy organization FG and related groups have become. So, in effect, comparing Zhong Gong to Falun Gong at this point would maybe be like comparing Emperor Norton I to Alexander the Great. There is at this point an extreme difference in scale in their advocacy groups. John Carter ( talk) 23:38, 10 July 2012 (UTC) reply

Yes, it's important to understand that "anti-FLG" does not equal "pro-CCP". Particularly in this case, when Shen Yun is as much a locus of dispute as Falun Gong's lawsuits against Bo Xilai, this "pro CCP" - "pro-FLG" dichotomy is extremely inaccurate.
I think particularly pertinent to user Ohconfucius as well. His edits off-FLG space seem more anti-CCP if anything. Colipon+( Talk) 23:52, 10 July 2012 (UTC) reply

John, no serious scholar gives any credence to the "cult" appellation; they roundly reject it, except perhaps in a sociological context where the term loses the pejorative connotations. I think some editors believe this topic should be framed in the manner than Transcendental Meditation and Scientology might be—as a matter of proponents and skeptics—but that's not really accurate. In this case, none of the involved editors are Falun Gong members, and the disputes are always irrevocably tied to Chinese politics. Colipon's pronouncements on Shen Yun, for instance, mirror exactly the kind of language found in Chinese government sources, and in no others (eg. his repeated assertions that it is not a performing arts company is not supported by any reliable sources). Anyways, I'm not sure where this conversation is going, and I probably shouldn't respond, as it seems to have become a forum for general discussion. Homunculus ( duihua) 00:07, 11 July 2012 (UTC) reply

I also am not at all sure what the above comment is supposed to relate to myself, other than to continue to criticize Colipon, and seems to be perhaps(?) a further indicator of POV. It does seem to me to be talking about "current" FG, which almost certainly isn't a cult. The question is basically about whether pre-ban FG was a "cult". That is a bit of a separate question. And, yes, even in 2001, Dr. Philip J. Cunningham of Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, writing a review of Schechter's book in The Japan Times, said, "Falun Gong looks like a cult, smells like a cult and by any reasonable definition is a cult." Also, I have laid out the "ground rules" for the page on draft articles on books at the top of User:John Carter/Falun Gong books. I would appreciate any comments from the arbitrators directly indicating whether it might be possible for individuals banned from the main space could edit according to the guidelines on that page. John Carter ( talk) 18:41, 11 July 2012 (UTC) reply

John, you might want to consider opening a new thread to ask your question in a clearer and more concise way (ie: "can topic-banned users edit a page I created in my user space?"). To the other issues, I'm not sure how you perceive my above comment to be the manifestation of a POV; I was just responding with a very reasonable point that the locus of dispute here centers on issues related to the Chinese government's actions towards Falun Gong, rather than being related strictly to the practice itself. It's not unreasonable to point out that there are political and nationalistic dimensions involved here, and I think that's something the arbitrators already grasp in any case.

I'm not sure if you've considered your own behavior very thoroughly. On several instances, you have used pages in these proceedings as forums to advance marginal points of view on this topic. That includes discussing completely unsubstantiated theories about the relationship between Falun Gong and foreign governments, and attempts to advance the claim that Falun Gong is a cult (again, the overwhelming preponderance of scholars reject the validity of this classification, and describe the appellation as merely part of the Chinese government's campaign to delegitimize the group, blunt its appeal in the west and minimize sympathy). I have no idea what relevance these discussions are supposed to have here, or why you steered the conversation in this direction, but it does not seem useful. Homunculus ( duihua) 19:39, 11 July 2012 (UTC)ove. reply

And I once again wonder what your own motivation is. First, I do not believe I ever advanced a theory. I put forward my reasons for leaving the content. Are you capable of perceiving that difference? Nor did I attempt to claim Falun Gong is a cult. I expressed that there have been statements that FG is a cult. Again, are you capable of perceiving the difference? In all honesty, it seems to me that your own objectivity, and probable misrepresentation of the comments of others, might be a bigger concern. Also, Homonculus, I have no idea why you chose to make the clear and obvious misstatements of fact (or lies) you made above about me. First, if you had actually read most any of the books in the field, you would know that Xinhua had repeatedly mentioned the possibility of the US government specifically being tied to the creation of Falun Gong, and even in some of the comparatively short reviews of Danny Schechter's book it is indicated that, for at least a time, he himself entertained such questions. At least one of the academic reviews of that book also specifically questions the book because of its one-sided presentation in not addressing any of the Chinese concerns about FG, presumably including this one. Therefore, so far as I can see, you have yourself clearly here engaged in clear misrepresentation of fact regarding other editors, and have gone further to make completely unwarranted and unsubstantiated judgments on them based on those misstatements of fact. I cannot see what purpose at all is served by such obvious unfounded personal attacks on others, although I do regret to say that I can now find it increasingly easy to understand why some editors such as Ohconfucius have voluntarily chosen to abandon the content because of the apparently increasingly toxic nature of some of the conduct of editors related to it. John Carter ( talk) 19:52, 11 July 2012 (UTC) reply

I do not believe I have misrepresented you, nor engaged in anything approaching a personal attack. Perhaps you were not trying to this as a forum to promote the view that Falun Gong is a cult. But you did raise this issue, unprompted, and proceeded to present a quotation from a Japanese newspaper to support this very marginal view. Maybe you are just someone who likes engaging in general discussions, but again, it doesn't seem germane or helpful in this context. Same with the unverifiable speculations (such as those you made on the evidence talk page and the workshop page) about the involvement of foreign government with Falun Gong: you have used pages in these proceeding to discuss the views of the state-run Xinhua news agency that Falun Gong is tied to the U.S. government (Xinhua is not a reliable source on Falun Gong; it is described by reliable sources as misinformation and propaganda). As to Danny Schechter, he notes that some leftist thinkers (including, initially, himself) have entertained theories of CIA involvement in Falun Gong, but like other authors on the subject, he ultimately concluded that this was unlikely, and not supported by evidence. In any case, this is not a forum, and I have said enough. Homunculus ( duihua) 19:02, 12 July 2012 (UTC) Homunculus ( duihua) 19:02, 12 July 2012 (UTC) reply

Homunculus, I agree it isn't verifiable. Lots of things regarding internal matters of China are not verifiable. In fact, many of the allegations made by Falun Gong are not verifiable. The academic press and some others repeat them anyway. And regarding your own personal beliefs, frankly, I think their is substantial reason for others to perhaps think that you are maybe less than capable of believing anything you have concluded could ever be wrong. There are I believe numberous terms in the broad field of psychology to describe people who hold such beliefs, few of them remotely complementary. We have no evidence regarding such matters on way or another, as it is in China, and we have no access to that evidence. Regarding how your declaration of how you have had enough, frankly, I had had enough of your insinuations and unfounded, irrational jumps to unwarranted conclusions myself already, obviously, and I think Ohconfucius might say the same thing. You have said before that people have to work together. No, they don't. They are free to walk away from people whose conduct creates a toxic environment. That is to the detriment of the project, admittedly, but we can't stop it. Perhaps if some editors refrained from making clearly self-serving allegations against those who disagree with them, that situation might change. Thanks to your comments here, I think we are now perhaps better able to understand how likely such a situation is with you involved. John Carter ( talk) 19:25, 12 July 2012 (UTC) reply

It is an unfortunate corollary of these proceedings that the relationship among editors can grow so polarized. I am sorry to the arbitrators for this; I should have known not to engage in this, and I know it's unhelpful for everyone. Regards, Homunculus ( duihua) 20:02, 12 July 2012 (UTC) reply

Let me answer your question directly then, Homunculus. I have considered my role very carefully. I am aware of a POV on my part which would, as per guidelines, make it such that I should edit only under the supervision of other editors who do not share it. You have also clearly expressed a POV which would place you under the same restrictions. However, in your case, your response seems to be impugning other editors for their disagreement with you. I doubt very seriously if anyone would consider such responses appropriate. Yes, it is unfortunate when editors presume to make judgments based on no evidence whatsoever about what others have done, seemingly in an attempt to discredit them. It is unfortunate when editors who go out of their way to impugn others then say it is unfortunate that their conduct causes polarization. It is in fact very unforutunate, although far from unexpected, when individuals seek to avoid the consequences of their own actions. John Carter ( talk) 22:20, 13 July 2012 (UTC) reply

It's too bad that the guide to arbitration advises against the use of rhetoric, because it has worked out profitably for one of the parties to this case, as John Carter has unpleasantly found for himself. This rhetoric includes frequent apologies (but never an end) to inappropriate behavior, such as above; repeatedly accusing people of lying (or, "making misrepresentations"), as in the workshop; and intimating that people are ideologically aligned with the Communist Party, seen in this very section. This last rhetorical flourish - poisoning the well - relates to this section's original purpose, which was to examine whether Ohconfucius and Colipon should be tarred with the "pro-CPC" brush.
The drafting arbitrator did not have to go through the trouble of finding a 5 year old talk page comment for "damning" evidence of Colipon's personal beliefs. He could have just read Colipon's arbitration evidence. I quote [31]: "Evidently, this is no longer a public relations battle between the Chinese Communist government and Falun Gong... Falun Gong's war is against all of its critics, even those that agree with its human rights mission but disagree with some minor details." In case this wasn't clear enough, let's hear Colipon again: [32] "I am against the suppression of Falun Gong in China, I am against the regime's coercive 're-education' practices, I am critical of the CCP's ideological hypocrisy, and I particularly deteste Chinese censorship... I am also a believer in universal values and increased human rights". And for good measure, let's quote Ohconfucius [33]: "I still wish the PRC would legalise Falun Gong." Despite Homunculus's skillful rhetoric, which has successfully portrayed Ohconfucius and Colipon as ideological appendages of the CPC, these editors' true POV-crime was that they supported Falun Gong; they just didn't support Falun Gong enough. And for this crime, their punishment is association with (what they agree to be) a poisonous regime and all its human rights abuses, if you vote for it. Shrigley ( talk) 20:03, 13 July 2012 (UTC) reply

If we were to apply Arbcom's own warp factor to its own positions, we could easily declare that the current Arbcom is dominated by cult apologists... 188.26.163.24 ( talk) 06:26, 21 July 2012 (UTC) reply

I noticed that one of the proposed findings of fact reads "Both Homunculus and Ohconfucius have engaged in edit wars on Falun Gong-related topics, including articles such as Bo Xilai and Cult suicide." For what it's worth, I'd like to point out that there is not really an equivalence between my behavior in this regard and Ohconfucius'. To wit:

• Ohconfucius has previous blocks for edit warring (I do not), so this appears to be a recurring behavioral problem
• Ohconfucius broke the 3RR on both the above-mentioned pages (I did not), and edit warred with several other editors at another FLG-related page (see evidence page)
• Ohconfucius edit warred to remove material that complied with content policies (Bo Xilai), and edit warred to add material that did not comply with content policies (Cult suicide)
• Where I engaged in repeated attempts to resolve issue through discussion (eg. [34] [35] [36] [37] [38] [39] [40] [41]; I also asked three uninvolved editors to weigh in so as to enable a clearer consensus to emerge [42] [43] [44]), Ohconfucius demonstrated a tendency with edit war while bypassing talk pages entirely, ignoring the opinions of several other editors. This was the case both at Bo Xilai and Tiananmen Square self-immolation incident.

