Requests for arbitration

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Request name	Motions	Initiated	Votes
Battleground on e-cig articles		15 March 2015	{{{votes}}}

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Use this page to request the committee open an arbitration case. To be accepted, an arbitration request needs 4 net votes to "accept" (or a majority).

Arbitration is a last resort. WP:DR lists the other, escalating processes that should be used before arbitration. The committee will decline premature requests.

Requests may be referred to as "case requests" or "RFARs"; once opened, they become "cases". Before requesting arbitration, read the arbitration guide to case requests. Then click the button below. Complete the instructions quickly; requests incomplete for over an hour may be removed. Consider preparing the request in your userspace.

To request enforcement of an existing arbitration ruling, see Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement. To clarify or change an existing arbitration ruling, see Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment.

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Motivation. Word limits are imposed to promote clarity and focus on the issues at hand and to ensure that arbitrators are able to fully take in submissions. Arbitrators must read a large volume of information across many matters in the course of their service on the Committee, so submissions that exceed word limits may be disregarded. For the sake of fairness and to discourage gamesmanship (i.e., to disincentivize "asking forgiveness rather than permission"), word limits are actively enforced.
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Battleground on e-cig articles

Initiated by QuackGuru (talk) 19:27, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Involved parties

QuackGuru (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) filing party
KimDabelsteinPetersen (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
S Marshall (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
AlbinoFerret (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Doc James (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Statement by User:QuackGuru

KimDabelsteinPetersen: Some of the e-cig enthusiasts are WP:NOTHERE to improve the e-cig pages. See Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive864#User:AlbinoFerret and see Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive867#E-cig editors for previous ANI discussions.; KimDabelsteinPetersen opposes a topic ban for AlbinoFerret. That's because User:KimDabelsteinPetersen has also made many controversial edits to the safety of electronic cigarettes page. Let's review some of KimDabelsteinPetersen's recent edits.; Revision as of 13:05, 30 January 2015 This edit deleted text and sources from two reputable organisations. See Talk:Safety of electronic cigarettes#Positions. The sources are reliable per WP:MEDORG. See Talk:Safety of electronic cigarettes#Discussion on positions. The sources are reliable per WP:SNOW according to the current discussion.; Revision as of 13:11, 30 January 2015 This edit deleted text and sources from two reputable organisations again.; Revision as of 11:20, 26 January 2015 This edit mainly deleted text from a formal policy statement written in Clinical Cancer Research, a peer-reviewed medical journal. The impact factor for the journal is 8.19.; Revision as of 19:20, 7 February 2015 This edit mainly deleted text from a review and text from reputable organizations.; Revision as of 06:27, 25 February 2015 This edit deleted numerous sources, including deleting text and sources from a number reputable organisations and sources from reviews against WP:MEDORG and WP:MEDRS.; Revision as of 10:00, 25 February 2015 This edit deleted numerous sources, including deleting text and sources from a number reputable organisations and sources from reviews against WP:MEDORG and WP:MEDRS again.; Revision as of 22:47, 27 February 2015 This edit deleted numerous sources, including deleting text and sources from a number reputable organisations and sources from reviews against WP:MEDORG and WP:MEDRS again.; Revision as of 23:46, 27 February 2015 This edit deleted numerous sources, including deleting text and sources from a number reputable organisations and sources from reviews against WP:MEDORG and WP:MEDRS again. KimDabelsteinPetersen does not see policy violations to back up a ban.; KimDabelsteinPetersen, aren't you also deleting a lot of sources against WP:MEDRS? This diff shows AlbinoFerret is making many counterproductive edits and deleting of a lot of reliable sources. See Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Proposed topic ban for AlbinoFerret. KimDabelsteinPetersen is also deleting a lot of reliable sources which suggests he/she is promoting a certain favorable POV for e-cigs. Should KimDabelsteinPetersen be topic banned? KimDabelsteinPetersen has earned a topic ban from the e-cig pages IMO. Does the community prefer a topic ban for KimDabelsteinPetersen for 6 months or one year, an indef topic ban, or just a warning or no action?; KimDabelsteinPetersen thought it was okay to delete so many sources over and over again. But it is not reasonable to continue to delete pertinent information about of the safety of e-cigarettes. Both KimDabelsteinPetersen and AlbinoFerret are the main problem editors IMO. No reasonable argument has been made to delete so many reliable sources including deleting reviews such as (PMID 24732159) and (PMID 24732160) and (PMID 25572196) after over two weeks. Please review the current discussion on the talk page. See Talk:Safety of electronic cigarettes#Removal of mammoth edit. I think I bring a sharp editors pencil to many controversial places where most editors prefer to stay away from. That said I hope editors will try to follow WP:PAG a bit more rather than making blanket reverts to an older version. Often, reliable sources and pertinent text sourced to reliable sources are being reremoved over and over again with non-argument discussions on the talk page. What could possibly be a logical reason to delete so many sources? QuackGuru (talk) 19:27, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
AlbinoFerret: User:AlbinoFerret is making a lot of comments and edits to e-cig related pages. See https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Special:Contributions/AlbinoFerret&offset=&limit=500&target=AlbinoFerret See Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive864#User:AlbinoFerret for previous behaviour issues. AlbinoFerret tried to hide the Environmental impact section from the page that uses a reliable MEDRS compliant source to verify the claims. He eventually tried to delete some of the text. AlbinoFerret deleted a number of reliable sources.; Revision as of 23:02, 24 February 2015 This change deleted numerous sources.; Revision as of 22:04, 28 February 2015 This change deleted numerous sources again.; AlbinoFerret's last major edit was Revision as of 22:13, 28 February 2015 deleted numerous sources, including reviews against MEDRS again.; AlbinoFerret claims "Reliability does not guarantee inclusion." But AlbinoFerret has not given a specific reason to exclude relevant information about safety. WP:COMPETENCE is not the issue IMO. AlbinoFerret has turned the e-cig pages into a WP:BATTLEGROUND. See Talk:Safety of electronic cigarettes#Positions. The sources are reliable per WP:MEDORG. See Talk:Safety of electronic cigarettes#Discussion on positions. Please also review the current discussion on the talk page. See Talk:Safety of electronic cigarettes#Removal of mammoth edit. I think an indef topic ban is better solution rather than a short-term topic ban. It is clear that AlbinoFerret is not here to improve the e-cig pages. It appears AlbinoFerret wants to have lengthy discussions on the talk page in an effort to prevent the article from moving forward. The community discussions to resolve these matters have not gone anywhere. This should not go to ANI again and again. The repeated trips to ANI is a waste of the communities time. Like ANI, I'm sure things will get ugly soon. QuackGuru (talk) 21:45, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Since no action was taken for a very long time at ANI I closed the thread I started and hopefully the discussion can continue here. Note. If I am not allowed to close the thread I started at ANI feel free to revert or if an uninvolved admin wants to take action feel free to revert and take action at ANI. The thread at ANI can still be reclosed by an uninvolved admin. See diff. Thanks. QuackGuru (talk) 00:00, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Statement by User:KimDabelsteinPetersen

