Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case

Requests for arbitration

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Case requests

Request name	Motions	Initiated	Votes
Chelsea Manning		31 August 2013	{{{votes}}}

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Open cases

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Recently closed cases (Past cases)

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Clarification and Amendment requests

Request name	Motions	Case	Posted
Amendment request: World War II and the history of Jews in Poland	Motion	(orig. case)	21 June 2024
Amendment request: Extended confirmed restriction	none	none	25 July 2024
Amendment request: Definition of the "area of conflict" Clause 4 (b)	none	none	26 July 2024

Arbitrator motions

Motion name	Date posted
Historical elections	21 July 2024

Chelsea Manning

Initiated by v/r - TP at 19:13, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

Involved parties

• TParis (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), filing party
• Josh Gorand-draft (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Baseball Bugs-draft (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• LudicrousTripe-draft (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Phil Sandifer-draft (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Morwen-draft (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

• Diff. 1
• Diff. 2

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

• Jimbo
• ANI
• Josh Gorand's talk page

Statement by TParis

Arbcom authority

Per the Arbcom policy scope item #1, "To act as a final binding decision-maker primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve," I believe this case is suitable for Arbcom because these threads have failed to be closed by outside administrators. Either administrators are apathetic, involved, scared, or disagree with the general items it seems.

Disclaimer

I have chosen based on my own morals to refer to the person and article both by Chelsea Manning with female gender pronouns. This is not a statement on the close by the three uninvolved administrators who closed the move request.

Statement of dispute

As many know, on August 22, 2013, Chelsea Manning announced that she was transgender and would like to be called Chelsea. The article, formerly and now again titled Bradley Manning, was moved and move-protected at the title Chelsea Manning and a move request ensued. The discussion had a wide range of comments, most were professional and appropriate. However, there was some anti-transgender language as well as a backlash of accusations from transgender supporters. The Arbcom case as I am filing is focused on the behaviors of the discussion and not the admin actions preceding nor the close of the uninvolved admins afterward; however, I do not pretend to limit the scope and others may chose to address either, I suspect.

Comments which can appear to be Anti-transgender

These were comments compiled by Phil Sandifer-draft (talk · contribs) as transphobic:

Extended content

Wikipedia is "The Free Encyclopedia", not a site designed to protect people's "feelings". This sort of activist stupidity is bringing WP into disrepute. WP:NOTSOAPBOX. WP:COMMONNAME. How it has gone this far the wrong direction is a little shocking. If there is transgender surgery and a legal name change, then the article should change Bradley Manning still dresses as a man (wears the male military dress uniform,) and is still legally known (in name and otherwise) to the U.S. Army as Bradley - a male. Changing the name to Chelsea should not occur before hormone therapy has even begun (it it ever even will occur) or before a legal name change. I also support reverting all of the pronouns to "he." He is clearly mentally unstable and his latest remarks and desire to be called Chelsea should not be regarded with any merit until the words are matched by some serious and tangible action. So far Manning has not underwent sex reassignment surgery, as such his personal preferences do not hold reasonable encyclopedic or common sense weight. No matter how many sources will refer to him as "she", biologically he's still a man. Accordingly, "she" should be reverted to "he" in the article for the time being. Support Strongly as there is no biological or legal rationale to refer to Manning as anything but male. If that ever changes, then change the page accordingly. per Rannpháirtí anaithnid, common sense, and general opposition to the use of Wikipedia as a platform for radical political advocacy (which advocacy is the sole reason Manning's article keeps being mangled to describe him as Anything-But-Male. I am aware of MOS:IDENTITY, and it is wrong. The standard a polite person might adopt for brief conversation is not the standard to use for encyclopedic coverage One does not become female just by saying one wants to be. If he (not she) said he wanted to be black now, would you describe him as African-American?? Wikipedia should follow the lead of external sources and wait until the majority of the media decides he has changed his gender. This move was incredibly premature, and seems to be done only to please the social justice warriors. Wikipedia is supposed to be a neutral source, not a forum to push your gender politics. The subject is still male in every meaningful sense As a political statement against wikipedia's identity policy and the idea that a person can demand which pronoun another person uses. I think a fair statement in society is that we'll tolerate you doing what you want in terms of body modification and unusual sexual practices, and in exchange you can tolerate our freedom to use language as we please, and not try to enforce political correctness and thought crime. No matter what he says, he is still himself. While I think there's nothing wrong with being transgender, the level of activism here that has nothing to do with Manning makes me want to vomit. Please take your struggle for recognition elsewhere not only under NPOV, but further I think the politicization and ridiculous PC attitude on this website do a disservice to people hoping to get factual information. The fact is, this is a guy, legally and biologically, who has a male name legally. He is a woman only in his own head, and the collective imagination of the radical left. If I had a Wikipedia article and then I suddenly claimed to be a dog, or a cat, would they change it to reflect such a non-sense? Biologically he is a man and will die a man (check his chromosomes XY), and legally he is a man (he even asks to be called by his male name in official stuff). It is stupid to change the wikipedia article... this deserves, at most, a brief section. Wikipedia is about FACTS not gay-lobby propaganda. Wikipedia is not a soap-box for trans people to play with, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia that should value quality over political correctness ten times out of ten. Coming into the page and seeing "her" and "she" all over the place while the picture is of a young soldier is laughable, and unthinkable in a Wikipedia just a short year ago. "I am a girl, call me Chelsea" is the worst move rational I've heard in a while. This page is currently laughable and embarrassing. I think some people need to settle down. He's still a man, and he's still named Bradley legally speaking. Just because (s)he has shouted to be known by some other name does not actually mean that (s)he is actually a transgender. Had (s)he been more vocal at an opportune time, (s)he might have saved the world of some idiotic espionage in recent history. Why are we wasting time and making a mockery of this article by trying to 'comfort' Bradley Manning or 'make this transition easier on him?' Where he's going, the last worry he'll have is the pronouns they use to address him. And this is just beside all of the basic logic and reasoning that says he is a male, has always been a male, and likely always will continue to be a male and the WP has just bought into one of the lamest PR stunts in recent memory. Has everybody opposed to this moved forgotten that he is a criminal??? this individual is morphologically, chromosomally, and most important legally still male. He's still got the chromosomes, package and legal name of a guy and no ammount of critical queer/feminist/gender analysis will get around those three simple truths. "Chelsea" should barely be a footnote. "Chelsea Mannning" does not exist.