These differences seem important to note. Obviously I shouldn't have engaged in edit wars; when I found that the editor was refusing to discuss on the talk page, I should have opted for dispute resolution, but I think there are some extenuating circumstances on my part: I sought to discuss everything, my edits served to uphold content policies, and I never stepped over the 3RR line. Homunculus ( duihua) 00:34, 10 July 2012 (UTC) reply

Edit warring policy clearly states that the 3RR "is not a definition of what "edit warring" means, and it is perfectly possible to edit war without breaking the three revert rule, or even coming close to doing so". Whether Ohconfucius chose to revert to the Wrong Version or the Right Version is a subjective judgment. And Ohconfucius made just as much of an effort as you to contact uninvolved editors [45] [46] and to discuss substantive issues [47] [48] [49] [50] [51]. Shrigley ( talk) 01:40, 10 July 2012 (UTC) reply

Don't want to start another squabble here but there are huge differences in the behaviors exhibited by the various editors. This has been documented extensively. TheSoundAndTheFury ( talk) 03:25, 10 July 2012 (UTC) reply

I don't want to partake in squabling either, but the diffs Shrigley provided in defense of Ohconfucius do not appear to match his account of them as attempts to engage in substantive conversation—I instead see soapboxing, incivility, stonewalling, and misrepresentations. Also, most of those comments were made only after he broke the 3RR. As to the editors Ohconfucius solicited to offer comment, I think this also demonstrates the difference between us. I invited three truly uninvolved editors with no histories on the Falun Gong pages; I chose them because they are active in GA reviews, and the page was undergoing review. Ohconfucius invited the opinions of editors with whom he worked extensively on Falun Gong/China-related topics; if he reached out on the basis of their previously expressed opinions on related issues, then Ohconfucius's actions may also have been a form of improper canvassing. Homunculus ( duihua) 04:46, 10 July 2012 (UTC) reply

None of this changes the fact that you were edit warring, which is what the finding of fact mentions. Other conduct is not being taken into account in that finding, although Ohconfucius's incivility is noted in another one. Hersfold non-admin^{( t/ a/ c)} 15:45, 10 July 2012 (UTC) reply

Thank you. I did not mean dispute the factual accuracy of the proposed finding—I did engage in reverting more than I should have—but hoped to point out some of the surrounding context and possible extenuating circumstances. I'm not sure that anyone other than yourself is following this page, but I thought it may be valuable for the other arbitrators to understand if they are reading. This one is a little painful for me because I've always tried so hard to discuss content issues substantially rather than reverting—it's a quality I really pride myself on—but in these instances I got frustrated at the other editor's conduct and his failure to meaningfully discuss the content issues on the talk page. It's regrettable, for sure. Homunculus ( duihua) 19:12, 10 July 2012 (UTC) reply

Your conduct on talk pages (etc.) was taken into account when considering the sanctions to be issued - as I mentioned above, that's partly why the topic ban proposed against you is of a fixed (and relatively short) duration, whereas the other two are indefinite. Hersfold non-admin^{( t/ a/ c)} —Preceding undated comment added 20:39, 10 July 2012 (UTC) reply

Understood, and thanks for taking the time to respond to everything here. I'm getting the impression this topic area may be more unpleasant or difficult than others for arbitrators to handle, and you seem to be very much alone in addressing these issues. I imagine it's not an easy, and I don't mean to make it any harder. Homunculus ( duihua) 20:52, 10 July 2012 (UTC) reply

Aye, unfortunately it seems that this area requires more in-depth knowledge of the subjects, more so than other disputed areas, in order to fully understand the disputes. Nationalistic disputes are often a little more clear cut because there's something that the countries in question are actually fighting over (in general) - this one is an odd mix of political and religious/ideological stuff and doesn't quite compare well with other issues I've seen at Arbitration. As Casliber noted on the voting page, this case was particularly hard to draw the line between appropriate and inappropriate conduct. Hersfold ^{( t/ a/ c)} 01:29, 11 July 2012 (UTC) reply

I wonder if it would be useful in the future if the arbitrators worked in consultation with one of the leading expert on this issue to deepen the understanding of the dispute. I'm not sure that's viable, and at this point too late. I would be happy to suggest shorter articles and testimonies by these experts, if it might be of use. Homunculus ( duihua) 04:25, 11 July 2012 (UTC) reply

This goes back to comments I've made on the subject of content vs. conduct before - ideally, it should not be necessary for us to have any knowledge about a subject area's content in order to adjudicate on a user's conduct. I believe that maintaining that distinction and, as much as possible, ignorance about the subject helps the Committee review things from a wholly objective point of view. That aside, it would be very difficult for the Committee to locate such experts on its own (for reasons of conflict of interest, we can't reasonably expect parties to find them for us) and get them to spend time typing up "My Area Of Study 101" on short notice. Hersfold non-admin^{( t/ a/ c)} 13:47, 11 July 2012 (UTC) reply

Question. Actually, this is a very common situation when two or more parties edit from different views/perspectives on the subject, and the both views can be well sourced (as in FG case). This usually results in a more neutral content, with alternative views represented (I believe that FG-related articles were actually improved over the last few years). Does it mean that any editors who are engaged in POV content disputes, and not necessarily in politics, can now be sanctioned, merely on the grounds that they tend to follow a well sourced POV? My very best wishes ( talk) 17:00, 10 July 2012 (UTC) reply

The sourcing of the edits is not at issue here, or even relevant - what is relevant is an apparent failure to abide by policies regarding neutrality and edit warring. I'm not sure what you're getting at with this. Hersfold non-admin^{( t/ a/ c)} 18:19, 10 July 2012 (UTC) reply

If Homunculus, for example, was sanctioned for edit warring, this is something I can understand. I am asking if he (and possibly others) were sanctioned for POV-pushing, meaning editing in favor of certain POV using published RS. If so, there is a lot of editors who are doing exactly the same, frequently because they are not experts and did not read all literature on the subject. I believe, more than a half of editors in "difficult political areas" are doing that kind of intentional (or not!) POV-pushing. Should all of them be reported and topic banned? My very best wishes ( talk) 20:03, 10 July 2012 (UTC) reply

They are being sanctioned for the behavior noted in the findings of fact, however I believe that your definition of POV pushing is incorrect. Using published reliable sources is hardly a crime, as should be obvious. What is a problem, and what these editors are being sanctioned for, is that their edits have the effect of making the article biased towards one point of view or another, or lending excessive weight to one view or another, rather than neutrally presenting all of these views with the credit they are each due. They may be using published sources to lend credence to their edits, however the sources themselves are not the issue. It is the content of the edits which is problematic. Asserting otherwise only serves to cloud the issue. Hersfold non-admin^{( t/ a/ c)} 20:37, 10 July 2012 (UTC) reply

You tell: "What is a problem, and what these editors are being sanctioned for, is that their edits have the effect of making the article biased towards one point of view or another, or lending excessive weight to one view or another". Yes, this is exactly what I saw in many different subject areas. Consider someone who is not an expert on a subject. In the best case scenario, he read a couple of good books on the subject (frequently he only saw something in newspapers or on the internet, which still may qualify as RS). He goes through articles and inserts content as described in his favorite books. Obviously, this makes "the effect of making the article biased" [towards the views of his favorite books]. He is simply not capable to study all or majority of sources on the subject, even if he wanted. Even an expert frequently can not do it. I thought that kind of biased editing was perfectly legitimate, unless we want to disqualify a vast majority of our participants here. But you tell that would be against the policy? My very best wishes ( talk) 21:02, 10 July 2012 (UTC) reply

You're not following the scenario all the way out. If they do make a misinformed, biased post as you describe, another editor will likely revert them; the ensuing discussion will reveal the flaws in the editor's reasoning, and all works out well from there. But that's a non sequitor, as that isn't the case here. Despite discussion, these editors are continuing to push their points of view without much or any consideration to other "sides," in some cases edit warring over it, and in other cases attacking others for it. That beside the point, I've no reason to believe that the parties to this case are as misinformed as your scenario assumes. Hersfold ^{( t/ a/ c)} 22:59, 10 July 2012 (UTC) reply

A final two cents from me on this: In fairness, per the NPOV policy, editors should strive to represent "fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been published by reliable sources." When an editor appears to edit exclusively from one point of view over a long period of time, and does so aggressively, it can indeed be problematic. Homunculus is extremely well read on this topic (possibly more than any other editor), who employs a vast array of sources, and edits from multiple points of view in a manner that I'm sure she feels complies with NPOV. I think the difference between her edits and those of others is that Homunculus is able to defend hers through rational discussion of the evidence and sources. The editing of the other parties is problematic because they truly do edit the namespace from a single point of view, and are generally not able to offer sound defense of their edits when challenged on their accuracy or neutrality (instead, they apply other tactics, which brought us here). TheSoundAndTheFury ( talk) 23:13, 10 July 2012 (UTC) reply

@Hersfold. Thank you. You answered my question: "Despite discussion, these editors are continuing to push their points of view without much or any consideration to other sides". Keyword here is their point of view. Saying that, I agree with TheSoundAndTheFury that Homunculus is a civil editor who uses multiple sources, extensively discuss, and very capable of defending their edits. My very best wishes ( talk) 00:02, 11 July 2012 (UTC) reply

I thought a great deal about whether I should write this, but decided I should. When looking at other arbitration cases there tends to be much more active engagement by multiple arbitrators. We didn't have that in this case. Now, arbs are filing in and have to cast important votes. However, the topics treated in the articles that come under these arbitration proceedings involve grave matters of religious suppression, torture, and claims of genocide. These are ongoing issues, and the representations on Wikipedia affect people in the real world. I point this out only to say that I hope all the arbitrators can give this the time it needs, and fully consider the evidence that has been put on the table.

On another note, for the last month or so I'm sure that all parties to this case have probably had a very stressful time (I know I have!), and it really means something to know that the people who are looking at this have looked at all the important things there are to look at. This has been a very unpleasant experience. The original AE I filed was a distress signal, and the presentation of evidence at ArbCom the same. It would be heartening to know that the evidence has been thoroughly considered.

I noticed a couple arbitrators noted that the diffs provided on the Proposed Decision page are not enough to support the proposed findings, even though they may be true. As Hersfold noted, the diffs provided in the proposed decision are not intended to be exhaustive. A more complete list of relevant diffs was provided by me on the evidence page. I also provided proposed findings of fact that list these diffs:

Hmmm, yes, it's not really clear who is reading what or seeing what evidence. The diffs TSTF provided do not address the POV issues, either, though the original AE filings and the evidence page, (as well as my response to Colipon's AE, which was linked on evidence page), deal in greater depth with those issues. Regarding point of view editing, I'll just note the following, perhaps in vain: the point of view editing by Ohconfucius, Colipon (and Shrigley) is demonstrably non-compliant with content policies. For all the diffs provided, there are talk page discussions demonstrating, in detail, how their edits were problematic (deleting notable and verifiable information without explanation, constant distortions of reliable sources and factual misrepresentations, adding material that fails WP:V, WP:RS, etc. etc). For the evidence presented against me in terms of POV editing, this was not the case; I think all my edits are defensible and compliant with content policies (including NPOV), and very, very few of my edits were ever questioned on talk pages. When they were, I discussed them openly and substantively, explaining how they stand up against the available evidence, and always being open to compromise. Moreover, virtually every one of these editors' contributions in this space serve to advance a particular point of view; my contributions (which are nowhere presented in a representative way) show that I edit from multiple perspectives and build these pages holistically. I'm not sure it's possible to reflect these differences in the findings of fact (same for the edit warring issue, mentioned [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Falun_Gong_2/Proposed_decision#On_edit_warring above), but it seems worth pointing out again. Homunculus ( duihua) 05:58, 11 July 2012 (UTC) reply

I thought this type of melodrama and mudslinging was why the workshop was closed early. Repeating "They edit from a single perspective, I edit from multiple perspectives" are just POV pushing accusations in a dressing of false civility. And the emotion-laden appeals to "suppression" and "genocide" don't make this case special; those claims are a staple of nationalistic and religious disputes. But if any arbs are indeed reading TSTF's proposed FoFs, they ought to look at Homunculus's and Colipon's and mine and John Carter's, too. That's looking at it from multiple perspectives. Shrigley ( talk) 13:28, 11 July 2012 (UTC) reply

Indeed, the workshop phase has been closed, and this is not the proper location to be posting things such as this. I believe I speak for everyone on the Committee when I say that they would not vote while uninformed about the nature of the dispute. I am sure that the other arbitrators are at least perusing through the presented evidence and workshop proposals, as well as a summary of the evidence I provided for the Committee. As we had two other cases and several other issues come up during the course of this case, a more obvious presence from Arbitrators was missing here, but that should not be taken as an indication that votes are being cast willy-nilly. Hersfold non-admin^{( t/ a/ c)} 13:42, 11 July 2012 (UTC) reply

So ArbCom has allowed itself to be the vehicle for hounding out a superb and valuable editor. I see he retired a few hours ago. Nice work, arbitrators. In particular, I see:

"When doing so, [Ohconfucius's] edits have the result of improving the appearance of the Communist Party of China, its members, and attempts by the group to take action against Falun Gong and its practitioners; and to discredit the Falun Gong movement."

That's laughable. From what I know of his stance, it's pretty heavily anti-Beijing. I don't know what kind of partial reading of diffs has led to this so-called remedy.

And the hounding by the date-format-obsessed Gimmetoo, with dire threats from Jclemens et al if Ohconfucius doesn't respond ... I find this irksome given that he has extreme RL issues to face at the moment—a fact that should be obvious on-wiki.

