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Currently, no requests for clarification or amendment are open.

Requests for arbitration

Appeal of ban for conflict of interest

Initiated by TimidGuy (talk) at 12:03, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Involved parties

• Jimbo Wales (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), filing party
• Will Beback (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• TimidGuy (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

• Jimbo Wales
• Will Beback

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

• Transcendental Meditation Arbitration
• Arbitration clarification

Statement by TimidGuy

I am appealing an indefinite ban from Misplaced Pages by Jimmy Wales. Will Beback accused me of conflict of interest via private email to Jimmy and Arbcom and two other Misplaced Pages editors on September 8. The email included alleged personal information and a number of demonstrable falsehoods and misrepresentations. Jimmy immediately banned me from all participation in Misplaced Pages due to my alleged conflict of interest.

The ban was immediate and abrupt, without my being invited to respond, so Jimmy agreed to hear my comments and opened a discussion via email, saying he would investigate the matter. On September 20 he characterized the ban as a “temporary injunction” while he investigated the case. On September 30, in response to my inquiry, he indicated he was going to spend an hour that day and several hours the next day investigating and then would get back to me. On October 12, in response to my inquiry, he kindly apologized for taking so long and said he would be finished with his research within a week.

I’ve not heard from him since. Since Jimmy is obviously very busy and hasn’t followed up with his investigation, I request that Arbcom take this case and examine the matter.

It is my contention that my editing behavior is not in violation of WP:COI. In particular, the ban seems unwarranted given that Arbcom addressed this issue in the TM Arbcom decision of June 2010, saying that an editor with a relationship to the organization isn’t prohibited from editing as long as he or she adheres to Misplaced Pages policies. The issue was addressed again in a recent RfArb clarification that opened on August 26 and was archived September 12. Seven members of the committee responded, saying that COI isn’t itself sufficient basis for sanction and that it depends on whether edits themselves comply with Misplaced Pages policies.

Comment by Jehochman

Looking at one set of edits, TimidGuy might be here to promote his worldview by spinning our articles. Somebody closely aligned with a religious movement is not the right person to do such copy edits for the sake of neutrality. It should be a straightforward matter to review the nature of the edits and determine whether the account is a net detriment or benefit. That actual identity of the writer is immaterial for this review. Jehochman 13:30, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (5/0/0/1)

• Comment Because this involves (supposed) personal information (as cited by Will and Jimbo in the reasoning for the block), this may not be ripe for a public case, although if that part of the case was proven/not proven, the edits could be looked at to see if they do in fact comply with Misplaced Pages's norms and policies. I have a feeling this is going to have to be accepted (just because this is a follow up to a previous case, and the fact that this is a highly charged area.), but I'll wait for further statements to accept or decline/formally. SirFozzie (talk) 13:20, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
• Accept. First, this is an extension of a matter already heard by the Committee. Secondly, the ban was premised on personal and private information, and the Committee will probably have to address this aspect of the matter off-wiki. Risker (talk) 13:57, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
• Accept per Risker. Jclemens (talk) 14:45, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
• Accept. Kirill  15:23, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
• Accept. PhilKnight (talk) 16:35, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
• Accept. — Coren  16:38, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Muhammad Images

Initiated by -- Eraserhead1 <talk> at 09:59, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Involved parties

• Eraserhead1 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), filing party
• Jayen466 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Mathsci (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Hans Adler (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Ludwigs2 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• FormerIP (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Tarc (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Johnbod (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Alanscottwalker (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Resolute (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Amatulic (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• RobertMfromLI (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Tivanir2 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

• Alanscottwalker
• Johnbod
• Tarc
• FormerIP
• Ludwigs
• Hans Adler
• Mathsci
• Anthonyhcole
• Jayen466
• Resolute
• Tivanir2
• RobertMfromLI
• Amatulic

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

• A huge amount of discussion - including 23 archives - and probably amounting to half a million words
• Attempt at mediation 1
• Attempt at mediation 2
• Closure of compromise request
• ANI request on Ludwigs2

Statement by Eraserhead1

It is with reluctance that I bring this case here. I originally made some comments on the Muhammad Images page back in April to June 2010 to try and get some level of compromise - this was challenged by the editors on the page and I backed off. In November after finding out about the RFC on NOTCENSORED I realised that the issue at Muhammad was still being discussed and unresolved. Additionally no compromise has been implemented in the past 2.5 years - there is no difference to the number of controversial unveiled and figurative images since 1st August 2009 and today. It also appears that this topic has been discussed on its own talk page since early 2007 - so it looks to have been an issue since then. (To expand the number of such images on 31 December 2006 seems to be 3 and 2 respectively, given the article sizes (80k vs 135k now) that relates to 5 and 3 images respectively in the current article)

In mid-November Resolute made a compromise proposal which seemed good to me and looked to break the logjam. Unfortunately the discussion was filibustered by a number of editors who refused to engage with the process of compromise (1, 2). This even involved significant pieces of misdirection (1, 2, 3) and poor faith editing (1, 2, 3, last part of 4).

Response to statement by Mathsci

Actually I opened the thread at WP:AN and it failed and seems to have become an attempt to topic ban just one of the users who has actually signed up to the compromise proposal - which is totally unfair. And you haven't really got the users who have refused to compromise since I started editing the page any closer to actually being prepared to go along with the compromise.

