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Case clerk: TBD Drafting arbitrator: TBD

Behaviour on this page: Arbitration case pages exist to assist the Arbitration Committee in arriving at a fair, well-informed decision. 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 rude or hostile, 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). Editors who conduct themselves inappropriately during a case may be sanctioned by an arbitrator, clerk, or functionary, without further warning, by being banned from further participation in the case, or being blocked altogether. Personal attacks against other users, including arbitrators or the clerks, will be met with sanctions. Behavior during a case may also be considered by the committee in arriving at a final decision.

JoelleJay (Moved from evidence page)

There appears to be no policy-based mechanism for discouraging persistent poor behavior (beyond incivility) at AfDs. Unless a closer gives extensive details on their analysis, it is a total black box to participants as to whether an argument was acceptable or carried any weight. Without having faith that the eventual closer will be both familiar with the relevant guidelines and empowered to disregard non-compliant !votes, other participants feel compelled to waste time explaining why particular arguments are deficient. But because it's coming from "the other side", and because there's no impetus to change if there are no consequences, the feedback is ignored and the behaviors persist. Two of the most common issues, spanning both keep and delete !voters, are:

1. Mass rapid-fire copy-paste !votes or noms with little to no specificity to the subject and zero indication the editor has performed any source evaluation.

2. Intentional, egregiously misleading assertions of source reliability, depth, length, independence, and general compliance with guidelines.

I anticipate we will have plenty of diffs of alleged misbehavior from the named parties, and anyway the issues are more representative of the broader "conduct in deletion discussions" scope, so I won't go into examples from Lugnuts et al's editing. However, in order to demonstrate the scale of affected AfDs and how long the behaviors from single !voters continue without any meaningful intervention, I will need to give a lot of evidence on editors who are not already involved in this case. So before I do that, I want to make sure that that is ok to do here, and how/whether I'm supposed to leave an alert on their talk pages. JoelleJay (talk) 23:04, 18 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for moving this. I also had a question for @Cryptic -- do you have stats on the proportion of Lugnuts-created Olympics stubs from the time periods mentioned that are on specifically non-medallists? I know JPL has been using that as a major criterion for which articles he considers deleting. I will move this question back to the evidence page alongside my evidence (when I get the ok to post it) if that's a more appropriate place for it. JoelleJay (talk) 00:07, 19 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

quarry:query/65500 for the entire period. It assumes that all medalists are categorized such (seems less likely to have been done consistently than just the categorization as Olympians), and that the medalist categories all contain both "Olympi" and "edalist" (the ones I've glanced at all do). 4578 of 7108, 64.4%. I can do year-by-year queries if you really want them, but I don't expect them to vary any more than the previous data do. —Cryptic 01:18, 19 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, that's really informative and I think is consistent with JPL's assertion that he wasn't targeting Lugnuts' creations specifically. JoelleJay (talk) 01:49, 19 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@JoelleJay: hey there. I've moved this to the talk page for two reasons. First, everything that's above the line I've inserted would need to be supported by evidence in order to be included/considered. This has the potential to be a pretty wide-ranging case (as you acknowledge) and so we're going to be fairly firm about making sure evidence is supported by diffs/links to be considered. Second, because you ask some great questions that lots of people could benefit from reading. L235 wrote up the following (that I have lightly edited) which will hopefully give you the guidance you're asking for:

We have received some questions about providing evidence about non-parties to this case. Evidence about non-parties to this case may be offered for two purposes:

To support a request that we add the user as a party to this case.
To provide context for other evidence and other contentions related to the scope of the case (not for the purposes of demonstrating misconduct by the non-party).

In response to questions, we clarify that:

The 1-week timeline for providing evidence about non-parties applies to Category #1 (add a party to the case), not Category #2 (context related to the general scope of the case).
Category #1 submissions should include an explicit request to add the user as a party.
For both Category #1 and #2, we expect non-parties to be notified of any evidence presented that relates to them. For this purpose, one of the following talk page messages should be left:
Category 1: "An editor has requested that the Arbitration Committee list you as a party to an ongoing arbitration case. You may review the request at <INSERT LINK> and, if you wish to do so, participate in the case. The Arbitration/Guide to arbitration may also provide helpful information about Arbitration and how to participate."