Congratulations on the destruction. Tony (talk) 04:48, 12 July 2012 (UTC) reply

As Tony says. Arbcom has made here a good job of scaring a hard-working editor away from the encyclopedia. -- Enric Naval ( talk) 09:45, 12 July 2012 (UTC) reply

Ohconfucius is a veteran user who is among the most active of Wikipedians - who has contributed to Wikipedia for over half a decade. All parties to this case have repeatedly acknowledged that Ohc's work outside of FLG-space is very valuable. His departure is undoubtedly a loss to the project. The fact is, the vast majority of Ohc's contributions have nothing to do with Falun Gong, and that these contributions suffer as a result of a niche dispute is regrettable.
It is sad and discouraging to see that the 'collateral damage' of this case extends much beyond Falun Gong space.
I can relate to why Ohc feels insulted by the 'Pro-CCP' label, which Tony1 has already pointed out as highly problematic, and in serious need of revision. Colipon+( Talk) 16:12, 12 July 2012 (UTC) reply

FWIW, having been in contact with Ohconfucius, I don't think it was the potential ArbCom decision regarding him which caused him to leave. He expressed more concern, honestly, about the lack of sanctions, and/or the comparative lightness of sanctions, to others involved. Under the circumstances, I can understand that. Having said that, I also note that, somewhat amusingly, Ohconfucius rather than promoting the CCP, as seems to be alleged, he is in fact been the primary contributor to the Zhong Gong and Zhou Yongjun, neither of which is particularly sympathetic to the CCP. Someone who would aim to support the CCP would not write those articles. I believe that, perhaps, in time, like some other editors who have retired for family reasons, there is a chance he might return in time. However, I believe that chance would be substantially reduced if he believes that he has been falsely maligned as being "pro-CCP". I agree with Tony and Colipon that, even if the sanction is to remain in place, that particular terminology should be changed. And, even though I don't think he's watching this page, I hope everyone joins me in wishing Ohconfucius and his family the best in these difficult times he and his family are experiencing. John Carter ( talk) 00:53, 13 July 2012 (UTC) reply

I thank all the above for their support. My off-wiki correspondence with John drew me here. This will be my definitive and final word. As John has noted, family reasons did combine with other reasons for giving up here. But there are indeed reasons intrinsic to Falun Gong and this arbitration case. I had said that I accepted I had done wrong and that sanctions were probably appropriate, but I guess that justice was just too much to ask for. Just to reiterate that I am

1. utterly fed up by the general toxicity and the non-stop filibustering, proselytism and last-wordism and personal attacks that still seems to be going on here – not unlike trolling.
2. insulted that Arbs seem to blindly follow the lead arb in condemning me for being "pro-PRC" in the absence of any evidence to that specificity. I note that David Fuchs remarked on that lack of evidence yet still voted to support that motion is rather beyond my comprehension. New evidence posted still fails to demonstrate my support for the government of the PRC or the CPC.
3. insulted by the insensitivity of one of the arbs in the face of my personal problems, which he was made aware of.

The arbs do the best with the time and resources available to them on this volunteer project. If anyone wants to read my departure as implied guilt, of the act of a diva or trying to game the system or whatever, then so be it; there's little I can do to change their closed minds anyway. As I have said elsewhere. I leave with no ill will towards the project – this is a natural milestone and it wasn't a difficult decision to take to leave. I bid farewell to the many friends I have made on the project. -- Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 03:50, 13 July 2012 (UTC) reply

All I can really say in addition is that, although I admit, and have admitted, to not reading all the books on the subject, I have read rather extensively on it, including all those articles I could find on databanks and online. The now somewhat older page User:John Carter/Falun Gong articles lists many but I don't think all of those articles, and, yes, I did read all those listed that I could personally access and others I found after finishing the development of the list. It was in fact on the basis of them that I came to draw the opinions which have caused me to refrain from further direct editing. Multiple reliable sources, including academic sources, have commented that both the CCP, through it's controlled media, and Falun Gong, through its media outlets, have taken a take-no-prisoners, completely one-sided approach over the issues involved. And I in no way fault those FG practitioners who helped create the Global Internet Freedom Consortium which played a significant role in the recent Arab spring. Hell, I was myself mildly involved in the Occupy Wall Street group for a time. However, yes, there is still some serious questioning regarding whether FG is as "innocent" as it consistently presents itself as being. This includes some sources from responsible academics. And, as I said elsewhere, any evidence which might exist in China regarding the early days of FG is not available for review to Westerners, so it is impossible for them to state responsible opinions about it. And, yes, there are some serious protests in the West about FG as an entity and a movement. It is unreasonable, for instance, to say that arts correspondents of various Western publications who have criticized Shen Yun are agents of the CCP or simply reiterating the opinions of it, simply because of their criticism of Shen Yun.

My one strongest opinion regarding this subject is that, unfortunately, with the loss of those editors who have the greatest history of dealing with this material, some of whom seem to have the greatest access to Oriental sources, is that much of the material about FG in the Orient, particular that which is not English language, might now become effectively inaccessible. The incident when several FG practitioners jumped from a 10-story building, led by the Wang lady who proclaimed herself the rightful heir to Li Hongzhi when he had virtually disappeared for a time, for instance, is one of several notable events related to that lady and her group which probably should be covered here in wikipedia. However, neither she nor her group are particularly "positive spin" for FG in the West, and, on that basis, they are, so far as I can tell, barely if at all even mentioned here yet. And I rather doubt what might be called the "pro-FG" faction here would ever build an article on such subjects at all. Unfortunately, members of that "group", if it can be called such, seem to be the majority of the editors not banned from the topic, making it perhaps somewhat likely that it will remain uncovered here. The potentially quite serious impact on even the possibility of our ever really coming close to being NPOV on this topic here is probably the greatest loss we suffer.

Having said that, like I already told Ohconfucius, the real life of his family is more important than the potentially quite strong impact he could have here. Although I regret his retirement as much as anyone else, I understand his reasons and sincerely wish him all the best for him and his family in the future. John Carter ( talk) 18:09, 13 July 2012 (UTC) reply

Labeling Ohconfucius a Communist sympathizer is simply ludicrous. He's been one of the most prolific and most fair-minded editors on Wikipedia, who's worked on a diverse range of subjects and has both criticized and defended Communist Chinese positions according to verifiable facts, not personal ideology. This Arbcom case smacks of McCarthyism: probably only the most zealous China haters are safe from being labeled a Communist sympathizer. - Zanhe ( talk) 18:59, 13 July 2012 (UTC) reply

It would be a minor copyedit to the Ohconfucius FoF to say that his edits were just "anti-FLG" rather than also "pro-CPC". At least, it would be "not a terribly major change" compared to the erasure, after TSTF's complaint, of the "Homunculus as a SPA" part of the FoF. But still, I would not agree with the finding of fact. ARBFLG #1 related to disputes around articles which were undisputably related to Falun Gong: FLG's teachings, FLG's leader, FLG's propaganda outlets. However, ARBFLG #2 had an area of conflict relating to mainstream Chinese politics. I show my bias here, because ARBFLG2's different scope is the only reason why I and Zujine are parties; we edit in articles relating to China and human rights, but not usually Falun Gong.

Bo Xilai, one of the disputed articles, was a high-ranking Chinese politician whose major scandal was widely reported in the Western press. Thousands of newspaper articles were written about him, but zero non-FLG papers mentioned FLG at the start of our content dispute, which revolved H and TSTF's attempts to insert information about FLG's "persecution", and other editors' attempts to pare down the information per WP:DUE and WP:V. Similarly, Jiang Zemin, another article disputed in ARBFLG2, was the former President of China, about whom much was written that did not mention Falun Gong. Since Hom likes to compare FLG to the Bahá'í Faith, let's imagine that a group of Bahá'í-sympathetic editors added information about the Bush administration's treatment of Bahá'ís to the George W. Bush article. Could the editors who resist this imposition be tagged as "anti-Bahá'í" or "pro-Republican" primarily because of their removal of this information? It's a tough judgment call, but one that requires a more holistic look at editors' records, with due consideration to the chorus of voices who attest to Ohconfucius's anti-CPC edits. Shrigley ( talk) 20:03, 13 July 2012 (UTC) reply

I'll again state my objection to being indirectly called a Falun Gong-sympathetic editor (your comparison of "Bahá'í-sympathetic editors" clearly has this purport; nevermind the validity of the Bush example!). The counterexample--and do not attempt to use this against me again--is me calling you a "CCP-sympathetic editor" (or saying it in some indirect manner, which you've attempted to do here.) Would you like that? Would it be fair? No and no. So please don't give me the same. I don't want to keep filling this talk page, but I feel I must object to these characterizations lest you think my silence is consent. I object, strongly. TheSoundAndTheFury ( talk) 03:54, 14 July 2012 (UTC) reply

For what it's worth, Ohconfucius was, prior to his retirement, the 70th most active editor on Wikipedia. Colipon+( Talk) 00:30, 17 July 2012 (UTC) reply

I've followed this from afar and I think it's an inane decision to officially label someone a pro-communist editor just because they are not pro-some-NRM. I image that if I decide to improve Wikipedia's coverage of the communist era (1980s) trials of the transcendental meditation movement in Romania, I'd be pegged pro one or the other by the wikisupremes, which is lame. On a similar note, the extremely positive coverage that Gregorian Bivolaru has in Wikipedia compared to this English-language coverage by presumably independent Finnish investigative journalists, for example, should be cause for some concern. 188.26.163.24 ( talk) 04:12, 18 July 2012 (UTC) reply

No one has called Ohconfucius a "pro-communist" editor. The proposed finding says that when Ohconfucius edits articles on Falun Gong, his edits "have the result of improving the appearance of the Communist Party of China, its members, and attempts by the group to take action against Falun Gong and its practitioners; and to discredit the Falun Gong movement." This characterization captures a very significant portion of the user's edits to this space. Deleting well sourced, notable material about human rights abuses and discrimination committed by the Communist Party of China against Falun Gong (often with no explanation and/or against consensus), and minimizing or deleting reliably sourced information that would undermine the Communist Party's narratives, has the effect of improving the appearance of the Communist Party. Homunculus ( duihua) 04:34, 18 July 2012 (UTC) reply

The wording is a bit daft though. My impression of Ohconfucius has always been that he simply got exasperated at times by the cheerful enthusiasm of Wikipedians who are really into Falun Gong, and by what he (often quite correctly) perceived as their excessive zeal. If his actions had the effect you describe, it's because he thought the relevant narratives were being laid on too thick by supporters, not because he wanted the PRC to look good. I never saw Ohconfucius as a PRC propagandist, or as a persecutor of Falun Gong (and trust me, I recognise religious persecutors when I see them). J N 466 05:21, 18 July 2012 (UTC) reply

I hope the arbs take note of the fact that a number of parties, involved and uninvolved, have made their views known on this issue: that edits which are seemingly critical of Falun Gong should not be seen as inherently "improving the appearance of the Communist Party of China". Perhaps a better wording would be simply "when doing so, they have the result of discrediting the Falun Gong movement." Again I ask that this segment be amended if possible to better reflect the evidence at hand. Colipon+( Talk) 05:59, 18 July 2012 (UTC) reply

Let's just say that in a topic where a conflict is described and a group of biased editors are active, an editor who is seeking to restore neutrality might appear as consistently biased in the opposite direction according to a selection of their diffs. It appears that also in this case the wording about Ohc is an oversimplification and reaching for a false balance. AgadaUrbanit ( talk) 07:13, 18 July 2012 (UTC) reply

@Jayen466, perhaps the user's behavior has changed since you worked with him three years ago; my experience is vastly different from yours. His behavior in this space, particularly since his return to editing around the new year, has been uniformly aggressive (regular edit warring against multiple users with very minimal discussion), and very heavily oriented towards the POV as described, even when doing so means misrepresenting and misquoting reliable sources. The approach of labeling good faith, legitimate questions on these content issues as "moans" from "suspected Falun Gong meatpuppets" that should be ignored is representative, but far from isolated. Collecting lists of "Falun Gong editors" in userspace where he tries to "out" users; sending this list to other members of the community with the apparent aim of discrediting people with whom he is engaged in content disputes, etc. is highly disruptive.

@Colipon, edits such as these [114] [115] [116] have nothing to do with discrediting Falun Gong; their effect is to improve the image of the communist party (and there are many more of this nature)

@AgadaUrbanit, I understand you have been indefinitely banned from filing or commenting on Arbitration Enforcement cases. I think it's safe to assume that commenting in ArbCom cases violates the spirit of that ban. In any event, it can be said that when as editor repeatedly misquotes and misrepresents sources in order to discredit Falun Gong and/or lend undue credence to the narratives of the Chinese government; replaces high quality secondary sources with unreliable links to Chinese government websites; edit wars to promote the views of the Chinese government that are not supported by any reliable sources, etc., this is not about restoring balance to a page. Homunculus ( duihua) 12:11, 18 July 2012 (UTC) reply

Homunculus, do not misrepresent the terms of AgadaUrbanit's restriction [117] ("commenting in ArbCom cases violates the spirit of that ban"). The administrator who placed it on him clearly stated that Agada is allowed to comment on ARBFLG2.

The edits by Ohconfucius which pared down information about frivolous Falun Gong lawsuits, you say "have nothing to do with discrediting Falun Gong". But this is wrong. Falun Gong propaganda says, [118] "Beijing authorities want you to ask who these people are, rather than what is being done to them." That's a good inversion of what the Falun Gongers themselves want: media focus not on Falun Gong's own criticized teachings, control over members, and media empire, but on the group's alleged mistreatment by the state.