Additionally if you think an earlier stage of dispute resolution could be attempted to resolve the conduct issues at Talk:Muhammad/images then go and do it. I honestly don't see any other option but to file this.

In reply to your second comment, I don't believe this is a content issue. The content issues can easily be resolved by the community productively once the disruptive editors are prevented from continuing to be disruptive. Obviously only a relatively small number of the parties of this request have had conduct issues - but who those editors are can be covered by the evidence presented to the committee, but I wanted to include everyone who was recently involved in the discussion.

Additionally there may well be value in having the solution locked down by the committee once we have agreed a way forward - as was done in the abortion arbitration case (and the less recent Ireland arbitration case). Some people will come in after the community comes to an agreement and complain about any solution - which is likely to lead to large quantities for further discussion which we can hopefully avoid.

@Mathsci, I've added the three editors you've suggested as parties and notified them.

Response to statement by Anthonyhcole

If we can resolve the conduct issues surrounding the difficult cases it should be possible for the community to resolve the easy cases as well with some policy changes. Additionally if we can solve the conduct issues with this difficult case it will be surely be easier to solve other difficult cases (possibly such as suicide) with lower levels of dispute resolution without having to reach the stage of this committee.

Response to SirFozzie

I think a binding RFC for the content side of things sounds like the way to solve it. In the longer term Hans has suggested taking Muhammad to become a Featured article, and that should sort out the image problem forever - but to get FA status (and actually GA status which the article currently holds) the article needs to be stable, and given the image discussion it isn't stable.

With regards to conduct issues, how can we resolve any dispute when some editors refuse to compromise over the matter? I'd much rather have resolved this using mediation or one of our other dispute resolution tools, but there was significant refusal to engage with those processes.

Response to Risker

I haven't really considered the controversial content resolution in enough detail to make any comments on it - I got involved with this case on an individual basis to try and bring it towards some kind of sensible conclusion.

Response to Jclemens

I think your comment about too much advocacy being an issue is spot on. I think its really hard to know where the line is and I'm sure I stray over it from time to time.

Statement by Mathsci

This seems to be a meritless request by Eraserhead1. I have barely been involved in these discussions, except to unearth images (and associated text) from various museums and academic sources. The issue over the use of images seems to be in the process of being resolved on the article talk page, although that will require some waiting accompanied by considerable patience. There have been some very minor conduct problems, but at present I do not feel these rise to the level of being examined by WP:ANI, let alone ArbCom (I refer specifically to Tarc and Ludwigs2). A compromise decision on how images might be used in this particular article was proposed by Resolute and that seems gradually to be gathering general agreement. There has been a superficial level of bickering on the page, but, looking beyond that, parties who appeared to disagree a month or two ago now seem to be in agreement (amazingly!). Resolute has suggested that things could become more normal if the two users I mentioned stayed out of discussions, but at the moment I have no view on that (Resolute opened a thread on WP:AN). Since at this stage things seem to have quietened down, I cannot see any way ArbCom can really help here. Mathsci (talk) 10:28, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

@ Eraserhead1: this is primarily a content dispute. I'm willing to comment from a distance on a talk subpage of this single article, but have no wish to become involved in interminable arguments. I see progress happening through the usual channels. Perhaps some users are arguing at cross purposes, but I cannot see any way that ArbCom can speed up the rate at which these decisions are made. Nor I do see any really major conduct issues. I am commenting there while editing elsewhere. I am trying to help form a consensus, based on previous editing experience. I think all but three or four of those listed agree in principle with some version of Resolute's proposal. Nobody listed wishes to remove all images. Perhaps there are some who believe that images can be added without due regard for context or secondary sources, but I hope they can be persuaded otherwise. That is, however, a content issue, so outside the remit of ArbCom. Personally having that page on article probation with an uninvolved administrator overlooking discussions might be a way of solving minor conduct problems. I should add that, although I might suggest sources, images or even possible specific content, I have no intention of editing the article. Mathsci (talk) 12:41, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

• The discussions have involved more people than Eraserhead1 has listed. Recent contributors that have been omitted include Amatulic, RobertMfromLi and Tivanir2. Here is a list. Mathsci (talk) 13:42, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Comment: The last request for arbitration on image issues was made only six weeks ago. However I note that when Jclemens rejected that case, he wrote, "ArbCom is not a shortcut for the RfC process, but a remedy to remove users from the topic when poor behavior is making it fail." That matches Sir Fozzie's proposal to divide this between conduct problems and identifying a binding process for deciding on images. Mathsci (talk) 15:44, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Statement by Anthonyhcole

The existing mechanisms for determining appropriate use of images of Muhammad at Muhammad aren't working. Although there are relatively minor but very irritating behaviour problems from all points of view, the underlying issue is, in my opinion, a procedural one. Can you suggest a way forward?

No one engaged in the present dispute, that has been raging for forty days and forty nights, has a problem with images of Muhammad illustrating Depictions of Muhammad or relevant sections of Muhammad, such as Muhammad#Islamic depictions of Muhammad or Muhammad#Non-western views. I think two main objections have been raised about the way these controversial images are being used in other sections of Muhammad:

• Follow the sources. Jayen466 (Jayen) and others are asserting that (i) because our sources on Muhammad rarely use figurative depictions, even to illustrate biographical events, we would be breaching WP:NPOV to use many such images, and (ii) because such images are vanishingly rare in Islamic tradition, to use many of them in our article may mislead the reader on that point.
• Avoid creating gratuitous offense. Ludwigs and others, including me, object to what we see as the frivolous use of images known to be offensive to many of our readers in sections where they add nothing relevant to the readers' understanding, such as the image decorating Muhammad#Childhood and early life, that was painted 700 years after the death of the prophet, in another culture, and that tells the reader nothing whatever about the event depicted.

