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Requests for arbitration

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Request name Motions Initiated Votes
Ian Fleming article   22 December 2014 {{{votes}}}
Malaysia Airlines Flight 17   22 December 2014 {{{votes}}}
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Ian Fleming article

Initiated by Anomalocaris (talk) at 11:25, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Involved parties


Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

At Talk:Ian Fleming#Full stop and comma inside or outside quotes, I started a discussion. That discussion is by no means complete. At 08:56, 22 December 2014, SchroCat, a party to that discussion, arbitrarily ended the discussion by using Template:Discussion top in violation of the prohibition against its use by a party to the discussion. At 10:21, 22 December 2014, I commented at User talk:SchroCat urging reconsideration. In less than one minute, at 10:21, 22 December 2014, SchroCat reverted my edit. Ordinarily, I would make further attempts to reason with a user, but this user has made it clear in postings on My talk page, Talk:Ian Fleming#Full stop and comma inside or outside quotes and User talk:Cassianto#Talk:Ian Fleming that reasoning does not work. Consequently, I am requesting arbitration. I request a decision that Template:Discussion top be removed from Talk:Ian Fleming#Full stop and comma inside or outside quotes and not be reinstated until the issue is resolved according to standard Misplaced Pages procedures.

User:Cassianto is not a direct party to this violation, but I believe is an interested party and is included as a courtesy. —Anomalocaris (talk) 11:53, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Statement by SchroCat

Statement by Cassianto

Statement by Hasteur

Involved parties should never close article talk page discussions in which they are primarily involved. 3 days to get the laundry list of complaints resolved. I note that even in the closing statement that the issue is not resolved. Suggest that Anomalocaris open a new talk page discussion about the remaining unresolved complaints, that SchroCat recieve a very wriggly trout for causing more drama by their WP:TPO violations after it was clear that Anomal did not appreciate the changes, and that the remainder of the dispute be bounced to the Content Dispute Resolution options Hasteur (talk) 13:03, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Nikkimaria

An hour's worth of discussion on a user talk page does not constitute sufficient dispute-resolution efforts to warrant ArbCom intervention. This is a tempest in a teacup, and should be dismissed as such. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:28, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Clerk notes

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

Ian Fleming article: Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter <0/2/0/0>-Ian_Fleming_article-2014-12-22T15:56:00.000Z">

Vote key: (Accept/decline/recuse/other)

Malaysia Airlines Flight 17

Initiated by RGloucester — ☎ at 05:52, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Involved parties

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried
  • This link to an AN/I thread is not directly related to the present dispute, but shows how contentious this article has been from day one.
  • This is another AN/I thread, directly related to the current dispute, and evidence of the disruptive editing occurring. No real results.
  • Another AN/I thread, dealing with edit-warring. No real results.
  • The crux: another AN/I thread, from about a month ago, where the idea of requesting arbitration was first mooted.
  • The most recent DRN case, closed as a failure by the DRN volunteer, mentioning ArbCom as the most likely solution.

This article has been a lighting rod for dispute from the day it was created. It has resulted in numerous threads at the reliable sources, neutral point of view, administrators', and dispute resolution noticeboards, not all listed here. None of these have produced any tangible result. The article in question is under WP:ARBEE discretionary sanctions, but administrators have refrained from sanctioning anyone, and one uninvolved administrator even said that he thought his involvement in enforcing those sanctions could've resulted in a threat against his person and family. A small group of editors dominates this article, and each has his or her own view of how it should be developed. Vague "camps" have formed, one revolving around Ukrainian and Western positions, and one around Russian positions. The result is a constant stalemate, with the same editors attacking each other repeatedly, and pushing for their own favourite version of the article. WP:AE has not been utilised, and any such utilisation is likely to result in more partisanship on the part of each of the "camps" involved in this dispute. The big picture needs to be analysed. Quite frankly, this dispute should've been resolved ages ago. It has festered far too long, and taken up much too much time at various noticeboards, for months. ArbCom needs to step in and sort it out, and find out what's at the bottom of this dispute. The tendentiousness needs to stop, and so does the advocacy.

@Newyorkbrad – I suggest that all of the frequent contributors to this article need to have their behaviour examined. There has been a certain tribalisation on the talk page, and that's the source of the problem. It is systemic, not individual, and I believe that AE simply cannot handle systemic problems like this. There is a reason no AE case has been filed, and that's because it would only further tribalism I've mentioned. I suggest that ArbCom must examine the disruption cause by this tribalism, and by both camps stymying each other through personal attacks and other forms of WP:BATTLEGROUND behaviour. RGloucester — ☎ 18:03, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

@Biblioworm – I think the fundamental problem with that approach is that this is not a content dispute. It may appear to be one, but it isn't. This is a problem with the behaviour editors engaged in the theatre of a content dispute. This can be easily seen if one reads the just closed DRN case. RGloucester — ☎ 18:41, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Statement by SaintAviator

Statement by Volunteer Marek

This is primarily a content dispute, although there are some behavior issues. However, this case should not be accepted, for the following reasons:

1. A lot of the problems have been caused by "fly-by-night", disposable accounts, which show up, cause trouble for a week, then disappear or get blocked after having caused much drama. Note that the account which filed the DSN request was exactly that; nothing was heard from them after they filed the request (in fact I'm about to submit an SPI on that account). Hence this DSN was not filed in good faith anyway. An ArbCom case is not going to help with such accounts.