The context which H tries to provide for these "POV" edits is likewise false. In the same diff in which he attempts to discredit Agada, H says that "an editor" (the understood topic is Ohconfucius) "replaces high quality secondary sources with unreliable links to Chinese government websites", implying that the same "high quality secondary sources" don't discredit Falun Gong. In fact, Ohc, Colipon, and I have almost exclusively dealt with these "high quality" outside sources, rather than government sources. For example, in one diff cited as "evidence" against me, I cite [119] analysis from the same source (Reuters) used to document FLG lawsuits to prove that they were "symbolic", ineffective, and worthy of cautious removal on a BLP. The issues of WP:V mostly came on the other side of the fence, as H and TSTF were vexed to provide sources attesting to mainstream coverage of the Bo lawsuits. (The Bo sourcing problem was ultimately solved through citogenesis) Shrigley ( talk) 16:18, 18 July 2012 (UTC) reply

Seems it is listed for a vote, when it should be listed as a non-voting provision. As the Fæ case had this section missing earlier, perhaps this provision should be automatically included in the template used to create the case pages.-- The Devil's Advocate ( talk) 00:34, 13 July 2012 (UTC) reply

The motion itself carried two days after the opening of this case. Whilst the the provision was added to the template, it was not until I came to calculate the implementation notes that I added it to this case. -- Alexandr Dmitri ( talk) 19:13, 13 July 2012 (UTC) reply

Honestly, I am confused about the process in which Workshop was digested and took a form of Proposed decision. Specifically, I am not sure why PD does not mention TSTF, considering that account might appear as a source of this disruption. Workshop contains suggestions from number of angles at that direction. What still worries me is the evidence analysis like that. AgadaUrbanit ( talk) 03:18, 13 July 2012 (UTC) reply

Yes, particularly on the 'edit-warring' FoF, reviewing the evidence, TSTF would seem to have edit-warred much at the same level as Homunculus and Ohconfucius, if not more so. [120] [121] [122] Colipon+( Talk) 06:21, 13 July 2012 (UTC) reply

Unfortunately (?) the evidence phase has closed, and I do not believe the arbitrators are considering new findings of fact at this stage. Were that not the case, I would certainly like to present additional evidence against all the parties here, (including AgadaUrbanit). Homunculus ( duihua) 12:47, 13 July 2012 (UTC) reply

The question relates to the process in which this Proposed decision was hammered out of evidences that were submitted and reviewed in Workshop. I guess there should be a rationale why some suggestions discussed during Workshop phase were excluded from PD. Theoretically, multiple even opposing suggestions from Workshop with corresponding Evidences could have been voted to see which one gets a required support level. It is trivial to get a solid support around Proposed principles. The question is how to implement principles by findings of facts and remedies. Honestly I would have expected a process of consolidation of Workshop ideas/suggestions for PD, instead there was a process of filtering. I'm not questioning good faith of arbitrators, though acknowledge that arbitrators are humans and could have been distracted by Gods of Karma in RL. AgadaUrbanit ( talk) 19:50, 13 July 2012 (UTC) reply

I noticed a couple arbitrators made comments on the proposed finding of fact that Colipon fails to assume good faith. I wanted to offer a couple thoughts. I hope this is somewhat helpful:

• It's my understanding that the diffs Hersfold provided are not intended to be exhaustive. There were several more presented in the evidence phase, [123] [124] [125] [126] [127] [128] and many more still that I won’t introduce here (unless asked, if that would be helpful)
• The user has received numerous past requests and warnings to discuss content, rather than contributors, and to desist in making bad faith accusations. [129] [130] [131] [132] [133] He dismissed the validity of these warnings by making ad hominem statements about the editors issuing the requests [134] [135], which is not cool. [136]
• One thing that a process like this cannot adequately capture is whether certain edits are representative, or if they are aberrations. I think the diffs presented here are highly representative of the user’s conduct in this space. Colipon’s contributions on Falun Gong have not been very prolific in the last year or two, but these kinds of bad faith accusations comprise a significant portion of the user’s edits to this namespace (other edits might be characterized as soapboxing against Falun Gong or stonewalling to try to unreasonably exclude information on the Chinese government’s suppression of the group—see TSTF’s submission on evidence page)
• Colipon's bad faith accusations do not appear to be made in exasperation after attempts to discuss content have failed; they are made in lieu of content discussions. In all these instances, the other editors were engaged in reasonable and substantive discussions, brokering compromises and reaching agreements, or presenting suggestions or concerns about content issues in a constructive and clear manner. Colipon enters discussions for no other discernible purpose than to make bad faith accusations, declare the pages ideological battlefields, and/or suggest everyone give up.
• Another concerning dimension to this is that, both in some of the diffs provided and in other fora like AE, Colipon has declared other editors "Falun Gong users," or otherwise made statements on the off-wiki beliefs and orientations of perceived opponents as an apparent means of discrediting them (none of the editors involved here identify with Falun Gong). This is an issue that its not addressed in any of the proposed findings, but doing this seems very inappropriate.
• None of this precludes the possibility that Colipon is genuinely frustrated. I don't doubt anyone's frustration. But is the frustration deserved? Was there any evidence presented that the editors Colipon was complaining about were being unreasonable? That they were not open to collaboration or compromise? That they were doing anything other than trying to follow the sources and apply the relevant policies in a reasonable way? No.

The way to seek a neutral point of view is by engaging in collegial discussions of the available evidence and relevant policies. Editors who can prevail in a content dispute have no reason to resort to personal comments or other unseemly conduct; through reasoned discussions of the available sources and relevant policies, the evidence can be shown to be on their side (or, if not, they can compromise). If an editor has sound evidence and reasoning to support their edits, there would be no reason to engage in edit warring without discussion (as Ohconfucius does), misrepresentations of reliable sources (as Colipon, Ohconfucius and Shrigley do), and in this case, vague complaints, accusations against other users, and so on. The effect of these comments is profoundly demoralizing, and it creates an unpleasant and adversarial atmosphere for all the editors who are striving for a more elevated and collegial discourse.

In these proceedings, I think Colipon has provided further evidence that he is either unable or unwilling to assume good faith. He as labelled perceived opponents as sockpuppets and meatpuppets and SPAs. The "signature traits" Colipon has used to identify Falun Gong activists are editors who are civil, who emphasize the need for rational content discussions, who utilize academic literature, or who are discerning in the application of scholarly sources. The editor has done this by pointing out that past Falun Gong practitioner-editors possessed these qualities, and then suggested that possession of these qualities is itself evidence of Falun Gong activism. Other criteria Colipon has used to identify Falun Gong activists (per the evidence page statements) are any editors who support the inclusion of this content [137] (several uninvolved editors on the talk page did support the material, or some version thereof); Colipon then proposed a zero-tolerance policy be adopted to deal with such activists. I think this is worrying. Homunculus ( duihua) 19:14, 13 July 2012 (UTC) reply

This is just a repeat of what's already been said at Workshop. Colipon+( Talk) 19:31, 13 July 2012 (UTC) reply

Agreed. While we are, of course, all grateful for the continued pontification and condescension of the comments starting this thread, I think it is reasonable to note that those who have been through this process before, like Colipon, are somewhat aware of the process. John Carter ( talk) 21:15, 13 July 2012 (UTC) reply

I am astonished by your audacity to claim [138] that I, Ohconfucius, and Colipon "cannot prevail in content disputes because the reliable sources conflict with [our] points of view". That's an aggressive remark you made less than 24 hours after you apologized for similar behavior. I've collaboratively edited in difficult topic areas with many people, but somebody who preemptively says that I (and other editors) "cannot prevail in content disputes" - that's not an attitude which I would like to see again in one year. Perhaps Homunculus's proposed topic ban needs an extension to indefinite, not least for failing to observe arbitration rules about the closing of evidence and workshop, and continued incivility on arbitration-related fora. Shrigley ( talk) 21:53, 13 July 2012 (UTC) reply

There does seem to be a strong tendency toward arrogance in at least one of the editors here. It is certainly rare when individuals call it "unfortunate" when the workshop is closed several days after it was scheduled to be closed. Very rarely have I seen such active, and somewhat regular, at least somewhat apparently haughty criticism of the artibrators themselves in an ArbCom. John Carter ( talk) 14:41, 14 July 2012 (UTC) reply

I see Homunculus continues to supplement his new evidence against Colipon with the same misrepresentations. H cites an extraordinary diff where Colipon supports removing the FLG lawsuits information altogether. Based on this, H claims that "any editors who support the inclusion of this content" are, according to Colipon, "Falun Gong activists".

It's worth pausing here to put to rest one of H's other defamatory memes: [139] that "[Ohconfucius, Colipon, and Shrigley] seem to care little about the development of these articles unless it involves criticisms of Falun Gong or deletions of information pertaining to the suppression." Because if we look at the contributors log to Bo Xilai [140] we see that Colipon is the main content contributor to Bo, with 173 edits to H's 108 (Ohc has 78). In fact, H had to consult [141] Colipon's expertise on developing the Bo page, even as they were in conflict over the FLG content. Unfortunately, when sanctions were at stake, H turned around and used Bo's GA status to elevate himself, claiming himself as the "primary author" [142] and erasing the history of Colipon's contributions.

Back to the main misrepresentation, that Colipon sought the complete removal of the lawsuits, and considered anyone who supported it an "activist". First of all, Colipon added back Falun Gong material after that diff where he removed it, with what he thought was appropriate weight and context. [143] [144] And after H and TSTF pushed back, Colipon was persuaded to support [145] a version which gave even more extensive coverage to FLG. So according to Homunculus's accusation, Colipon would consider himself a "Falun Gong activist"? Ridiculous. Shrigley ( talk) 16:18, 18 July 2012 (UTC) reply

I ask this simply for purposes of clarification. Would an editor who has been banned from a topic be allowed to maintain and/or edit material related to the topic within their own userspace pages for the duration of a ban? Also, as per my draft page at User:John Carter/Falun Gong books, would a topic ban also necessarily apply to such pages as that one? John Carter ( talk) 19:16, 13 July 2012 (UTC) reply

"Broadly construed" bans apply to user space. AgadaUrbanit ( talk) 21:02, 13 July 2012 (UTC) reply

Hersfold added a diff of a user talk comment that Colipon made in January 2007, in order buttress his Colipon POV editing finding of fact. However, I wonder why evidence from so long ago, and which does not relate to the actively disputed pages, is considered relevant to this case. Homunculus defended himself against my evidence of his incivility by stating that his comment about the "nefarious [interests]... of editors like Ohconfucius" was made in November 2010. This comparatively flimsy defense seems to have been successful, since Hersfold did not draft a FoF about Homunculus's incivility. So why are we grasping at straws - 5 year old talk page comments - to ban Colipon from editing in a topic area in which his presence is very sparse? It seems that the findings and remedy should fit the evidence, rather than the other way around. This diff also mismatches the finding, in that it relates to Colipon's alleged personal beliefs, whereas the FoF judged the sum effects of his edits. Shrigley ( talk) 20:03, 13 July 2012 (UTC) reply

If evidence from five years ago is accepted, then, presumably, evidence from less than two years ago also, presumably, might also be found acceptable as well. And, yes, accusing one of the more respected editors in this general field of having "nefarious interests" at heart is not only a rather clear statement of POV violating NPA, but also, frankly, a rather remarkably stupid, ill-informed, and frankly irrational one. John Carter ( talk) 20:10, 13 July 2012 (UTC) reply

That diff is interesting, not only because it is over five years old, but also because even if it is considered 'damning' in the sense that it is critical of Falun Gong, it is still not in any way "improving the appearance of the Communist Party of China". I wish this issue can be addressed head on. And as Shrigley pointed out earlier, that FoF ostensibly speaks to my edits in article-space, not talk page discussions. Colipon+( Talk) 01:06, 14 July 2012 (UTC) reply

Talking about conspiring offline and conducting original research to attack the Falun Gong founder (oh sorry,, "work together in revealing the truth about Falun Gong" were the words) with a known anti-Falun Gong activist who was banned from the topic on Wikipedia is not damning evidence? The fact that it was from five years ago simply indicates the depth and longstanding nature of the problem. TheSoundAndTheFury ( talk) 03:42, 14 July 2012 (UTC) reply

@Shrigley, I told you repeatedly on the workshop page that I consider it very problematic to make repeated misrepresentations of other editors in an attempt to have them banned. Throughout these proceedings, a very significant number of your comments contain unambiguous misquotes, misrepresentations, and unsubstantiated claims about other users (among other things, you asserted I should be banned for violating WP:V and WP:OR on certain biographies of living persons, but you could not produce evidence of this when asked to. You claimed that a significant majority of my edits on Wikipedia relate to Falun Gong—they don't. You asserted that I "surreptitiously bypassed evidence limits by establishing a user subpage for evidence after the evidence phase closed"—I didn't. You said I had tried to link Ohconfucius to the Chinese government, but could again not provide evidence of this when asked. And many, many more.) You also do this regularly in article space, misquoting reliable sources or making factual misrepresentation on Falun Gong. You have done it again here. Stop.

