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Clarification request: Argentine History

Initiated by MarshalN20 | at 18:21, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Case or decision affected

Argentine History arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)

Link to relevant decision

List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:

• MarshalN20 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (initiator)
• Cambalachero (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

• Cambalachero is aware of this request (or should soon be due to )

Statement by MarshalN20

There needs to be a clarification on the Latin American history topic ban. History is a very broad topic. A prior clarification request discussion showed there was plenty of troubles with the broadness of the ban and its inherent lack of precision. Please see (), where Brad writes, "When I voted on the original case, I was concerned that the topic-ban might be somewhat overbroad (other arbitrators did not agree). I agree that some clarification is in order. The relevant cut-off date should be one that reduces the likelihood that the problems identified in the decision will recur." The result here was that "recent history" was excluded from the topic ban.

The topic ban's lack of precision recently caused me to get into a minor block incident over a football article (see ). The first block incident was caused by inaccurate interpretation of the TBAN exception's "vandalism clause".

To summarize this request into questions:

1. Was the topic ban on "Latin American history" one meant for diplomatic & military history (the classical definition of "history")?
2. Can Cambalachero and I edit articles that only peripherally deal with history (i.e., culture articles such as sports, music, economics, society, food, modern politics, etc.)?

Additional relevant evidence (from my part):

• I wrote the FA article on Pisco Sour (Latin American culture) after the arbitration committee decision.
• I helped promote the GA article on Falkland Islands, after being allowed to do so by arbitration committee (see ). I'll add that the expression "give him enough rope and he'll hang himself" shows how much faith the lot of you had in me. But, hey, it did turn out better than you expected; right?
• I've also extensively edited the article on the Peru national football team article (Latin American culture & sports article).

Everything written by The_ed17 below is really beside the point and, IMO, seems very battleground-ish.

He mentions "several previous enforcement and clarification requests", but provides a list of enforcement issues (some of which, unsurprisingly, have been dealt with him) that resulted in warnings.

Lastly, my decision to edit (or not edit) Latin American topics is a personal one. At this time, I prefer to avoid the topic. However, my interests may change later, and I am requesting this clarification specifically to avoid further problems in the future.

Ultimately, the purpose of the topic ban is not to punish. The arbitration case focused on my actions in Juan Manuel de Rosas and Paraguayan War. Yet, ArbComm branded Cambalachero and me with an imprecise history ban over a huge region (Latin America). A clarification is needed not to "neuter" my ban, but to tie overtly lose ends (and prevent further headaches on this matter).--MarshalN20 | 00:57, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

It's also worth noting that Laser brain's "brilliant" comment reflects a narrow perspective on the situation. All articles on Misplaced Pages (an encyclopedia) have some peripheral relation to history (even the Banana article has a history section!). WP:TBAN mentions this and provides specific exceptions on the matter (which is the reason why my block was overturned by the community). In fact, the recent AN discussion only supports the idea that there needs to be a clarification on the matter.--MarshalN20 | 01:24, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

1980 is actually a pretty good standard time for "recent history" in Latin America. For example, in 1980 is when the Revolutionary Government of the Armed Forces in Peru ends and "democratic" administrations return to the country.

My only disagreement with Cambalachero would be in the inclusion of economics/economic history into the topic ban. Thryduulf's clarification proposal is, I think, good in the level of detail for the type of history ("geopolitical and military history of Latin America").

I honestly doubt any of the arbitrators had "football" or any other culture topic in mind when setting the topic ban. In fact, I had no enforcement issues when taking Pisco Sour to FA status or improving Peru national football team. The problems only began when users began to scrutinize my edits and used any excuse to take me to the guillotine. IMO, this reflects an abuse of the system by those users more than anything else.

Thus, this clarification request is, in part, also a plea for protection to the arbitrators. I won't point fingers, but it should be clear (by this point) that there is a group of editors bent on seeing me eternally blocked from Misplaced Pages.

