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Requests for arbitration

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Request name Motions Initiated Votes
Civility   1 August 2014 {{{votes}}}
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Civility

Initiated by Tom (LT) (talk) at 23:12, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Involved parties

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried
  • AN/I:

Statement by LT910001

A user (Hell in a Bucket) posted a very inflammatory comment on Jimbo Wales' talk page (), which was then removed and re-added a number of times by Neotarf (), Lightbreather () and Tarc (). It's clear a number of users think that this does not warrant any form of disciplinary action (), "No. Get a sense of humour. " (), "That's a stretch and you know it" (edit), " is this shit really still being dragged out?" (edit summary) (Ryulong , ). This matter has not been dealt with by administrators.

Civility is one of the five pillars of Misplaced Pages (WP:CIVIL) and the WP:NPA policy quite clearly states "Racial, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, ageist, religious, political, ethnic, national, sexual, or other epithets (such as against people with disabilities) directed against another contributor, or against a group of contributors. Disagreement over what constitutes a religion, race, sexual orientation, or ethnicity is not a legitimate excuse." (WP:WIAPA).

Civility seems to be a neglected pillar and I believe the failure to enforce it is sanctioning rampant cursing, name-calling and other anti-social behaviors. One reason is because what constitutes 'uncivil' behaviour and disciplinary remedies have not been clearly outlined. I would request that ArbCom looks into this matter, and offers clear advice as to what constitutes civility and what remedies can be enforced by administrators. Misplaced Pages has its own set of rules, but I’d point out in actual workplaces some of these comments would probably already have prompted intervention or disciplinary action of some sort.

I have commented previously on AN/I and Jimbo Wales' talk page, but not interacted with this user to the best of my knowledge.

Statement by Ryulong

I'm not involved. Remove me from this request. I will have no part of this dramafest just because a handful of people have been angry at Eric Corbett for dropping the "C-word" in a discussion and the aftermath.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 23:46, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Cube lurker

The noted incident falls far below the need for arbitration. It's possible that there are person or people who could rightly have earned a short block for some of what occurred, but if no one's willing or no consensus could be achieved, so be it. If this is an attempt to open the door to a full scale omnibus civility action, it's not a good starting point IMO. --Cube lurker (talk) 00:04, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Rich Farmbrough

While well meant, this request should be speedily refused. The matter is still open at AN/I, there is no reason to think that the community is unable to deal with it. I urge LT to withdraw, if they see this comment. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 00:26, 2 August 2014 (UTC).

This user will not be withdrawing this case request. It's clear in this case there is significant community disagreement on what constitutes "civility" and a "personal attack" and whether it should be enforced. This issue involves several venues, to date has not been effectively mediated, and there are a lack of enforcing administrators for a core WP policy. To me this issue is quite suitable for ArbCom clarification. --Tom (LT) (talk) 00:32, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Statement by MLauba

At some point, eventually, those agreeing that there are important civility issues that need addressing will have to choose their end goal: change, or retribution. The former will never be crafted at noticeboards or ArbCom. For the latter, this is the right place. MLauba 00:37, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Comment by Wnt

The editor in question did not appear to use the racist/sexist epithets to refer to other editors in that edit, and if he had it could be handled by administrators normally. The larger issue, of course, is that the community doesn't have a coherent vision about civility. The present WP:CIVILITY policy is what Hell in a Bucket would probably call a "manifesto", piled high with tips about avoiding incivility, do's and don'ts, all dribbling down to a paragraph that says that you basically won't get blocked for being uncivil but you might. Anything in it that has any real policy usefulness is a reference to other policies. The community has been discussing various proposals for dealing with this situation, and though it is unlikely this will lead to change, filing a test case here seems like forum shopping. Wnt (talk) 01:17, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Tarc

As a repentant Wiki-curmudgeon (or trying to be, at any rate), I'd say it may be time to take this on as an omnibus civility case. I'd like to see Mr. Hell in a Bucket reprint his comment from Jimbo's talk page in its entirety in his statement here, and then defend each phrase of choice to the Committee. Let's see how defensible this position is, and what value those words had within that discussion.

You have a group of people telling you that the Misplaced Pages fosters a hostile editing environment, that comments like Mr. Bucket's are offensive, or that Corbett/Malleus' is offensive. This sort of off-putting speech and the protection thereof has been conveyed repeatedly in a variety of venues off-wiki and on over the last few years. Are these people (the offended) in the minority? Yes, they may well be. Is it not a duty of all fair governing bodies to protect the minority form the tyranny of the majority? Whether it is Arbcom or the WMF itself, some higher authority will have to step in to start removing detrimental people from the project that the community fails to. Tarc (talk) 01:27, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Clerk notes

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

Personal attacks: Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter <0/0/0/0>-Civility">

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