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Main case page (Talk) — Preliminary statements (Talk) — Evidence (Talk) — Workshop (Talk) — Proposed decision (Talk)

Case clerk: TBD Drafting arbitrator: TBD

Purpose of the workshop

Arbitration case pages exist to assist the Arbitration Committee in arriving at fair, well-informed decisions. The case Workshop exists so that parties to the case, other interested members of the community, and members of the Arbitration Committee can post possible components of the final decision for review and comment by others. Components proposed here may be general principles of site policy and procedure, findings of fact about the dispute, remedies to resolve the dispute, and arrangements for remedy enforcement. These are the four types of proposals that can be included in committee final decisions. There are also sections for analysis of /Evidence, and for general discussion of the case. Any user may edit this workshop page; please sign all posts and proposals. Arbitrators will place components they wish to propose be adopted into the final decision on the /Proposed decision page. Only Arbitrators and clerks may edit that page, for voting, clarification as well as implementation purposes.

Expected standards of behavior

You are required to act with appropriate decorum during this case. While grievances must often be aired during a case, you are expected to air them without being incivil or engaging in personal attacks, and to respond calmly to allegations against you.
Accusations of misbehaviour posted in this case must be proven with clear evidence (and otherwise not made at all).

Consequences of inappropriate behavior

Editors who conduct themselves inappropriately during a case may be sanctioned by an arbitrator or clerk, without warning.
Sanctions issued by arbitrators or clerks may include being banned from particular case pages or from further participation in the case.
Editors who ignore sanctions issued by arbitrators or clerks may be blocked from editing.
Behavior during a case may also be considered by the committee in arriving at a final decision.

Motions and requests by the parties

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Proposed temporary injunctions

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Questions to the parties

Arbitrators may ask questions of the parties in this section.

Proposed final decision

Proposals by GeneralNotability

Proposed principles

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Proposed remedies

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Proposals by User:Example 2

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Analysis of evidence

Place here items of evidence (with diffs) and detailed analysis

Closing of WP:COIN discussion

In the evidence from ScottishFinnishRadish, [1], one line reads: "[2] Involved close, from an editor with strong opinions on the subject. Lists "facts" of the discussion, leaves out a functionary saying they have received clear evidence of COI editing. Community can't resolve issues when involved editors close threads with their POV." There is ~~currently~~ a review of the close at AN: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive340#Closure of COIN thread by involved editor. The editor who made the close, AlexEng, specifically says there that they welcome the review~~, and although the review is currently still in progress, it looks to me like there is an emerging consensus to endorse the close~~. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:02, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The close review has been archived by the bot; I've corrected the link above. In my opinion, it's now best if editors here do not attempt to divine the consensus, if any – the Arbs can read it for themselves. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:16, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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Tryptofish While there is consensus to endorse the close, I am pretty sure there is consensus to add the fact that a functionary received evidence Rp2006 has been making COI edits. The discussion at AN is more nuanced than what you make it seem, and I think it would be best to discuss this when the AN thread is closed and/or the time for evidence submissions is finished and not now. Bringing this point up now seems premature. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 22:21, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The close isn't necessarily disruptive, but it was clearly out of process, even more so because of the editor's history in earlier noticeboard discussions on the topic. The topic was Rp2006 on the conflict of interest noticeboard, and a functionary said there was convincing evidence of COI editing, but didn't know how to proceed. Leaving that out of the close could have significant ramifications down the line. It also prevented the unlikely circumstance of an uninvolved editor feeling like reading the thread and assessing the discussion for closure.

That said, I think the closure review was a waste of time, because it was even less likely to get any real consensus there. The community's interest was clearly spent at that point.

The purpose of the evidence is to show that the discussion was stonewalled by way of a non neutral close that left out probably the most important "fact" in the thread, the convincing evidence of COI editing by a user who was the subject of a thread on the COI noticeboard. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 00:04, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I predict it gets archived unclosed, as should have happened to the COI thread. I've tossed runes and determined it could also be "No consensus to overturn" which is different from "endorse." ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 00:21, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Tryptofish, I just wasted some time, and did a skim over the entire COIN thread, preclosure, and did some rough counting. As I'm not trying to write a full close rationale I divided the count into "concerned," "not concerned," and "neutral/other/both." There were 16 editors expressing concern over the COI issues brought up, and 13 who were not concerned. Of the thirteen not concerned, one was Sgerbic, one was Rp2006, and one is a self-disclosed member of GSoW, so all three have a COI in regards to the thread. There were four in the misc. column. Looking at the close, it clearly was not a balanced summary of a discussion where 16 editors expressed one view, and 10 editors, including the closer, expressed the other view. When someone has, in past threads, as well as the thread under discussion, expressed that nothing should be done, then closes a thread as nothing should be done with a summary that leaves out a member of arbcom saying I have received credible (OUTING) evidence indicating that Rp2006 has been making COI edits, contrary to their claims otherwise (or, I suppose, someone offwiki is lying when they take credit for Rp2006's edits). So...now what? It's pretty clear from the above discussion that there is a larger problem than just this one editor.