Category #2: "An editor has submitted one or more edits that were made by you or relate to you as evidence in an ongoing arbitration case. Please note that the editor is not requesting that the Committee add you to the case as a party. You may review the evidence submission at <INSERT LINK>."

The Committee does not, as a practice, sanction non-party editors. If sanctions are to be considered against a non-party editor, it is practice to make them a party to the case.

Please let me or one of the other two drafting arbs know if you have any questions. Barkeep49 (talk) 05:51, 19 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, so I've revised my more general observation on AfD issues easily becoming intractable without bringing new charges against non-parties:

Regarding my claim that it generally takes incivility to trigger sanctions on editors who have poor !voting behavior at AfD, see how long it took before we even got TBAN proposals against several ARS members: [1], [2], [3]. There was wide agreement in identifying specific behaviors as problematic. [4], [5], [6] So why didn't admins step in much earlier with warnings after particular instances of misbehavior? I think the justifiable reluctance from admins at AfD to get involved in anything outside of closing, in case it compromises their apparent neutrality; and the lack of patrolling by non-closer admins; results in non-incivility/socking/SPA/legal issues being completely ignored outside of occasional closing statements.

Is this ok to add to the main page now? I do also have many diffs of individuals with longterm AfD disruption histories but will hold back on that for now. JoelleJay (talk) 22:01, 19 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@JoelleJay that meets the standards expected of evidence submissions and you should feel free to post it. Barkeep49 (talk) 15:24, 20 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Draft of evidence

Hi, I have never submitted evidence to an ArbCom case before. Can you comment on the draft I've compiled at User:LaundryPizza03/sandbox#Toolshed before I submit it at the evidence page? Also, where would I place my signature? –LaundryPizza03 (d c̄) 06:08, 19 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@LaundryPizza03 the evidence is supported by diffs and is of the kind of evidence others file. You don't need to include a signature, just make sure that your section heading has your username. Barkeep49 (talk) 13:58, 19 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The devil you know vs. the devil you don't know

Barkeep49: re [7] In what way is a quotation from Baudelaire (together with the unsupported accusation that "They are relentless in their quest to cleanse and purge the encyclopaedia of all articles they don't like") evidence, while my comment is not? I respectfully suggest that you either remove his comment as well, or restore mine. E Eng 20:11, 19 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Ain't how an Arbcom case works. You have to present sourced evidence, against or in support of editors, concerning the topic. It's not the same as AN or ANI. GoodDay (talk) 20:16, 19 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

My precise point is that FH's comment didn't offer any sources. Unless you consider Baudelaire a source. E Eng 21:40, 19 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The sentences They are relentless in their quest to cleanse and purge the encyclopaedia of all articles they dont like. Hence perhaps some of the meritless ANIs we see towards effective inclusionists who they might see as standing in their way. have been discussed by the drafting arbs since they were posted. For now they have been allowed to stand as a small part of a larger sourced evidence submission. When saying a sourced evidence submission this includes sourcing and context for the Baudelaire quote - that is at least 1 editor has suggested deletionists don't exist - which does tie into the further evidence submitted. This falls into the range of a submission arbs will use their judgement to see if what has been presented is sufficient to make the assertion. I am glad we both agree your comment was a comment and not a submission of evidence. Barkeep49 (talk) 20:32, 19 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your reasoned and gracious reply. I'm proud to say that my experience with Arbcom is limited enough that I'm very poorly versed in its distinction between comments and evidence. But you've stimulated me now to explore the structure of Arbcom proceedings a bit, and I can dimly see that my point will be better made during the Workshop phase.

E Eng 21:40, 19 June 2022 (UTC) P.S. Afterthought: Do you think that identifying other editors with Satan counts as a personal attack?[reply]