The first position (that we should use controversial images the way our sources do) is a novel and elegant rule of thumb which I would like to see the community adopt for all controversial image use, because it takes the assessment of good taste and respect for the readership out of the hands of whatever editors happen to cluster around a given article at a given time, would do no harm, would save masses of time and would stop us looking like a bunch of offensive dolts.

Jayen's proposal, to be guided by our sources' handling of controversial images, is foundering on its novelty: to the best of my knowledge, though sensible editors have been doing that instinctively all along, it's never been said in so many words. Defense of using controversial images frivolously mainly falls under "we don't take any notice of whether we offend our readers. WP:NOTCENSORED."

Jayen has come up with a neat formulation that would have obviated all the lost time at Muhammad, Pregnancy and soon-to-erupt-again Suicide. I don't want sanctions or diktats. You're arbitrators because you're deemed to have a clue. I don't, wrt how to proceed. Can you see a way forward here?

Some editors assert that we should not weigh an image's offensiveness against its educational value, and others that it is not possible to do so, practically. On the first point, I think we should take offensiveness into account when an image is of trivial or no educational value. It needlessly disaffects the reader. I will explain why that's a bad thing if you want, but the people I'm speaking to will already know that, and I've given up trying to make myself understood on this point by the remainder. The Foundation resolution of May 2011 enjoins us to do so. Ludwigs2 started an RfC on this point. The debate was vigorous and for me, and others involved I think, useful, but nothing like consensus emerged.

As to the second point, impracticality; modeling our controversial image use on that of our sources is a practical method of arriving at a position of both not offending our readers and not sacrificing educational quality. Masem proposed a change to WP:NOTCENSORED along these lines here. It didn't generate many !votes, but the subsequent discussion changed my thinking on the idea. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 15:56, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

A number of editors below have said objections to the present use of controversial images are raised only by a minority of editors. This is not true. It's also been said that consensus is always against change in how we deal with controversial images. This is also not true. Dip into Talk:Muhammad/images anywhere, or look at the discussions linked to in the two preceding paragraphs. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 08:56, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Comment by Collect

1. In the case at hand - use of images is clearly a content dispute and not really amenable to ArbCom.
2. Misplaced Pages has a great many users from a great many backgrounds, political, religious and social beliefs; it is impossible for any encyclopedia to not offend anyone at all. Nor do any Misplaced Pages policies or guidelines remotely attempt to prevent such. WP:ASTONISH does not mean that no one will ever take offense at an article, nor should article editors assume that they have an obligation not to offend anyone. (Were it within ArbCom's purview, I would suggest that this page be rewritten to make this clear - it appears to be misused all too often for reasons not anticipated by those who originally wrote it),
3. Again, while it is not in ArbCom's direct traditional purview, ArbCom ought to suggest that an independent group of editors be selected or named with a specific and limited authority to determine where WP:ASTONISH is actually being violated, and, following such determination, be vested with authority to maintain their decision, and to ensure that WP:ASTONISH, or any other policies or guidelines named in that committee's purview, is not used as a "dead horse" arguemnt thereafter in any area or article.
4. By extention, elected and neutral select committees might profitably examine the use of "infinitely long duration tags" on articles, and the apparent use of articles as "advocacy articles" in general on Misplaced Pages. A sub-committee of ArbCom might be actually able to examine such in detail without breaching the "no content dispute" rule. Collect (talk) 12:59, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Statement by Hans Adler

I agree with Eraserhead1 that the persistent behavioural problems at Talk:Muhammad/images justify arbitration. My own approach would have been to try a big RfC first, but that would have been with the understanding that such an RfC would most likely result in additional material for arbitration rather than a resolution of the underlying question.

Misplaced Pages's processes are usually surprisingly good at getting objectively good outcomes. But for some reason fundamentalism about Misplaced Pages's supposed lack of censorship has become a mainstream position in our community. I have made a start at analysing the process which led to this at WT:NOT#The path to Misplaced Pages policy fundamentalism -- a case study. It started in 2004 with the simple observation that Misplaced Pages is not content-rated because our process of censoring articles by consensus is not fast and reliable enough. The wording evolved over the years, and today a large and vocal part of our community appears to believe that censorship by consensus is a despicable and explicitly forbidden practice. Of course this does not prevent these editors from participating in such censorship. For them, censorship is only the removal of material which others consider offensive.

The present conflict is structurally similar to the recent conflict at Talk:Pregnancy over a nude lead image. That case was resolved (by adopting precisely the compromise that I promoted from my first edit ) after a long, tedious process. To get this far, it took an intervention by Jimbo that went a bit too far , followed by implementation of the actual consensus . There were three main groups in this discussion: Editors who felt that a nude image was the most appropriate for the lead of the article, editors who felt that it was not, and editors who feel so strongly about censorship that they disrupted the discussion between the other two factions.

