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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Coren (talk | contribs) at 14:08, 15 August 2011 (→Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (0/0/0/0): +missing phrase fragment). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Revision as of 14:08, 15 August 2011 by Coren (talk | contribs) (→Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (0/0/0/0): +missing phrase fragment)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff) Arbitration Committee proceedings Case requests
Request name Motions Initiated Votes
Conservative Targeting against Progressive Topics   15 August 2011 {{{votes}}}
Senkaku Islands   13 August 2011 {{{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.

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Conservative Targeting against Progressive Topics

Initiated by Flowingfire (talk) at 08:42, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Involved parties

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request


Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard#Equality_Ride

Statement by {Flowingfire}

While I would like to believe in NYyankees51's sincere wish to improve Misplaced Pages, I need to address what might actually be going on: The targeting of numerous progressive articles with the purpose of diminishing their content and then deleting them. This strategy appears to destroy/diminish articles of political opposition rather than improve their content, while utilizing Misplaced Pages rules to justify the attrition.

From what I can tell, NYyankees51 (and others) may be targeting progressive pages for deletion and content removal, looking for any reason he can to destroy articles he doesn't like. (With most pages, it's easy to find at least 'something' wrong.) Recently, with the Equality Ride page, he deleted huge portions of content where he claimed references were not cited or where NPOV was off-base in his opinion. This, in itself, is within the rules, and he's perfectly right to do so. Perhaps he was even right about the specifics, and I can be thankful for what was pointed out.

My complaint is not that he broke any rules, but rather that he's destroying the community when he attempts to find any reason he can to delete content or remove pages he doesn't like-- sometimes systematically stripping content away before slating a page for removal. After viewing his history, I saw that he targets progressive pages frequently, and is rather ruthless about it. He seems especially focused against pages having to do with gay marriage or gay rights. This kind of anti-political, anti-civil-rights targeting is completely against the spirit of Misplaced Pages, even while it may be "rule-oriented" or even appear helpful. Used wisely, rules about references and NPOV are good. Used poorly, the same rules can turn into a witch-hunt that impoverishes Misplaced Pages as a whole. Rules can help make articles stronger and encourage better citation; yet, they can also give guys like this the tools to promote a firestorm of anti-political war, wreaking havoc on his perceived political enemies. His little war against progressive pages is destructive to the community, and to the long process of creating strong pages. He weakens them for his political gain rather than building on them.

Just look at this guy's talk page. It is full of disputes about his edits to progressive pages, and he knows how to play the system to diminish any person or page.

Misusing the rules of Misplaced Pages and the stringent letter of the law to destroy pages he doesn't agree with is just not cool. Creating better references and improving content is one thing. Spending his time removing other people's hard work because he found a "rule" to back up his anti-gay political agenda is another. Progressive articles after NYyankees51's edits are left less relevant, deleted, or impoverished for information. In the name of being "cleaned up," Misplaced Pages becomes less of a website for progressives seeking to reference or build upon content. It becomes less relevant for all.

Please end this guy's little war against fledgling articles on gay rights, abortion, and liberalism. Build, don't destroy.

Flowingfire (talk) 09:25, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Statement by {NYyankees51}

Statement by {XLR8TION}

User NyYankees51 has clearly stated that he has an "anti" stance on many contemporary social issues such as gay marriage and abortion. He likes to pick and choose what can appear in an article to satisfy his leanings, without having any consideration on the constructive edits of others. If a conflict of interest does exist between the user's beliefs and the article's purpose, then he should not edit it in order to comply with the site's neutrality rules when writing a sound article. What if Mel Gibson's father edited the article on the Holocaust, saying that it was merely a dream or a neo-Nazi edited the article on Anne Frank, saying that she did not die in a concentration camp and now is happily living in West Palm Beach? Do you see my point of view? Either comply with the site's guidelines on editing articles, or leave them alone!--XLR8TION (talk) 12:31, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Statement by {Binksternet}

Statement by {MastCell}

Statement by {Roscelese}

Diffs from Bishonen

In the context of NYyankees51 targeting progressive topics, note also the targeting of Roscelese, a progressive editor, over several fora by NYyankees51, Haymaker, and JorgePeixoto:

WQA thread

ANI thread

3RR thread

NYyankees51 is the initiator of the WQA and ANI threads, while Haymaker (who states here, at least if I understand his phrasing, that he hopes to accomplish the indefinite banning of Roscelese) was the one who posted the much criticised 3RR complaint..

