Statements from uninvolved editors at case opening

Statement by Til Eulenspiegel

I was requested to comment. My only encounter with User:Tenmei is at Talk:Salting the earth which he filled with bizarre proposals to merge that article with "Asia during the Tang Dynasty" or whatever it is. There is no mention in the article Salting the earth whatsoever of the Tang Dynasty, nor has he made clear any context for merging these two unrelated articles. Because of the lack of context, I took this as disruptive and deleted most of his lengthy additions to the talkpage. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 10:36, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Comment by Yaan

I think there are two somewhat separate problems here. One is that there is some trolling going on by an anonymous IP (the one who created the article in the first place). I think previous statements of this IP are clear enough to rule out WP:AGF, even if some editors in the AfD discussion did think otherwise.

The other problem is that the academic credentials of the source used by User:Teeninvestor are unclear and that Teeninvestor has made no attempt to deal with this. Maybe because both Teeninvestor and Tenmei were a bit too involved in their conflict to clear this isssue up. I am aware this is a problem of a lot of WP articles, but I think it really is the burden of the contributor who introduces a source to give evidence why it is relevant, at least in the case of disputes. I don't really think Teeninvestor is misrepresenting his source, certainly not consciously. But that still leaves open the question who the authors of his source are: amateur historians, local politicians, or maybe experts who studied Central Asia in the 7th century for all their life? It is also unclear what kind of source is used, secondary or tertiary. I don't think asking for clarifications on that matter and treating stuff as unsourced if no clarification is forthcoming is inappropriate. Yaan (talk) 16:23, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved Caspian blue

I will leave my opinion for arbitrators to figure out what is a problem and "who are the involved parties". First, this can be shown as a nationalistic dispute between China and Mongol, or a failure to abide by principle rules such as WP:Edit war, WP:AGF, WP:Civil, WP:NPA, WP:Own, WP:V, etc. But the request may be a due course because nothing was sorted out after tendentious edit warring and disruption were happening since the creation of the article. Tenmei and Teeninvester both violated 3RR (4RR ~ 6RR), but no admin did enforce to them for probably the lengthy, and weird report.

The selection of the involved editors are also odd and totally excludes Mongolian editors and others who actively participated in this dispute such as Gantuya eng (talk · contribs), GenuineMongol (talk · contribs), and G Purevdorj (talk · contribs) (see: AFD). All of three should appear here to give their opinion as the "involved party" for ArbCom to decide whether to pursue to the case. In fact, Kraftlos, PericlesofAthens, and Arilang1234 were not involved at all, but the latter two just came to give "3rd opinion" per Teeninvest's request to turn down the flame for his stance . Though the two are members of WP:WikiProject China and colleagues of Tenninvester. The meditation attempt was failed because of Teeninvester's unwillingness and Tenmei's failure to communicate civilly. So at least, RFC/3O/Mediation were tried except RFC/U before the request.

It should be noted that the creator of the article, Sarsfs (talk · contribs) and NYC Verizon anons are likely a sock of banned troll, ㄏㄨㄤㄉㄧ (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) who has caused "big troubles" to East Asian subjects and harassed editors. Given the extreme Pro-Han Chinese agenda, abusive sockpuppeter (over 200 socks), and harassment, I don't think he gives up appearing to the article(see:1, 2, 3, 4, 5 6)

As for the contested Chinese books, I can confirm notability of only one book, Outlines of the History of the Chinese ISBN 7538700420 written by Bo Yang who was a very famous Taiwanese author with a radical political view. Translated versions of the book are sold in other countries.(review) However, the problem is lied in the other book "5000 years of Chinese history" (中华五千年) written by Li Bo and Zheng Yin, that is primarily used for Teeninvester's claimed contents. I can't find any review nor information from "reliable news or sites" in any language except advertising sites. The two authors do not seem like notable too according to g-hits/books/scholar/news. I doubt that Nlu would help out because he does not seem to care about nationalistic feuds, and tends to use just Chinese primary sources for his articles.