I believe that the Muhammad images conflict cannot be resolved in the same way. Jimbo has already given his opinion , but he will not get a chance to close an RfC to that effect in the near future. The pregnancy discussion was about a single image (keep it, move it or remove it), whereas commons:Category:Depictions of Muhammad contains 173 images that show Muhammad in a pictorial form. The complicated process of making an appropriate choice out of the 130 Muslim depictions, the 43 Western depictions and the many other, more culturally typical illustrations such as those in commons:Category:Calligraphy of Muhammad and commons:Category:Qur'an is continually being disrupted by maneuvres such as User:RobertMfromLI's inane proposal to respond to complaints of undue weight given to atypical illustrations – by an RfC that discusses each image in the article individually. And that's just on top of the tactics that were already on display in the pregnancy image discussions.

Another factor is that whereas most hardcore anti-censorship editors know and esteem a number of people in real life who do not approve of gratuitous nudity, only a small minority will have positive relations with Muslims. In fact, the continued insistence that only those who themselves reject Muhammad images are offended appears to confirm this. Our many Turkish readers, for example, are not all stupid. They can distinguish very well between the appropriateness of the images in depictions of Muhammad and the provocative nature of their deliberate overuse at the main Muhammad article.

If such an overuse occurs. The number of depictions of Muhammad on the article appears to fluctuate in the range from 5 to 7, with none in the lead. This may or may not be appropriate, but it is impossible to get a consensus on this matter of NPOV while the very attempt to find such a consensus is under attack. Hans Adler 13:18, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

What Arbcom can do here

• Clarify that, as a matter of policy, arguments cannot be automatically discounted just because they take into account religious sensibilities. (I am not making this up. )
• Clarify that NOTCENSORED cannot be used to prevent or disrupt nuanced NPOV/weighting discussions.
• Find measures that protect content discussions against attacks from anti-censorship fundamentalists.

Hans Adler 13:18, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

PS: I thank Kww and Tarc for their kind cooperation in demonstrating their battlefield behaviour on this very page. Hans Adler 15:39, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Response to Jclemens

Yes, I agree. There is some massive IDHT going on among those who claim against all evidence that everything is clear, there is no problem here, nothing legitimately to be discussed, and that any attempt to find a lasting consensus is – you guessed it – IDHT behaviour. 16:07, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Response to Risker

I don't think the WMF resolution should make a difference, because it basically just reaffirms that we are a project to build an encyclopedia, i.e. that our goal is to produce something similar to Britannica. But on our path to this goal we are constantly being distracted by literalist/fundamentalist/extremist readings of various policies and guidelines. Such as the editor who caused a great deal of disruption for months with his insistence that everything other than literal copying from sources is original research, the editor who kept insisting that because Misplaced Pages is not a dictionary we must not have a single article on a word, and the much more common cases of extreme inclusionism, extreme deletionism and extreme anti-censorship.

And when I say extreme anti-censorship, I mean it. I am for keeping the Virgin Killer image, and I am perfectly happy with the German Misplaced Pages's Vulva article on the main page. It is not a big problem when any individual item remains uncensored. The real problem is that our community has developed a moral panic about censorship. Hans Adler 19:46, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Statement by Kww

I noticed that I am quoted above, although I am not a party. I will state my case one more time, including the quote that Hans finds so offensive.

"I've said it before, and I'll say it again: the religious objections of a billion Muslims and the religious objections of three remote tribespeople are precisely and absolutely equal, because popularity has nothing to do with whether an objection is valid, and neither side's objection has any merit that a secular encyclopedia can evaluate. Taking one into account without taking the other into account is morally abhorrent. The only way to treat them both equally is to disregard them both, and that is precisely what we have to do. By any measure that is relevant to an encyclopedia, the images of Mohammed are not controversial at all. I'm not worried that your stance will result in massive censorship, I'm worried that your stance will result in highly selective censorship favoring some large groups, which is a more damaging result by far.

That really is the end result here: large groups claiming offense at things get images removed and articles tailored to their perspectives, and small groups of equally offended people offended for equally valid reasons do not. That's not our goal. It runs in complete opposition to our goals. We must not take this kind of offense into account in our editorial policy.—Kww(talk) 13:53, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Incidentally, this is a content dispute, and only a small handful of editors refuse to understand the relevant policies. If Arbcom takes this case, I think Ludwigs2 clearly has unaddressable behavioural problems that might warrant increasing the scope of his current topic ban. The others, while unhappy about being on the wrong side of policy, are probably able to contain their disappointment and be productive editors.—Kww(talk) 13:57, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

@Risker: I think the WMF resolution was primarily a reaction to the porn repository problem on Commons. It certainly isn't limited to Commons, but I think any effort by the foundation to mandate that we incorporate religious perspectives into our editorial policy should be soundly rebuffed.—Kww(talk) 17:16, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Statement by Tarc

Oh my, they are reaching for ArbCom again, are they? After that went so swimmingly the first time around? If there was ever a case to accept regarding this matter, it certainly wouldn't be on what Eraserhead claims is the problem, because that ain't it. The problem is a very small handful of editors trying to circumvent the policy of (WP:What Misplaced Pages is not via straw polls and Walls o' Text on a single article talk page...or in this case a sub-page of an article talk page, Talk:Muhammad/images. The discussions began there a few months ago, petered out, they* failed spectacularly when they brought the matter to WT:NOT as a broader cross-section of the community were around to chime in and shoot it down. For the last few weeks they have been back at Muhammad/images; same song, same record.