The review as it stands now, untouched and lonely, has four editors endorsing the close and seven not, generally saying AlexEng appears to have forgotten to address the original question and someone should amend the close to include the community consensus on whether Rp2006 has to disclose their COI including reverts. and Given that a functionary (GeneralNotability) received credible evidence privately indicating Rp2006 has been making COI edits, that needs to be addressed in the closure. If you think that's an emerging consensus to endorse the close, I'm not sure we're looking at the same discussion. 63% not endorsing, and pointing out a specific issue, is even higher than the percentage of people in the original thread who were concerned about the COI issue. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 13:26, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I actually miscounted the review, and the ratio is even worse for endorse. If you look at people who were uninvolved in the original thread, by my count it's 2 to 2. Last time there was an actual reply that wasn't "should we close this because it's at arbcom?" was six days ago, by someone involved in the first discussion. Last uninvolved input on the substance of the thread was ten days ago. Hopefully, it will slip into the sweet embrace of archiving soon. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 18:03, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Tryptofish, my assertion in that section is that discussions in the topic area are difficult due to incivility and stonewalling. I then provide a link to a discussion in the topic area and provide examples. There's no mention of seeking sanctions against any of those users. It is simply diffs of what I see as incivility and stonewalling. I seriously doubt that anyone is going to be sanctioned for calling someone a witch hunter in a discussion, or making an involved close. I was also under the impression that proposing sanctions was for this page, not the evidence page.

Also, do you need a ping when I reply? I assume you have this page watched, but I want to be polite, but don't want to over ping you, which can be bothersome. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 00:19, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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I appreciate A. C. Santacruz's point that there may be revisions of the close, but that's not the same as consensus that it was an out-of-policy or disruptive close; in any case, Arbs should be made aware that the review is happening. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:34, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think the closure review will be a waste of time, because there are clearly things that need to be reviewed. It may be helpful to the Arbs to see whether or not the community there concludes that it was "stonewalling". --Tryptofish (talk) 00:18, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

An analysis of the review discussion so far should also distinguish between (1) editors who were previously uninvolved in the COIN discussion, and those who were involved and came to the review to dispute the close, (2) those who object procedurally to an involved close, versus those who disagree substantively with the closing conclusions, and (3) those who want to include the functionary finding, versus those who object to other matters of substance. (And for what it's worth, I said "although the review is currently still in progress, it looks to me... emerging", not "emerged".) --Tryptofish (talk) 17:49, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I guess I might as well put this here. I asked SFR this at his talk the other day, and I took special notice of this, second paragraph, today. I hope that it's helpful for me to point out his own characterization of his evidence, because I'm concerned about the appearance that sanctions are being called for more widely (for a larger number of editors) than they really are. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:06, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, SFR, no need to ping me. You are correct that sanction proposals are made on the Workshop page, but Evidence can be (mis)interpreted as indicating that sanctions may be needed. It's always good to be clear. Thanks again. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:13, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Very similarly to what I noted just above about what SFR said about his own evidence, I want also to make note of a conversation I had with Apaugasma at another editor's talk page. I said this: [3], and he replied with this: [4]. I really meant what I said, that I have the impression with the evidence from both of these editors that they are "throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks". And my experience from previous cases tells me that when ArbCom sees evidence such as theirs, editors end up getting banned, because if there are so many bad diffs, we must remove that person from editing there. So I want the Arbs to be aware of Apaugasma's characterization of his own evidence, especially "I am not seeking sanctions, and I sincerely hope that no sanctions apart from a warning or two will come from this case." --Tryptofish (talk) 21:59, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

tldr: Never mind! Longer: In the past 24 hours or so, there has been a complete retraction of his evidence by Apaugasma (and of the corresponding rebuttal by ‎TrangaBellam). At least in part, this has followed some discussions at User talk:Tryptofish#ArbCom - the incivility issue. I think that there has been an increasing reconsideration among some of the editors who have contributed evidence about the incivility environment, and I'm happy to see it. I, for one, regret that the case scope and the list of named parties were extended from the original case request, and I hope that the focus of the case will return, at least to some extent, to that of the original request. There needs to be an acknowledgment of the difficulties of discussion, and the concerns about that expressed by some editors should be respected. But I hope that ArbCom will not go overboard in handing out sanctions. Consequently, my evidence analysis here becomes less important than when I originally posted it. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:20, 24 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Disputes at Sharon A. Hill