As the editor in question, I want to make it clear that my point here wasn't that literally no people unironically identify as inclusionists or deletionists, but that skimming that discussion for people using those terms unironically would quickly show sufficient reason to believe that a case would be necessary, ie. they are quite often used as snarlwords in a way that makes it easy to see the problem with just a quick search in discussions that have become heated. In particular, in the diff I linked there, it's pretty easy to see, with a quick search, that the only people unironically using the term "deletionist" on that page are using it to denigrate the people they're identifying, and only people using "inclusionist" are likewise denigrating the people they're identifying; and both are using it to imply that they're identifying a group who deletes / includes things indiscriminately and without regard for policy. I didn't bother to submit this as evidence since my past experience with ArbCom suggests it might be too broad (it was a point intended to indicate the broad necessity of a case, not the sort of narrow thing that goes into evidence - and I haven't examined the conduct of the people who were using those words enough to say whether it would be worth pulling them into the case; I was just making the point that there was a lot of people who might be worth pulling in, ie. we needed a broad case.) But I could include the relevant diffs of people using inclusionist and deletionist as insults if people think it necessary... I feel it's unlikely ArbCom would make a broad finding of fact that the terms are often used in insulting manners or the like and that that usage violates WP:BATTLEGROUND / WP:CIVIL, but I suppose it wouldn't be a terrible thing to build an argument for. Personally I think it's self-evident that the terms are largely used as insults and was a bit surprised someone would object to such a basic statement of fact. But, again, the evidence for that would involve a lot of diffs of people who are not parties and who I am not certain should be dragged in as parties, since the idea would be to show broadly derogatory usage of the terms rather than just a handful of parties using it that way. --Aquillion (talk) 03:01, 20 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
In my extensive experience it's only self-described inclusionists who believe in this inclusionist-deletionist dichotomy. The rest of us just want WP's policies and guidelines followed as best possible (which, yes, sometimes means stuff needs to be deleted). E Eng 04:08, 20 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Well, there's at least one instance on the discussion I linked with someone calling someone an "inclusionist" in a way that I feel could reasonably be read as insulting, but yeah. I do think that the terms do far more harm than good and that we'd benefit by discouraging people from at least using them in an obviously insulting or WP:ASPERSION-y manner, since it can be simultaneously an aspersion, uncivil, and representative of WP:BATTLEGROUND conduct. But I feel like it's only something ArbCom is likely to look at in a FoF if a whole bunch of parties to the case were clearly using the words that way (and therefore it needs to be established in order to explain sanctions premised on that.) And even then it might be a bit broad... ArbCom cannot magically solve all our underlying cultural fissures. In my experience, the most dangerous part about having long-standing editors overtly treat a topic as a battleground is that it spreads; people they disagree with become more hardline in response, while people who agree with them, seeing someone vocally express opinions they agree with, line up behind them. There's an element of "social permission" where one or two people taking strident, overt battleground stances can rapidly break an entire topic area. So I feel that that conduct is worth coming down on hard and fast. --Aquillion (talk) 08:39, 20 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Although the m:Association of Deletionist Wikipedians is quite old, some of the members are still active editors, and I do not believe that they generally use the term ironically or insultingly about themselves. There are a lot of editors. No matter what the view is, you can usually find somebody who believes it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:50, 22 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the ping Eng. I've removed the wording you rightly flagged as concerning. Sorry about the intial choice of words. It was shocking to see 13 added as a party. I was maybe too concious of the need to get some defence in early, based on some recent ANIs where no one did that, causing a momentumn effect that resulted in what seemed to be unwarranted permanbans of good editors. Voting delete is of course not devilish, sometimes its even aligned with good, as is the case with attack pages. FeydHuxtable (talk) 07:39, 20 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Personally I'm not too unhappy at being identified with Satan. Talk about street cred! E Eng 14:48, 20 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Redux

Re [8], having now recovered from several minutes of staring blankly into space in slack-jawed amazement, I'll just say the following:

I resent being called inveterate. I've got as much backbone as anyone.
I'm not sure what to make of editors being characterized as viscous ("having a thick, sticky consistency between solid and liquid"). Sounds unsanitary.

E Eng 22:10, 22 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence without diffs

The rules say:-

Evidence must include links to the actual page diff in question, or to a short page section; links to the page itself are inadequate. Never link to a page history, an editor's contributions, or a log for all actions of an editor (as those change over time), although a link to a log for a specific article or a specific block log is acceptable.