Happy Thanksgiving.--MarshalN20 | 07:37, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

In response to Sandstein, the Chile-Peru football rivalry is an ongoing event. To claim that it "is entirely about past events" is a terrible premise that dismantles the whole argument and conclusion. This is also why the unblock request was accepted by the community. Per WP:TBAN: "weather-related parts of other pages, even if the pages as a whole have little or nothing to do with weather: the section entitled "Climate" in the article New York, for example, is covered by the topic ban, but the rest of the article is not." The "history" section in Chile-Peru football rivalry is clearly delimited. That the article is a badly written one also does not help the case made against me.--MarshalN20 | 17:26, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Wow. Not even I expected that the WP:IBAN would be so blatantly broken (). The comments made below clearly break the point: "editor X is not permitted to make reference to or comment on editor Y anywhere on Misplaced Pages, whether directly or indirectly." I mean, the comment doesn't even concern the clarification request...it's just a bunch of trash commentary demonstrating that the WP:STICK is far from dropped.

Nonetheless, I do appreciate the history on the_Ed17's behavior towards me. Looking at the list, it seems the more abusive.

Happy holidays, I guess.--MarshalN20 | 23:45, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Statement by Thryduulf

The last clarification request resulted in a statement from the Committee that events in or after December 1983 are not "history" for the purposes of this topic ban. So the edit that led to the block - reverting the addition of material about an event in 2013 to an article that is primarily about sports - was not in any way I can conceive of covered by the topic ban.

Accordingly I would suggest that the topic ban be explicitly refined to:

• The geopolitical and military history of Latin America prior to December 1983.
• Other aspects of the history of Latin America that are directly related to geopolitical and/or military events that occurred before December 1983.

For example a 2010 book about the War of the Pacific would be covered by the topic ban, sections of History of Argentina about events in or after December 1983 would not be. Thryduulf (talk) 20:33, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Statement by The ed17

This is yet another example of Marshal trying to neuter this topic ban, which was "broadly construed" to forestall these exact issues. There have been several previous enforcement and clarification requests that Marshal has chosen not to link. These show a clear pattern of skirting the topic ban, breaching it only in unclear gray areas:

• Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive136#MarshalN20
• Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive137#MarshalN20 – "MarshalN20 is warned that future actions that skirt the boundaries of their topic ban may result in sanctions"
• Amendment allowing Marshal to edit the Falkland Islands article
• Amendment adding a formal interaction ban,
• Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive138#MarshalN20
• Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive141#MarshalN20 – one month block
• Unblock discussion earlier this month – "Based on these statements, and the expectation that you will stay well clear of everything related to Latin American history in the future, ... I am lifting the block". Is this "well clear"?
• AN block review that led to this. I'm going to quote Laser brain's brilliant comments here as well, as they cut right to the heart of this situation:

Misplaced Pages:Misplaced Pages Signpost/Quote

And as a final side note, trying to litigate individual sections of articles Marshal can edit is preposterous unless we want to be back at ANI in a week. Any article that deals with the history of the region should be and is covered under the topic ban. Ed  23:32, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Also tangentially related is the Wikilove Marshal has sent out to everyone who participated in the AN discussion, ex. . But why does someone who states that he will not be editing Latin American topics until after his topic ban expires need to change that ban to allow him to edit Latin American topics? Ed  23:44, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, Marshal, for reminding me that I forgot to add links to the clarification requests. Ed  02:45, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Statement by Cambalachero

First of all, MarshalN20 is not requesting an amendment of the case, but a clarification on the actual limits of the case as it is. The previous block was caused precisely by a misunderstanding on the extension of it, so the clarification request is appropiate, and it is precisely meant to avoid further troubles. In fact, I suggested him to request this clarification, I thought that if the limits are clear for everybody then there will be less of those discussions, or no such discussions at all. And there's no big need to link all the previous clarifications, amendments or enforcements of this case, because all those are already included at the case's main page or subpages anyway; arbitrators know where to seek them.