What we have are several editors who wish to remove images from Muhammad for a variety of stated rationales (the images are incidental, the images aren't really of Muhammad, the images cause offense, the images aren't prevalent in Muslim culture) which really all boil down to the "they cause offense" reason. Recall that in 2009 there was an anonymous petition (www.thepetitionsite.com/2/removal-of-the-pics-of-muhammad-from-wikipedia/) that got a bit of press (one, two, three. This was soundly and unequivocally rejected, the stand that the project also took regarding the Virgin Killer album cover, more at Internet Watch Foundation and Misplaced Pages.

Any editor has a right to initiate policy changes if they think it will better the project, but there are places to do this where the community as a whole has a chance to weigh in. A handful of editors, one of them extremely disruptively and tendentiously, do not have the right to declare consensus to do so based on TL;DR text in a talk sub-page.

*they: the primary antagonist in this affair is Ludwigs2, a name not unfamiliar to ArbCom. secondary is Eraserhead1, the filer of this Arbcom...a latecomer to the discussions but no less fervent than Ludwigs. There's also Jayen466, who won't drop the stick on this either, but at least is exemplary in terms of conduct and level-headedness in a contentious topic area. Moreso than most of us, really.

• • Regarding the Controversial Content Resolution, I believe the article as it stands at the moment is quite in line with what it calls for. We have historical images from a variety of sources that depict Muhammad. IMO any article is enhanced by using images if they are deemed appropriate and relevant to the subject matter. Some are nibbling around the edges of the "appropriate" part, but their point of view on the matter is a minority one. The other part of the resolution is "least astonishment", which IMO is a no-brainer here; someone goes to Muhammad, there is a reasonable expectation that there will be images of Muhammad. Tarc (talk) 18:16, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Statement by Alanscottwalker

1) This is a content dispute;

2) People should act professionally;

3) Like Mathsci, I agree no one should be here, and I should not. I have raised content issues;

4) The arbitrators should consider whether this is abuse of process, to intimidate. Consensus does not arise from intimidation.

Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:18, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

@Sir Fozzie: I think RfC is the way to go. Perhaps a mediator could be used to construct and run a good one. Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:08, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Statement by Amatulic

The only concern that might possibly interest ArbCom here would be examination of behavior (related to WP:DEADHORSE and WP:TENDENTIOUS) that pervades the debates on the topic of Muhammad images. Other than that, this is a content dispute, in part arising from the WikiMedia Foundation's May 2011 resolution on controversial content. ~Amatulić (talk) 15:40, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Statement by Johnbod

This is a content dispute, also with issues involving the application of policy. The factual and contextual issues are complex and poorly grasped by many of those involved. The use of images on the page has in fact changed significantly over time, but it is not forseeable that everyone will be satisfied. Arguments have got heated at times, and there are several editors involved who ramble on at great length, but I don't see that editor behaviour has been especially bad from the regulars rather than one-off ISPs (unusually, Sinebot is the largest contributor to the page). Several of the editors most prominently involved are essentially talk-page only editors, who wander from dispute to dispute without ever contributing to the encyclopedia as such. It might be useful for Arbcom to address this pattern of behaviour but otherwise I can't see how the dispute is a matter for Arbcom. Johnbod (talk) 16:34, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Statement by Thryduulf

I don't really have much to add that Tarc and Kww have written and endorse their statements.

I will say though that there is an issue to look at here, but it isn't the content dispute that Eraserhead1 has framed. It is the conduct of a small handful of users, including Ludwigs2, Erasherhead1, Jayen466, Whatamidoing and Anthonyhcole that needs looking into. I am not tarring them all with the same brush, particularly Ledwigs2 is considerably the worst offender and Eraserhead1 in second place, the other three's conduct merit looking at but they may be found to have done nothing appropriate. The conduct at Talk:Muhammad/Images, Talk:Pregnancy and WT:NOT at least need to be looked at possibly WP:AN and WP:AN/I too, but my memory is hazier there regarding who said what to who when.

For balance, I'm perfectly prepared to be a party to this case and have my conduct (at the noticeboards and WT:NOT, I've not been involved with the specific article discussions) scrutinised too, but it's worth noting that I have no clue how much wiki time I'll have between the end of this week and the new year. Thryduulf (talk) 16:24, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

@Sir Fozzie: If the behaviour of Eraserhead1 and Ludwigs2 et al has been similar elsewhere as their behaviour at WT:NOT (others have implied it has, I don't know), possibly. I firmly believe that the behaviour of a small number of participants has directly led to the content disputes rising to the level they have. I get the impression that without certain users the community would have been able to quietly come to consensus regarding the images at Muhammad and Pregnancy. Certainly without the IDHT at WT:NOT there wouldn't have been anything other than yet another (quietly) failed proposal to introduce censorship. Thryduulf (talk) 17:08, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

@Risker: The relevant parts of the resolution to this matter are:

• "Wikimedia projects are not censored."
  • It's worth noting that this is expressed as an unqualified absolute.
• "e support access to information for all."
  • Again this is not qualified or limited by exception.
• "We support the principle of least astonishment..."
  • Specifically of note is the lack of any attempt to define what expectations are "reasonable", nor anything regarding how to determine this. Which means that it is (imho rightly) left to the community to determine this on a case by case basis in accordance with the general goals and policies, etc. In the vast majority of cases this is exactly what we do quietly and efficiently, in other cases the actions of some editors inhibits or prevents this. Thryduulf (talk) 17:54, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

@All arbs: In evaluating this request, you should be clear that there are two overlapping issues here.

