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A request for arbitration is the last step of dispute resolution for conduct disputes on Wikipedia. The Arbitration Committee considers requests to open new cases and review previous decisions. The entire process is governed by the arbitration policy. For information about requesting arbitration, and how cases are accepted and dealt with, please see guide to arbitration.

To request enforcement of previous Arbitration decisions or discretionary sanctions, please do not open a new Arbitration case. Instead, please submit your request to /Requests/Enforcement.

This page transcludes from /Case, /Clarification and Amendment, /Motions, and /Enforcement.

Please make your request in the appropriate section:

Request a new arbitration case
Request clarification or amendment of an existing case
This includes requests to lift sanctions previously imposed
Request enforcement of a remedy in an existing case
Arbitrator motions
Arbitrator-initiated motions, not specific to a current open request

Arbitration Committee proceedings

Case requests

Request name	Motions	Initiated	Votes
Anachronist		16 June 2024	0/5/0
Rio Grande 223		19 June 2024	0/0/0

[edit]

Open cases

Currently, no arbitration cases are open.

[edit]

Recently closed cases (Past cases)

Case name	Closed
Venezuelan politics	25 May 2024

Clarification and Amendment requests

Request name	Motions	Case	Posted
Amendment request: Article titles and capitalisation	none	(orig. case)	7 June 2024
Clarification request: mentioning the name of off-wiki threads	none	none	4 June 2024
Amendment request: India-Pakistan	none	(orig. case)	7 June 2024
Clarification request: Contentious topics restrictions	none	none	10 June 2024

Arbitrator motions

Motion name	Date posted
Block of Rp2006	18 June 2024

Current requests

TTN

Refiled by — Coren ^(talk) at 17:55, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Involved parties

Collectonian (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (initiator of original request)
TTN (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

Procedural refiling as a new case; parties are aware having commented during the original request.

Clerks: If this case is accepted, please copy the original request statements to the appropriate pages as though they were submitted here. — Coren ^(talk) 17:55, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Collectonian

I am requesting that the original restrictions against TTN be extended. Since they have lifted, he has returned to many of the behaviors that caused his initial restrictions, including wholescale merging of character lists to their main articles, characters to character lists, etc. He is doing all of these without any previous discussion and without performing any actual merging just redirects. He is doing no tagging before so issues may be addressed.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15] And he is completely ignoring/disregarding any on-doing merge discussions that may be happening on that page and falsely claiming he has "merged" the content rather than just redirected. While he is generally not edit warring after they are reverted, he has done some.[16][17] He is doing this silently, and ignoring all requests that he instead start discussions before doing such inappropriate merging as they almost always go against multiple-project consensus and a general overall consensus that fictional series can have a single character list.[18] If his edits are reverted, rather than start proper merge discussions, he takes the articles to AfD.[19][20] This seems to very much be the same sort of disruptive behavior that caused so much trouble before, and is causing hassles for multiple projects attempting to clean up articles. As such, I think the original restrictions need to be extended until TTN can learn to actually "work collaboratively to develop a generally accepted and applicable approach to the articles in question" rather than just clearing out dozens upon dozens of articles because he personally thinks "there is nothing to merge" despite consensus saying otherwise and thinks there is some deadline for cleaning up articles.

Addition: One of the most recent issues relates to List of D.N.Angel characters. This list already was tagged and had an active discussion to merge all of the character articles to the list. TTN came in, delinked the articles and redirected the individual articles to list, without performing a single actual edit nor really merging a single bit of content (despite his claim that he did by saying so in his edit summary).[21] When this was undone in favor of allowing them to be properly merged, he immediately took all of the articles to AfD. This is NOT following the normal nor proper process for dealing with fictional articles. There was already consensus to merge the articles, an AfD was neither nor appropriate. However, TTN wanted them gone NOW rather than allowing editors to do the merges properly, so he attempted to have them delete. And considering his earlier actions with randomly redirecting character lists to their main articles (wiping out almost all the information, then doing a mediocre "merge" of a few sentences to try to get around it)[22][23], it seems highly likely he would have revisited this list in another month and wiped it out completely.

I was one of TTNs supporters in earlier actions, but it seems he is getting worse and worse, acting purely on his own views rather than actual established consensus, guidelines, and project efforts. Regardless of the reason why, in the last ArbCom, TTN WAS restricted from this behavior. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 05:11, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by TTN

I try work as collaboratively as possible with people, but there is a point where it is not possible to directly deal with fans or projects that feel the need to take two years to take care of small problems. I use a mix of merge discussions/strait merging, redirects, and AfDs to get things done, and of course some people will have a problem with it. Collectonian acts like I absolutely never deal with people, though I recently asked the video game project for input twice (here and here), and I do start merge discussions, though they are overshadowed by the number of articles that do not need to be merged at all. Other complaints are just issues of personal preference in dealing with bad articles (whether to tag first, only use talk page discussions for these kinds of articles, ect), so this is the kind of thing that belongs in a RFC/U or some other similar forum of discussion.

Statement by a completely subjugated ThuranX

I have seen a number of threads on TTN on AN/I in the past years. Now he's conforming to the restrictions placedon him by ArbCom and the community, and still those who won't really improve things can't stop gunning for him. I am constantly frustrated by the number of editors who see Wikipedia as a cruft farm, and expand things here based on their love for a character or notion, bloating articles with nonsense about episode 17, season 9, scene 4, line 36 or whatever. When editors who work hard to make more and more articles look comprehensive without looking childish fold things together ,or insist on some rigorous standards of writing, not unlike a term or research paper, too much of this community rebels, screaming bloody murder instead of looking at is as real editing. I support TTN in this, as I do in almost all his efforts, and think this is a colossal waste of ArbCom time. I have been forced by ArbCom to redact some of this. I stand by my assertion that the immediate opening of a second demand for ArbCom involvement, with the deletion of the previous request, is persecution of TTN. ThuranX (talk) 19:20, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Confused Statement by SirFozzie

This is a BIG mistake. I understand Coren's desire to start clean (with the sheer amount of people who've, but I will be up front and frank here. ArbCom is about to make a huge mistake here. TTN's behavior is perfectly acceptable by Wikipedia standards and policies, and I think there will be hell to pay if ArbCom tries to sanction TTN again. This does not require a full case, it requires ArbCom to have the metaphorical brass cojones to tell the crew who are throwing their toys out of the pram that someone's deleting all their fancruft and you know, actually trying to keep an encyclopedia here, instead of a random collection of "interesting facts". Wikipedia relies on policies, TTN's complying with those policies. End. Of. Story. You even have your fellow arbitrators standing up and saying "TTN's behavior doesn't require sanctioning. Why is this here?" and you're ignoring that? I hope ArbCom is mindful of the minefield they're going to be tra-la-la dancing into here. SirFozzie (talk) 19:32, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(Update: I'm glad to see that this is NOT going to be focused on TTN after all, and there's a lot less heat, at least from my view, if this turns out as it looks like now. SirFozzie (talk) 20:51, 3 January 2009 (UTC))[reply]

New statement by Randomran

We need to avoid making this about TTN's viewpoint. I see people saying "I support what TTN does", but that's not justification for his actions any more than "TTN is pissing a lot of people off" is a reason to punish him. Disagreeing with his edits is a reason to revert, not run to ArbCom. Disagreeing with his AFDs is a reason to participate, not go to ArbCom.

The fact remains that nobody has really shown a policy that he's violating. He used to WP:EDITWAR over redirects. Now he's stopped. That's why ArbCom is treating this as a new complaint. Yes, it's the same editor, and the same content, but it's a different behavior. And there is an honest disagreement about whether the behavior is disruptive, even among members of ArbCom.

The fairest complaint I've seen against TTN is that he's nominating stuff for AFD too fast for people to really be able to search for sources, and respond intelligently. I disagree that it's too fast. There's a lot of reasonable people who are debating this (and maybe even a few unreasonable ones on both sides).

There are two main reasons that "TTN files too many AFDs" doesn't belong at ArbCom:

First off, there is honest disagreement about what that means, and there's very little in our current policies to really support that.
Second off, we haven't tried to settle this issue ourselves, as a community.
Finally, we CAN settle this issue ourselves, as a community, without ArbCom... if we discuss what "too many AFDs" means.

That's why I've proposed a change to WP:GAME here. I keep saying this over and over: if we have a clear line that defines unacceptable behavior, I'm confident nobody will cross it, and I'll be the most eager person to enforce it if somebody does. Randomran (talk) 19:46, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by non-recused Clerks.

This case is a refiling by User:Coren following developments in a previous request to amend the Episodes and Characters _2 case, specifically the restrictions against TTN. The last version of that request, along with statements and arbiter voting on a failed motion can be found here.--Tznkai (talk) 19:46, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

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

Accept; it appears the case is too complex to handle through motion work on a clarification request. — Coren ^(talk) 17:55, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
For the record, and because my feeling on the matter appears to have been less clear than I have presumed, I am not proposing to open the case to sanction TTN, but to examine the wider dispute around the handling of AfD like those TTN has opened. The name TTN is based strictly on the original request and should not be indicative of the expected focus. — Coren ^(talk) 20:33, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Accept; I was thinking of filing this myself as the attempt at handling by motion(s) wasn't working. — Rlevse • Talk • 18:04, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Accept purely to explore mergers at AfD: which cannot be handled by motions. As I have said elsewhere, I do not see santionable conduct here. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 20:17, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Recuse as stated previously. If a case is accepted, could the statements from the original clarification request that Coren has linked to please be placed on an appropriate page (either in the possible new case, or in the appropriate place on the previous case page), and not just linked to in the edit history. If no case is accepted, could the new threads, this one and the clarification one that Coren has linked to, be archived in the appropriate places. Just trying to make sure nothing gets lost here. Thanks. Carcharoth (talk) 19:34, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Recuse, per previous motion. Vassyana (talk) 19:39, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Reject if the case is going to be about TTN's conduct. As I said in my earlier comment, I do not see any significant user conduct problem that would warrant a sanction so I do not think a case is needed. If the Committee wants to open a case to look at the problem surrounding merger discussions at Afd or the Wikipedia:Notability (fiction) proposal, I will reconsider my vote. FloNight ♥♥♥ 19:50, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Recuse per previous motion. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 19:52, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hemanshu

Initiated by Ryan Postlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} at 18:48, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Involved parties

Ryan Postlethwaite (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), filing party
Hemanshu (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
MBisanz (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

Hemanshu

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Statement by Ryan Postlethwaite

I'm requesting that a motion be filed to desysop Hemanshu. For many months there's been issues with his communication, or lack of it. He's been edit warring on 2012 sporadically and this led to an RfC on him being filed. At this RfC, 16 people supported a desysopping due to severe lack of communication with no dissenting views. We all know that communication is important for administrators and in the last three years, I can't see a single talk page or meta page edit from Hemanshu despite serious concerns about his editing being raised. I don't believe that a full case is required, simply a motion desysopping him due to behaviour not befitting that of an administrator with a caveat that he can get the tools back by appeal to the committee or by going through an RfA. Note, he's currently blocked and the clerks should look at his page for a statement. Ryan Postlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 18:48, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment to Vassyana

Hemanshu had been blocked for one week for exactly the same edit just eight weeks ago. With no discussion or talk page edit he comes back and starts the edit war again - that's disruption and certainly block worthy when he's been blocked for exactly the same thing before, the same edits in fact. I personally probably wouldn't have blocked for that long, but the previous block was one week and he came back and made exactly the same edits so I was always going to match the previous block for it (which wasn't overturned). Please don't turn this into my conduct - I'm always more than happy to reverse blocks if someone disagrees, and even if this was a bad block it's certainly not arbitration worthy. Ryan Postlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 11:54, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by MBisanz

I originally brought this case as in October as Request_for_desysop_and_block_of_administrator_Hemanshu. At the time arbcom felt there was no case to take and an arb advised opening an RFC. An RFC was opened with an overwhelming (I think unanimous actually) consensus to desysop. Since the RFC closed, Hemanshu has returned to the same activities that resulted in the first RFAR filing and the RFC. All attempts to communicate have failed and clearly there is nothing more the community can do, as it is of very strong consensus for desysopping, even though enwiki lacks a community driven desysop. I concur with Ryanposs' suggestion of a desysop by motion. MBisanz ^talk 18:54, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Response to Sam

This deletion [24] of his user talk page was made while he was blocked, which is generally discouraged for non-retiring editors.