First, the topics. I think that "history" means the topics that we can seriously expect to find in a book named "History of Argentina", "History of Peru", or similar. The main topics that such books talk about are warfare, in the periods when the country is at war, and politics, when the country is at peace. With both terms broadly construed: in this context politics would mean anything that is related to the governance of a country (including economy, international relations, social rights, etc.), and warfare would mean anything that is related to conflicts between military factions (including ships or military hardware, cancelled or proposed military operations, etc.). If it is clarified this way, then we can be more certain if an article about a football rivalry (or any other topic that may arise) is included in the ban or not.

And second, the frontier between current things and history. It was said during the block discussion (I forgot where or by whom) that the 1983 limit is only for Argentine history, and did not apply to other countries. That is correct: when that clarification was requested, I declined to clarify a year for the whole of latin america, because contemporary latin american history was not among my interests anyway. And 1983 was selected because it's a natural turning point in Argentina, as it was described by then; but it is meaningless for the other countries. I don't think there's such a meaningful event for the whole continent, so to keep it close to the limit that has already been decided for Argentina, we can set the limit in the begining of the 1980s (January 1, 1980). The turning of a decade should be a good universal turning point. Of course, that would leave some articles half-allowed and half-banned (such as the National Reorganization Process), but I would simply avoid such articles. Cambalachero (talk) 03:29, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Sandstein says that the article on the Chile-Peru football rivalry is clearly related to the history of Latin America. Actually, it's not so clear: most other users did not think that the article is historical, which led to the unblock (and, if the article is not historical, then it was never included in the topic ban, the noticeboard never modified the extension of the ban, etc). Rather than focus in the process, it may be helpful for this discussion if Sandstein further elaborates why does he consider a football rivalry to be a history topic; and in fact proposes a scope of what is included in the realm of history and what is not. Cambalachero (talk) 16:12, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Statement by Sandstein

I've been notified as the administrator who made the two most recent enforcement blocks. Because I didn't follow the original case, I don't have an opinion about whether a topic ban is needed to prevent misconduct by MarshalN20, and if yes, how broad that topic ban should be. But in the cases raised in an enforcement context, as listed by The ed17, I've observed that MarshalN20 has repeatedly violated or tested the boundaries of their topic ban. It's up to the Committee to decide which if any conclusions should be drawn from this history of noncompliance.

If I were a member of the Committee, I'd be concerned that by deciding to lift the block I imposed on MarshalN20 for editing Chile-Peru football rivalry (in my view, pretty clearly an "article ...related to the history of Latin America, broadly construed" as per the terms of the topic ban), the participants in the noticeboard discussion may de facto have already modified (in the sense requested here by MarshalN20) or vacated the Committee-imposed topic ban, in violation of the principle that Arbitration Committee decisions are binding (WP:AP). This raises the question whether the procedure documented at Misplaced Pages:Arbitration Committee/Procedures#Reversal of enforcement actions requires amendment to prevent this sort of "appeal to the community" against Committee decisions (in the context of their enforcement), which is not envisioned by the community-adopted arbitration policy.  Sandstein  15:07, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

In response to Cambalechero, my reasoning was the following: The topic ban concerns "articles ... related to the history of Latin America, broadly construed". History is, according to our article, "an umbrella term that relates to past events" or the study of such. The article Chile-Peru football rivalry is entirely about past events in two countries in Latin America, including events in the more distant past such as the 19th-century wars mentioned prominently in the lead (even in the article's earliest version created by MarshalN20 in 2007). Consequently, the entire article is related to (and, indeed, about) the history of Latin America (more specifically, about the cultural history of part of Latin America). Per WP:TBAN, the relevant policy, "a topic ban covers all pages (not only articles) broadly related to the topic, as well as the parts of other pages that are related to the topic". It follows that MarshalN20 violated their topic ban by editing any part of this history-related article.  Sandstein  17:11, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Statement by {other user}