• The content dispute at Talk:Muhammad/Images (and other articles) and the behaviour of participants there, and spill-over to other venues such as AN/I
• The policy discussion/proposals/RfC at WT:NOT and the behaviour of participants there, and spill-over to other venues such as AN/I.

The principle overlap is the involvement of several key editors discussing similar (but not identical) issues at both places. Although it could be argued that the WT:NOT situation was a spillover from Talk:Muhammad/Images, and possibly originally was (I'm not certain on that though), it became significantly wider such that I think it's worth treating separately.

If you choose to accept the case, then I think it essential that you clearly define the scope from the outset as an arbitration focused on either individually or both together is possible. Thryduulf (talk) 18:15, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Regarding RfCs

To those asking for an RfC, exactly what will another RfC achieve that the existing widely advertised discussions have not? Certainly with regards to WT:NOT the RfC has been centrally advertised since 7 November , the discussion regarding Muhammed has been so well patronised that it has got its own subpage. The problem hasn't been a lack of editors, it has been the behaviour of some of those taking part - see Resolute puts it very well.

First the behaviour needs to be sorted out, then we can have productive RfCs if the issues haven't been sorted in the meanwhile. If we just have another RfC now then the only difference will be another few hundred thousand words through which to trawl to provide evidence for an arbitration case. Thryduulf (talk) 17:33, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Statement by Tom Harrison

An RfC with input from the wider community is more likely to be useful, but if the arbs want to give some guidance about appropriate use of Muhammad's image in a context of sensitivity to Islam, I'm prepared to work with that. Tom Harrison 17:13, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Statement by Ludwigs2

Well, I feel obliged to point out the the Conduct/Content rubric is going to be almost impossible to apply. This isn't a content dispute turned sour, this is an intractable ideological divide over the nature and purpose of Misplaced Pages itself. Any decision you render is ultimately going to ripple out through the project and change the way we approach content, for good or ill.

Don't get me wrong, that's a good thing in principle: It's high time Misplaced Pages started to grow up as a community.

Otherwise I agree with Hans and Eraserhead, and don't feel a need to add to what they've said at this point. While I'm not anxious to sit through yet another endless litany of "It's all Ludwigs2's fault" (which has already started and will likely grow exponentially over time), I'll cope. C'est la vie! --Ludwigs2 17:35, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

R to Risker - WMF resolution

in response to your particular request about the WMF resolution:

I see the WMF resolution as more of a shift in emphasis than an actual policy change. What it is trying to get at is that the readership of various WMF projects are deeply multicultural and multinational, and that we have certain responsibilities towards them as editors. People tend to focus on the least astonishment principle (mostly because it's a catchy phrase, IMO), but I believe the most central idea is that the project is curated:

"Wikimedia projects are curated and edited collections, according to certain principles: namely, we host only content that is both free and educational in nature."

This notion of 'curating' is at odds with the over-simplified, literal-minded interpretation of NOTCENSORED that is used by some editors. Curated material is chosen with care - that implies a certain degree of restraint and introspection that is not not akin to censorship (though it is often accused of being censorship). When you draw all of the affirmations of the resolution together

• "support access to information for all"
• "are curated and edited collections"
• "readers should have control over their experience"
• "content on Wikimedia projects should be presented to readers in such a way as to respect their expectations"

The overwhelming sense of the resolution is that we should curate the projects to be more sensitive to and respectful of the interests and desires of a broadly multicultural readership.

On Muhammad one finds a pervasive exclusionist/isolationist attitude prevailing, in which editors are blocked from editing the article simply because of their religious beliefs. The primary argument against removing the images, in fact, has always been that removing them would amount to capitulation to the beliefs of a group which is perceived as fanatical (which group that might be varies: some editors specifically single out Islam, others refer to religions in general). The upshot is that images which violate the mores and standards of a major world religion are held in the article by ghettoizing all opposition as extremists and invoking NOTCENSORED - basically a double-dose of disrespect by insisting on what they dislike and asserting they are fanatics for disliking it. That's bad enough, but worse is that there's no overriding reason for including these images in the first place except that they violate islamic tenets (again, some editors not wanting wikipedia to look like it is giving in to Islam). In essence, NOTCENSORED becomes a tool for censoring real-world mores and values that these editors disagree with.

The WMF resolution (IMO) is telling us that this kind of anti-multicultural attitude is not functional or desirable for the projects. We are not here as editors to force the 'proper attitude' on our readership, but rather to curate the project for their benefit with broad respect for their desires and expectations. --Ludwigs2 18:36, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

cmt to PhilKnight

If you want to know the result of an RfC on this matter, please look at RfC's held at pregnancy and NOT - what will happen is that there will be support for removal but enough of a split for the image proponents to claim no consensus, and we will be right back to wrangling over it on the talk page. If you think I'm wrong, care to put up $100 on it? (eh, better make that 1000 yuan instead; roll with the times...)

As I've said, this is not a content or behavioral issue (except secondarily). This is an ideological dispute over whether or not Misplaced Pages has a responsibility to be respectful to our readership. Someone needs to make a decision on this and impose it on the project uniformly, because no one on the other side of the debate is ever going to willingly budge one single solid inch otherwise. Not ever. Do you think Tarc, FormerIP or Kww is suddenly going to say (after lo these many weeks): "Oh, I see what you mean; we should be a little more respectful of our readers!"? They may cave in out of exhaustion or boredom (as the people on my side might as well; not that that looks likely for any of us any time soon), but that won't solve the problem even a little bit; it will just lower the tension level until the next situation arises.