Statement by involved User:S Marshall

It's certainly a battleground. I'm finding it utterly impossible to improve the article at present.
I endorse the request for ArbCom to look at the whole e-cigarette family of articles and the quagmire of problematic behaviour that surrounds it.
In response to Seraphimblade's request: the community processes are inadequate. They deal with one user at a time, and give a result in clear-cut cases. AlbinoFerret's case, by itself, is something the community can deal with. QuackGuru and KimDabelsteinPetersen is another problem (or two other problems ---- I think QuackGuru's been admirably unselfconscious in starting this, by the way). In the AN/I thread, User:CFCF alleges that there are SPAs or near-SPAs involved, and I suspect he's right. User:Doc James says that interested parties have contacted his university to attack him personally. Taken together this is too much for community processes to cope with.—S Marshall T/C 00:23, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Statement by involved User:Doc James

@User:S Marshall The user in question was indefinitely banned. So the community did deal with it. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:32, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Statement by User:AlbinoFerret

Statement by Beyond My Ken

I am not named as a party here. I am not in any way involved in editing the various e-cig articles, but I have been strongly involved in the AN/I discussion about whether AlbinoFerret should be topic banned for e-cigs, which I favor. My feeling about this request is that, while ArbCom certainly has the right to open a case, it should give the community process a chance to play out. As of this moment, the topic ban for AlbinoFerret and a proposal for community-imposed discretionary sanctions are both outstanding, and these should be allowed to finish before ArbCom takes on a case, should any of the parties feel the need to file a request at that time. For these reasons I would ask the committee to reject the request at this time. BMK (talk) 23:21, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

I re-opened the AN/I thread about the proposed topic ban for AlbinoFerret, which was closed by QuackGuru. Although he started the thread, it does not in any way belong to him, and as a highly involved party he never should have closed it. The views of the community, in the form of the comments of editors both pro- and con-, deserve to be evaluated by an uninvolved admin, and the thread closed on the basis of that evaluation, not as a tactical move by one of the parties involved, especially one who stands to benefit (in the potential opening of the case requested here) if the thread is closed.

I have asked QuarkGuru on his talk page not to close the thread again, and I request that the arbitrators keep on eye on the thread. If QuackGuru closes it again, I believe it would be a disruptive edit, and a sanction should be considered. BMK (talk) 00:57, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Although I've been known to comment on case requests before, I'm not entirely certain of proper procedures. Should involved parties be added to the case unilaterally, as was done here, or does this require permission of some sort?

Statement by {Non-party}

Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should address why or why not the Committee should accept the case request or provide additional information.

Clerk notes

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

Battleground on e-cig articles: Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter <0/0/0/2>

Okay, if QuackGuru, an editor in good standing, is willing to stand as filing party, then awaiting statements. Courcelles (talk) 19:49, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
There certainly is a problem here. That being the case, it looks like community discussions to resolve the matter are still ongoing. Statements as to why arbitration is needed over and above that (or why it is not) would be very helpful. Seraphimblade 22:56, 15 March 2015 (UTC)