Plus, everyone point finger at each other's behaviors on the article and AfD (eg. 7, 8, 9, 10, 11) so I recommend Arbitrators to look into both content disputes and behaviors of the involved editors if you take the case. I doubt that this dispute can be resolved in other venues(WP:ANI/WP:RSN/WP:WQA) because of the sock's constant trolling, the involved editors' too long-winged and endless arguments, dismissals to the request for verifying sources, ensuing disruptions to other articles and bickering each other as well as edit wars.--Caspian blue 22:52, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

To Cool Hand Luke I did not intend to add more to here, but contents from the contested book have been added to 13 articles including even FA article such as Ming Dynasty by Teeninvester and the banned user for over the past months. The source was already brought up to WP:RSN/Archive28 for its questionable reliability. Some of them, Qing and Yuan Dynasties debate and Comparison between Roman and Han Empires remind me of a RfAr case. If the two articles do not have the book source, 1/3 of or whole contents would be gone. As for what is the behavioral problem questioned by Cool luke Hand, I think the two main user have enough shown it on this page.--Caspian blue 20:28, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
To Sam Blacketer I think I said the banned user is one of factors that make hard to resolve the dispute. --Caspian blue 15:47, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
To Ncmvocalist I think you just said about "general procedures", not about "the actual disputes".--Caspian blue 15:52, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Gun Powder Ma

Clerk note: moved from arbitrator-only section. Daniel (talk) 12:27, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Comment: Several users have been notified of this debate to "help with this dispute": Example and overview Gun Powder Ma (talk) 11:54, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

View by uninvolved Ncmvocalist

I consider that despite there being clear claims that problem editing is occurring, the attempts at dispute resolution have been inadequate. Yes, RfC/U (like all other conduct parts of our DR system) would be a waste of time here. However, the fact that mediation fails does not mean that article RfC has also - and I see no justification to avoid trying this avenue before trying other avenues to get sanctions.

One of the biggest issues with accepting a case prematurely is this: ArbCom will consider things that shouldn't be considered when looking for sanctions at this point. Things aren't done as they should be by editors heavily involved in a dispute for a variety of reasons, and things aren't as they appear (eg; edit-summaries aren't accurate to the t, some things that needn't have been reverted end up reverted, accusations are thrown around, etc. etc. - but these are relatively minor costs that should be given an allowance, if and when there are strong attempts to attack the larger issue of the problem editing).

Unfortunately, this makes it very difficult to know when such attempts are being made, or in distinguishing between the problem editor and the editor who just needs a lot more time to get settled with certain conventions (like editing with a cooler head). Unfortunately, poor decisions can also emerge. Problem editors may do just enough to end up with no to light sanctions, compared to the editor who actually was combatting a much bigger problem to help the more important quality of the project. I would rather not make the decision until there is enough to at least have a better chance of getting to the right overall outcome. Even I am having trouble making some of the more complex distinctions right now.

I am appreciative of the proportion who voted to accept to address problem editing, among other issues. That is certainly what I would want usually. But I agree with Sam's last sentence. And as for the reasons specified as to why this dispute cannot be resolved in other venues (which may usually justify acceptance), true resolution cannot be found by accepting an arbcom case at this point. I do not want to see editors sanctioned or banned when they shouldn't be, and I don't want the opposite of this to happen either. I'm lost as to where this will go when enough distinctions are still unclear.

Letting the dispute continue without intervention would certainly let it fester some more, but it may be the only way here: other avenues need to be exhausted so that, hopefully, a clearer picture can be painted on all those involved. In the interests of ensuring we don't punish or lose really valuable contributors (who wade into waters that some others would stay away from), my view is that the case needs to be declined for now. Ncmvocalist (talk) 15:26, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved Penwhale

I suppose I could point out a few things. In the JQCQ link to the book, there was no author listed; the names listed were rather translators. I personally have some issue with the description of the book given by the site, however; 爱国主义 means nationalism/patriotism, and the two volumes only cover up to the First Opium War (meaning it does not cover anything post-Qing Dynasty. - Penwhale | 22:10, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Response to above comment

What is more troubling is that depending on usage, 爱国主义 could also mean jingoism. In addition, while looking at the userpages, User:Teeninvestor is a Chinese, while User:Tenmei is heavily involved in Japanese articles. This could be a point of contention. SYSS Mouse (talk) 17:51, 5 May 2009 (UTC)