To clarify: 1) Shrigley misquoted me above to make the comment appear more problematic than it was; 2) He also misrepresented my defense. As the diff shows, I did not try to defend this edit on the grounds that it was old. I didn't try to defend it at all. I noted that it happened early on in my Wikipedia career, that I withdrew the comment when SilkTork pointed out to the involved parties that personal comments were inappropriate, and that I learned from the experience.

@Colipon, I think the diff] Hersfold presented is problematic in that it shows you trying to collaborate with Samuel Luo ("a prominent anti-Falun Gong activist", according to ARBFLG 1, and with whom you expressed that you may have a lot in common) in order conduct and publicize original research to discredit Falun Gong's founder. As to the finding that your edits have the effect of improving the appearance of the Communist Party of China, I imagine this refers to edits that served to exclude or minimize notable and well sourced information critical of the party, such as information on its human rights abuses against the Falun Gong. Homunculus ( duihua) 04:43, 14 July 2012 (UTC) reply

Don't attempt to divine my intentions and call "misrepresentation" what are ordinary differences of interpretation. I was pretty diligent, I think, in backing up potentially contentious statements with diffs and not too much exegesis. To address your specific points of contention:

1. With regard that your user subpage: the evidence phase closed on 16 June, which was the same day you began to write your response to Colipon's arbcom evidence in your sandbox. This timing is at the very least "ambiguous", but the evidence page is not: "The Arbitration Committee expects that all rebuttals of other evidence submissions will be included in your own section (original boldface)"
2. I did not "assert that [you] should be banned for violating WP:V and WP:OR" on BLPs. I instead proposed a finding of fact that you were previously admonished under WP:BLPSE, proposing it because of "concerns" in evidence about your alleged continued nonadherence to V and OR on specific BLPs. I actually responded to your call to substantiate, by quoting Colipon's relevant evidence in full.
3. I have previously pointed out in workshop [146] the case where Ohconfucius placed prominently a quote on his userpage by a Western academic that was critical of Falun Gong, and how Homunculus interpreted, against Ohconfucius's objection, that quote as Ohconfucius saying that the academic supported the Chinese government, thereby implying some ideological affinity between Ohconfucius and the Chinese government.
4. There was extensive documentation that the majority of Homunculus's and TSTF's contributions by byte count focused on Falun Gong in the evidence and workshop phases. The accused users have chosen to deny this evidence, but by pointing it out, I am not making "unambiguous" misrepresentations or "unsubstantiated claims".
5. The controversy about whether your statement explaining your November 2010 remark about Ohconfucius was a "defense" or not seems to be a case of lexicological nitpicking. You didn't explain how my excerpt of your statement was a "misquote", but it is immaterial since anyone can follow my link to see your full comment.

Having demonstrated both that (1) these statements are, at the very least, not "unambiguous" misrepresentations, and that (2) I did not make them in an effort "to have editors banned", this line of conversation is effectively over. You should also stop accusing me of abusing sources in article-space, because you did not provide any proof of this in the evidence phase, which is now closed.

In any case, this noise is a distraction from the main purpose of this thread, which was to question the relevance of the newest Colipon diff. I respectfully ask you to stay on topic and not to attack me or any other editor. Shrigley ( talk) 20:36, 14 July 2012 (UTC) reply

Simply noting how Homunculus above says he or she "told" someone to act in a certain way earlier, and how Homunculus now tells that person to "stop". Homunculus once again gives the impression of pontification and condescension to others, almost as if Homunculus were an elementary school teacher dealing with wayward children. Homunculus' repeatedly acting in such a way as to indicate that he or she believes that his or her instructions to others are things they are obligated to follow might very easily be seen as being less than acceptable in its own right by policy and guidelines. And it is rather hard not to believe that this regular haughty, almost "holier-than-thou" condescesnsion on Homunculus' part may well be itself a significant contributor to some of the problems that have occurred. John Carter ( talk) 21:18, 14 July 2012 (UTC) reply

First, I think some of you will know that I am, occasionally, moderately involved once in a while at AE. You will also probably know that some of the indefinite topic bans made by ArbCom are reversed, particularly if the related content is itself under discretionary sanctions. I note that the content related to Falun Gong remains under discretionary sanctions, and, as Casliber has indicated, right now the most likely action to be taken by this ArbCom is the MER.
I was recently more or less appointed the interim leader of the editor retention and recovery unit of the new Wikipedia:WikiProject Editor Retention. The purpose of that group is to do what we can to keep experienced editors. Ohconfucius, as I think has already been pointed out, is one of the most experienced editors in the history of the project, and he has also been one of the most productive regarding this particular content. But he is currently being considered for an indefinile. ban from the topic. Under the circumstances, I think that would reasonably make the possibility of his ever returning after his current rather extreme personal situation that much less likely.
I therefore request that the ArbCom at least consider changing the nature of the proposed ruling to an indefinite topic ban, subject to review after a year. Although I myself have no experience in situations such as Ohconfucius is now facing, I think there is a very good chance that, after a year, the extreme emotional pressures he has recently been experiencing may have at least abated somewhat, and if he finds the situation to be one in which he can actively contribute he will probably have less external stress than he recently has had.
Also, if the MER does pass, I think it might be a good idea to be as specific about the terms as possible. For instance, would editors under MER be allowed to revert vandalism? I would hope not, because that could be used as an excuse for removing sourced content. Also, it would probably help if the ArbCom were to indicate in the ruling exactly which editors fall under MER. John Carter ( talk) 18:21, 17 July 2012 (UTC) reply

I think perhaps a better solution for MER is to limit edits by restricted parties on applicable articles to formatting and spelling errors only (in other words, only minor edits, or alternatively, no editing whatsoever).
Also it may be useful to specify a list of articles subject to this remedy. I know off the top of my head that everything in Category:Falun Gong would apply. But I would be interested to hear ArbCom's view on extending this remedy to articles such as " John Liu", which I previously mentioned as a serious BLP concern and an article of "high interest" to Falun Gong adherents, despite the fact that it may not directly incorporate Falun Gong content. Colipon+( Talk) 18:29, 17 July 2012 (UTC) reply

The proposed topic ban against Ohconfucius is an indefinite topic ban. As currently worded, the ban could be appealed at any time, although I don't expect an appeal would be likely to be considered until at least six months to a year down the road.

The way the MER remedy is worded, only "simple and uncontroversial spelling, grammatical, and/or stylistic corrections" could be made without review. This would apply to your average drive-by vandalism (page/section blanking, adding nonsense, the like), but probably couldn't be applied to "sneakier" forms of vandalism (including number/date tweaking, etc.), and certainly not to undoing good-faith edits. I do not intend to specify which editors are subject to MER from the start, as (like discretionary sanctions) this is to be applied as needed by uninvolved administrators.

( edit conflict) This MER remedy may be applied to "all articles relating to the Falun Gong movement and/or the prosecution thereof, broadly construed." As with discretionary sanctions, how broadly is left to the discretion of uninvolved administrators. Hersfold non-admin^{( t/ a/ c)} 18:35, 17 July 2012 (UTC) reply

So in your view, would "John Liu" qualify as an article under the restriction? Colipon+( Talk) 18:40, 17 July 2012 (UTC) reply

My own guess, and that is all it is, would be that if the editing and content in dispute were in some way directly related to criticism of the subject found in The Epoch Times or other FG related media, that might be sufficient grounds to say "yes". If, however, the dispute was about material negative to the subject which is not to be found in FG related media, maybe not. Granted, I wouldn't involve myself as a neutral admin in this material anyway, but if I weren't involved that would be my thinking. I would of course welcome input from the arbitrators, but if I were to present a complaint to AE which met the criteria I identify above, I would expect it to be at least considered. John Carter ( talk) 19:28, 17 July 2012 (UTC) reply

(@ Colipon) Not being familiar with the subject area, and without the context of an edit being made, I can't really answer that. I would hope that someone under MER would use their best judgment and request review of an edit anywhere they were unsure of whether it fell within the restriction or not. John's interpretation sounds good to me - if the edit didn't have anything to do with Falun Gong, it may be ok to be posted without review - but it would probably be best to err on the side of caution on such borderline cases (particularly if the editor under MER ever wishes to appeal the restriction ;-) ). Hersfold non-admin^{( t/ a/ c)} 21:29, 17 July 2012 (UTC) reply

The relationship between the Taiwan-born assemblyman and Falun Gong is not totally clear, because nobody wrote about it in the Wikipedia article so far. I view it as somewhat deceptive that H would unload so much anti-Liu material on his article without explaining the FLG connection. The New York Observer notes FLG's persecution of Liu, [147] which began when Liu did not support FLG demonstrators who were apparently celebrating the 2008 Sichuan earthquake as cosmic retribution against the CPC (which naturally upset his ethnic Chinese constituents). Since then, as the piece notes, the movement has dispatched followers to harass him, flooded social media with anti-Liu comments, and pumped out a steady stream of negative, sensationalist articles against Liu in its propaganda paper, the Epoch Times.

Since outside media have documented FLG's targeting of Liu, I think any reasonable AE admin would interpret his biography as coming within the ARBFLG2 remit. However, the jurisdictional problems are complicated by the fact that FLG attacked Liu not just for "prosecuting" FLG, but also accused him of being corrupt and a Communist agent. Since the Epoch Times masquerades as a mainstream newspaper, sometimes more reputable journals note or reprint its attack pieces. Homunculus cited the corruption charges from non-FLG sources like The New York Times, which would not be suspicious but for H's heavy involvement in the FLG area. I hope that the "broadly construed" nature of MER will allow for relief on other biographies of living people who are furtively attacked by FLG. Shrigley ( talk) 16:18, 18 July 2012 (UTC) reply

FWIW I think the most logical way to apply this restriction is simply this: content that mentions Falun Gong. The MERed editors shouldn't be able to freely edit anything that includes the words "Falun Gong" or that makes reference to it or affiliated organizations or people. In the John Liu case, I think the prohibition should extend to FLG's grievance with him, but not the article generally. The logic of banning a MERed editor from the article entirely is problematic (i.e. can't edit articles about people or things over which FLG has grievances, even where FLG is not being mentioned.) The same logic would support the MER applying to all CCP articles, an organization which the FLG has an even stronger grievance against. So I think it should just be on material anywhere in namespace or talkspace that mentions Falun Gong (or clearly affiliated organizations and people.) TheSoundAndTheFury ( talk) 18:13, 18 July 2012 (UTC) reply

BTW Shrigley, your full-throated anti-Falun Gong agitprop and soapboxing here, which is incidentally exactly what CCP propaganda organs used to agitate violence towards Falun Gong practitioners in the United States (resulting in arrests for assault), is way out of line. I'm referring to the "FLG celebrated Sichuan earthquake" number. It's not appropriate to propagandize against a vulnerable and persecuted group, without reliable sources. (There are zero reliable sources for the claims you made.) It's dismaying that this level of soapboxing and propaganda that entirely lacks reliable sources is flying here. [148] [149] TheSoundAndTheFury ( talk) 18:28, 18 July 2012 (UTC) reply

I think we are all grateful that you are not the person whose decision this is then. As the article "Who Hates John Liu?" specifically says that the assertions of the reporter that The Epoch Times is "not directly affiliated with Falun Gong" is perhaps "cutting things a bit fine," and cites wikipedia as a relevant source, it would clearly be certainly possible to add reference to Falun Gong in any article which relates to the media which have clear ties to Falun Gong, like The Epoch Times. I cannot think that it would make the slightest degree of sense to insist that the words "Falun Gong" must be in the article for it to qualify, because that would be placing an irrational degree of emphasis on the words itself and open up the content to any number of attempts to dodge issues by just not including those specific words. The article The Epoch Times is included in the Category:Falun Gong, and that I think is grounds for relations enough. Also, the editor above might be interested in looking over previous ArbCom cases in general, where he might see that "broadly construed" definitions of a topic are at least as regular as the alternative in ArbCom decisions. John Carter ( talk) 18:23, 18 July 2012 (UTC) reply

John, thanks for the friendly response. The objection remains that by this logic, anyone MERed on FLG articles would also be MERed on all CCP-related articles, because the CCP is also an entity about which FLG has a grievance, because that's the logic by which the John Liu page MER would be enacted. I am simply pointing out that logical problem. TheSoundAndTheFury ( talk) 18:28, 18 July 2012 (UTC) reply

Or to use a concrete example we have encountered: PCPP is allowed to edit the article on the Confucius Institute, but he isn't allowed to edit the parts of the article that touch on Falun Gong. Simple. MER is like a low-intensity topic ban, and it would make sense for the same conventions about what is included to be the same for a real ban. TheSoundAndTheFury ( talk) 18:31, 18 July 2012 (UTC) reply