It's my case that some editors are flooding our deletion processes. I want to discuss the sheer numbers of edits -- edits which aren't individually very problematic but become a problem by the combination of high quantity and low quality. Diffs don't help me do that. What would the committee accept by way of evidence?—S Marshall T/C 18:10, 21 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@S Marshall you're right that diffs are sometimes the wrong evidence which is why I've been trying to say diffs/links though maybe "valid attribution" is the better phrase? Take Carrite's evidence which contains no links at all but hasn't been removed (nor do I know of anyone suggesting it should be) because it is clearly based on something verifiable (their AfD logs and specifically a well known tool for analyzing them). So if you're doing something that looks at their contributions, a link to their contributions (perhaps filtered in someway) or a link to a user search may be appropriate ways of submitting valid evidence. Does that help? Barkeep49 (talk) 18:19, 21 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

- Thanks, Barkeep. I'll use those tools.—S Marshall T/C 19:02, 21 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  You can link directly to an individual comment, if that's ever helpful. Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Conduct in deletion-related editing/Evidence#c-Barkeep49-2022-06-21T18:19:00.000Z-S Marshall-2022-06-21T18:10:00.000Z is the link to Barkeep's reply in this section. That long tail decodes as "comment signed by Barkeep49 at 18:19, 21 June 2022 (UTC) on the page after the one signed by S Marshall that was signed at 18:10, 21 June 2022 (UTC)". WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:54, 22 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Addition of new parties, and clarification

I have added a request that the editors I highlight in my evidence be added as parties, since the extent of the diffs went beyond what a Category 2 notification would cover. However, the reason I gave examples of alleged misbehavior from those editors was not because they have extensive dispute histories that the community has not been able to handle, but because they exemplify what my first subsection claims: that specific AfD behaviors widely regarded as problematic especially when occurring large-scale are nevertheless not sanctioned until aggravated by incivility. So it is for actually the lack of formal warnings or ANI cases for their behaviors--again, despite being exactly the type of conduct condemned by both "sides", including in several other editors' Evidence sections here, and despite eliciting dozens of informal warnings within discussions--that I included them in my Evidence. If this means they must be added (or officially requested) as parties, then ok, but if it's possible for their behavior to be reviewed without the threat of sanctions, that would probably be more equitable considering the circumstances. JoelleJay (talk) 01:26, 22 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@JoelleJay Yes, we can review their actions as examples of the problematic conduct in the topic area, without needing to consider sanctions on those particular editors. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 01:45, 22 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hypothetical question: Would the same thing be appropriate for discussing the Article Rescue Squadron (ARS)? A few evidence sections have mentioned it, but a deep dive into the effect it has had on deletion-related discussions, whether it is inherently WP:BATTLEGROUNDy, and most of all the question of whether (despite its efforts to stay within the rules) it fundamentally encourages WP:CANVASSing would require a lot of evidence about non-parties. The more evidence I dig up and the more other people submit, the more central it seems, but knowing what sort of evidence to present given its massive controversial history is tricky. (Or whether that is even a useful route to pursue vs. focusing on individuals - but that might be the sort of thing that has to be determined by looking at evidence.) --Aquillion (talk) 03:01, 22 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, I'll strike the requests to add them as parties. JoelleJay (talk) 15:42, 22 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@@ Line 56: / Line 56: @@
 *Thanks for the ping Eng. I've removed the wording you rightly flagged as concerning. Sorry about the intial choice of words. It was shocking to see 13 added as a party. I was maybe too concious of the need to get some defence in early, based on some recent ANIs where no one did that, causing a momentumn effect that resulted in what seemed to be unwarranted permanbans of good editors.  Voting delete is of course not devilish, sometimes its even aligned with good, as is the case with attack pages. [[User:FeydHuxtable|FeydHuxtable]] ([[User talk:FeydHuxtable|talk]]) 07:39, 20 June 2022 (UTC)
 *:Personally I'm not too unhappy at being identified with Satan. Talk about street cred! [[User:EEng#s|<b style="color:red;">E</b>]][[User talk:EEng#s|<b style="color:blue;">Eng</b>]] 14:48, 20 June 2022 (UTC)
+===Redux===
+Re [https://en.wikipedia.org/?diff=1094478283&oldid=1094465016], having now recovered from several minutes of staring blankly into space in slack-jawed amazement, I'll just say the following:
+*I resent being called inveterate. I've got as much backbone as anyone.
+*I'm not sure what to make of editors being characterized as viscous ("having a thick, sticky consistency between solid and liquid"). Sounds unsanitary.
+[[User:EEng#s|<b style="color:red;">E</b>]][[User talk:EEng#s|<b style="color:blue;">Eng</b>]] 22:10, 22 June 2022 (UTC)
 ==Evidence without diffs==