The above diffs are all very recent. Bishonen | talk 12:19, 15 August 2011 (UTC). P.S., addendum for completeness: follow-up ANI thread initiated by myself. Bishonen | talk 12:38, 15 August 2011 (UTC).

Clerk notes

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

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (0/0/0/0)

  • Comment - usually we'd expect a Request for Comment or some more extensive community discussion before coming here. Is there a reason to expect this will fail anyway? Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:03, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Comment; I think this is more delicate than first appears. Unless I misunderstand the request, the complaint is that this is an editor who edits within policy but in a matter where it is applied "against" certain political views exclusively? In that case, it's not immediately clear that the committee can do (or, indeed, whether it should do anything). We obviously cannot coerce a volunteer in working on articles they do not choose to, and unless the work they do on the articles they do chose to edit is improper, there is little to be done.

    One of our founding principles is the presumption that every editor comes in with specific interests and biases but that, collectively, the result is good if we all follow the rules on civility, neutrality and verifiability; that things end up good on average as it were. — Coren  14:07, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Senkaku Islands

Initiated by Qwyrxian (talk) at 09:39, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Involved parties

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried
  • See below in Statement by Qwyrxian

Statement by Qwyrxian

Senkaku Islands and Senkaku Islands dispute have been the subject of dispute as far back as 2003 (See Talk:Senkaku Islands/Archive 1). Senkaku Islands has been protected 5 times, including twice in the past year, and is currently fully protected. Senkaku Islands dispute has been protected 5 times since its creation in October 2010, and is currently fully protected. The issues being debated range from individual word and grammatical choices, to identifying and interpreting RS's, to overall organization. One of the most persistent arguments revolves around the article title itself. The page has been moved unilaterally several times (see page logs), but was moved back each time. Various steps of dispute resolution have been taken; none have succeeding in ending the disputes. Specifically:

Also, issues relating to these pages have been raised on noticeboards and Wikitalk pages, including WP:NORN (Misplaced Pages:No original research/Noticeboard/Archive 15#Figure captions in Senkaku Island/Diaoyutai article), WP:NPOVN (Misplaced Pages:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard/Archive 20#Long running dispute on Senkaku Islands dispute), WP:ANI (Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive8#Senkaku Islands stolen?, Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive644#Senkaku Islands dispute, Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive712#Senkaku Islands - admin COI intervention), WT:NCGN (4 discussions, see search results), and possibly others.

The aforementioned Mediation failed. It closed after numerous editors were unable to behave and stay on topic; eventually, several editors abandoned mediation and it closed without any useful result. These behavioral problems have been rampant on the article talk pages and related user talk pages since 2010. Some editors have held that no matter what consensus says, the current article title will never be acceptable. Others have used baiting and borderline personal attacks. Others overwhelm the talk page with extremely complex and nearly impossible to follow philosophical arguments and graphics. One editor was taken to WQA for xyr behaviors on these pages (Misplaced Pages:Wikiquette assistance/archive99#User:Bobthefish2); another was the subject of an RFC/U (Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Tenmei). While in the past I had hoped to use the DR process to solve our problems, I have come to believe that until the behavioral problems are corrected, we will be unable to make constructive progress on the article content.

Finally, I would like to state that I am aware of the fact that ArbCom does not rule on content; however, if the committee accepts this case, and has any suggestions about how to settle the naming issue such as a binding RfC, a site-wide vote as happened for Liancourt Rocks, etc., input would be appreciated. The name has been one of the sticking points that keeps us from progressing on to actual article improvement, and so a lasting solution is highly desirable.

Statement by Ajl772

Technically speaking, I should have been notified as well, since I was involved (albeit briefly) in attempting to get to some sort of dispute resolution running (specifically by filing a MedCom request). However I withdrew from that for various reasons, which I will list at a later time, as well as providing a statement, which will be included in this section (but for now, I need to sleep). – AJL 10:17, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Statement by Magog the Ogre

Pardon me if I get any of this wrong... never filed an RFAr request before. Hopefully I don't miss anything important.