I don't see how your logic follows. As per this diff], for instance, several reliable independent sources have stated a very clear connection between FG and The Epoch Times. It is, as per some of those sources, a "mouthpiece for Falun Gong." That is a very clear and some would think overriding POV, similar to that of several publications of Catholic presses, and that connection is of extreme significance to the publication. Falun Gong is however only one of several entities which have made complaints about the CCP. The Catholic Church, numerous other Christian groups, the Dalai Lama and Tibetan Buddhism in general, all object to the CCP. And that isn't even beginning to count those individuals and groups who have reservations on a more personal or direct basis. The Epoch Times has been called basically a mouthpiece for Falun Gong by independent reliable sources. Falun Gong, however, so far as I have ever seen, has never been called the mouthpiece of political dissent with the CCP. Certainly, the Daiai Lama and others seem to do most of their own presentations regarding their complaints against the CCP, and would not be considered reasonably tied to Falun Gong. So, in short, I honestly don't see the logic of your comments above. John Carter ( talk) 19:34, 18 July 2012 (UTC) reply

Are you simply saying that a MER on Falun Gong should apply to The Epoch Times article? Yes, of course I agree. I simply mean that it shouldn't apply to topics that the Falun Gong has a grievance over (i.e. John Liu, the Chinese Communist Party, probably some other entities.) The PCPP prohibition is simple: he can edit any articles, included those related to the CCP, just not articles or parts of articles that relate to Falun Gong. Similarly, a MERed editor here could edit the Confucius Institute article, or the John Liu article - just not the parts of that article that involve Falun Gong (citing Epoch Times reports on John Liu would count - though in the John Liu case that is not what Homunculus is accused of.) TheSoundAndTheFury ( talk) 19:49, 18 July 2012 (UTC) reply

No, I am saying more than that, actually. I am saying that POV is a very strong possibility here. The fact that The Epoch Times and, by extension, Falun Gong have serious reservations about a subject. You seem to be somehow missing a major point here. Falun Gong is a topic about which there are now, roughly, 40 articles. China is a subject about which there are thousands of articles, and could be, if we followed the standards of "missing encyclopedic articles," untold thousands, or more than thousands, more. There is an extremely significant difference of scale between the two subjects. And, yes, there would be fair reasons to assume that some editors who are perhaps promoting a POV regarding FG might see fit to perhaps misrepresent or selectively use other sources to substantiate the FG position. And you make the unwarranted supposition in your comments above that it would be clear and obvious which "parts" of an article involve Falun Gong. That is often not the case. As has been said already here, AE and other efforts are already overloaded. I once again ask you to review the history of ArbCom and see how many topic bans are "broadly construed". There is a clear reason for that. And, yes, I honestly think any independent reviewer would find that a favorite topic of a Falun Gong related entity would also fall within that ban. John Carter ( talk) 20:10, 18 July 2012 (UTC) reply

OK, but Falun Gong has also got a whole editorial series against the CCP. So if you are arguing that because Epoch Times has a grievance against Liu, the MER should be extended there - then I'm simply responding: if you go by that logic, the MER should extend to all articles related to the CCP, because Falun Gong's grievance and editorials are even more numerous than those against Liu. See? That logic has not been employed in topic bans I've seen (not for PCPP's Falun Gong topic ban, for example). This is my last note on the matter. TheSoundAndTheFury ( talk) 20:18, 18 July 2012 (UTC) reply

You asked if I "see". No, I don't. I am not saying myself that the MER necessarily extends to this article, but, if the editing reflects the POV of The Epoch Times/Falun Gong, then it would fall under the "broadly construed" umbrella. And I also note that you seem to not be particularly sure of the difference between induction and deduction. A ban applied to the CCP because of Falun Gong would be inductive, that is, going from a limited topic to a broader one. Induction in general is less than reliable. Also, yes, it could be said that the "broadly construed" ban could apply to certain specific articles about the CCP. John Liu, however, is only a single article. While it might be possible to "wiki-lawyer" about whether a specific detail is directly related to FG, like I said, that would take a lot of work on the part of AE or similar, and, frankly, we have enough to do without that. What is basically being requested is that editors who fall under MER display some degree of common sense. Basically, if they know an edit is likely to be challenged, they should not engage in it. That same rule of good sense would apply to CCP related material as well. John Carter ( talk) 21:04, 18 July 2012 (UTC) reply

@Shrigley & Colipon: The continued bad faith implication here is that I edited the article on John Liu because I am secretly a Falun Gong activist, even though my edits were unrelated to Falun Gong. For your reference, I live on the eastern sea board and travel to New York often. I read the New York Times just about every day. Based on the coverage I was seeing in the Times, I found the page lacking, so I edited it, updating the article to reflect the preponderance of coverage in reliable sources, information on the mayoral campaign, and fixing a serious BLP alleging (falsely) that Liu had been charged with fraud. There have been a number of attempts made to drawn tenuous connections Falun Gong and other pages I have written or created—articles have no connection at all to the topic. I don’t appreciate it. @Shrigley: as to your other comments, a few editors (now-banned, abusive accounts) have proposed that articles contain this allegation that Falun Gong was ‘celebrating the Sichuan earthquake.’ So I looked into it. The claim is not supported by any evidence, and Falun Gong sources have explicitly refuted it. It is also not asserted by any reliable sources, and as such fails WP:V. This claim that Falun Gong celebrated the Sichuan earthquake was heavily promoted in Chinese state-run media, and was used to incite violence against Falun Gong in New York’s Chinatown. Falun Gong adherents were reportedly beaten and assaulted by people who had internalized this nonsense. [150] And now you are promoting it here. I do not know what possible value this has. Wikipedia is not a soapbox for propaganda. @John, of course the Epoch Times is related to Falun Gong, and editing related topics (or, perhaps, employing it as a source) would fall into a broadly construed topic ban. Homunculus ( duihua) 19:54, 18 July 2012 (UTC) reply

The part of my comment which caused such an emotive reaction was one clause of a single sentence out of two paragraphs: hardly "full-throated anti-Falun Gong agitprop" [151] and "propaganda" [152]. In fact, I even used an adverbial expression of doubt ("apparently"), because I was using as reference the Epoch Times article [153] referenced in the Observer's "Who Hates John Liu?". That article has not "refuted", but simply contradicted, the popular account of why FLG was protesting (that they were celebrating the earthquake), since it did not provide a credible alternative narrative.

Normally, this failure "to see the forest for the trees" is simply self-defeating, but H and TSTF crossed over the line when they associated my speech here with (alleged) violence against real people. If you can't see how this degrades the discourse for everybody, imagine if I associated the effects of your edits to improve the image of Falun Gong with the FLG-inspired murder of 15 people by rat poison? [154] Understand that, like I now realize about TSTF, [155] this comparison is didactic, and does not merit wasteful exegesis on faux-content issues such as verifiability. Let's now exercise some self-restraint and steer this thread back to the original topic of MER's scope and the applicability of the article "John Liu". Shrigley ( talk) 01:59, 19 July 2012 (UTC) reply

I think it's time editors stop posting allegations against Falun Gong from Chinese state-run press as though they were factual. This is not a platform for propaganda. Homunculus ( duihua) 02:08, 19 July 2012 (UTC) reply

I've noticed a few arbitrators voting for MER as an alternative to topic bans. I think this remedy is promising as a means of resolving several of the issues that arise on these pages (besides, this is something I do already [156] [157] [158] [159], etc.) However, it doesn't seem there are remedies in place for addressing the behavioral issues that regularly arise. There have been persistent problems with editors who engage in ad hominem comments in content discussions, name-calling, personal attacks (especially on the basis of other editor's religious beliefs, whether real or not), apparent 'outing' of other users and speculations on other editor's off-wiki affiliations as a means of discrediting them, speculating on other editor's motivations, defending and reinforcing problematic behavior by editors sharing their views, etc. Mandating that editors achieve consensus for changes may help address NPOV issues, but is there anything that can be done to address the other issues? Homunculus ( duihua) 01:10, 18 July 2012 (UTC) reply

I agree that it would be good to get clarity on this. A lot of the issues that I brought at AE related to this - poisoning of the atmosphere needed for collaborative editing - rather than specifically problematic editing per se (though there was also that). What would Arbs suggest, for example, when editors involved in editorial disagreements call other editors (many of whom do not even practice Falun Gong) "Falun Gongsters," "Falun Gong meatpuppets," "Falun Gong followers" "Falun Gong SPAs," "Falun Gong sympathizers," "Falun Gong devotees," and so forth? (The opposite, which has not occurred, would be to accuse others of being 50 centers or seeking to discredit users based on nationality). AE? What would be the remedies? It would be great to get something crystal clear on this. Personally I think there should be be no tolerance for attempts to discredit contributors with these types of political labels, because it contravenes the principles of the Wikimedia Foundation and the whole thing called Wikipedia. Can we get some guidance here? TheSoundAndTheFury ( talk) 01:53, 18 July 2012 (UTC) reply

Religious labels, not political labels (though the application of these terms may well be based more on politics than actual expressions of religious views). I assume this is what you mean. But yes—I would hope that the persistent attempts by some editors to identify, catalogue, and discredit suspected Falun Gong adherents or "sympathizers" will stop. Homunculus ( duihua) 04:45, 18 July 2012 (UTC) reply

As a editor whose entire evidence related to personal attacks made by parties, I too am concerned about behavioral issues. However, I think the prevalence of "religious labels" in this dispute has been greatly exaggerated (and "political labels" underplayed; TSTF has shown no hesitance towards indirectly calling me a "50 center"). When some of this "religious labels" evidence was analyzed in workshop, the drafting arbitrator found that one such comment (made by me) referred to Falun Gong activism in general, rather than to specific editors.

If frank discussion about Falun Gong's manipulation of the media upsets you, I recommend you take the advice that you gave to PCPP: "try accepting facts, rather than deleting them from wikipedia in a vain and annoying attempt to shape the world to accord with one's personal beliefs", which applies equally to talkspace as it does to articlespace. Also, as I noted in workshop, [160] there were more accusations of parties calling editors "Falun Gong activists" than actual instances of people calling editors "Falun Gong activists". There were even slurs presented in AE evidence that were entirely fabricated, [161] such as "cult member", which was not used by anybody here. In any case, MER would help calm down the discourse in general, because editors would not be making ninja reverts and provocative rewrites of contentious articles. Shrigley ( talk) 16:18, 18 July 2012 (UTC) reply

Just to clarify that I stated clearly, several times, that I have never even attempted to indirectly call you a "50 center" or any other political label. I said that calling you that would be the equivalent of the "Falun Gong SPA" or whatever other negative epithets that have been thrown my way. Don't try to then turn around this example I gave of attempting to demonstrate the gross inappropriateness of such labels and say that I tried to use that label on you! I don't know if you have deliberately attempted to twist my meaning or not. I hope not. I've clarified it here, again. Please do not willfully misrepresent me. TheSoundAndTheFury ( talk) 18:04, 18 July 2012 (UTC) reply

Since you've decided to apply the requirements of WP:V to the minutiae of editors' comments, [162] I trust you value the verifiability of all your comments. I have seen this "50 cent party" meme used frequently across Wikipedia to discredit ethnic Chinese editors (this is the second time which you've alluded to this 'party'). This meme refers to the conspiracy theory that netizens who post pro-government comments are on the PRC payroll. Although there are verified reports of such activity on the Chinese-language fora, there are no credible reports of the same phenomenon on Anglophone websites like Wikipedia. Should I accuse you of "full-throated anti-Chinese agitprop and soapboxing" for continuing to raise this unverifiable spectre which chills the speech of en.wp editors? Shrigley ( talk) 01:59, 19 July 2012 (UTC) reply

This is what I'm afraid of: if the arbitration committee does not take a position on the use of personal attacks to discredit other users in this space, I fear it may send the message that the kind of conduct TSTF describes (and conduct seen on evidence page) will continue. I thought WP:NPOV was very clear that "using someone's affiliations as an ad hominem means of dismissing or discrediting their views" is a form of ad hominem attack; that "outing" users (eg. making declarations about their religion that they have not themselves made) is a prohibited form of harassment, etc. Yet this happens constantly, and has continued into these proceedings. Am I mistaken in my interpretation of these policies? On a related note, since this case started, a long-dormant editor returned to editing, and has now begun editing the Falun Gong namespace. The editor is a prominent anti-Falun Gong activist whose edits align with that outside advocacy. And this user has now begun impugning other editors by making statements about their suspected religious beliefs (nevermind that the article in question has had minimal involvement by Falun Gong adherents). [163] I'm really at a loss for how to deal with this. Homunculus ( duihua) 21:04, 18 July 2012 (UTC) reply

I hope I'm not the only one who sees the irony of two users who, having resisted not only the label of "Falun Gong activist" but also the propriety of labeling people "activists" ( H, TSTF), themselves turn around to label multiple editors "anti-Falun Gong activist"s ( H, TSTF). The audacity of these same users to claim [164] that the insults are entirely one-sided (against Falun Gong) only compounds the irony. I also note that the term "outing" is being abused here, as that section of the harassment policy relates to the involuntary posting of contact information, such as home address or telephone number, which no party to this case has done. Accusing users of Falun Gong advocacy, even if interpreted as an accusation of that user's Falun Gong membership, is not outing. By the way, it's rude to request administrative (or arbitration!) action against a user without notifying them. Shrigley ( talk) 01:59, 19 July 2012 (UTC) reply