I've looked closely at the dispute at that page, and want to comment on some of the presentation of evidence here: [5]. I agree that some of the reverting there took place without enough talk page discussion. I will also give evidence about the edit war, and some civility concerns, so I won't discuss that redundantly here. I want to note that there were two (2) separate surveys on the talk page about the disputed content: first and second. This (presented in the evidence as the "clear consensus") is the close of the second discussion, about a single paragraph, and the edit implementing that close has not to date been reverted. It should be understood that the first discussion is the one about most of the edits that were repeatedly reverted. (It covers the MS thesis, which occupies multiple paragraphs; the reverts included those, the paragraph of the second RfC, and significantly more.) --Tryptofish (talk) 21:52, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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I made a slight adjustment to the text. Discussion has died down there, and there's a pretty clear consensus to trim the section down considerably, but it has ten more days before it wraps up. That's why I mentioned this when ACS mentioned opening another RFC. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 21:58, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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Thanks for that adjustment ([6]). It's significant to understand the differences in scope, as it's not like they are two half-and-half RfCs. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:03, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

GSoW is part of a charity?

Hi! 5Q5 found a link saying Susan Gerbic runs a charity organization called About Time, connected to GSoW, that takes donations. An email related to this has been sent to paid-en-wp. If it is true that this organization takes donations, its mission statement indicates a connection to wikipedia work (The mission of About Time is to find, mentor and train people to educate and promote science and scientific skepticism through crowd-sourced and educational activities world-wide) (emphasis my own) and GSoW, and is ran by Sgerbic, how does this affect the rest of the evidence in the case? This is particularly relevant to evidence related to COI editing. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 14:46, 24 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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Coordinated efforts to increase use of Skeptical Inquirer on Wikipedia?

@BilledMammal describes a "campaign" to increase use of Skeptical Inquirer. I understand their concern, but would question which exact component makes this problematic.

To wit: Cochrane Collaboration/Wikipedia partnership. Increases use of Cochrane across Wikipedia, to improve the coverage of medicine.

How does this differ from Skeptical Inquirer? There are WP:PARITY issues throughout many obscure pseudoscientific articles [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] (I link both old and new discussions of PARITY issues here, to demonstrate that some of these are long-standing concerns). Using SI as a skeptical source could solve some of these issues, and provide a more full perspective on obscure, POV-ridden articles. If this effort is conducted in a way that improves Wikipedia compatible with WP:5P, is there actually an issue?

Perhaps the effort occasionally falls short. The same can be said of Cochrane. See this recent discussion of Cochrane on WT:MED. If the overall effort improves the encyclopedia, it is easy to forgive occasional lapses in conduct. I would A) urge Arbs to consider the full impact of increased use of SI and impact on the project, on balance, and B) urge BilledMammal to more completely describe what the actual issue is with increased use of CSI RSes. — Shibbolethink ^(♔ ^♕) 22:17, 24 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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The videos I added as part of my evidence (under Sgerbic header) seem to indicate this is done to further the careers of the writers/increase the exposure of the publication rather than just adding it to improve information on Wikipedia (e.g. by increasing their likelihood of being offered media appearances, interviews, quotes in articles, etc. in the case of writer and increase the circulation in the case of SI). Editing for your benefit or those you are associated with is editing under a conflict of interest. Wikipedia is not a means of promotion, of yourself or others. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 22:54, 24 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Additionally I don't fully agree with making an equivalence between Cochrane and SI. The first is a highly reputable medical publisher while the other one is a publication centered around scientific skepticism which I'd characterize as popular science. I'd characterize it as an effort to increase the coverage of History's magazines and not something like The American Historical Review. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 23:01, 24 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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General discussion

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@@ Line 449: / Line 449: @@
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 ::The videos I added as part of my evidence (under Sgerbic header) seem to indicate this is done to further the careers of the writers/increase the exposure of the publication rather than just adding it to improve information on Wikipedia (e.g. by increasing their likelihood of being offered media appearances, interviews, quotes in articles, etc. in the case of writer and increase the circulation in the case of SI). Editing for your benefit or those you are associated with is editing under a conflict of interest. [[WP:PROMO|Wikipedia is not a means of promotion]], of yourself or others. [[User:A._C._Santacruz|A. C. Santacruz]] &#8258; [[User talk:A._C._Santacruz|Please ping me!]] 22:54, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
+::Additionally I don't fully agree with making an equivalence between Cochrane and SI. The first is a highly reputable medical publisher while the other one is a publication centered around [[scientific skepticism]] which I'd characterize as [[popular science]]. I'd characterize it as an effort to increase the coverage of [[History (European TV channel)|History's magazines]] and not something like [[The American Historical Review]]. [[User:A._C._Santacruz|A. C. Santacruz]] &#8258; [[User talk:A._C._Santacruz|Please ping me!]] 23:01, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
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