I entered the dispute through WP:AN3, a board which at times I frequent as a deciding admin. Since then, Senkaku Islands dispute has been subject to numerous locks , and Senkaku Islands has been on indefinite protection . The page has gone through failed RFCs, a mediation, and requests at ANI to help, not to mention numerous pleas on my talk page surrounding the issue (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13).

At a few times, I may not have given the issue the proper consideration it was due (cf. 2, where I was a bit unnecessarily rude about it as well). Nevertheless, I have done what's in my power to try to further the resolution in a way amenable to all parties. Recently, I took the unorthodox step of placing Senkaku Islands dispute on mandatory WP:BRD watch - any party breaking BRD would be subject to a block. This was an unusual step, granted, but it was a last ditch effort on my part to come up with a solution short of indefinite full-protection and/or Arbcom intervention (oh, and it did have community support!).

Nevertheless, it has not worked. Since, it has been quite clear to me that:

  • All attempts at dispute resolution will continue to fail, as parties have and will continue to talk right past each other.
  • None of the players in the dispute has been acting poorly in an overt enough fashion that the community would support bans/blocks for any one deed, or even for behavior as a whole without an Arbcom ruling.
  • Certain figures have been acting in ways that has inflamed rather than alleviated the dispute.
  • The situation would be helped greatly and possibly solved altogether with the censure of non-helpful parties in a way which Arbcom can accomplish, but which the community at large cannot. "Cast out the scorner, and contention shall go out; yea, strife and reproach shall cease."

On the case of figures acting poorly: in the past, I have called out specifically two editors:

  • User:Tenmei for his unnecessarily loquaciousness, which I believe has often been used (unintentionally) to cover up a case of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. I also believe Tenmei exhibits a severe case of m:MPOV, and possibly a lack of necessary WP:COMPETENCE (it is hurtful, and it pains me to say, but I have no other explanation).
  • I have also called out User:Bobthefish2 for what I believe to be a desire to do nothing but troll and cause controversy. At every step of the way, his actions have seemed tailored to cause more strife, not less. Examples can be provided should Arbcom accept this case.
  • It is important to note that these are not the only editors I have seen problems from; these are simply the two I have dealt with the most, and most recently.

Finally, I would like to echo Qwyrxian's statement that Arbcom does not, and should not, rule directly on content (this is kind of important, in light of a careless comment I made which was copied and mailed to the Arbcom list, a comment which I was completely incorrect in making). However, some rules/guidelines for conduct and censure of the bad apples from Arbcom would be quite helpful. Magog the Ogre (talk) 12:26, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

(Moved and redacted by clerk) @David Fuchs: I just want to say that they are based on user conduct. Magog the Ogre (talk) 22:25, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Statement by John Smith's

It's a shame to see the matter go to arbitration, but I had a feeling that it would. Although I haven't withdrawn from the discussions on the relevant talk pages, I've been so baffled by some discussions or disheartened by the lack of ability to agree on almost anything that I have contributed less than I used to. There is a problem that clearly can't be resolved without either:

a) mass community input from uninvolved editors that reaches "inviolable consensus"; or
b) sanctions and/or decisions on particular users that could allow the remainder to make progress

We have tried to get outside views, but no editors are willing to stick around and help move things forward. Which is understandable, and Misplaced Pages can't force people to come along to resolve problems. I also think that we've also got to the point where if action isn't taken, tensions could rise and more bitter actions take place that would be unfortunate. Sometimes prevention is better than cure, so I hope that the Arbitration Committee looks at this as an opportunity to stop escalation and having to hand out more severe sanctions later. John Smith's (talk) 17:46, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

EDIT: To reiterate, I would say that the problems are largely down to user behaviour. John Smith's (talk) 21:55, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Statement by Tenmei

Qwyrxian's open-ended request for help is a kind of trick question. It resists parsing. In our context of squandered opportunities, it is timely for ArbCom to acknowledge broader issues which are not made explicit.

