Preliminaries

Arbitrators active on this case

To update this listing, edit this template and scroll down until you find the right list of arbitrators. If updates to this listing do not immediately show, try purging the cache.

Use of this page

This page is to be used to discuss the proposed decision after it has moved to the voting stage. Any other discussion should take place on the general discussion page that has been set up for that purpose. Please do not post on this page until the proposed decision has been posted and is being voted on. For discussion that took place on this page previously, please see the archive of this talk page, and if you wish to continue a discussion that was previously taking place here or elsewhere, please do so at this page instead. Carcharoth (talk) 01:09, 17 August 2010 (UTC) Updated here. 17:52, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Preparations for discussions

As work is continuing apace on the proposed decision, I have raised the question of making preparations for discussing the proposed decision. Please see here and here. As stated above, please do not post here, as this page is for discussing the proposed decision while it is being voted on. This post is an exception to that, as it is a notification post directing people to the discussion location. Carcharoth (talk) 12:21, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Clerking of the case

Posting a note here to point out that the case clerk (Amorymeltzer) is away this week. Dougweller has volunteered to clerk the case for the coming week (but is not available today), and AGK has also offered to help out when Amorymeltzer is back. The other available clerks have been asked to help out as needed. Hopefully there won't be anything that needs doing as regards keeping discussion orderly, but if there are problems, please post to the clerks' noticeboard or e-mail the clerks mailing list (address should be at WP:AC/C). I'll be setting up this page later in the day for comments on the proposed decision. Please don't post here in response to this, but direct questions to the general discussion page. Carcharoth (talk) 15:21, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Statements

An innovation for this case, intended to be similar to the statements made at requests for arbitration, but made here in the closing stage of a case rather than at the start. This is particularly intended for those named in the proposed decision, but is also for arbitrators and others to make more formal statements if they wish to do so. Once the proposed decision has been posted, if you want to make a statement please add it below as a subsection of this section. One single, signed statement per editor (can be revised but only within the word limit). No discussion here (threaded or otherwise). Limit of 500 words (as at requests for arbitration).

Statement by Lar

Precis: Great principles. Good findings, as far as they go, but they needed to go much farther. Remedies, not so much. First, not enough parties sanctioned. Second, we will be back at ArbCom before the year is out, as the GS/CC/RE replacement sanction regime proposed won't work. I will expand later. ++Lar: t/c 06:57, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Stephan Schulz

I somewhat agree with Lar here, which is rare enough. I don't see how this proposal will lead to any substantial change in the CC field. It does nothing to address the on- and off-wiki POV pushing. In particular, I have the following comments (short and incomplete, as I'll leave for the plane in an hour or so) Clerk, if the structured discussion proposal I made is accepted, feel free to move these to the corresponding sections. Thanks.:

Purpose of Misplaced Pages - while I like the idea of "cameraderie and mutual respect", I don't think that this should get equal footing with "high-quality, free-content encyclopedia". WP is primarily an encyclopedia, nor a social network. Also, I would like some clarification that honest but vigorous discussion is not in conflict with this (while dishonest behaviour, no matter how sugar-coated, is).
Role of the Arbitration Committee - historically true, but the committee should be aware of the fact that "good-faith content disputes" are not the primary problem, but that there are significant politically and ideologically driven disputes, some of which masquerade as content disputes.
Neutrality and conflicts of interest - I share NYB's concern that this is problematic. There has been no significant COI problem in CC articles, unless one assumes the counterproductive notion that experts inherently have a COI and that editing to properly reflect the considered expert position on a topic is inappropriate editing.
Sourcing - this is unclear. I fear some editors will read this as a general equivalence of sourcing (as in the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel is equivalent to PNAS on scientific topics).
Disputes regarding administrator involvement - actually, a clear definition of involvement was at least given, if maybe not broadly accepted.
William M. Connolley previously sanctioned and desysopped - the sanction of WMC at Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Climate change dispute was explicitly overturned by Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Climate change dispute 2, and I'm surprised to see the overturned sanction here, but not the overturning.
Discretionary sanctions - this essentially adopts the community probation, which has been a mixed success...
William M. Connolley topic-banned (Climate Change) - this looks purely punitive to me.
Uninvolved administrators - this is very problematic, as it seems to indicate that any content dispute in one part of CC disqualifies an administrator from acting as an administrator in the CC area at all. It inherently assumes the notion of strong factionalism. I don't see why a discussion on radiative heat transfer at greenhouse effect (where we have some really really persistent and really really not educated editors time and again) should disqualify an administrator from administrative action one.g. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Moreover, while new administrators are welcome, they are also hard to come by. The topic area is a complex one, with vast scientific literature, and vandalism is, by now, often subtle. I have some doubts that an administrator with enough interest to understand the domain well enough to recognise these problems will be able to (or should be expected to) refrain from editing for a purely tactical advantage.