I will tell you frankly right now that I myself will never accept as legitimate any actions which are pointlessly and unprofitably rude to our readership. I can make compromises where there's a good rationale - I'd have been fine with the solution Mathsci, Jayen and Resolute worked out - but I draw the line at pointless crapulence. I simply will not stop trying to curb this kind of abuse on project unless (a) there is an unambiguous consensus among editors that we should indulge this kind of pointless crapulence (good luck with that), or (b) you guys in ArbCom make it clear that this is the way the project is going to be. Leave me to my own devices and I will continue to argue this point, since (and this is honestly how I see it) this is just one step in a long process of digging the project out of its own churlishly adolescent solipsism into adult cognition. You're going to have to tell me specifically that you don't want the project to be a better place in this particular way, otherwise it is a goal I will continue to pursue. --Ludwigs2 18:46, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Statement by Resolute

When this was first raised here in October as a bid by Ludwigs to try and use ArbCom to win a content dispute, I pointed out that the primary issue was actually his own behaviour in that discussion. Of special importance from that first request was Ludwigs' habit of accusing anyone who disagreed with him of being a bigot. I mostly stopped tracking his edits after that point as it became tedious and repetitive, but I would also note that he has made it clear he expects to become a martyr for his cause. When he got nowhere on Talk:Muhammad/Images, he went to WT:NOT and started a giant RfC that also went nowhere. Jimbo's talk page was involved at one point, as was ANI and AN.

I realized that the only way forward was to cut him out of the picture. To that end, I approached Anthonyhcole for a one on one discussion looking for common ground, then expanded to include Jayen466 - they being the two most prominent advocates for the anti-images side whom I considered reasonable. The three of us achieved a rough agreement, and took it back to the Muhammad images talk page. Discussion was primarily civil, and while continued disagreements abounded, there was no harm in letting the discussions take place. I noted with some amusement that discussion had improved because Ludwigs was off fighting his war at WT:NOT. The moment he returned to the Muhammad discussion, things went to shit again, and the discussion quickly trainwrecked. And he returned posting the very same arguments that were rejected three months ago, six months ago, one year ago and two years ago.

I take issue with Eraserhead's assertion that other editors have "filibustered" or refused to compromise. For much of this debate Ludwigs, Tarc, others on both sides, including myself, have seemed more interested in yelling over top of each other - and it should be obvious whom I consider the root cause of this problem - but in terms of willingness to compromise, I absolutely respect the opinions of Tarc, FormerIP and others in their unwillingness to make significant changes to the image arrangement of the article. I hoped to broker a solution to this debate, but the article is already heavily compromised on its image use. On most other well developed historical articles, depictions, statues, paintings, etc. make up the majority of images; on this one, depictions make up a small minority. Other bios use a depiction as the lead image. This one uses calligraphy. Others have such images interspaced throughout, this one has most towards the bottom. We have also made note in the article's FAQ on how individuals can hide images on that article for themselves. I have no issue with their refusals. I also have little doubt that no matter what we do now, certain belligerents intend to return to this debate yet again to continue pushing for image removal.

TL;dr version: You might as well accept, because while you cannot resolve the content dispute, and you cannot change policy to do the same, you can look at the behavioural issues that are undermining the community's ability to settle on an acceptable solution. Resolute 17:44, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

@Risker - That foundation resolution was the basis by which Ludwigs began his latest campaign, specifically on the "principle of least astonishment". In my admittedly biased opinion, I would say it discussion leaned heavily towards rejection of that viewpoint. At its heart, this debate is boiled down to Ludwigs saying the resolution applies because he believes the images have no educational value. And he believes they have no educational value because they offend many Muslims. The other side, including myself, believes they do carry educational value, ergo, there is no issue between the use of such images and the board's resolution. Resolute 17:55, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Statement by Jayen466

Much of what I would have said has already been said by others above. Instead, I'll add an outline of recent history: following Ludwigs2's comments on the images talk page, there had been two lengthy discussions on Jimbo's talk page and a subsequent clear statement from Jimbo to the effect that

"we should be careful not to allow political views held by almost all Wikipedians (in a particular language) to distract us from the demands of NPOV. So as an example, if reliable sources suggest that depictions of Muhammad are rare, we shouldn't as a "political act" shove a bunch of them in just to prove some kind of case against censorship - if we do so, then we misrepresent history. True NPOV in this area would involve finding a consensus about what reliable sources do."

Resolute then took an admirable initiative. He hammered out a compromise proposal with Anthony, Mathsci and myself, reducing the number of Islamic figurative images to something that is commensurate with their rarity and marginal status in Islam (), while acknowledging recent scholarly interest in them ().

This proposal attracted majority support on the talk page (with two editors, Johnbod and Alanscottwalker, opposed) . I implemented the proposal on 24 November , only to be reverted by FormerIP , who up to this point had never contributed to either the Muhammad article or any of its talk pages. As those supporting Resolute's proposal remained in a 2:1 majority, I announced a week later on Talk:Muhammad/images (01:32, 1 December 2011), after consultation with Resolute, that I would implement the proposal again. I did so the next day, only to be immediately reverted again by FormerIP . Since then, there has been ongoing discussion on the talk page combined with assorted silliness, such as describing an image of Quranic inscriptions proposed for addition to the article as "The world's most elaborate takeaway menu". .