2. To the extent that there are a couple regular users who have behaved problematically on the article (in particular User:USchick), the one avenue that hasn't been tried is utilization of existing discretionary sanctions via WP:AE. I sincerely regret not having filed a WP:AE report several times in the past few months. Had I done so, the relevant users would have been blocked or at least warned, and this behavior would have stopped, one way or another. At the time I kept thinking "ok, let's give this user one more chance... ok, one more chance... ok, last chance..." I promise that's over; if users continue to engage in disruptive behavior WP:AE reports will be filed. We do need to give the discretionary sanctions a chance to work - that's what they're there for, to cut the workload of the committee.

3. It's the holidays. Folks aren't going to have time to participate. By the time this gets off the ground, if accepted, most of the drama will be over.

Let me restate the main point: give discretionary sanctions and WP:AE a chance to work. That's what they're there for, so that every dispute doesn't wind up in ArbCommittee's lap. They have NOT been tried so far.

Happy Holidays!

Volunteer Marek (talk) 06:15, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

@RGloucester - yes, WP:AE has not been utilized which is the point, but I doubt utilization would result in "camps" fighting each other. One thing the admins at WP:AE are good at is cutting off that kind of nonsense. It's a different venue than WP:ANI or similar drama boards in the sense that it is NOT the usual "free for all" or where the outcome is dependent on how many of your buddies or newly created accounts show up to support you. All that gets nipped and ignored, and decisions are made on strict (some would say too strict) interpretations of policy.Volunteer Marek (talk) 06:31, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

@Guy Macon - pending changes protection would definitely help a lot here. A LOT.Volunteer Marek (talk) 16:42, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Statement by USchick

There are two groups of people here. One group wants to make changes to the article, and the other group is holding the article hostage and will not allow any changes unless they "approve" them. This needs to stop and I don't care who gets blocked in the process, even if it's me. We need an adult to step in and break this stalemate. This drama has been going on since July, so I doubt it will blow over in two weeks over the holidays. USchick (talk) 16:53, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Herzen

I believe RGloucester's description of this case is correct, with the qualification that his claim that there are two camps, "one revolving around Ukrainian and Western positions, and one around Russian positions" is misleading, since the "Western camp" has been much more stable than the "Russian camp", since many editors who have tried to do something about this article tending to represent the position of the "Western camp" were not in any way trying to push a "Russian position", having no interest in Russia or favoring one side in the Ukrainian crisis, but merely found the article to be unbalanced. And there have been several such editors who have stopped participating in editing this article, apparently because they became demoralized.
I believe that my approach and attitude towards editing this article can be described with two simple points. (1) In the discussion in Talk, I engage in what can be called polemics and advocacy for my views on this subject, but when it comes to editing the article itself, I make every effort to attain NPOV, and I believe that other editors working on this article, including those whose views differ from my own, recognize this. (2) My dissatisfaction with the current state of the article can be stated simply, Right after MH17 was downed, lots of stories appeared in news media suggesting who was responsible. But after that initial period, two official investigations were launched into this incident, a technical one into the physical causes of the crash, and a criminal one, both investigations led by the Netherlands. I believe that since there are now these two ongoing investigations, the article should be based on what officials carrying out these investigations say. Yet the article in its current state revolves around not these investigations, but around speculation and what has appeared in social media. My experience has been that it has been impossible to achieve a compromise with those editors who want the article to continue to revolve around speculation and news reports about what has appeared in social media, as opposed to revolving around the two official investigations. – Herzen (talk) 07:54, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

See this portion of the diff that was the basis of the recent DRN case that RGloucester referred to:

the Dutch government, in a letter to parliament, stated that only two options are examined by the Public Prosecutor: "An attack from the ground or an attack from the air".

The criminal investigation is considering two scenarios, not just one, but it has proven impossible to get that fact into the article for any length of time, The main purpose of that DRN case was to get this simple fact into the article, but the DRN case failed. And to explain the compromise that was rejected: that the Dutch criminal investigation is considering two theories, but considers one theory much more likely to be true than the other one. – Herzen (talk) 08:56, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Arnoutf

Most of this seems to be revolving about use of media: reliability, and what constitutes a small minority view (related to undue attention). Two main topics that divide the "camps" are

(1) the lack of reliability of Russian media - and to what extent the view in that media are non neutral and hence not to be used; or whether the Russian media depict a minority views representing only a very small minority of involved countries (ie the Russian view in comparison to most of the rest of the world) and hence to be used on a very limited scale.