Clerk notes

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

Arbitrator views and discussion

• Awaiting any further statements before commenting. (Also in terms of timing, please note that this is a long holiday weekend for many in the US.) Newyorkbrad (talk) 00:21, 28 November 2013 (UTC)
  • I am still thinking through whether and how we want to clarify the scope of this particular topic-ban, but as a general statement, the scope of a topic-ban (or of a topic in general, such as in the DS context) needs to be evaluated in light of the purpose for which the topic-ban was imposed. With respect to this particular topic ban, oversimplified slightly, the concern from the original case was that MarshalN20 was assertedly using unreliable and non-mainstream sources in articles on Latin American history.
  • It is impossible even in principle for our decisions to define topic scopes in a manner that avoids all possible ambiguity (for discussion of why this is so, please see this post by me, which I urge those interested in arbitration and AE issues to read). Thus, while bright lines are desirable when possible, there are many times when relevant background needs to be taken into account.
  • On a related matter, I note that Lecen, who was the filing party in the original arbitration case, has been blocked at AE for one month for posting a statement on this clarification request, followed by a statement at the subsequent AE request. Arguably, Lecen's posting of his statement on the clarification request violated the interaction ban between himself and MarshalN20, even though Lecen understandably had an interest in a proposed modification to the outcome of that case. However, it bears emphasis that Lecen began his statement by stating, "I asked for an interaction ban regarding Marshal and Cambalachero, but since this has direct relation to the ArbCom which we were part of I believe I'm allowed to comment. If not, let me know." Lecen has no prior AE blocks. The closing admin's rationale in the AE discussion cites Lecen's suggestion there that he be blocked for 30 days, but in context that is an expression of exasperation (warranted or otherwise) by Lecen, not a confession or a policy proposal. If Lecen were to appeal this block to us, I would give very serious consideration to such appeal. Newyorkbrad (talk) 15:59, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
• Reviewing situation (and withholding comment on the original issue for now), but I would quite like to know why Lecen has commented here in contravention of the current interaction ban in effect against him. AGK 00:09, 29 November 2013 (UTC)
• Speaking personally, my first thought is that Sandstein's block was a bad idea and that it was a good thing the community lifted it; granted, such a block was probably defensible, but nonetheless, I personally think it should not have been imposed: I have frequently said that ArbCom's decisions should be interpreted and enforced using commonsense (although I know there are people who disagree) and not in a mechanical fashion...

  Anyway, if, for the purposes of this restriction, we define "history" as "an umbrella term that relates to past events", we end up concluding that almost every article on Misplaced Pages is covered by this topic ban; in this, I agree with Marshal: even the article about the banana has a history section. And I also agree with Thryduulf that the article in question appears to be mainly about sports, even if it contains a history section, and that reverting the addition of material about an event in 2013 should not have been considered a violation of Marshal's restriction.

  For these reasons, I support the proposal to tweak the wording of the restriction, so that it is more consistent with what we intended to prohibit in the first place (or, to be more precise, with what I think we wanted to prohibit when we originally imposed the topic) – and, so, pilfering Thryduulf's wording, I'd clarify that, for the purposes of this restriction, the term "history" should be interpreted as referring to a. the geopolitical, economic and military history of Latin America prior to December 1983 and b. any other aspect of the history of Latin America that is directly related to geopolitical, economic or military events that occurred before December 1983 (or a different date, considering we only granted the 1983 exemption wrt Argentine history).

  Finally, an editor who is banned from interacting with another may not make comments, either directly or indirectly, about him anywhere, for any reason, except to report a violation of the restriction, to ask for a clarification of or to appeal the ban. Lecen's comments, therefore, are a violation of his restriction and I'm about to ask the clerks to remove them. Salvio 11:48, 1 December 2013 (UTC)