These reverts were made using administrative rollback [25] [26] which is generally discouraged and which arbcom has found in the past to be an abuse of administrative privileges.

Further, failing to discuss administrative actions like these has been found in the past by arbcom to be grounds for desysopping and is currently reflected as such in the administrator conduct policy. MBisanz ^talk 19:26, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Response to Vassyana

The edits Hemanshu made were the exact same edits that resulted in 24 hour and 1 week blocks by WJBscribe, I suspect the community would have had no problem is Ryan had merely indef'd Hemanshu quietly, based on the unanimous consent of the RFC. A one week block followed by a second one week block for the exact same reason is generally in line with, if not a generous application, of the blocking policy. MBisanz ^talk 22:38, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Nick

The view of the committee in the past has been that poor communication and a reluctance to explain their actions are traits that are undesirable in an administrator [27]. Nick (talk) 22:56, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Daniel

Although I'm sure all our new arbitrators are aware of it, the motion to desysop CSCWEM was based off a very similar set of facts. Daniel (talk) 23:45, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

To be clear, and you can move this somewhere else if you like: CSCWEM regularly issued a large volume of blocks, a number of which were questionable. His refusal to communicate had a direct impact on his role as an administrator. Different from this case in that respect. Avruch^T 00:03, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hardly. Deleting user talk pages while blocked without a deletion reason, or refusing to justify it, is just as bad. Daniel (talk) 00:09, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Master&Expert

I agree that desysopping Hemanshu is the best course of action; not only because of a lack of communication, but also because he's been out of touch with Wikipedia and its policies for quite some time.

He had just made this edit to his talk page, in case anybody was interested. Master&Expert (Talk) 06:09, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment from Deacon of Pndapetzim

Now that the "age of motions" appears fully to have dawned, what is the point of having a full case? He's got almost no edits since October. Regarding this and desysopping ... see the point made by Sam Blacketer. Anyhows, arbcom doesn't tend to remove admin rights from people because they're in a few unholy content disputes. I know that today a new bunch have come in, but previous arbcom members have been reluctant to remove adminship for such minor and easy to deal with offences. It would be impossible for it to do so anyways, as if the bit were removed for all but a select group of righteous non-editors there wouldn't be enough admins. What is it they call it when a bunch of Chimps attack and kill a fellow Chimp? That's what this looks like. He's just came to the attention of the wrong people and has no network of bffs. Scores worse than this out there! Please to the new group, don't let your first action to be a totally embarrassing overreaction that could haunt you later. With the Age of Motions, he can be desysopped quickly if he ignores some more moderate remedy any one of you is free to propose now. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 06:49, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment from Majorly

It should be noted that Hemanshu has been desysopped. Majorly talk 20:55, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by non-recused Clerks.

Arbitrator should note this. - Penwhale | ^{Blast him / Follow his steps} 06:37, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (4/3/0/1)

Comment - I see a single block and five deletions by Hemanshu in the whole of the last year (I have not investigated them to see if they were good). The problems complained about would seem to cover ordinary editing rather than use of sysop powers. It has not normally been the practice to desysop users if they are edit-warring; it is normally only misuse of sysop powers which results in desysopping. Sam Blacketer (talk) 19:18, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Reject; there is no case here. Sam Blacketer (talk) 23:40, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - There's a clear sentiment to remove Hemanshu's sysop bit, it appears at first glance to be a fairly clear-cut matter, and it is something only ArbCom can handle as a practical matter. However, arbitration requests expose all involved parties to scrutiny. It seems more than a bit excessive to block a sporadic editor for a week for one revert over WP:LAME-worthy disagreement about article formatting. Considering the usual (lighter) sanctions for much more substantial (in terms of content) and disruptive edit warring, it gives the strong appearance of punitive blocking. I'm more inclined to open a case than to act through a motion, if for no other reason than to avoid the appearance of a tar-and-feather party. I will wait for responses to my concerns and from Hemanshu before moving to accept a motion or open a case. Vassyana (talk) 20:13, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Accept, unless this is resolved through voluntary resignation, noted as a possibility by Carcharoth. Vassyana (talk) 13:59, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Accept, provisionally, in a full case; lack of communication from an administrator is, in my eyes, one of the most problematic behavior the bit can engender. The committee has historically taken a dim view of unresponsive admins, and I am inclined to agree. Hemanshu may yet make a statement here or, failing that, have an opportunity to respond in a full case. Additionally, the opportunity of a full decision will allow the committee to formally set down the criteria by which unresponsive administrators will be evaluated. — Coren ^(talk) 21:40, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
(As a note, if the motion to desysop below passes, the case is obviously mooted and this changes to a reject). — Coren ^(talk) 06:39, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - Wait to see if Hemanshu responds. Lack of comms from an admin is very disconcerting. The crux of the issue here is him, so unless more evidence arises to show an issue(s) with others, I'd take this by motion vice full arbcom case. — Rlevse • Talk • 23:32, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hemanshu says he doesn't care if he's blocked and/or desyssoped and asked his account be deleted. I told him it is impossible to delete an account. I really don't see what a full case will accomplish here over a motion. — Rlevse • Talk • 14:21, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Reject in favor of motion to desyssop. See explanation below. I've also explained to Hemanshu on his talk page that he can ask for a rename and continue editing or use WP:RTV. — Rlevse • Talk • 19:57, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Accept per Coren. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 00:39, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Accept. Wizardman 02:57, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Note that if someone wishes to create a motion instead of a full case they can go ahead and do so, based on the comment Hemanshu left, although my accept remains for now. Wizardman 15:25, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - even though Hemanshu has commented on their talk page, still awaiting further developments. May not need case or motion, but some sort of motion seems most likely to deal with this the best way. Carcharoth (talk) 06:24, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- In light of this edit, suggest discussion takes place on Hemanshu's talk page to explain the options (and that account deletion can't be done, though various options approaching that are available) and ascertain exactly what is wanted (including confirmation of desysop), followed by unblock to allow voluntary departure. Carcharoth (talk) 07:00, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Side comment

I also note Mbisanz's link seems wrong, unless something's gone wrong with the edit histories. Ah. MBisanz added an anchor to a diff link. I knew he couldn't be "The Enchantress Of Florence"! :-) Some of us have the "show the whole page below the diff" option disabled in our preferences. So a diff shows only the diff bit and nothing else, so the anchor doesn't work. An anchored oldid version would work for everyone, such as this. Should have realised what was going on there. Carcharoth (talk) 06:31, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Decline I think that ongoing events are likely to make a full case unnecessary. Agree with Deacon of Pndapetzim, that most likely this situation can be handled with a motion. FloNight ♥♥♥ 19:42, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Tending towards decline as it looks like he is resigning. Given burnout, maybe the quickest way to deal with this is a 3 month desysop (as he is asking) after which he can apply to the committee to get it back if he feels like coming back. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:30, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Motion to desysop Hemanshu

There are 17 active arbitrators, of which 3 are abstaining, so 8 votes are a majority.

1) As evidenced by Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Hemanshu, the community has lost its confidence in Hemanshu as an admin. His failure to communicate in an effort to address concerns is also disconcerting, as is his being blocked three times in the last few months. Admins need to be held to a high standard and retain the confidence of the community. Therefore Hemanshu is desysopped.

Support:

Support — Rlevse • Talk • 20:05, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support. In general, I am not in favour of voluntary desysop + request restoration of sysop from committee. Given the comments on the users talk, I would oppose a motion for that in this specific case. The committee has enough to do without shackling another user to us. RFA is the appropriate venue for desysoped users to regain the confidence of the community. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 21:12, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
In some limited situations (not this one) I do support giving an admin the option of either having a RFA or going to the Committee. But in this particular situation, irrespective of whether it is a voluntary request for desysop or one done by ArbCom, I agree that a RFA should be required for the return of his tools since he has lost the confidence of the community. The Community has all of the facts, and there would be no reason for ArbCom to be involved. FloNight ♥♥♥ 11:37, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It would have been better for everyone had he voluntarily resigned; but there's no sense in waiting indefinitely for this. Kirill 23:07, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
He shouldn't even be given a voluntary option. Easy choice imo. Wizardman 02:19, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm afraid that, after a clearcut RFC/U such as this, any voluntary desysop would be under a cloud anyways. — Coren ^(talk) 06:35, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It seems pointless to delay the inevitable. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 06:45, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Per Kirill. Communication and responsiveness are required of administrators by community norms and this has been upheld in previous ArbCom decisions. Vassyana (talk) 19:46, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Given new evidence of sockpuppetry and continued edit warring, his behaviour is inconsistent with the standards expected of administrators, whether or not he is using administrative tools in an improper manner. Propose that the temporary emergency desysop be made permanent. Risker (talk) 20:49, 3 January 2009 (UTC) As an aside, I don't see the need for the temporary desysop, as no administrative tools were being used abusively; however, it is my considered opinion that the behaviour of administrators outside of the use of tools may be sufficient for desysopping, as is the case here. Risker (talk) 21:05, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, socking is a no-go; conduct now incompatible with being an admin. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:57, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose:

No evidence has been presented of significant problems relating to use of sysop powers. Sam Blacketer (talk) 23:44, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
My preference is a voluntary desysop by Hemanshu because I feel that is what he intended to happen by his comments. Per our past customs and practice, this would mean that he would have to go through a RFA if he wants the sysop access back. If he does not respond to us over the next few days then I agree that an ArbCom desysop will be needed. FloNight ♥♥♥ 11:27, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Per Flo and Brad. --bainer (talk) 16:16, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Abstain:

Before we do a desysop, I want to clarify with Hemanshu if he wants to make a voluntary request to remove his sysop access and then take a wikibreak. This is possibly what he intended to happen when he made the request for his account to be deleted. If he wants to make the desysop request himself, but does not know how, then we can assist him. FloNight ♥♥♥ 20:27, 1 January 2009 (UTC) Moving to Oppose, for now. I might adjust my vote again after I look into the situation further today. FloNight ♥♥♥ 11:27, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

~~:# I think the above is reasonable. Voluntary plus 3 month layoff minimum plus request from committee if returns. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:32, 1 January 2009 (UTC)~~[reply]

On his talk page he says he doesn't care if he loses his bit, but that could just be his frustration, and this all presupposes he communicates with us. Even so, a voluntary desyssop does not deal with the problems that led to this RFAR and those issues would need to be made very clear to him if he does this voluntarily and then wants it back. — Rlevse • Talk • 20:38, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

#:::True, but I do note that (a) there is no emergency, and (b) he has not abused admin tools as such, therefore in some ways desysopping him this way is possibly overstepping the mark; I am thinking of being seen as scrupulous. My impression is he is burnt out and maybe over the whole WP thing, maybe permanently, maybe not, but I would like to keep this collaborative. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:00, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Waiting for next set of responses from Hemanshu (if any). Clerks should arrange to monitor his talk page until the block expires. If, when the block expires, editing resumes without response, or there is no further response after the block expires, then I would support a desysop, unless this motion passes first (which I wouldn't oppose). Carcharoth (talk) 00:06, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Per other abstainers above. I would prefer to wait a few more days to try to see if this situation can be resolved in a more dignified fashion, given that no emergency exists. (In relation to another of my colleagues' comments, I would also prefer that the term "under a cloud", in the context of Wikipedia disputes, should not be used.) Newyorkbrad (talk) 08:28, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

The block does not stop him from using his talk page. — Rlevse • Talk • 00:08, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That's the point I was making. Your note on his talk page said: "Please read over the motion and commentary and comment at RFAR or here". He can't comment at RFAR while blocked, hence my comment about monitoring his talk page. There is no rush here. We can wait until it is clear what Hemanshu will do next (if anything). Carcharoth (talk) 01:42, 2 January 2009 (UTC) Refactored this bit under a discussion header to avoid messing up the votes.[reply]

Clarifications and other requests

Shortcuts

Place requests related to amendments of prior cases, appeals, and clarifications on this page. If the case is ongoing, please use the relevant talk page. Requests for enforcement of past cases should be made at Arbitration enforcement. Requests to clarify general Arbitration matters should be made on the Talk page. To create a new request for arbitration, please go to Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration. Place new requests at the top. Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/How-to other requests

Arbitration Committee proceedings

Case requests

Request name	Motions	Initiated	Votes
Anachronist		16 June 2024	0/5/0
Rio Grande 223		19 June 2024	0/0/0

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Open cases

Currently, no arbitration cases are open.