(2) whether all non Russian media reports should be lumped into a single category of Western media (oddly enough including Ukrainian media) which can 1-to-1 be compared to Russian media (which in this scheme would no longer represent a small minority).

In addition talk page has been plagued by extremely bad behaviour from day 1. I have tried to compromise, but in general this has been seen as yielding the point without any effort from the other involved editors to reconsider their position. This, in combination with accusing editors of bad faith suggestions (in particular editors critical about the role of Russia have been stereotyped as Russia haters) creates an atmosphere where serious discussion is impossible since every criticism on the position of other editors is classified as bigotry (and hence requires no attention or re-evaluation of the own position) and where every effort of reaching towards a compromise is seen as agreement there is no value at all in the own, original position. Arnoutf (talk) 07:58, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Herzen acknowledges polemic talk page behaviour. A polemic (using the Misplaced Pages description) "is confined to a definite controversial thesis. But unlike debate, which may allow for common ground between the two disputants, a polemic is intended only to establish the truth of a point of view while refuting the opposing point of view." That is one of the main problems on this page. There are several editors who are not willing to look for common ground, and if their position is challenged revert to uncivility. Arnoutf (talk) 09:45, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved DRN volunteer Guy Macon

I am the DRN volunteer (not to be confused with the user who has the word "Volunteer" as part of his username) who tried to help resolve the recent DRN case. I have never edited Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 and my only edits to Talk:Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 have involved procedural issues concerning dispute resolution. It is my hope that after any user behavior issues are dealt with the content dispute can go back to DRN and be resolved.

In my closing comments on the DRN case, I suggested arbcom, but I am agnostic on the question of whether that should be a new arbcom case or arbitration enforcement.

In my considered opinion, the often-used option of saying that the article is already under discretionary sanctions and doing nothing would not be effective in this case. Doing that essentially sends the problem back to ANI, and we have seen that ANI is unable to resolve the behavioral issues involved.

There is, however, one option that has not been tried: pending changes protection. This would change the basic paradigm from "who do we block/topic ban?" where we have to show that a user is disruptive to "who do we give reviewer rights to?" where the user has to show that he/she can be trusted. This would also make malicious drive-by content change by new autoconfirmed accounts much more difficult. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:33, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Statement by completely uninvolved Biblioworm

In my opinion, this case should have gone to the Mediation Committee as a last ditch attempt to resolve the case before coming here. --Biblioworm 16:26, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Statement by User:Robert McClenon

First, I would like to thank the dispute resolution moderator for trying to resolve this content dispute, but conduct issues made resolution impossible. I respectfully disagree with User:Biblioworm that there is anything that a Mediation Committee mediator could have done that the moderator did not do. A Mediation Committee mediator has no more tools than a dispute resolution moderator, and cannot deal with personal attacks, tendentious editing, or sock-puppetry.

I ask the ArbCom to consider whether to accept this case for a full evidentiary hearing to determine whether any editors need to be site-banned, or whether to pass some sort of a motion against further WP:ANI threads to clear the way for letting arbitration enforcement work, or whether just to let arbitration enforcement work.

Arbitration enforcement has not been used on this case, although it is clearly within the scope of WP:ARBEE, because Ukraine is unmistakably in Eastern Europe as usually defined. A full evidentiary hearing is, in my opinion, only needed if it is thought necessary to determine whether any editors need to be site-banned for disruptive editing. Otherwise, the ArbCom can instruct the parties to this case to let Arbitration Enforcement work.

Robert McClenon (talk) 17:34, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Statement by My very best wishes

I think this case has no merit and explained it here. In addition,

among all editors included as parties to the case, there is only one whose recent editing was related almost exclusively to the page Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 - see their last 500 edits and before. This is probably the only person who could be a subject of an arbitration about Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17. The behavior by some others might be problematic (I am not telling that it really was), but it goes through a number of pages related to the recent political events, only one of which (and even not most important) was Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. To be properly considered, their cases must be prepared as individual cases with regard to every user, rather than a case of an article they sometimes edited. However, such individual cases would have to be submitted to WP:AE and could be easily resolved there. This is something I tried to explain to the filer on a couple of occasions (first time here), but he would not listen. I think he simply does not have a single coherent case to submit it to WP:AE, which means there are no significant problems for reporting. No filing does not mean that WP:AE is useless. No, it works like a clock.My very best wishes (talk) 20:29, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Comment by uninvolved Beyond My Ken

Since there seems to be agreement that there are two "camps" involved in the dispute over this article, it would be helpful to know for all the named parties which "camp" they consider themselves to be in; specifically, what camp is the initiator of this action, RGloucester, a part of? BMK (talk) 21:10, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Statement by {Non-party}

Clerk notes

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

Malaysia Airlines Flight 17: Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter <0/0/0/1>

Vote key: (Accept/decline/recuse/other)