Josh Gorand

Josh Gorand appears to be to be the most prolific exhibitor of battleground behavior and has propagated the most personal attacks; though he was very careful not to name specific people in his attacks.

Baseball Bugs

Baseball bugs comments have been inflammatory and battlegroundish. At times he's spent days repeating the same insistence that the two original admins that moved the page are to blame for the whole mess. Here are some of his remarks:

• "Everyone who supports moving the page to "Chelsea" is abusing wikipedia."
• "The advocates, the zealots don't care. They're using it as an excuse to justify pushing their point of view
• "Manning is a convicted criminal, and I couldn't care less about him/her/it"
• "There is no BLP issue. You're abusing Wikipedia." (Changed in the next edit to "The promoters of this nonsense are abusing...")

LudicrousTripe

Another user who used broad statements and accusations repeatedly.

• "thanks to a majority vote packed with people so ignorant they had no concept of the term identity, or so antediluvian and morally corrupt they may as well not have."
• "Absolute and uncontaminated stupidity on the part of the people who moved it back" (immediately redacted)
• "The comments in support of moving the article on the individual who self-identifies as Chelsea Manning to her former name in the above survey are riddled with transphobic hate commentary (e.g. "If I had a Wikipedia article and then I suddenly claimed to be a dog"), that have absolutely nothing to do with Wikipedia policy, such as MOS:IDENTITY, and that should be completely discarded. As someone said, the move was a straightforward application of Wikipedia policy such as MOS:IDENTITY, WP:BLP, WP:RS and other relevant policies, and there is really nothing to discuss. There is no way this article is going to be moved anywhere. Filling this talk page with hate commntary and transphobia also violates WP:BLP, which also applies on talk pages."

Morwen

Morwen-draft (talk · contribs) made the initial moves to Chelsea manning in good faith. However, she then went on to publish a blog, then give media interviews, and eventually get named in a Wikipedia article for her efforts. There has been a content-dispute over whether to include it as I write this case, so I cannot confirm at this moment whether she is in the article or not. I wish for Arbcom to clarify if WP:COI addresses using Wikipedia to gain fame or notoriety.

Others

• Scott Martin-draft (talk · contribs) "...the reasoning on display in the comments above is incredibly short-sighted, rules-bound, sympathy-deficient, and, frankly, ignorant."
• Phil Sandifer-draft (talk · contribs) "it is my sincere and unequivocal belief that any instance of referring to a transgender person by their birth name or the gender assigned at birth is hate speech."
• Phil Sandifer-draft (talk · contribs) "The closer made the decision to embrace hate speech as policy. He had a choice. He chose hate speech. And he should be ashamed."

WP:BLP as a trump card

This dispute seems to have spawned because of a belief that WP:BLP is a trump card. While I can understand how the original move was motivated based on WP:BLP, some editors have made comments that the close of the RFC did not matter because WP:BLP trumped the "local consensus." My impression is that WP:CONSENSUS is used to determine the implementation of WP:BLP. If the opposite were true than any single editors interpretation of WP:BLP could overrule community consensus. Such an interpretation essentially destabilizes Wikipedia so I ask that the Arbitrators clarify exactly how the two policies interact.

Expected outcome

A change in Wikipedia's culture to raise the bar of argument. We can look to User:David Gerard-draft for a great example of how to explain that a comment is transphobic, hateful, or ignorant.

Conclusion

While there is clear evidence of some hate speech in the discussion, any discussion of a controversial issue is bound to invite bigoted remarks. They should be dealt with individually. According to the closer, there were 314 participants and 169 were in support of the change. The scale of the remarks against the supporters is disproportionate to the number of those actually making the remarks. The broad statements that were made against "supports" who wished to return back to Bradley Manning were beyond reasonable. The accusations of misconduct - which took little regard for good faith, ignorance, or actual hatred - devestate the ability of the encyclopedia to communicate, discuss, and reach WP:CONSENSUS. Jimbo said it best:

I think that in general better decisions are made in a spirit of open and thoughtful dialogue rather than top-down decree. I think it worthwhile to separate two issues - the issue of a community decision by consensus (which requires discussion and poll-taking) and hate speech that may emerge as a part of that process. We wouldn't actually improve things if we shut down open discussion, just to stop a few people from being obnoxious. Better to simply stop the few people from being obnoxious by banning them from the discussion, refactoring their comments, or other such measures as appropriate.

— Jimmy Wlaes

I could continue laying out this dispute, name more names, and what have you. But the result would become too long and so I'll leave it to the storm of comments that shall ensue to fill in the holes I've left.

Thanks.
--v/r - TP

Clerk notes

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

Chelsea Manning: Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter <0/0/0/0>

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