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Recently closed cases (Past cases)

Case name	Closed
Venezuelan politics	25 May 2024

Clarification and Amendment requests

Request name	Motions	Case	Posted
Amendment request: Article titles and capitalisation	none	(orig. case)	7 June 2024
Clarification request: mentioning the name of off-wiki threads	none	none	4 June 2024
Amendment request: India-Pakistan	none	(orig. case)	7 June 2024
Clarification request: Contentious topics restrictions	none	none	10 June 2024

Arbitrator motions

Motion name	Date posted
Block of Rp2006	18 June 2024

Request to amend prior case: Special enforcement on BLP

Statement by Barberio

I ask for review of this case, in particular the Special enforcement on biographies of living persons remedy on the following grounds,

The process created by this has,
- Generally been neglected in use by the majority of administrators, and has only seen formal use twice. [28] One logged incident could have been enacted under existing speedy deletion rules, and the other case resulted in escalation to Arbitration to be resolved.
- Appears to have been used by a minority as grounds to threaten use of the process in warnings that were not logged on Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Special_enforcement_log [29]
- Uses the term "Any and all means", which may be read to mean they may ignore all other standards, policy and expectations of administrator behaviour.
- Despite several concerns being raised about the wording of the process/policy, change of it was directly barred on the grounds that it would require appeal to the arbitration committee as they held full ownership over it as a remedy.
The Arbitration Policy at the time of the case did not allow for such process/policy creating remedies. And the Arbitration Committee made no attempt to alter the policy to grant these extended powers.
An RFC on Arbitration Conduct had overwhelming opposition to allowing such process/policy creating remedies. Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Arbitration Committee

I would like an answer to the following questions,

In light of the lack of correct use of the process, and it's apparent misuse in incorrect threatening warnings, should this process/policy be marked as "historical" or "failed policy" or allowed to continue?
What was the intent of the phrase "any and all means" used, and on reflection was this wording appropriate?
Did the Arbitration Policy allow for such process/policy creating remedies?
Should the Arbitration Policy allow for such process/policy creating remedies?
Can such processes/policy if created be fully owned by the Arbitration Committee with no ability for community review as with other processes/policy?
What lessons if any should be taken in future arbitration committee conduct from this?

Note: I would appreciate independent answers from all active members of the committee, considering the importance of this issue. --Barberio (talk) 21:36, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I do not think it would be appropriate to allow the process/policy to stand if the issue has been 'punted' into the distance and review postponed until some unknown later date. If you can, please provide a specifict date that this 'review' will be conducted.

Otherwise, consider this an request to conduct this review immediately, or I will open an RfC on the topic and the community may conduct one. --Barberio (talk) 21:36, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A response to Statement by Daniel.

The results of the Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Arbitration Committee called for some pretty clear changes to the Arbitration Policy. I proposed that we put some of them to ratification at the arbitration vote.

However, I was promised that this was not needed because the committee had taken the call for change on advisement, and Wikipedia:Arbitration policy proposed updating would be enacted. So I withdrew on the understanding that the Arbitration policy would eventually be changed.

No movement had been made on that since October.

Yes, I am feeling rather "ticked off" at the Arbitration Committee for failing to follow through on promises of reform. And I am reluctant to accept promise now that they will look into it later.

I am prepared to state this... If this review does not happen in a timely manner then the issue should rightfully be removed from their hands. --Barberio (talk) 21:56, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

ps. I admire the irony of being told off for demanding immediate action, as well as being told of for trying to get problems with Arbitration addressed for A YEAR. --Barberio (talk) 22:08, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Response to Kirill. Yes, I am calling for amendment of the remedy. The questions asked are directed at identifying issues with the remedy and it's results, and how that would effect any amendment of that remedy. While the question of if the remedy as written was acceptable under the arbitration policy at the time is 'constitutional', I do feel it is an issue which needs to be addressed when amending it.

However, I am willing to drop issues of 'constitutional' scope, if I can have a binding promise of a date at which the ArbCom are willing to report to the community on reform. Unfortunately, the committee has a poor past record of responding timely to issues, and I can not help but feel that enough time was already given to respond during and after the RfC. So a deadline by which the committee will provide a report on how it will reform would be a great help to prevent distrust that the process will not occur at all --Barberio (talk) 23:43, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Judging from the votes, the Arbitration Committee is reluctant to give any indication that while they accept they should review this, they will not do so now, nor will they give any specified time at which they will do so, nor any fixed deadline by which they will provide a report. And it's odd that 'the new membership has only just arrive' is used as an excuse considering promises by candidates 'to hit the ground running', and that candidates could not be ignorant of these issues considering the public RfC.

So here's a direction...

Provide a report by April 3rd 2009 on the review of the issues involved. If I don't get anything back by then, I will restart the process to change the arbitration policy by notifying the foundation that we'll be having a ratification vote on the changes to the arbitration policy that were recommended during the RfC.

Yes. This is an ultimatum. I don't mean to prod you with sticks, this isn't a crusade, but it is direction that you can't keep saying you will 'investigate reform' without providing any. If you really can't provide some kind of report on reform in three months, then this issue is probably going to have to bypass you. --Barberio (talk) 04:13, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Reply to Jayvdb. The 'overwhelming opposition to creation of new policy/process' came from Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Arbitration_Committee#No_New_Policy. So there already was traction on overruling the arbcom's decision to create new policy/process.

However, administrators who support the use of the new policy/process have reverted any attempt to deprecate the policy, on the grounds that it is owned by the Arbitration Committee and can not be changed by the community.

Can I take this group shrugging of shoulders as sign that you don't own it, and the community can do what it wants with the page, or is Arbitration Committee ownership still claimed? --Barberio (talk) 12:08, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'd also like to stress again one of the reasons that this needs urgent review.

The new policy/process appears to have been used by a minority as grounds to threaten use of the process in warnings that were not logged on Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Special_enforcement_log [30]. This appears to be being taken under the "Any and all means" clause, but without being logged there is not ability to ensure that it is being used appropriately, and not simply as a means to stifle otherwise appropriate discussion or content.

Since the Arbitration Committee have claimed full ownership of this process/policy, enough administrators are willing to block any community effort to alter the process/policy. This means that the community can not alter the process/policy, and it seems that the only changes that will be accepted are ones directly from the Arbitration Committee.

You broke it. So either you fix it, or allow the community to fix it. --Barberio (talk) 12:23, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yet another reply on this...

The community can not alter the policies involved, because Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/BLP_Special_Enforcement has turned it into an "Arbitration owned" policy.

Even if the community could, what policy would be acceptable by the arbitration committee? How do we know what the requirements are going to be for you to decide to lift Special Enforcement? Can we then go back and change the BLP policy later, or is it going to be carved in stone again?

Frankly, and to risk being incivil, you guys haven't thought any of this through have you? You've not sat down and worked out the implications of this mess. You're now refusing to do so, or at least refusing to say when you will do so, despite it being a major issue, and one that decided a lot of people's votes in the election. And you're refusing to allow the community to fix it, by still claiming ownership of the process/policy.

Why are you acting in a way that damages this wiki?--Barberio (talk) 13:49, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Daniel

I don't think threatening the Committee with an RfC if they don't do exactly what you want, right now, is either appropriate or an intelligent move. The community cannot overrule this motion, except by overruling each individual application of it, so a community RfC is pointless unless, of course, you simply intend to continue your crusade against the Committee which I have observed over the last year. Daniel (talk) 21:40, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

BarBerio, you know that threatening ArbCom at this juncture does not do anything, right? - Penwhale | ^{Blast him / Follow his steps} 16:05, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrator views and discussion

Request noted. I think an open review is needed here, though my views are that this is all to do with WP:ADMIN and arbitration and administrative enforcement, and not really to do with the BLP policy. So from my point of view, the question is whether to review this 'special enforcement' by itself, or together with reviews of other enforcement areas (such as arbitration enforcement). I also note Barberio's six questions, but am deferring specific answers until an actual review process takes place. Carcharoth (talk) 19:16, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Decline Will be included as part of Arbitration Enforcement review remedy, so I see no need for a special review of this particular enforcement remedy now. FloNight ♥♥♥ 19:28, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
What exactly is being asked here? The title is "Request to amend" (emphasis mine), the first sentence asks for review, and the rest is a series of questions; Barberio, are you requesting a change to the ruling (and, if so, what is that change) or a general discussion about the constitutional role of the Committee? The former may be a matter of some urgency (although, if the ruling isn't even being used, I'm not sure why that would be); the latter is not, and a request for clarification is not a good venue for it in any case. If you're just looking for reform, we're working on it; poking us with pointy sticks, while no doubt entertaining, will unfortunately not make it move along any faster. ;-) Kirill 23:24, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Decline per FloNight. I will point out that over half of the current committee has taken office just over 24 hours ago. While this is definitely something that will be addressed, we have not had sufficient time (or attendance) to establish an agenda and timeline, and both must be somewhat fluid to allow for activity on this page. Risker (talk) 02:13, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Decline but with careful reasons:
1. I was the single strongest opposer to the BLPSE decision, Barerio. I described it as a extremely worrying misjudgement since in my view it would not resolve the problem but escalate it. Even so, for me, it is within the remit of the committee:
  WMF and the community have both agreed BLP is crucially important and has very high standing as policy; both agree admins enforce policy. In a more and more pressing and difficult situation, Wikipedia Arbitration may lean towards the draconian to solve a communal problem. The concern was about resolving the perennial disputes over BLP enforcement, and the undermining of BLP. The decision was admins should apply the tools they have very hard indeed if needed to procure BLP compliance. Giving this a name ("special enforcement") does not change that this was an extreme version of ArbCom's usual role:- ie, that given a conflict, Arbcom's role is deciding the best way existing consensus-accepted policies apply and are interpreted in the situation, to good effect and for best benefit of the project. Admins have a wide scope of tool usage discretion within communal norms. Tool usage can range from "very gentle" to "very firm". In this case the answer was "Policy and norms are served best by using admin access very firmly indeed in the case of BLP disruption, and by setting enforcement measures to ensure they are able to use their tools to enforce policy fully". This was clearly felt by the Arbitrators to be situated well within existing policies (although clearly a draconian use for an exceptional problem), and I agree on that point, regardless of whether I personally do or don't support the actual decision.
2. It is normal when saying something may be done a given way, or enforced (eg any sanction) for Arbcom to also spell out exactly how that should work - who may act, what guidance they have on acting, how enforcement should work, and so on. This formed the bulk of that ruling. Apart from the draconian nature of the matter being enforced, it's quite a usual type of content for a decision.
3. Arbitration looks forward. It's clear there may be merit in revisiting this, but to pull the current view to pieces is not going to happen here. It's something one might do in reviewing the entire area of enforcement, which is a more rounded issue, and is likely to be looked at anyway, as FloNight and Kirill said.
FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 03:29, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Decline This is already high on the agenda for review in due course. The current arbitrators are reform-minded but most of us have only been in the job twenty-four hours and Rome, as they say, wasn't built in a day. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 07:02, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Decline. I personally think BLPSE was overreaching, endorse it being deprecated, but the committee has got buckley's chance of devising an improvement to this complex problem as a quick motion. Also, I dont see an overwhelming community consensus at Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Arbitration_Committee#WP:BLPSE, so if you want traction on this ... please do initiate Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/BLPSE. --John Vandenberg ^(chat) 11:49, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No New Policy (which I strongly agree with) was not a community endorsed view that the committee should overturn all previous remedies that were overreaching. I just told you how the community can fix it: the community needs to develop a NGBLPSE so that the committee remedy can be deprecated. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 13:19, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Placeholder, to state that I will post my thoughts on this tonight or tomorrow (I'm in transit with limited access at the moment). Newyorkbrad (talk) 16:42, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. I agree with Roger. The majority of the Committee is new. We're still all getting up to speed on an inordinately large number of issues, cases and previous discussions. I know the majority of my wiki time has been spent reading previous discussions and cases, while still keeping up on the current emails, requests and cases. We are reviewing the RfC results and some previous cases, but please give us a bit of time to get settled in. Vassyana (talk) 20:35, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Decline for now, per Vass and others above. I know I don't have time yet for this. Wizardman 20:50, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Appeal by Everyking

I request that the ArbCom lift all the remaining sanctions applied to me under the case Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Everyking 3. The restrictions applied to me in this case were first applied in November 2005 and were expanded and extended in July 2006. In November 2007, some of the sanctions expired, but when I asked the ArbCom to remove the other sanctions in February 2008, it chose to uphold them (except for one restriction, which had previously been suspended and was formally lifted when I made that appeal). I do not wish to argue about the merits of the orginal case against me; the opinions held by myself and certain other long-time users (including some former arbitrators) regarding the case's merits are very different, and I don't want to stir up controversy by arguing an appeal on the basis of innocence. I merely ask the ArbCom to recognize that the sanctions serve no purpose at this time and lift them.