  • More awareness of a growing issue that is poisoning the very essence of collaborative editing that makes Misplaced Pages possible: real-world factions that vie for control over articles, turning them into polemical battlegrounds where surface civility is used to cover bias, tendentiousness and even harassment.
Opportunity: ArbCom could choose to take a strong stance against that sort of "polite disruption" and those who use our rules of civility as weapons, recognize that long-term warriors are toxic, not vested, and investigate beyond surface behavior issues.
  • Less timidity in addressing issues related to contents (POV warring, tag teams, academic dishonesty).
Opportunity: ArbCom could choose to be more active at curtailing content disputes. Academic integrity should become a priority; unlike "simple" incivility, the damage caused by editors misquoting, plagiarizing and editorializing destroys the credibility of our encyclopedia.
  • Increased transparency in the dispute resolution process is needed.
Opportunity: ArbCom could choose to explain decision-making in better detail, including reasons and justification. It is important that the participants in dispute resolution and the wider community understand why ArbCom decides to intervene -- or not to intervene, because this suggests a way to approach similar problems in other contexts.

These are not my words, but I adopt them as if they were my own. That said, ArbCom should decline to endorse the framing which Qwyrxian presents.

Conventional dispute resolution tools are available, but we have seen these opportunities ignored, marginalized, thwarted, frustrated, etc. We have no good reason to hope for something better or different in this venue. --Tenmei (talk) 21:09, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Statement by Penwhale

A lot of the dispute resolution has not result in participation by parties. In addition, the fact that the romanized-name of both Senkaku and Diaoyu(tai) are often misspelled adds to the difficulty of using other sources to see which one is more commonly used. You can see the various attempts at using web search hits to determine the name being used more on the article talk page.

If this request is accepted, then just like it was in the Liancourt Rocks case, only editor conduct should be looked into. In addition, perhaps a community input can be requested by Arbitration Committee to seek broader input. - Penwhale | 23:25, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Statement by Eraserhead1

I have no interest in this topic whatsoever - I don't even know where these islands are.

However I do think that its important to solve disputes rather than leave them hanging - that's why I took the abortion case to the mediation cabal rather than just walking away. I also appreciate that you guys have a big workload but ultimately I think that if all the steps in the dispute resolution process have been tried - and formal mediation has failed - then that in itself is a conduct issue that should be addressed by somebody. Maybe the only solution is to topic ban everyone who is involved in the dispute and let new editors take over, maybe you can draw a line in the sand between the disruptive behaviour and the non-disruptive behaviour but it shouldn't just be left hanging as that isn't good for anyone. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Eraserhead1 (talk • contribs)

Statement by STSC

There are some "edit-warlords" constantly preventing any NPOV edit on the article; an intervention is needed to find a satisfactory solution. STSC (talk) 04:38, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Statement by Lvhis

Eventually this case has been brought here. Took me for a while to be familiar with the procedure of ArbCom. I am still not sure if I have understood this procedure fully correctly. So please correct me if I am incorrect or inappropriate doing my part here.

I am a relative newer one involved in this topic since I did not touch these pages until February 21, 2011 when I just came across that page. I think the substantial reason for such hardly resolvable dispute mainly due to that the dispute is tightly related to an international territory dispute like what happened in the case of the page Dokdo/Takeshima/Liancourt Rocks (or Islands). So I would like to echo Penwhale that this case is like Liancourt Rocks case. The fundamental problem that has caused this dispute being unresolvable so far is NPOV problem, like what is stated in the guideline WP:NCGN#Multiple local names "to avoid giving the impression of support for a particular national point of view", compromise should be reached between editors, and thereafter consensus can be reached. Unfortunately, certain users attitude (and conduct?) towards to NPOV policy and the particular guideline has made this kind of compromise or consensus almost impossible. (sorry, not yet finished and may add more later). --Lvhis (talk) 04:57, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Statement by Zscout370

I forgot how I was asked to look into the article, but I was involved with trying to steer the discussion on the title of the article. I have brought up the title "Pinnacle Islands" because it was similar to the result of the Laincourt Rocks (an issue that I have dealt with in the capacity as an OTRS agent by answering emails about the subject). I have not blocked any users over the issue, but I knew my involvement could have been seen as a possible POV problem because of my involved with the Japanese on and off wiki (ja-3). I also did not sanction any user with regards to the article or provided any article protections. User:Zscout370 05:30, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Clerk notes

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

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (2/0/1/3)