The statement by Jimbo above is nothing else than the Board Statement on controversial content expressed in different words. We astonish our readers if what we present is systematically, conspicuously different from what reliable sources present. This holds not just for the Muhammad article, but for any type of controversial imagery. WP:NOTCENSORED itself states that it does not overrule WP:NPOV/WP:DUE, which remains paramount. However, when it has been pointed out that reliable sources on Muhammad tend to use mainstream Islamic imagery (e.g. Quranic inscriptions, other types of calligraphy) for illustration, opponents have argued that these sources are censored and must be taking religious objections into account, whereas we, as Misplaced Pages, do not, and that our NPOV should therefore not be guided by reliable sources. It's an obvious contradiction in terms, but this type of argument – "our sources are censored, and we are not" – is often invoked to retain imagery that will astonish readers, simply because it's not consistent with presentations in reliable sources. I don't know whether there is enough for a case here, as this is largely a content dispute, but an affirmation from the committee that WP:NPOV is a basic pillar of this project, and that our presentation should be guided by reliable sources, would be useful. --JN466 20:49, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Statement by FormerIP

I have comments I would like to make here. Although I think that this is basically a content dispute, there are policy clarifications that could help substantially.

However, the possibility of proceeding with dispute resolution is still being discussed on the talkpage. I think is therefore appropriate to put this on hold for now, or else close it as moot with a view to re-opening in the near future. I would ask, though, that a decision is not made about accepting the case without me getting a chance to comment. If that request is out of order, then please just tell me so. --FormerIP (talk) 19:33, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Statement by Nomoskedasticity (mostly uninvolved)

This proposed case (as introduced by Eraserhead1) hinges on the notion that there has been a failure to compromise. There is no Misplaced Pages policy requiring editors to compromise. A small number of editors have been battling for many months trying to accomplish a change at Muhammad; those efforts have failed. The fact that they have been rejected does not mean those disagreeing with the proposed change are (by virtue of "failing to compromise") violating some policy or guideline. Perhaps the persistence of those wanting change is excessive and rises to the level of a behavioral problem; if it doesn't, then there's nothing but a content dispute here. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 21:53, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Statement by Enric Naval

(disclaimer: I have previously been in disputes with Ludwigs, I have been trying to follow the trainwreck)

Ludwigs' campaign to remove the images has been causing lot of unproductive discussion. He keeps saying that it's not because he finds the images to be offensive, but I find that he keeps changing his arguments every time one of them is shot down. This is usually an indication of someone who covers up his authentic reasons with reasons that he makes up on the fly. This would explain all the changes in the RfC he made, and his changes of position. He is just trying to find an argument that allows him to remove offensive images without saying so.

Other editors have also been causing the unproductive discussion to drag on and on, and their behaviour could be examined. But I think that Ludwigs was the one who ignited the unproductive discussion and kept it going.g --Enric Naval (talk) 16:44, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Statement by Masem (Uninvolved)

I request that if ArbCom takes this case and look behind the behavioral problems described, that this be expanded/reviewed in light the larger problem of the conflict between WP:NOTCENSORED, the WMF resolution, and the general aspect of offensive pictures. There has been month-long (if not longer) at WT:NOT (permlink) (presently the first three sections) on trying to resolve the language of NOTCENSORED, which this case as the Muhammad images, along with other cases like Pregnancy (the use of a nude woman vs a clothed one), Goatse.cx (the use of the actual shock image in the article), and Arachnophobia (the use of a spider to demonstrate the fear). I was going to encourage at WT:NOT to have a RFC on this after the new year in a more central location as the arguments keep spinning around the same points of conflict, but if ArbCom is going to get involved to resolve the Muhammad image case, it would make a lot of sense to try to establish a precedent for all issues of controversial images.

Note that if this case is specifically limited to behavior, then please ignore this request. --MASEM (t) 16:46, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (1/0/1/4)

• Accept I think ArbCom can legitimately decide how much advocacy on one side of any discussion, content related or not, becomes a variant of WP:IDHT or is otherwise disruptive editing. I think our silence on image retention in the Abortion case may have sent the wrong message, and further believe that three months is not an unreasonably short time since the last request. Jclemens (talk) 15:34, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
• Comment What I was thinking about was a dual pronged attack on this issue. Conduct issues being handled here, content issues (should there be images, what should the images be?) being handled by binding RfC, similar to other cases in the past. If you separate the content issues from the conduct issues, is there enough left to take a case on? SirFozzie (talk) 16:18, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
• Comment: Leaning toward acceptance, but waiting for more statements. There are behavioural elements to this matter (on all sides), as well as a relatively recent but significant overarching WMF board policy (WMF Board resolution on controversial content) since the last major community discussion of this issue. I would like to hear from parties and other commenters on how they see the WMF board resolution affecting this situation. Risker (talk) 17:04, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
• Comment: As noted by several parties above, it seems like the next logical step would be an RfC. Unless that entirely breaks down, we really haven't reached the last-stage ArbCom approach yet. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs 14:58, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
• Recuse; I have participated frequently in the image debates. — Coren  18:26, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
• Comment - awaiting more statements, but leading towards a decline. I appreciate that mediation has been attempted without success, however, my own personal feeling is that this subject would be better handled by a Request for Comment than arbitration. PhilKnight (talk) 16:39, 12 December 2011 (UTC)