These sanctions, although they have no practical effect on my editing, seriously affect my reputation as a Wikipedian; arguably they have made me a community pariah, and I feel that is deeply unfair. While I have been embittered by the imposition of these sanctions, I have continued to edit devotedly and remain firmly loyal to the project. I ask that the ArbCom restore me to the status of a Wikipedian in good standing and that there be no more official tarnish on my reputation. Everyking (talk) 03:44, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Responding to Avruch, the appeal restriction says that it starts at the time of the motion's passage—I have not made any appeal since then, so by my reasoning I should be able to make an appeal at any time. Only if I made an appeal (like this one), and it failed, would that restriction come into play. Everyking (talk) 04:23, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I need to discuss some other things here. First of all, some people are raising the issue of the one year appeal restriction. As I explained above, I have not used an appeal since the time that the appeal restriction was imposed and therefore I do not believe it would be fair to interpret that as barring an appeal at this time. The difference in interpretation, apparently, is: does the restriction mean that I have one appeal per year, beginning after one year has passed, or does it means that I have one appeal per year, beginning the date the motion passed? I don't believe the former is a reasonable interpretation.

Regarding Phil's statement: I was to stress, as strongly as possible, that I want absolutely nothing to do with him and would be perfectly content to forget his existence entirely. I have no objection to a restriction barring me from interacting with him per se; my only objection, which goes to the very crux of the case back in 2005, is that the restriction is applied only to me and leaves Phil free to say whatever he likes to or about me. From my perspective, it seems that applying sanctions to only one party endorses Phil's claim of "wikistalking", whereas a mutual restriction would be a neutral and fair arrangement that acknowledges that a certain two Wikipedians are better off ignoring each other. In fact, if I had to choose between a mutual restriction and no restriction at all, I would choose a mutual restriction—that is what I requested back in 2005, and that is what I would prefer now.

Phil's allegations about my off-site conduct are totally inappropriate. His blog-format short story about murdering people could be genuinely perceived as disturbing if one did not know the context, but I am happy to acknowledge that when the blog is understood to be fiction there is no basis for serious concern. About 18 months ago, I contacted Phil privately in hopes that we could set aside our differences, but he was not interested in doing that. Well, fine—as I stated above, I just want to be free of the stigma associated with a one-sided restriction.

I also want to state that I am insulted that Phil would blame me for something written on ED about him—we should not forget that I am also the subject of an ED article that accuses me of illegal conduct, and that article is primarily the result of the misrepresentations about me that were presented/promoted by Phil in the EK2 case back in 2005. If Phil wants to blame me for his ED article, let him take some blame for mine. Personally, I think ED is an abhorrent website that ought to be shut down, and I have repeatedly voted for the deletion of its WP article on the grounds that it is deeply offensive to Wikipedians. Everyking (talk) 00:48, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If the following reasoning from Phil—"Regarding a mutual restriction, I have no desire to interact with Everyking, and this should be easily born out by my past contributions - I have not made any moves to interact with him since 2005, and I do not have any desire to."—justifies the absence of a restriction on him, why should the same reasoning not justify the removal of the restriction on me? Everyking (talk) 06:24, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by A Nobody (talk)

I think that it is a new year and that we should give Everyking a new chance and fresh start. Thus, I support the request made above. Happy New Year! Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 03:48, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by User:Tony Sidaway

The sanctions serve as a deterrent. Lest those who would go to external sites and try to subvert Wikipedia should prevail. --TS 04:01, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by User:Avruch

I filed a previous appeal of this case, most of which can be found [here]. There was a previous motion as well.

While I specifically opposed this element of the passed motion, the language could be seen to bar review of this case until Feb 23 2009 (by limiting review of the case to once per year beginning the date of the motions passing). Avruch^T 04:13, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

With respect to Carcharoth's request to Everyking that he stop "wikilawyering" the one year ban, it should be noted that two arbitrators have commented upon it with the obvious belief that this appeal violates that ban. Clarifying his own interpretation of the appeal restriction is not "wikilawyering." You're aware, I'm sure, that as an arbitrator you will encounter in nearly every case quasi-legal standards of writing and interpretation. This might strike you as wikilawyering, but that epithet is mainly relevant on article talkpages where folks involved in a dispute attempt to mechanically impose the details of their own interpretation of policy.

I sympathize with Phil - something similar, minus the Wikipedia context, happened to me. But even Phil does not directly blame Everyking either for the WR thread or what it led to. Everyking is not blameless, and no one (least of all Everyking) has claimed that. But years have passed without incident, and its time to move on. Arbitration should not result in a permanent scarlett letter for good editors with a checkered past. Avruch^T 04:24, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

One last thing, to Rlevse: This particular appeal is unrelated to the prior confusion over seemingly conflicting passing motions. That confusion was cleared up. The only other thing I'd say is that the appeal restriction prohibited Everyking only, and others were and are free to make requests on their own initiative. Avruch^T 04:30, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Acalamari

I have long believed that the sanctions on Everyking are unnecessary, and I am disappointed that they are still in place here in 2009. Everyking has made more than a grand effort to prove why the sanctions are not necessary, and his behavior over 2008 and 2007 has been, in my opinion, excellent. I do not believe at all that Everyking would spend a long time improving, only to do something to get the sanctions re-instated. He has devoted a lot of his time to building the encyclopedia, and has contbributed more to here than most other editors have done, so it's clear he has the best of intentions at heart.

I should also note that, regarding Everyking's actual standing in the community, he was nominated for adminship in August of last year, where he received 66% support (note that this RfA was supported by a then-new arbitrator; and opposed by a current, and also a now-ex arbitrator). In addition, there were several people who opposed/went neutral that, while they didn't yet believe he was ready to again be an admin, they complimented him on his work, his overall improvement, and many did trust him as an editor. Based on this, I believe that Everyking is in good standing within the community, and that the sanctions on Everyking were further marginalized by the community input there. While the issue of the sanctions cannot be based on that RfA alone, I should mention that it was a chance for the community to judge Everyking, and at least two-thirds of the community support him.

As I said, I do not believe that Everyking would work hard to get his sanctions removed, only to do something to have them re-instated. I am still strongly of the opinion that removing Everyking's remaining sanctions will be beneficial to both him and the encyclopedia. Acalamari 20:17, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by User:Phil Sandifer

I've avoided commenting on this issue on-wiki the past few times it has come up, but memories appear short, so I'll make this note public.

Two and a half years ago, on Wikipedia Review, there was a thread that led to somebody - I do not know who - calling the police near where I live with a complaint that I might be murdering homeless people. This resulted in my being subject to harassment and invasion of privacy by the police. In the course of the thread, it was speculated that it would be possible to either drive me out of my PhD program or off of Wikipedia.

Everyking was an active participant in this thread, regaling it with speculation on my mental state.

These efforts - which have continued past this thread - have genuinely painful consequences for me, including the first Google hit on my name - found whenever a prospective employer or one of my students Googles me - is a libelous ED page stemming largely from the results of the thread Everyking was an active participant in.

This, combined with the fact that Everyking's prohibition against commenting on me stemmed from the fact that he was aggressively wikistalking me. And that since that prohibition was put in place, he has constantly attempted to get out of it or have it weakened.

I request that the arbcom does not lift this prohibition. I do not care about the others, however, I request that, given the extreme toxicity of his past actions with regards to me, this basic level of protection for me be extended. I would further ask that the arbcom render this matter closed and to be reconsidered only by Jimbo so that I do not have to, every few months, worry about whether this much-needed protection is going to be brought to an end.

And as for the inevitable suggestion that I have some obligation to forgive and forget and extend a second chance, I respectfully suggest that it is not within the remand of the community to dictate what olive branches must be offered by people who have come under genuine real life threat for their service to this project. Phil Sandifer (talk) 21:44, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding a mutual restriction, I have no desire to interact with Everyking, and this should be easily born out by my past contributions - I have not made any moves to interact with him since 2005, and I do not have any desire to. Unless the committee is seriously concerned about the prospect of my interacting with Everyking, I would thus respectfully ask that speculative sanctions not be placed. Phil Sandifer (talk) 00:14, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Outside comment by Cla68

I have interacted with Everyking often in-wiki and I've found him to be a good faith and dedicated editor. I just reviewed the prior arbcom cases he was involved in, and, as far as I can see, the main remaining legacy of those cases appears to be a dispute between Snowspinner (Phil Sandifer) and Everyking. Everyking states that he doesn't want to retry the previous cases, but Phil appears to be trying to do so in his statement above.

In my opinion, there seems to be enough blame to share between the two of them, but for some reason the hammer has fallen more heavily on Everyking than on Phil (in Wikipedia, that is). To resolve this for now, I would suggest suspending all of the sanctions against Everyking except for the one to stay away from Phil. I would propose, in addition, that an identical motion be made to tell Phil to stay away from Everyking. This would put things on an equal and fair footing between the two of them and I would hope would put this entire thing to rest and send two of our most dedicated editors back to improving articles, which both do so well [31] [32]. Cla68 (talk) 10:02, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

Arbitrators should note that neither of the threads Rlevse links to in his comment below was initiated by Everyking (and indeed, I did not see Everyking even comment on the March 2008 thread). - Penwhale | ^{Blast him / Follow his steps} 18:14, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrator views and discussion

Could we please have links to the various times this has been before the committee. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 04:03, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Other than the most recent case page, where most of the post-case discussions from here should have been logged, I found several diffs on the rejected requests page, going all the way back to 2004 (some are to do with stuff around the time of the first and second cases) - dates are case dates or when the thread was archived:

Details

December 2004 (rejected RFAR)
EK1 (January 2005)
February 2005 (clarification of EK1)
EK2 (March/April 2005)
May 2005 (withdrawn RFAR)
EK3 (July/August 2005 and then October/November 2005)
EK3 motion (December 2005)
EK3 motion (July 2006)
May 2007 (rejected appeal for EK3)
EK3 - music parole suspended for three months (November 2007)
February 2008 (EK3 motions passed)
March 2008 (problems with EK3 motions pointed out)