Saying that editors are Falun Gong devotees (and variations of that claim), and doing so repeatedly after being asked, and then told, to stop, is inappropriate. The number of users who have been indirectly assigned this label goes far beyond myself and TSTF. A person's religious or spiritual orientations constitute personal information, and repeated speculation and assertions about a person's affiliations that are not voluntarily disclosed may very likely be considered a form of harassment. Homunculus ( duihua) 02:08, 19 July 2012 (UTC) reply

It is beginning to look like the only proposed remedy which will pass will be the MER. And, yeah, it even looks like most of the proposed FoFs might not pass. Obviously, this is just me expressing an opinion, but I think many people involved might feel a bit let down if the one substantial outcome of this whole matter is the implementation of MER. At the very least, I think it is reasonable to perhaps ask the arbitrators to indicate if there are any individuals involved whom they believe should be under MER. I really, really doubt anyone really looks forward to having to go through new requests for AE regarding this, for instance, when it might be possible, based on the evidence presented, for the arbitrators to perhaps indicate if the behavior of anyone involved is such as to indicate that they qualify for MER. Proceedings of this kind are troublesome enough as is, and I don't think it serves anyone's purposes to extend them or have to repeat them any more than required. John Carter ( talk) 19:49, 18 July 2012 (UTC) reply

As far as I am aware, User John Carter only entered FLG-space in 2009, at the invitation of other users who asked for administrator's oversight when the FLG SPAs were in their heyday. John has a great record of neutrality and good sense in other parts of WP, so he was an appropriate choice to adjudicate over the Falun Gong dispute. I don't think that's changed since then. Since 2009, John has worked diligently to gather articles and summarize books dealing with Falun Gong, and is, in my view, an administrator who is very knowledgeable about Falun Gong and the nuances of the dispute on Wikipedia. Now I would like to ask if ArbCom would consider listing John Carter (along with perhaps other candidates, such as Silktork, Jayen446, etc) as a 'designated arbiter' or some other such role in relation to Falun Gong articles. Obviously I also don't mean for this to be a burden to John (and editing Falun Gong is more often than not a big burden), so he is free to decline this. But I think the success and sustainability of MER depends highly on an editors' interest in a topical area. Colipon+( Talk) 21:20, 18 July 2012 (UTC) reply

I don't think this would be a good idea. The less involved an admin is the better. I would assume in fact that John would recuse himself from any MER proceedings precisely because of his involvement in this namespace and these proceedings. As far as I can tell, MER is applied like any other remedy: a measure against editor behavior. That does not require an interest in the content. TheSoundAndTheFury ( talk) 21:42, 18 July 2012 (UTC) reply

MER involves the review of the consensus, neutrality, and verifiability of edits. Those factors, with the possible exception of the first, are more closely tied to content than to behavior. Shrigley ( talk) 01:59, 19 July 2012 (UTC) reply

In response to TSATF, I have absolutely no idea where he gets the idea MER applies to behavior. Certainly, nothing in the statements I have read supports that belief. MER seems to be, as Hersfold basically said, "full protection" for related content regarding specific editors. Basically, those editors will have to propose changes, have them reviewed, probably by both the other involved editors and an admin called in to review, or through RfC, or other means, and then, after there is agreement that the material be changed from the other(s), that editor can change the article accordingly. Maybe TSATF might want to read what has been said a bit more throughly? John Carter ( talk) 00:04, 20 July 2012 (UTC) reply

Some of the arbitrators have expressed that they are unclear on whether the diffs Hersfold provided are evidence of point of view editing. By looking at the diffs in a vacuum, the problems are not immediately apparent (and problems such as misrepresentations of sources does not come through at all), so I’ve written up a quick analysis of the diffs that were provided on the PD page. Note that this is nothing new: the talk pages for these respective articles spell out the concerns in greater details. More often than not the concern was not just about POV editing, but editing that violates other content policies.

Ohconfucius

• [165] — Edit serves to advance the unverifiable and widely disputed claims of the Chinese government against Falun Gong using primary sources, and engaging in original synthesis to claim Falun Gong participates in 'cult suicide'. No reliable sources support this claim or this synthesis of ideas, and the general consensus among scholars is that the Chinese government’s use of this type of rhetoric is unfounded and designed to discredit the group and legitimize the persecution of its members. Other edits delete or obfuscate well sourced material that undermined the Chinese government’s narratives [166] [167] [168]

• [169] — deletes reliably sourced and factual material that Bo was indicted for genocide. Edit warred to exclude this information, [170] [171] [172] [173] [174], in the process breaking 3RR, engaging in factual misrepresentations of lawsuit outcomes, insulting another editor, and failing to participate in any substantial way on the talk page, despite a lively discussion there (see evidence page). Subsequently made personal attacks against me (putting me on a list of “Falun Gong editors” and telling other members of the community that I am only interested in proselytism and activism, and thus no dispute resolution is possible, etc.)

• [175] — among other things, this edit removed sourced and notable material that undermined the Chinese government’s narrative; misquoted the Washington Post investigation with same effect; added extraordinary claims supported only by Chinese government-affiliated sources (by all accounts unreliable on this topic) ; severely misrepresenting other sources (after issue had been pointed out several times on talk page) to lend undue credence to Chinese government’s narrative, etc. All these issues were noted on talk page in a clear and specific manner. Ohconfucius dismissed the talk page comments as “moan” by a “suspected Falun Gong meatpuppet.”

• [176] — Among other things, edit conflates, oversimplifies the views of scholars with the effect of lending undue credence to Chinese government perspective ; deleted reliably sourced and notable information on systematic torture against Falun Gong by Chinese government ; factual misrepresentations of historic events (earlier edits by Ohconfucius had replaced high quality secondary sources with unreliable primary sources) ; original synthesis with effect of discrediting Falun Gong / lending additional support to Chinese government’s narrative, etc. Again, all issues explained on talk page and generally ignored.

• [177] — When one examines this edit along with Ohconfucius’s other contributions to this page, a very clear pattern emerges. User deletes factual and relevant information that reflects well on performance [178] [179] ; he only ever highlights negative reviews [180] [181] [182] [183] (despite there being a number of positive reviews from major newspapers) ; deletes a moderately favorable arts review by falsely claiming it is an “advertorial” (and thereby impugning the editorial integrity of the writer and the newspaper) [184], etc.

• [185] — deletes sourced and relevant information by falsely claiming it is not supported by source. Material had stood on page for a long time with the support of all previously involved editors.

Colipon

• [186] — This claim had been previously shown to violate WP:BLP, WP:V, and WP:RS. The material, which is attributed as a quotation to Falun Gong’s founder, is hearsay originating from a Chinese government-affiliated websites whose purpose is to propagandize against Falun Gong. There is no evidence of Falun Gong’s founder ever having made these statements, and our erstwhile Falun Gong users informed us that this quote is irreconcilable with the public statements by Falun Gong’s founder. Colipon was aware of all these objections when he made the edit, as he had previously been involved in discussions where the content was found to be non-compliant with policies.

• [187] — Speaks for itself. Note that most of this material had stood on the page for a long time and inclusion was supported by consensus.

• [188] — In case it’s not clear, the editor with whom Colipon is expressing common interest was identified as a “prominent anti-Falun Gong activist” (according to ARBFLG 1) with a history of sockpuppetry. The diff shows Colipon discussing how they can work together to find and promote original research in order to deal “a big blow” to Falun Gong’s founder.

(There are not many diffs of Colipon’s edits to article space because the user seldom edits in article space: the two above, and edits like it, comprise the majority of what I have seen. Mostly editor comments on talk pages—see evidence page for a pretty representative sampling, which largely consists of soapboxing, factual misrepresentations, and accusations of bad faith against other users).

Homunculus

Not disputing that my edits reflect poorly on the Communist Party, but would dispute that they do so in a manner that contravenes WP:NPOV or any other content policies. There were no discussions on the respective talk pages explaining what the problems with these edits might have been (unlike all the diffs provided for the other parties). Homunculus ( duihua) 20:07, 18 July 2012 (UTC) reply

I can't help noticing how this might be seen as yet another beating of a dead horse. The material has, so far as I can see, already been presented earlier. Evidently, certain people might think that arbitrators need to be spoken to loudly and slowly to get their attention, much like some jokes about people who don't speak English. I realize certain editors seem to have an opinion that others need to be told what to do. That has been demonstrated before. I also note once again that claims by the Chinese government are, in a sense, unverifiable, because the information required to make them verifiable seemingly have not made them public knowledge. That is kind of standard in many instances which involve intelligence-related material. The fact that a given government does not provide priveleged information is not, and I don't think ever has, been counted as insufficient for that material's inclusion, if it can be verified as being stated through independent reliable sources. I am myself almost consistently amazed that a purported academic does not seem capable of understanding that responsible academics generally do not speculate about material regarding which they have no direct evidence. If anything, they present the fact that the statement is made by one side or another, and leave it at that if they have no evidence. And, FWIW< having read Ownby's book during the FA consideration for the Tiananmen Square incident, he does mention the CCP's claims, as one would think a responsible academic would. He also goes no farther than that, as a responsible academic would. Regarding current events about which there is privileged information which hasn't been made public, that is all they can do. John Carter ( talk) 20:25, 18 July 2012 (UTC) reply

I would dispute just about every assertion that Homunculus makes about the talk page discussion around these articles. Briefly,

Ohconfucius

1. The claim that Ohconfucius edited T-square immolation to advance "factual misrepresentations of historic events" is ludicrous, considering that Ohconfucius was restoring elements of POV balance which characterized his shepherding of the only Falun Gong article to reach FA.
2. Characterization of the lawsuit outcomes is very tricky, considering the scarcity of reliable sources. Homunculus should know this, since he was warned per WP:BLPSE for mischaracterizing officials as being "found guilty" as a result of them.
3. About Shen Yun, the article previously inaccurately characterized reviews as uniformly positive, so Ohconfucius's documentation of the negative or mixed reviews (which I had suggested, without objection, on the talk page) was a due improvement.

Colipon

1. There was disagreement on the talk page about the applicability of the exceptionally high standards you wanted to apply to the normally reliable source material, in order to protect Li Hongzhi (but which you rejected when Ohc, Col and I wanted to apply them to Bo Xilai and Jiang Zemin). For example, an uninvolved user [189] ok'd the material.
2. The Bo Xilai lawsuit information was not supported by consensus; by contrast, it was a subject of a highly contentious discussion. In fact, you made some acknowledgement [190] on the Bo talk page that you "disrupted" consensus by adding the information there.
3. The Colipon user talk diff was discussed in its own section ( #How old is too old?), but I would also add that this alleged conspiracy amounted to nothing. Colipon made no attempts to post this original research.

Homunculus

1. You have been an active participant in the content disputes surrounding the Ohc and Colipon diffs, and there your edits were vigorously and consistently disputed on the grounds of neutrality, sourcing, due weight, etc. This was also the case to some extent for the representative diffs presented, e.g. [191] Shrigley ( talk) 01:59, 19 July 2012 (UTC) reply

Just looking at one other of these diffs: I wouldn't characterise this as a deletion of well sourced material. Two sources are cited, Ownby and Johnson. Neither source has a page number, which raises an alarm bell. Looking through Ownby, he paints are far more nuanced picture than the deleted passage, representing a whole range of scholarly viewpoints, and not forwarding the argument Ohconfucius removed. Johnson, the other source, does make a somewhat similar argument (pp. 224f.), but it is much weaker than what the article stated. Here is a quote: "... More fundamentally, the group didn't meet many common definitions of a cult: its members marry outside the group, have outside friends, hold normal jobs, do not live isolated from society, do not believe that the world's end is imminent and do not give significant amounts of money to the organisation. ... Broader definitions of cults do exist; in the West the anticult movement's chief theorist is the clinical psychologist Margaret Singer ... Ms. Singer gives a three-fold definition of a cult, arguing that it has a self-appointed, charismatic leader with exclusive knowledge, a hierarchical structure that is totalistic or all-encompassing and that its members are forced to give a "total commitment" to the group. This definition, however, is extremely broad and could take in many religious groups, such as Christian or Muslim religious orders. ... I knew however that as a new spiritual movement Falun Gong had attracted some extremely committed--some might even say fanatical--members. During the two years that I interviewed Falun Gong members, I had met members who clearly did see Master Li as a demigod and had centered their life on the group. Between performing the morning exercises and evening reading of prayers, not much time was left for other activities besides family and work. ... But overall I didn't see an unhealthy rejection of the outside world. ..." Even though I have not edited the topic area in a while, I remember this sort of thing as having been quite typical: wordings simply being overcooked, so they become one-dimensional, and lose the nuances that were present in the source. Almost like projecting wordings onto sources, actually; a kind of wishful thinking.