--Stephan Schulz (talk) 07:34, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Polargeo

Regarding Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Climate change/Proposed decision#Polargeo personal attacks and disruption

I initially requested enforcement against myself for a very good reason, not to disrupt. I wished to show that I was not trying to act as an admin. The reason for this is that I got a lot of flack from Lar's supporters when I started to criticise his actions. People attacking me because of my admin status even though I hadn't tried to use that status to influence any decisions at the time. I was trying to absolve myself of the responsibility rather than to disrupt. I understand why this failled and I am wiser now but it was not disruption. The continuation of the special flack one recieves as an admin even when not acting as such has been in evidence in this case by the submissions of User:JohnWBarber against me.
Disparaging remarks. This is an extremely heated area. The first supposedly "disparaging remark" was after Lar had said to me, "it was a joke son" I took this as a put down, a patronising pat on the head if you like. Put in the context of the RfC/U I had started on Lar I request that you realise what a harsh environment I felt myself in. I already felt I was being attacked by Lar's supporters and I had observed for some time that Lar was extremely patronising in his comments. The second one is an observation which I back wholeheartedly and am simply disappointed that arbcom has not been able to see the negative longterm effects of Lar's involvement in this area, if we are banned from making remarks such as this I fear for wikipedia. The third diff was reflective of my despair and was a response to another tiresome "you are the cabal" putdown where there was an attempt to discredit CC editors en masse because of supporting the same viewpoint in the RfC/U on Lar. The forth one is a legitimate observation during this arbcom case and I can make a whole watertight case for the observation with plenty of diffs if required, it is a sad day when we cannot make frank observations during an arbcom case on a case talkpage, a sad sad sad day indeed for wikipedia.
The claim that two other uninvolved admins stated they felt it should be closed is stretching it a fair bit. There had been no discussion between admins, certainly no consensus had been reached, I simply acted to keep the case open so concensus could be reached rather than having Lar's supporters shut the case down with no concensus and on no credible argument. No edit waring was involved. This is a far far weaker action by me than you are making out and is certainly not good evidence of disruption. Polargeo (talk) 09:34, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Discussion

This is the place for the normal discussion that accompanies a proposed decision. This section, to be used once the proposed decision has been posted, is for free-form, threaded discussion, starting new topics in a new section below. No word limit, but clerks and arbitrators will moderate excessive, contentious or off-topic discussions. Clicking "new section" above should produce a subsection within this section.

Structured discussion proposed

I don't think it's reasonable to expect contributors to constructively discuss 49 different proposals at once. Nor is it reasonable or plausible for arbiters to read through an unstructured discussion. Thus, I would strongly suggest that the clerk creates a topic structure reflecting the proposed decision below (plus a general section), so that proposals can be discussed one by one. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 06:57, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

49 (+1) separate areas may be a bit much, so maybe some grouping? But StS is right, one giant pile won't work. ++Lar: t/c 06:58, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Enforcement 2

I'm confused as to why principle 15 includes the language "an administrator may be deemed too 'involved' to block an editor if the administrator has had significant prior disputes with that editor, whether or not directly related to the current issue" and principle 16 contains "f course, an administrator who has had significant prior disputes with a particular editor would similarly be considered 'involved' with regard to a request for sanctions involving that editor" when enforcement clause 2 omits both sentiments. I'm sure I'm not only editor that's been annoyed -- or even felt threatened or anxious -- with the inconsistency of how much "involved" admins tend to get away with... nor do I think I'm the only admin who's been hesitant to do something because they're unwilling to put up with accusations of bias. With the multiple and oftentimes conflicting definitions of "involvement" on various policy and arbitration pages, clarity from the arbitrators on this would be appreciated. — east718 | talk | 07:33, 23 August 2010 (UTC)