The last two are the most relevant. The first of those last two was logged at the case page. The last one of those last two should have been logged at the case page, but doesn't seem to have been. Hopefully there are not more appeals or motions missing from this list. Anyway, I followed the discussion the last time (in February and March 2008) about how two possibly contradictory motions were passed. Avoiding that this time would be a good idea. Carcharoth (talk) 05:36, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It turns out I did miss some appeals (including the ones I thought hadn't been archived). They are listed at the EK3 case talk page. Carcharoth (talk) 00:23, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Starting a new comment to directly address Phil's statement. Memories are probably short here because some of the new arbs (me included) were either not around, or were not aware at the time, or since, of the incident you refer to. Many thanks for giving your side of the story to us. As you say, you don't know who called the police, but the distress and ongoing problems this caused you, especially when combined with the offsite commentary, should be recognised when considering restrictions on Everyking. I agree with Risker that the avoidance sanction may need to be made permanent, but I am prepared to wait to see whether Everyking will voluntarily agree to such avoidance (or reconfirm such avoidance), with supervision if needed. It should also be noted that there are some things that Everyking could do that, even if it will not affect Phil's stance on this, may help improve Everyking's standing in the community - it is mostly the actions and comments made by Everyking in relation to all this that determine his standing in the community, not just what the Arbitration Committee think of all this. Agree with others that the other remaining sanctions can be lifted. Concern about excessive number of appeals by Everyking also noted, but if there is an opportunity to make progress here, let's take it. One final point: could all parties here (and others) please be sensitive to what is said on-wiki about this and, if necessary, e-mail the arbitration committee to check what is appropriate before posting responses. Carcharoth (talk) 01:03, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Responding briefly to Everyking's new statement (which was posted while I was writing the above). First point: please stop wikilawyering the year-long ban on appeals. You are being heard here, which should be good enough. As far as I'm concerned, a mutual restriction is up to Phil. I would suggest that if the restriction is maintained and you feel it is one-sided, that you e-mail the Arbitration Committee if you genuinely feel that Phil later comments on you for no good reason. No comment on the other points, as a public back-and-forth will not be productive here, for you or for Phil. Both you and Phil have had the chance to say something and it would now be best to wait and see what can be done, and to let others respond. I would strongly suggest that anything further from Phil or Everyking be e-mailed to the arbitration committee, or be kept very short and to the point. Carcharoth (talk) 01:29, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I find merit in the appeal in light of, among other things, the time that has elapsed since the last discussion with no significant further issues involving this editor. Therefore, unless something unexpected comes to my attention in this thread in the next couple of days, I will offer a motion to lift all the remaining sanctions as no longer necessary. Should that motion fail, I will offer a set of alternative motions to vote on lifting each sanction individually, to avoid the confusing and arguably contradictory situation that arose last year. A clerk should kindly notify Phil Sandifer of this thread, as I believe that one of the remaining sanctions involves him. Newyorkbrad (talk) 09:22, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The irony of this being filed on the day the new arbs are empaneled is not lost on me. In this February 2008 ruling it clearly said requests would be reviewed not more than once a year: "Upon request by Everyking, these terms will be reviewed, but no more often than once per year, starting the date this motion passes." Then this March 2008 and this May 2008 thread came along. While I understand there is some confusion regrading this case and it should be cleared up, the numerous requests centering around it concern me. — Rlevse • Talk • 20:15, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I would support a motion that lifts all sanctions except that related to Phil Sandifer. The situation from whence that sanction arose (there was additional on- and off-wiki behaviour that is not detailed in Phil's statement) is of such a nature that I cannot foresee any interaction between Everyking and Phil Sandifer that will not be perceived by many as a rekindling of hostility, now or in the future. As such, I would not be opposed to considering the avoidance sanction to be permanent. Risker (talk) 22:47, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It is not yet 22 February. Sam Blacketer (talk) 23:46, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
In view of the background, the Phil Sandifer sanction doesn't seem so onerous to me and I can see advantages in making it permanent. How does the project gain from its lifting? --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 06:56, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
From email: Cool Hand Luke is recused from any Everyking issue. — Rlevse • Talk • 10:56, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
As far as I can recall, I've never had any significant direct contact with Everyking. My comments about him have occurred primarily during RFA and during Committee work. So I do not think that I need to recuse because of a bias formed from a personal discord between us. It is also worth noting that I've made comments about Phil Sandifer while doing Committee work so there is no reason to think that I would have a basis for favoring one side of this dispute over the other. But since the point of the Committee work is dispute resolution, and I think that there will be a better outcome in this situation if I recuse, I'm to do it. I'm doing this because Everyking appears to have the view that he is being unfairly targeted by past members of ArbCom, individually and as a group. So with my sincerest hope that if I abstain from commenting and have no involvement in this matter, the outcome will be better accepted by Everyking and he will be able to move on, I recuse. FloNight ♥♥♥ 12:58, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Decline, jumping the gun (per Sams comment) and the queue (sorry, but we have other fish to fry this week). John Vandenberg ^(chat) 14:41, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Request to amend prior case: Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Barrett_v._Rosenthal

Shoemaker's Holiday (talk · contribs)
Fyslee (talk · contribs) [33]

Statement by Shoemaker's Holiday (talk)

Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Barrett_v._Rosenthal#Use_of_unreliable_sources_by_Fyslee names Quackwatch as an unreliable source. Quackwatch has been recommended by major medical organisations (AMA, American Cancer Society) as well as numerous universities, newspapers, and journals (See article), and, furthermore, is used as a source in articles on the American Cancer Society website.[34] This finding should be simply thrown out. Although electronically published, it has reviewers, selectivity, and an advisory board. It is not merely a self-published source, it is a highly respected organisation, and thus a very, very useful source on some of the obscure fringe views it covers, but which other reliable sources are rare for. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 15:05, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In response to Geoff: Can you point out the section on the evidence page where evidence was provided that it was not a reliable source? I see some people saying they dislike its point of view, or claiming that it is biased against alternative medicine and fringe topics, but no actual evidence. If such exist, please link. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 20:07, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Response to Geoff:

If evidence was not presented during the case to support the finding, then your proposal, "Evidence has been presented that Quackwatch may be inadmissible as a source under policy", would, barring a very strong case for it being an unreliable source (which has not, nor really should be presented here [it should be presented to the community after this is dealt with]), make the Arbcom look bad, as it'd effectively be saying that a finding for which both sides agree no evidence was presented to justify was nonetheless right - despite such evidence still not having been presented. Better to remand it to the community, and the cases for and against can be presented at the appropriate venue: WP:RSN. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 06:32, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Response to Coren:

The finding is entitled "Use of unreliable sources by Fyslee". If the committee did not intend to name Quackwatch as an unreliable source, then they did an appallingly bad job at getting their meaning across. As well,the committee has repeatedly found, in numerous cases, that encyclopaedias present science in line with mainstream thought. It's hard to see how this fits in with calling a widely-respected mainstream medical source "partisian" because it advocates for the mainstream scientific thought that the encyclopaedia should be using. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 09:25, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Response to Fred Bauer

An Arbcom decision is not a place to advocate your point of view, particularly in the absence of strong, reliable sources that back it. There is no strong evidence for acupuncture: most studies with a positive result lack blinding, placebo, or large sample sizes, and large-scale studies tend to show random effects: a recent one, for instance, found sham acupuncture was better than real acupuncture - typical of statistical noise. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 17:05, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Response to Carcharoth

I really don't think that "partisian" is appropriate either. It's a highly loaded term, and the change proposed does nothing to get at the heart of the problem: It would still be a decision that the mainstream medical view of Alternative medicine is "partisian". If the committee wants to focus on Fyslee's behaviour, it would have been possible to demonstrate a lack of NPOV in their edits at the time, at this late date, however, there doesn't seem much point to trying to reanalyse the situation and make a valid FoF; may as well just keep the caution to Fyslee to edit from NPOV in the remedies and consider that sufficient. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 03:36, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Second response to Carcharoth

Be that as it may, I don't think that Arbcom should be ruling on it: The reliable sources noticeboard is perfectly capable of handling problems with specific Quackwatch articles or uses on a case-by-case basis. This is true for all sites, and there should be no need for the Arbcom to use loaded language to discuss one in particular. The simplest remedy, withdrawing the finding, does not mean that policies related to reliable sources are withdrawn; it's simply an acknowledgement that the Arbcom does not determine content, and that well-established community procedures could handle it instead. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 08:01, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Proposals

The finding "Use of unreliable sources by Fyslee" is withdrawn, and no longer forms part of the findings of Barrett v. Rosenthal. This does not affect any other findings, nor does it affect the caution to Fyslee to edit according to NPOV, as all editors are expected to.

There doesn't appear to be very good evidence of Fyslee having problematic edits - notably, the evidence section of the case has one section pointing out that most additions of Quackwatch by Fyslee were, in fact, reversions of removal of content when seen in context. I don't think this is a particularly crucial finding, nor are any of the remedies explicitly based on it, so I think it could be excised without problem, and this would also expunge a content decision. The best way to note its being withdrawn is probably to simply put the finding in ~~strikeout tags~~ and add a note saying "Withdrawn by the Arbitration committee on [Date]", with a link to the section of the talk page where this RfCl is moved.

I don't see merit in revisiting the case long enough to revise the finding, if the Arbcom wishes to, I am certain you can come up with something. I simply ask that you make sure it is justified by the case's evidence. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 13:06, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

On the current proposals:

1 is appalling. The community is perfectly capable of handling Quackwatch on a case by case basis, but with a lengthy attack on it like that from the Arbcom, it may as well be banned. In the articles where Quackwatch tends to be used, the articles are describing the worst of alternative medicine: Scams and quackery, of only slight notability, but which have just enough notability that their supporters can keep them on Wikipedia, despite having few or no non-promotional sources discussing them. Quackwatch is almost necessary in these cases.

Should we really put at equal weight strong scientific evidence that a medical intervention not only doesn't work, but couldn't work, with... How about this? This is an extreme fringe journal's report on a rather poorly-done experiment that is claimed to prove pyramid power. Shall we say that this means that any website that's critical of pyramid power should be considered a questionable, biased source? Shall we give equal validity to the the view that the moon is made of green cheese, and thus point out NASA is a "partisian" source that should have equal validity?

1.1 is at least a step in the right direction, but does not go at all far enough. Arbcom, I beg you, get out of content decisions. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 18:45, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Fyslee

archived bad start.

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

I just wish that some ArbCom members would review that particular "finding" and expunge it from public view. Even though it is blanked, the history is there. They should go to that "finding", write comments admitting it was baseless, and then blank it again. It was one of many disgraceful things that happened under that ArbCom, most performed by my now-banned opponent, her dishonorable mentor, and her major defender. Unfortunately this particular blunder was made by the ArbCom itself. "Findings" should be written based upon actual findings, proven facts, and evidence, not upon false charges brought by my cowardly attacker (other username), who has been silent since that time. He wrote the agenda for the ArbCom case and some ArbCom member just copied it and followed it without checking to see if the charges were true. You can't write a "finding" before something is actually proven to have been "found"! Upon examination, that charge, among several others, was never proven to be true at all, both as regards any misuse of Quackwatch, or of Quackwatch being unreliable. Wrong on both counts, and yet it still stands there and gets trotted out by fringe POV pushers regularly.

~~That finding was just plain wrong on both counts:~~

I did not use or abuse unreliable sources;

Quackwatch is not considered an unreliable source by the mainstream scientific and medical world, only by pushers of fringe POV, quacks, and known (and often convicted) healthfrauds.

~~-- Fyslee (talk) 15:29, 30 December 2008 (UTC)~~[reply]

Revised/calmer version

I wish that some ArbCom members would review that particular "finding" and expunge it from public view. Even though it is blanked, the history is there. They should go to that "finding", write comments admitting it was baseless, and then blank it again. It was one of many disgraceful things that happened under that ArbCom.

"Findings" should be written based upon actual findings, proven facts, and evidence, that have been presented, not written before presentation of evidence. Nor should they be based upon false charges (they were shown to be false) brought by my attacker (other username), who has been silent since that time. He wrote the agenda for the ArbCom case and some ArbCom member just copied it and followed it without checking to see if the charges were true. One shouldn't write a "finding" before something is actually proven to have been "found"! Upon examination, that charge, among several others, was never proven to be true at all, both as regards any misuse of Quackwatch, or of Quackwatch being unreliable. Wrong on both counts, and yet it still stands there and gets trotted out by fringe POV pushers regularly.

That finding was just plain wrong on both counts:

I did not use or abuse unreliable sources;
Quackwatch is not considered an unreliable source by the mainstream scientific and medical world, only by pushers of fringe POV, quacks, and known (and often convicted) healthfrauds. A simple study of the many authoritative sources that recommend Quackwatch and Stephen Barrett (we only use a few in their articles) will give an idea of what mainstream science, medicine, universities, professors, librarians, consumer organizations, and governmental bodies, think of them, and it's very positive. They are considered authoritative and can be used as good opinions. Yes, attribution is a good idea, but don't give the impression that they shouldn't be used. For more comments on Quackwatch, I suggest reading the discussion at the other RfArb Workshop page.

-- Fyslee (talk) 02:16, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Response to DreamGuy: Thanks for pointing out my irritated tone. I basically copied it from another place and have now revised it to be more appropriate for this use. Thanks again. -- Fyslee (talk) 02:16, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Response to User:Backin72's many points

Of course there is "evidence that Barrett is biased against alternative medicine." He shares this bias with countless scientists and mainstream personages, many of them quite notable. Such a bias and vast experience as the world's foremost authority on quackery and healthfraud make him even more qualified to sift the chaff from the wheat when dealing with healthfraud and questionable claims. His bias and stance on evidence is the same (read here) as that held by many others, including Marcia Angell, former editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM):

"It is time for the scientific community to stop giving alternative medicine a free ride. There cannot be two kinds of medicine -- conventional and alternative. There is only medicine that has been adequately tested and medicine that has not, medicine that works and medicine that may or may not work. Once a treatment has been tested rigorously, it no longer matters whether it was considered alternative at the outset. If it is found to be reasonably safe and effective, it will be accepted. But assertions, speculation, and testimonials do not substitute for evidence. Alternative treatments should be subjected to scientific testing no less rigorous than that required for conventional treatments."^[1]

He is a scientific skeptic, which means he holds extraordinary and fringe claims to a higher standard of evidence: "In science, the burden of proof falls upon the claimant; and the more extraordinary a claim, the heavier is the burden of proof demanded." We follow the same verifiability principle here at Wikipedia. That is a legitimate and necessary form of "double standard", and it's one that is standard practice among scientists who possess critical thinking skills. You will always find Barrett in good company, along with other scientific skeptics, Nobel prize laureates, and notable authors. He was named as one of the top 20 scientific skeptics of the 20th century.^[2]^[3] He thinks like other skeptics.