I'll reiterate that Ohconfucius did a great job with the T Square FA, given the conflicting truth claims and truth guesses, which make neutral reporting very difficult. For example, I cannot bring myself to condemn this edit: the changes are arguable, some are clear improvements per WP policy (e.g. dropping the primary-sourced claim at the end of the lead). This passage "their belief that self-immolation would lead them to paradise,[5] a belief that is not supported by Falun Gong’s teachings." looks like WP:SYN (and in fact, the paradise claim is not in the cited source at all). Much hinges on how prominent individual details of various claims should be in the lead. -- J N 466 04:23, 19 July 2012 (UTC) reply

Aye, I didn't mean to start this kind of thing. There were talk page discussions where all this stuff was addressed, and the problematic nature of edits was explained in greater detail there. Quickly though:

@Jayen, with respect to this edit [192], the lack of page numbers was not the reason cited for deletion. Page numbers could have been provided on request.

Ownby discusses this issue over the course of several pages in his book, so I won't excerpt it here, but here's a quote from the National Post newspaper that captures his views concisely (and this is very close to the wording Ohconfucius deleted):

According to Ownby, Falun Gong "does not exhibit any of the classic tendencies of what, for a lack of a better word, are often described as "cults." Li urges his followers to remain in the world, not to isolate themselves. He and his followers do not believe in any utopia. Adherents of Falun Gong are not asked to give money to Li, and he does not intervene in their personal lives. In fact, Ownby thinks the moral grounding of Li's teachings is likely to make Falun Gong practitioners "more responsible citizens.'" ^[1]

This is very similar to what Johnson writes:

"[Falun Gong] didn't meet many common definitions of a cult: its members marry outside the group, have outside friends, hold normal jobs, do not live isolated from society, do not believe that the world's end is imminent and do not give significant amounts of money to the organisation. Most importantly, suicide is not accepted, nor is physical violence."

Johnson also addresses the Chinese government's attempts to frame Falun Gong within the West's anti-cult movement: "One of the government's most brilliant moves in its persecution of Falun Gong was declaring the group a cult. That put Falun Gong on the defensive, forcing it to prove its innocence, and cloaked the government's crackdown with the legitimacy of the West's anticult movement." Johnson writes the government publicized "lurid stories" about Falun Gong suicide attempts. "The problem was that few of these arguments held up. The government never allowed victims of Falun Gong to be interviewed independently, making it almost impossible to verify their claims. And even if one took all the claims at face value, they made up a very small percentage of Falun Gong's total number of adherents." etc. Anyways, I think it would be clear from these sources that Ohconfucius' edits to this page were not representative of the general discourse on these issues (simply adding Falun Gong to a page on 'cult suicide' when no reliable sources make this claim is problematic; proceeding to delete reliably sourced material that conflicts with this narrative exacerbates it.)

With regards to this edit [193] — no one protested that the edit removed the death toll information from the lede. Actually I think I had raised concerns with that material as well, as it seemed to be original research. There were other problems though (as described above, including misquoting and misrepresenting sources and deleting information about the use of torture by the Chinese government), which were noted repeatedly on the talk page, and which Ohconfucius ignored, justifying his refusal to talk with ad hominem attacks against other users.

I won't address Shrigley's comments, as the respective talk pages address all these issues. Homunculus ( duihua) 05:13, 19 July 2012 (UTC) reply

Well, I have Ownby lying on my desk, and I believe I checked every page indicated in the index for "cult". There was no page that would have covered that content. Ownby may very well be quoted by the National Post in the manner you indicate, but that was not the source cited, and the text was not a fair summary of his book which was cited, and which covers multiple scholarly perspectives, incl. the sociological interpretation of Falun Gong as a "cult-like New Religious Movement" (p. 20). Similarly, you are only quoting half of Johnson, who entertains the idea that Falun Gong might meet Singer's definition of a cult, even though he does not like her definition very much. So source statements that actually covered multiple viewpoints are reduced to a statement putting forward only a single interpretation. That sort of reduction will always cause trouble in collaborative editing in Wikipedia. -- J N 466 07:06, 19 July 2012 (UTC) reply

I appreciate that you wish to adopt a nuanced approach to this. This is the kind of discussion Ohconfucius could have participated in, but did not. Ohconfucius added this paragraph to a page, thereby making it appear as Wikipedia's assertion that Falun Gong engaged in cult suicide—despite providing no reliable sources to support that claim or that synthesis of ideas. The paragraph he added contained no secondary sources. When brief analysis from secondary sources was provided (in a hurry, I'll admit, but I stand by it as a generally fair representation), he deleted that analysis citing only WP:SUMMARY.

As stated, Ownby’s book does not contain a concise expression of these idea in the same manner that his interviews do, but taken as a whole, I think it basically supports the statement it was cited for. On page ix of the preface, you can see Ownby dismissing the framing as a cult (we’re discussing the popular, perjoritive application of the term. He briefly notes Chan’s study, as you say, but Chan’s sociological definition of a cult is a loosely structure group that emphasizes the personal experience of the divine. The popular and the sociological definitions are very, very different). The specific statements that were attributed to Ownby and Johnson (that Falun Gong “does not involve any formal system of membership, does not utilize psychological coercion or deceptive recruitment methods, does not take money from followers. It also does not intervene in practitioners' personal lives, nor does it isolate practitioners from society”) find support dispersed throughout Ownby’s work, including in the section dealing with his fieldwork in the diaspora community. As to Johnson, I think the quotation provided above ("[Falun Gong] didn't meet many common definitions of a cult: its members marry outside the group, have outside friends, hold normal jobs, do not live isolated from society, do not believe that the world's end is imminent and do not give significant amounts of money to the organisation. Most importantly, suicide is not accepted, nor is physical violence") quite adequately supports the material it was cited to support. Johnson does note that some people (ie. Singer) have "broader definitions" of a cult, but he notes that such definitions could be applied to just about any religion, including Christianity (and in this context, I don't think this is as relevant). More to the point, Johnson is dismissive of the attempts by the Chinese government to legitimize its suppression of Falun Gong through the adoption of the 'cult' label, and notes repeatedly that the practice does not endorse or promote violence or suicide as the government claims. A neutral presentation of this topic would require a careful and studied analysis of these and other sources to determine the correct approach. Ohconfucius did not do that, and in the representations he advanced, I didn't see any attempt made to do this. Homunculus ( duihua) 12:26, 19 July 2012 (UTC) reply

When an editor is banned from a topic, broadly construed, that also in general is taken as meaning that they cannot maintain any pages related to the topic in their userspace. Would the same be true regarding MER, or would editors under MER be allowed to maintain pages in their own userspace? John Carter ( talk) 01:05, 20 July 2012 (UTC) reply

MER was explained by the drafter as a "full protection" that only applies to certain editors in the specific topic. I see no reason user sandboxes or other private work areas in their own userspace designed to enhance collegial editing would be affected, but neither can I see any excuse for sanctioned editors setting up a WP:FAKEARTICLE with their preferred version of article(s) in their own userspace. Jclemens ( talk) 02:32, 20 July 2012 (UTC) reply

I imagine the guideline on userspace would apply. There may be circumstances where, if an editor under MER would like to proposed edits that involve structural changes to a page (etc.), it may be useful for them to draft the change in user space and have other editors review, rather than attempting to explain the proposed changes on a talk page.

On a related note, concerns were raised about pages that are maintained in user space by some of the parties here that may contravene the WP:UP guideline (and possibly WP:NPA). Namely, one of the parties keeps page(s) in userspace in which he calls other editors "meatpuppets," makes unsupported assertions about the religious affiliations of other users, etc. I am wondering if this is considered an appropriate thing to do, whether for a sanctioned user or otherwise. Homunculus ( duihua) 03:56, 20 July 2012 (UTC) reply

If we're both thinking of the same page, then we're speaking about a useful userpage that documents the history of dispute resolution in the Falun Gong area. Granted, putting the history of sanctions against Falun Gong editors on display might reflect poorly on the movement, and on some parties who may wish to avoid scrutiny on their own behavior. However, the relevant user page guideline allows for compilation of evidence in user pages for dispute resolution, and indeed that userpage was referenced in this case.

Any specific comments you judge to be personal attacks, such as "meatpuppet", you can selectively redact with {{ rpa}}. If you really want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, then you may nominate the page at MfD. But that page seems to be very tenuously connected to this case, even more so to MER. Attempts like these to bypass normal community processes in order to erase the writings of a retired user can be considered "gravedancing", and in poor taste. Shrigley ( talk) 18:55, 20 July 2012 (UTC) reply

While one user under consideration for MER has supported the idea, and been quiescent about it, a different user, who has been fiercely lobbying arbitrators to direct their votes, is now being coached by an arbitration-sanctioned editor on how to game the restrictions. To avoid this acrimonious conversation a few weeks later at AE, could the arbitrators clarify here,

1. that starting a new article with sanctioned content will be treated the same as making a substantial edit with sanctioned content;
2. that MER is not "protection" against a topic ban: that topic bans can still be issued on MER'd users; and
3. how to deal with third-party editors who are not under MER restriction, but who implement MER'd editors' desired changes before external review (possibly sanction these 'proxy users' also?).

Shrigley ( talk) 18:55, 20 July 2012 (UTC) reply

• There's no need to accuse people of trying to game the system.
• I think MER is a good idea, and have said as much. It's not so very different from how I operate by default on controversial topics, and I've always encouraged a consensus-based approach on these pages. Might take more time to explain things now, but that's alright.
• Seems clear enough that one cannot create a new article related to this namespace without having it first reviewed and vetted. I think common sense applies here.
• It goes without saying that editors subject to MER can still be sanctioned if they violate other policies. I can't imagine that editors under this kind of probation who persist in unseemly behavior would receive any kind of protection at AE.
• I think Hersfold has previously clarified how this works. If an MER'ed user proposes a change, and third-party editors find it reasonable, that is the external review. If there are objections raised based on relevant policies or other content considerations, the parties should discuss until a consensus emerges. I would hope that all users in a controversial space like this adhere to the consensus model, whether subject to sanctions or not. Homunculus ( duihua) 19:28, 20 July 2012 (UTC) reply

• (e-c) First, in response to Homunculus, I seriousloy question whether you as an individual involved are really in a position to make such categorical statements as "There's no need to accuse people of trying to game the system," and I am once again surprised by what seems to me to be the arrogance of certain editors who seem to be likely to be placed under sanctions by ArbCom to seek to almost prophetically declare the opinions of the arbitrators a priori. There was no need for certain editors to apparently try to lobby arbitrators, either, but that didn't seem to stop some people. It is reasonable to request that the arbitrators perhaps define, as much as possible, situations which might transpire in the implementation of this decision, particularly considering the fact that MER is new.
• And I too am curious about how, if at all, editors who are not involved but who might be seen as either coaching on how to avoid MER, or who boldly act to make a proposed change on their own prior to, or perhaps in conflict with, the decision of the required MER. I would assume such behavior might be addressed at AE, but some clarification would be useful. And I do have a few questions regarding whether there is any basic idea regrding the threshold for stricter sanctions on editors on MER who seem to significantly act out of accord with WP:TPG on the talk pages of the relevant articles, particularly in regard to things like Requests for comment and the like. John Carter ( talk) 19:39, 20 July 2012 (UTC) reply

• @Shrigley. Please let me explain this better by answering your three questions:

1. Editing an already existing article requires WP:Consensus of editors. The purpose of MER is to enforce consensus of sanctioned editors. However, creation of new articles does not require a preliminary consensus. Once created, the article will be modified or deleted by community. I do not see anything wrong, because new articles will be vetted and corrected by others. Making new articles is good for content.
2. The editing restrictions are issued for the good of sanctioned editors. That was my point. I do not see on which grounds a user who conducts civil discussions on article talk pages until consensus is reached could be topic-banned on AE by any reasonable administrator.
3. Acting as a proxy on behalf of a sanctioned editor is forbidden. No one should ever do it. However, watching discussions by other users, and perhaps implementing some of their ideas on your own is not forbidden. The key point: it is a third party editor who would be responsible for his own edits. If his edits improve content, there is nothing wrong, in my opinion. My very best wishes ( talk) 00:03, 21 July 2012 (UTC) reply

My very best wishes, please allow me to explain by making these points:

Article creation is a form of editing. Therefore, should I see any articles directly related to Falun Gong be created by editors under MER, without prior discussion, I will take it to AE. The fact that you cannot see something is irrelevant. And I have every reason to believe that your point three might also fall under the existing discretionary sanctions, and I have reason to believe that they are subject to the same restrictions. Luckily, it is not the opinion of you that matters, but that of the AE editors and ArbCom, and have no doubt I will seek their input should I see anything which in my opinion violates the existing rules. John Carter ( talk) 14:20, 21 July 2012 (UTC) reply