The wording of the Village Voice article should not be taken in isolation from Barrett's actual practice. He recommends and supports chiropractic for the things it is proven to be good for, but still opposes the widespread quackery, scams, and pseudoscientific claims that still plague the profession, and especially the pseudoscientific and metaphysical basis for the whole profession (vertebral subluxations, Innate Intelligence, misuse of spinal manipulation, etc.). Likewise for acupuncture, where the claims are required to be backed up by good research. (There is plenty of disagreement about the quality of such research, and Barrett is far from alone in that matter.) We (and you especially) know that acupuncture is associated with many claims that are nonsense or not backed up by research. Barrett's actual practice is not as extreme as indicated by that old article. It is quite normal in medical and skeptical circles. He's just one of the most notable skeptics in that area.

Lest Barrett become a straw man diversion here, let's remember the subject is Quackwatch, not Barrett. He is the prime mover behind the website, but a whole host of others help in the endeavor. Most of the front page articles are written by him, with fact checking and research conducted by helpers, but even more material on the site is from other authors. The website is the largest database on such subjects on the internet, with a vast collection of articles, news reports, scientific research, government documents, and historical records, and as such it is often the only source for those references. When we reference Quackwatch for those types of sources, for example a Congressional report on quackery, the reference carries the same degree of reliability we would accord the Congressional record.

Of course Quackwatch should be used with discretion, and that's what we should do with all sources. That is a given with all our sources. No new rule or application of existing policies is required for a special case here. It is already covered by our V & RS policies. We should prefer better sources when available, and use attribution when necessary, but QW is often the only or best source available for many fringe subjects. It is often a notable, significant, controversial (among quacks), and highly respected opinion source, and should be used as such. We constantly use sources of far less quality without blinking, or with them being subjected to uninformed and deprecatory remarks in an ArbCom. Why? Because quacks' incomes aren't being threatened, and scammers aren't being named with backing from the FDA and FTC. Unlike many opinion articles we reference all the time, it provides its sources, and we can sometimes use them instead of, or in addition to, QW itself. When it is used as a source for a scientific article unavailable elsewhere, it is just as reliable as any scientific article, and for that type of use MEDRS would apply. Just use common sense in a case by case manner. -- Fyslee (talk) 18:25, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Response to John Vandenberg: I fully agree with you. The implication of the "finding" is that Quackwatch is always an inappropriate source, and that's very, very wrong. It can be used on a case by case basis, just like other sources. It is not a peer-reviewed scientific journal (websites are not "peer-reviewed"!), and thus scientific research would rate higher as a source, per MEDRS, for nitty gritty details of scientific matters, but can be used like any other source for matters of opinion related to those subjects. Like most of our other sources, it is a perfectly good source for certain purposes. In fact it is often a better source for articles related to fringe subjects, which alternative medicine subjects are by definition, where there is a dearth of scientific expression on the subject. Since scientific research isn't for opinions, you won't find scientific research that states a matter is nonsensical or quackery, because research doesn't deal with such matters. The same scientists will write such opinions, but they do it in other venues, such as articles and websites. -- Fyslee (talk) 18:25, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Response to other critics here

While I'm not surprised that believers in fringe POV would appear here with their attempts to smear Barrett and Quackwatch, please get your facts straight before making statements. I do appreciate that Geoff Plourde did recognize (in his "reponses") that his initial statement was way off base on a couple points. In fact most of his statement is quite inaccurate.

As I wrote elsewhere, I will even go so far as to point out a cardinal red flag of a fringe POV pusher - they attack Barrett and Quackwatch. Anyone who does that needs to be placed under observation, and a clue stick labelled "ban" held over them, ready for instant use if necessary. Attacking such reliable sources is a pretty obvious symptom that one's POV and ideologies are screwed up. Find anyone who is doing it, and you'll find such an editor....or someone who just doesn't have a clue, possibly because of ignorance of the issues regarding healthfraud, consumer fraud, and quackery. Please take this opportunity to understand the issues (by using Quackwatch) and become informed. That can only be done by studying both sides of an issue. Ignorance is no longer an excuse. -- Fyslee (talk) 18:25, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Response to Backin72's response to John Nevard

Maybe you didn't read my comment above, but to trust a newspaper columnnist's editorializing based on one statement taken in isolation, without also looking at Barrett's actual practice is naive. Since his actual practice often deviates significantly from that one statement, it is obviously being misapplied and applied to broadly. The guy obviously has much more nuanced views than that! He obviously does follow along with the scientific evidence and when the evidence is strong enough, he has been known to change his position, which is the logical and proper thing to do. To top it off, his articles are reviewed by many experts in the field and thus go through a form of informal review process. He seeks advice and gets help when preparing articles, and if you find something outright inaccurate (not just a difference of opinion), then by all means email him and get it fixed.

The evidence for many of acupuncture's claims is far from a settled matter in the scientific community, and Barrett is one of many who are unconvinced by most of the studies - which happen to be of poor quality. There is no scientific consensus about acupuncture, so this is just a difference of opinion which exists in the scientific community. This is an ongoing process. As such it's also a content decision and the editors of the acupuncture articles are perfectly able to deal with it. The "double-standard" is the standard applied to all extraordinary claims. Unusual claims are subject to this standard rule: "the more extraordinary a claim, the heavier is the burden of proof demanded." Nothing new in that. If someone told you that one of the Moons of Pluto was made of cheese, you would likely adopt the same position as Barrett or any other person who possesses even a smidgin of critical thinking - you would consider it unworthy of investigation and would hold such claims to a much higher standard of evidence than other claims. There are many claims in alternative madicine, including some of them in acupuncture and chiropractic, that are unworthy of exploration by scientists. Let the ones making the claims provide their evidence. If they do so, it will be looked at, and if found worthy of consideration, THEN Barrett and others will certainly encourage investigation. It only makes common sense to say what Barrett said. His statement shouldn't be stretched too far, which is what you seem to be doing. That's certainly what Donna Ladd did in her article.

All this discussion about acupuncture would be fine for the acupuncture article's talk page, but it's not appropriate as the subject of an ArbCom or ArbCom decision. That is indeed a content matter. No one here has a right to deem Quackwatch or Barrett unfit as a RS because they share a common disagreement that exists in the scientific community. The next thing we'll be banning any source that has a POV at all. If Quackwatch stood on the opposite side of a fully uniform, existing scientific consensus, it would be another matter, but that is far from the case. All I'm hearing is the disgruntled complaints of believers in acupuncture, who are far from unbiased in this matter. You have a financial COI related to acupuncture, and Fred should have recused himself based on his preexisting bias against Barrett and for alternative medicine. I was tempted to point it out during the ArbCom, but was fearful of doing so. I had alread been the victim of my evidence being deleted and disallowed in the events leading up to the ArbCom, and was pretty much paralyzed and unable to effectively defend myself against the libels I encountered all the way through what often felt like a kangaroo court. For some reason, all our rules against personal attacks, BLP, etc. did not apply at that time. There was no due process, and no one jumped in and got critics to stick to the point. It was a free for all, with some of the worst perpetrators still editing here. Their lies were found to be just that, but nothing happened to them. The finding of fact had already been written before any evidence had been presented, and when the so-called evidence was shown to be without foundation, was it revised??? No, not at all. Instead ONE pitiful diff (the Clayton diff mentioned by Fred) that showed I had RESTORED (not ADDED, as claimed) an existing link (IOW a consensus of editors had found it worthy of existing) was used as evidence of my foul behavior. There was no finding of fact. It wasn't true, so I was judged using faulty evidence of something that isn't a crime at all. -- Fyslee (talk) 02:25, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Response to Fred Bauder

Your statements aren't clear, since you have shown no wrongdoing, only that you don't like what you found. Are you claiming that Barrett is incorrect in his criticisms of the Clayton mail order diploma mill, one of several which the founder has established? Regarding your statement that you are more anti- than pro- alt med, your actions have spoken louder than your words. Even at the beginning of the ArbCom, I was aware of your biases. Whatever the case may be, you don't like Barrett or the POV at Quackwatch. Whatever. That's your right. Those who are anti-anti-quackery, are by definition for quackery, so please be more careful with your statements. Maybe that's not the case, but it could seem so. You really should have recused yourself, and now, with these comments of yours, ~~you should do it now.~~ You are a former lawyer and know that a judge with your POV would be disqualified in such a case. Claiming that this isn't a court of law (a claim I've heard before) doesn't free you from the obligation to provide a just forum for deciding cases here. Injustice mustn't be allowed. Recusing yourself isn't a dishonorable thing to do. In fact, not to do so would be dishonorable.

Regarding your citation from Quackwatch about "there is no alternative medicine." That is not Barrett, but George D. Lundberg, a physician, board-certified pathologist, and, since February 1999, editor of Medscape. For 17 years prior to joining Medscape Dr. Lundberg served as editor of the JAMA:

"There is no alternative medicine. There is only scientifically proven, evidence-based medicine supported by solid data or unproven medicine, for which scientific evidence is lacking. Whether a therapeutic practice is "Eastern" or "Western," is unconventional or mainstream, or involves mind-body techniques or molecular genetics is largely irrelevant except for historical purposes and cultural interest. We recognize that there are vastly different types of practitioners and proponents of the various forms of alternative medicine and conventional medicine, and that there are vast differences in the skills, capabilities, and beliefs of individuals within them and the nature of their actual practices. Moreover, the economic and political forces in these fields are large and increasingly complex and have the capability for being highly contentious. Nonetheless, as believers in science and evidence, we must focus on fundamental issues -- namely, the patient, the target disease or condition, the proposed or practiced treatment, and the need for convincing data on safety and therapeutic efficacy."^[4]

His idea is echoed by Richard Dawkins, evolutionary biologist and author known for promoting the gene-centric view (in his book The Selfish Gene), coining of the term meme, and atheist activism:^[2]^[3]

"There is no alternative medicine. There is only medicine that works and medicine that doesn't work."^[5]

"Either it is true that a medicine works or it isn't. It cannot be false in the ordinary sense but true in some 'alternative' sense."^[5]

You are welcome to disagree with all of them, but don't imply that Barrett is someone with an oddball belief. He is in very notable company.

As to your claim about him "blurring of the distinction between outright quackery and alternative procedures", he is very clear about the distinction. In fact the very citation you use makes it clear, almost as if you are quoting him! ("blurring distinctions"):

"To avoid confusion, "alternative" methods should be classified as genuine, experimental, or questionable. Genuine alternatives are comparable methods that have met science-based criteria for safety and effectiveness. Experimental alternatives are unproven but have a plausible rationale and are undergoing responsible investigation. The most noteworthy is use of a 10%-fat diet for treating coronary heart disease. Questionable alternatives are groundless and lack a scientifically plausible rationale. The archetype is homeopathy, which claims that "remedies" so dilute that they contain no active ingredient can exert powerful therapeutic effects. Some methods fit into more than one category, depending on the claims made for them. Blurring these distinctions enables promoters of quackery to argue that because some practices labeled "alternative" have merit, the rest deserve equal consideration and respect. Enough is known, however, to conclude that most questionable "alternatives" are worthless.^[6]

"Unproven methods are not necessarily quackery. Those consistent with established scientific concepts may be considered experimental. Legitimate researchers and practitioners do not promote unproven procedures in the marketplace but engage in responsible, properly-designed studies. Methods not compatible with established scientific concepts should be classified as nonsensical or disproven rather than experimental. Methods that sound scientific but are nonsensical can also be classified as pseudoscientific."^[7]

"Do you believe there are any valid "alternative" treatments?
This question is unanswerable because it contains an invalid assumption. "Alternative" is a slogan often used for promotional purposes, not a definable set of methods. Methods should be classified into three groups: (1) those that work, (2) those that don't work, and (3) those we are not sure about. Most described as "alternative" fall into the second group. But the only meaningful way to evaluate methods is to examine them individually, which we do. We discuss this subject fully in our article "Be Wary of "Alternative" Health Methods."[35]

Statement by DreamGuy (talk)

I would hope that ArbCom would look past the (understandably, I suppose, considering, but not very helpful) angry tone of the above and take steps to fix the very real problem. We've been discussing QuackWatch on the Workshop page of the Fringe Science workshop page, and we've pretty well established that it's nothing like an unreliable source. ArbCom typically doesn't rule out sources as unreliable just in general, but it's especially odd they'd do so on one that fits WP:RS so strongly, and it's mentioning as such is being used by civil POV-pushers to try to remove a well known, extremely well-regarded and important source critical of their beliefs in fringe topics. DreamGuy (talk) 18:22, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Response to User:Geoff Plourde's comment that "Medical school curriculum does not cover the core concepts of chiropractic, acupuncture, or other CAM techniques." -- of course it doesn't, because they are not considered real medicine by any accepted medical expert or authority. That's like trying to argue that no biologist can weigh in on how absurd the notion of Nessie or Bigfoot existing in the real world because university biology courses and DNA studies do not include dissection practice on cryptids. Medical studies have examined chiropractic, acupuncture and other techniques. The individual behind QuackWatch is aware of these studies. That's why he says what he says, not because he is ignorant and incapable of saying anything educated on the topic, but precisely because he is well versed on the fields from a medical and scientific viewpoint. It's absurd to try to use your own personal opinion to rule anyone who disagrees with you as a bad source and expect Wikipedia to just follow whatever you say. DreamGuy (talk) 17:07, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Durova

This finding attempted to rule upon a content issue outside the Committee's remit. Although a necessary part of arbitration does relate to obvious calls such as the unreliability of citations to non-notable blogs, this was not that type of obvious call. The evidence upon which the Committee passed this finding was more emotional than factual (one party had been in a protracted lawsuit with the owner of the Quackwatch site) and regardless of what POV is at stake that is not a good basis for arbitration findings. I have no opinion about the suitability or unsuitability of Quackwatch for encyclopedic citations. This is a matter for the community to determine. Durova^Charge! 19:17, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Geoff Plourde

While I have a COI in this area, I believe that the finding regarding Quackwatch was accurate, but nonetheless procedurally wrong. Quackwatch is as heavily biased as any other blog site. The articles are written by an ex psychiatrist with absolutely no training in the areas he professes to be an expert in. Medical school curriculum does not cover the core concepts of chiropractic, acupuncture, or other CAM techniques. This website has no peer review system and considers all topics as pseudoscience. It is clearly the work of someone with a vendetta against anything that is not mainstream medicine. Unfortunately, I must agree with my worthy colleagues that the scope of this body does not include content, and therefore content rulings are moot. However I advise amending the finding to a suggestive finding stating that "Evidence has been presented that Quackwatch may be inadmissible as a source under policy." This is simply a statement of fact and not a content ruling, satisfying both the need to note the error of Quackwatch and remove the content intrusion. Geoff Plourde (talk) 19:39, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Response to Shoemaker's Holiday: Review of the case page did not turn up evidence to support my position. However I believe the finding about Quackwatch was based on behavior and not content. In no way does the Committee rule that Quackwatch is bad, simply that Fyslee has used it as a partisan source. this is supported by cursory review of Quackwatch and its purpose. Geoff Plourde (talk) 20:26, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Response to Fyslee: I must respectfully disagree with as regards the accuracy of Quackwatch. I present a statement by Ray Sahelian, MD [36] Dr. Sahelian is a currently practicing board certified family practitioner who in this statement points out the errors of Quackwatch.

Second Response to Fyslee: I am highly disturbed by your divisive statement, "As I wrote elsewhere, I will even go so far as to point out a cardinal red flag of a fringe POV pusher - they attack Barrett and Quackwatch. Anyone who does that needs to be placed under observation, and a clue stick labelled "ban" held over them, ready for instant use if necessary. Attacking such reliable sources is a pretty obvious symptom that one's POV and ideologies are screwed up." This stone age method of thinking is harmful to Wikipedia as it actively prevents dissent, and would grant de facto ownership of all alternative medicine articles to pro Barrett editors, which would be a serious violation of OWN. Fyslee, I honestly believe that Quackwatch is a crock of shit written by a retired shrink with an box of axes to grind. His blog site is worthless for all intents and purposes and poses a clear and present danger to advancement in medicine. Regardless, I agree that the purpose of this Committee is not to make content judgements which should be addressed in other fora, hopefully without your attitude as a rule.

However, in this case, I believe that the original decision was correct in light of the circumstances. The finding was about the usage of partisan sites by Fyslee, which is a policy matter. Quackwatch was cited as an example in support, an application of policy. Is Quackwatch partisan? Yes and this is clearly established by cursory review of Quackwatch itself. Did Fyslee try to use Quackwatch? This case and relevant logs would appear to say yes also. The finding is a logical result of this reasoning.

Regardless of the reasoning, there is a more significant test of whether this was a content ruling. Does the finding prohibit the usage of Quackwatch? Nowhere in this finding am I able to find any provision that specifically says that Quackwatch is unusable. Without such a provision, Quackwatch is still utilizable. While I may be speculating, this appears to be more about one user's discomfort at having his hand smacked for his conduct. I would therefore reject this motion, as the evidence clearly shows that this is not a content ruling. Geoff Plourde (talk) 09:05, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Enric Naval

ArbCom made a ruling on content, and a bad one at that. It's being discussed on the fringe science case [[37]]. My 2 cents:

Barret is a knowledgeable/notable source on health and nutrition issues, and in quackery. From his own bio:

a scientific advisor to the American Council on Science and Health, a CSICOP's Fellow, FDA Commissioner's Special Citation Award for Public Service in fighting nutrition quackery in 1984. Honorary membership in the American Dietetic Association in 1986. Two years teaching health education at The Pennsylvania State University. 2001 Distinguished Service to Health Education Award from the American Association for Health Education. [38](not a literal quote)

but we can't use him as source because "he's engaged in advocacy"? No. (not to mention that there are not defined criteria to determine advocacy, so all sources showing a fringe belief in a negative light will inevitabily be accused of advocacy)

This finding is being used as a sledgehammer to kill references to a source that, as Shoemaker points out, is recommended by reliable sources on the relevant fields.

Statement by User:Martinphi

"As a result, the ACSH has been accused of being more of a public relations firm, and less of a neutral council on Science. " [39]

Well, maybe the site is reliable and maybe not. Looks like it might have some wise council sometimes. But that does not mean we should not prefer better sources when available, nor does it mean we do not attribute statements. If it weren't purportedly defending the mainstream, it would be considered a very unreliable source. Its "reliability" comes totally from its POV, since few here would for example think that the Parapsychological Association is an RS, although it is far more RS per policy. As it is, Quackwatch and similar sources should never be used unattributed, and I'm guessing that is the major point of contention in articles, as it has been in the past. I mean, read WP:RS. ——Martin^phi Ψ~Φ—— 08:17, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by User:Backin72

There is some evidence that Barrett is biased against alternative medicine. Please note that this is not just another way of saying "he has a pro-science bias (chuckle, well, shouldn't we all)". I mean that he holds alt-med, which like conventional med ought to rise or fall based on evidence, to an overt double standard.

"I won't even look through that telescope"

For example, from a Village Voice article: "Barrett believes most alternative therapies simply should be disregarded without further research. "A lot of things don't need to be tested [because] they simply don't make any sense," he says, pointing specifically to homeopathy, chiropractic, and acupuncture.

Homeopathy, I can understand; extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and the evidence to date is far from extraordinary. But chiropractic and acupuncture? Whether or not vertebral subluxation theory or qi and meridians strike you as bullshit, the practices of spinal manipulation and acupuncture (inserting needles at particular sites) are the subject of mainstream research, and show some promise in the treatment of pain (and nausea, in the case of acupuncture), according to the Cochrane Collaboration, a resource for evidence-based medicine. Cochrane, unlike Quackwatch, meets WP:MEDRS and takes the stance that more research is appropriate and necessary in these fields.

When Barrett refuses even to acknowledge that things like chiro or acu, which are physical procedures with plausible mechanisms, should even be studied before being dismissed, he's out on a bit of a limb. Dare I say, he's something of an extremist.

Quackwatch is "occasionally informative"

From the same Village Voice article, regarding Barrett's anti-evidence-gathering stance:

"He seems to be putting down trying to be objective," says Peter Barry Chowka, a former adviser to the National Institutes of Health's Office of Alternative Medicine. "Quackwatch.com is consistently provocative and entertaining and occasionally informative," Chowka added. "But I personally think he's running against the tide of history. But that's his problem, not ours."

Exactly. Barrett not only lacks objectivity, he derides it.

Ultra-mainstream IOM held to double-standard by... not-too-mainstream Dr. Barrett

The Institute of Medicine, one of the American Academies of Science and certainly one of the most prestigious and reliable English-language sources on medicine, conducted a study on alternative medicine ca. 2003-2005. Barrett criticized the panel for doing what any other panel on any other subject convened by the IOM would do: including members who had professional affiliations, sometimes including grant money, related to the study's subject area (here, alt-med). This is disingenuous and a flagrant double standard, since a panel on radiology would obviously include some radiologists (some of whom were academics and therefor getting grant money), and so forth.

Such a double standard is plainly indicative of bias.

Conclusion

This doesn't mean that Barrett a/o Quackwatch can't be used as sources at all, but we should be mindful of their biases. Quackwatch does not even come close to meeting WP:RS, particularly WP:MEDRS. In my view, it should be used in situations where WP:PARITY applies, i.e. as a counter to fringe, vanity-type claims. When it comes to more mainstream alt-meds, like chiro and acu, we have far better sources meeting WP:MEDRS; there, Barrett has amply demonstrated his bias and should never be considered a reliable source. --Backin72 (n.b.) 08:52, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Reply to John Nevard: Do you think Barrett is a reliable source on his own views?

I'm not too worried about whether the journalist quoted in the Village Voice is much of an RS, because he's just giving voice to a conclusion that follows from Barrett's own words. When Barrett denies the need even to gather evidence, or uses flagrant double standards, he's providing all the evidence of his own bias that any fair-minded person needs. --Backin72 (n.b.) 11:14, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by User:John Nevard

It reflects very well on the quality of Quackwatch that the best critical quote Backin72 could come up with was from a Mr. Peter Barry Chowka in that well-known bastion of evidence-based medicine the Village Voice, and it reflects very poorly on the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine that he helped squander their tax dollars.

One simply has to examine his website.[40] The latest article is on "An International Story That Helped to Define 2008"- the terrible defeat of Thabo Mbeki, AIDS hero, and his anti-HIV treatment policies, which biased pro-science Western science found to have killed at least 330,000.[41] It namedrops fellow AIDS hero David Rasnick. And it shows up the mainstream scientific establishment, represented by Oprah Winfrey.

So there you are. If you accept the judgement of important public figuress like Chowka, Quackwatch is simply an entertainment site. Nevard (talk) 02:10, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Fred Bauder

The evidence for the unreliability of Quackwatch is its outright rejection of all forms of alternative medicine, "There is no alternative medicine". This results in a blurring of the distinction between outright quackery and alternative procedures such as acupuncture with have some support, see 'Be Wary of Acupuncture, Qigong, and "Chinese Medicine"' by Stephen Barrett, M.D. This article, 'Be Wary of Acupuncture, Qigong, and "Chinese Medicine"' is a good example of how self-published material by Stephen Barrett, M.D. is featured on the site. Fred Talk 13:18, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The fundamental principle which is being enforced by deprecating a blatantly partisan source such as Quackwatch is Wikipedia:Reliable sources. There is no reason to characterize such enforcement as a content decision, as, if verifiable, the information excluded from Quackwatch can be found in a reliable source. Take a look at 'Be Wary of Acupuncture, Qigong, and "Chinese Medicine"' by Stephen Barrett, M.D. One of his points of argument is "Falun gong, which China banned several years ago, is a Qigong varient claimed to be "a powerful mechanism for healing, stress relief and health improvements." That brings up the argument that aspects of alternative medicine, particularly acupuncture, have cultish aspects, but does not do so in a scientific way, but as guilt by association. The quote, "which China banned several years ago" is a good example of the type of irrational argument one encounters on the site; China banned Wikipedia. Fred Talk 13:34, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The material from Quackwatch cited in the founding of fact in dispute, "Clayton College of Natural Health: Be Wary of the School and Its Graduates" by Stephen Barrett, M.D. is a good example of the sort of self-published material to be found on the site. Fred Talk 13:45, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

My personal point of view is more anti than pro alternative medicine, but I have no strong feelings which would have required recusal. Fred Talk 02:15, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by User:Crohnie

When this finding was made and the arbitration was closed, editors used this finding to go to many articles to remove all mentions of QuackWatch from articles. They actually diffed to this finding saying that the arbs stated the QW was an unreliable source. Now this brings the questions, if the arbitrators didn't want to make a decision on content, then why did they? I have also seen attacks to Fyslee with this motion attached to prove that what he added was against the policies made by that decision. I believe that this does need to be rewritten so that it says that arbs do not make content decisions. Editors that go and remove all references to QW where it is being used appropriately should be warned if a new decision is written that this site is WP:Reliable source which from my readings here and at another arb case is being stated. I also agree that if another ref is available that should be used but it doesn't mean that QW has to be erased at the same time. This motion, in a nutshell, is used as battering ram to remove this source in WP:Fringe articles all to often. It is also used to debunk any editor who has placed the dif into an article. So in closing, I hope the arbitrators will either rewrite the section for clarity or do a new case to clarify this situation. Just a side note about this, Fyslee esp. has had to defend himself on many ocassions do to an editor warning him about using partisan sites against arbs ruling, this I also find to be a big problem for this editor to edit articles without the tensions that this motion has caused. Thank you for listening. --CrohnieGal^Talk 13:34, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment & Question: If Fred Bauder wrote the motions why did he not recuse when he obviously has a very strong POV about all of this? This affects not only the use of the source but it affects the editor to whom he voted against. I am sorry but I think this is wrong. Just my opinion but I feel this is too personal for this arb to be making motions like this. --CrohnieGal^Talk 18:50, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestion, Since Fred Bauder admits he wrote the finding and also admits he has a strong POV personally about it I suggest the whole thing should be erased. Since he is no longer an arbitrator and didn't recuse at the time, then the section he wrote should be cancelled by the arbitrators now sitting. I understand that he doesn't think he should have recused himself but it obvious from comments being made that he should have at the time. This can be fixed by removing the sections written by him that had no evidence to prove it. --CrohnieGal^Talk 14:28, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by User:DGG

Everyone interested in this subject area has biases. Those of Quackwatch are declared, and the general view of the scientific and medical world is that overall they are sound, and based on evidence. To the extent the finding was written by Bauder, it represents his personal viewpoint, which is not sound in the view of most of those in the general subject field (or at least such is my own bias); he is entitled to it, and articles should take appropriate account of such fringe viewpoints, but it illustrates unmistakably why arb com should not be making such pronouncements. The decision that resulted from his view is harmful to the basic principle of NPOV and objectivity. No source can be used uncritically; the tradition Wikipedia dichotomy between reliable|unreliable is too crude to be helpful in many situations. The finding was both beyond he remit of arbcom, then and now, and in any case simply wrong. Not that arbcom should declare Qw legitimate. Its legitimacy is no concern of the committee. Its use in articles is to be determined,as with all sources, on a case-by-case basis. I suppose it would be correct & within its remit for arb com to confirm, as a general principle of editing behavior, that people should regard sources in a careful manner. DGG (talk) 06:24, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

Clerk note: 2 things: 1. Fred Bauder was the original author of this finding, and 2. there were multiple sections that had the same content in the original proposed decision page, see this and its subsections. - Penwhale | ^{Blast him / Follow his steps} 13:43, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Side (i.e. non-clerk view): I think Fred meant this: Stephen Barrett's argument that China banned Falun Gong is irrational argument, as China also banned Wikipedia. - Penwhale | ^{Blast him / Follow his steps} 14:06, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrator views and discussion

I did not agree with several aspects of the ruling at the time. The type of content that Quackwatch has gives it a slant and makes lean toward being a partisan source more than other medical resources, but is not an unreliable source and to characterize it as such is wrong. FloNight ♥♥♥ 20:05, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The title and text of the finding could have been better phrased and better explained, because Quackwatch can in some circumstances be used as a source. As I understand this request for clarification, it is largely asking for a ban on Quackwatch to be lifted. That is not possible because there was no such ban: It is not the job of this committee to determine whether sources are reliable. The substance of the finding stands in relation to the original case: Quackwatch, as a campaigning site, should be deprecated in favour of sites which do not have a particular agenda to promote. Sam Blacketer (talk) 12:55, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I agree in part with Sam above; I think more has been read into that ruling than was warranted. There is an observation that Quackwatch tends to be partisan, and should not be a preferred or exclusive source, but not that it is not a reliable source as is generally understood. — Coren ^(talk) 17:38, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
We can and should revise the wording of this FoF. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 00:52, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Suggest that we should revise the wording through issuing a clarification or correction, rather than changing the finding itself (which might have the effect of attempting to rewrite history). Sam Blacketer (talk) 01:05, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - Agree with Sam. We should not be changing past rulings themselves. — Rlevse • Talk • 01:08, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - Aye, that is what I meant. I would not be surprised if there is an appropriate FoF buried in the current wording, as there would be times when QuackWatch is an inappropriate source, however the current ruling implies that it is always an inappropriate source, which is wrong and needs to be corrected. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 11:27, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Fred, China also banned Falun gong; could you clarify your point please? John Vandenberg ^(chat) 13:51, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Deeming a source to be reliable or unreliable is almost always going to be a content decision and as such beyond our remit. However, as Sam says, the substance of the finding (that partisan sources should not be misused) stands; cf. this principle, for example. --bainer (talk) 02:59, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I tentatively agree with several of the comments above, but could a clerk please advise the arbitrator who wrote the original decision of this thread, as I would like to get his input, if any. Newyorkbrad (talk) 09:33, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I contacted Fred, who drafted that decision. Ex-clerk, — Rlevse • Talk • 00:40, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

From what I can see, the main contention comes from the wording of the header in the finding of fact: "Use of unreliable sources by Fyslee". Suggest that the simplest change (if a new finding of fact is needed) is to drop the word "unreliable" to leave: "Use of sources by Fyslee". That takes the focus away from the reliability of the source, and focuses on the behaviour of Fyslee. The actual wording of the finding of fact still uses the word "partisan", which I think is reasonable, and the associated remedy (which passed 7-0) should still be fit for purpose: "Fyslee is cautioned to use reliable sources and to edit from a NPOV. He is reminded that editors with a known partisan point of view should be careful to seek consensus on the talk page of articles to avoid the appearance of a COI if other editors question their edits." That all seems fine, so I think that all that needs doing here is some way of noting that the header of the original finding of fact should either have "unreliable" removed, or that this word be replaced with "partisan". Carcharoth (talk) 02:41, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Fyslee has called for Fred Bauder to recuse himself "now". This misses the points that Fred Bauder is no longer an arbitrator and hasn't been since December 2007. The issue of recusal at the time is long gone and the focus here should be on what to do now, not what could or should have happened. Carcharoth (talk) 02:48, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Responding to Shoemaker's Holiday's comment on the word "partisan", several other arbitrators have used this term. FloNight said "...gives it a slant and makes [it] lean toward being a partisan source more than other medical resources..."; Sam said "Quackwatch, as a campaigning site, should be deprecated in favour of sites which do not have a particular agenda to promote."; Coren has said "There is an observation that Quackwatch tends to be partisan..."; Jayvdb has said "there would be times when QuackWatch is an inappropriate source"; bainer says "the substance of the finding (that partisan sources should not be misused) stands". Nearly every arbitrator so far has commented on the need to take care with the use of material on Quackwatch because of the nature of the site. Such sites can change over time, but the basic nature of the site, its raison d'etre, doesn't seem to be disputed. Carcharoth (talk) 04:16, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. I think people are missing the forest for the trees here. I am convinced the Quackwatch issue is a thin cover in many, but not all, cases for nettlesome conflict, winning battles, and slamming points. There is some good faith disagreement, but largely it's just a stone for people to grind the same old axes in the general subject area. Quackwatch is obviously a biased source. It is just as obviously as reliable source. It clearly evinces a strong point of view, which is in essence the sort of strong skepticism usually seen among secular humanists. It is also clearly regarded as a reliable source by reputable bodies and figures within the relevant field (medicine). We use such sources all the time without such great controversy and conflict following standard conventions (such as WP:UNDUE). Vassyana (talk) 19:39, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Motion

There are 17 active arbitrators, so 9 votes are a majority. 14:07, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

1) In the finding "Use of unreliable sources by Fyslee" (3.2) in the Barrett v. Rosenthal case, the following additional finding is added:

The use of Quackwatch as a source is not banned; however, all editors are reminded of the instruction in the policy page on Neutral point of view that they should "give precedence to those sources that have been the most successful in presenting facts in an equally balanced manner", that Quackwatch is a site "whose purpose is to combat health-related frauds, myths, fads, fallacies, and misconduct", and is therefore explicitly not giving a balanced presentation.

Support:

Proposed. Sam Blacketer (talk) 14:07, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support. — Rlevse • Talk • 14:14, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that this is helpful statement as an companion to the the proposal that I added about Fyslee. I see no way around the Committee making some type of a determination about the nature of this source if we are going to make a remedy about his use of the source. But I still think that labeling it an unreliable source is wrong and we need to backtrack on this aspect of the case ruling. FloNight ♥♥♥ 15:59, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 16:57, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
— Coren ^(talk) 18:08, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
in the interests of expediency, though I agree with Vassyana that focus should be on conduct of editors nt use of sources, but if this is needed to clarify things and push forward, so be it. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:31, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose:

Worded in such a way as to create the impression the source should not be used. See my general comments. Vassyana (talk) 19:54, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Abstain:

Not sure about this. Would prefer that the wording focus on the behaviour of editors, not judgment of content and sources. For example, the other side of the coin also needs to be addressed here, namely the behaviour of editors who used the previous finding of fact to target those using Quackwatch as a source. The degree and appropriateness of that sort of behaviour also need to come under scrutiny, I feel. Carcharoth (talk) 19:41, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrator Discussion of motion:

For me, a large part of the problem with the original Fof was the use of the term "unreliable source". FloNight ♥♥♥ 16:00, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

1.1) That the header of the finding "Use of unreliable sources by Fyslee" (3.2) in the Barrett v. Rosenthal case be changed to "Sources used by Fyslee".

Support

Proposed. To supplement motion (1) --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 16:57, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Perfect. I was getting ready to add this exact wording. :-) FloNight ♥♥♥ 17:04, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support. — Rlevse • Talk • 17:32, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support. I actually feel the is the more important of the two— NPOV handles normally in this case, but the association of "unreliable" with "Quackwatch" because caused undue interpretation. — Coren ^(talk) 18:08, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support, as this was a suggestion I made. I think this alone may be enough, but see comments above. Carcharoth (talk) 19:41, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Obvious correction. Vassyana (talk) 19:54, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Per previous. We need neutral headings. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:26, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

Abstain

Arbitrator discussion of motion:

Request to amend prior case: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/JarlaxleArtemis 2

List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:

Martijn Hoekstra (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) (initiator)
JarlaxleArtemis (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) Note that there is no effective means of notification.

Statement by Martijn Hoekstra

Following discussion on WikiEN-l I would like to ask the Arbitration Committe to review the effective options we have to limit the impact of the disruptive behaviour of the individual behind JarlaxleArtemis (better known as Grawp). The measures we have used so far (as listed by soxred93: Huggle, ClueBot, Notices on IRC, Spam blacklist, Abuse filter (in the future), and as added by Christopher Grant, adminbots as Miza's) haven't been able to effectively stop disruption to a satisfactory level. His ISP, Verizon, has so far been unresponsive. Options that have been suggested are stronger attempts at contacting Verizon, preferably by people who have a clear connection to Wikipedia and/or the Wikimedia foundation. Another option discussed are various forms of placing large rangeblocks if Verizon remains unresponsive. It is clearly preferable if rangeblocking is not needed, but there are some voices that rangeblocks may be an option to make it known to Verizon that we are nearing our last resorts, and without their assistance to stop the abuse, we may have no other choise.

Therefore I would like to ask the arbitration committe to guide the discussion on the enforcement on the ban on Grawp, and on additional measures that can be taken.

Statement by JzG

The user is already banned and is unlikely to be anything else this side of the heat death of the universe. Anything else should be down to the community, and perhaps the office.

For the record, I think we definitely should contact Verizon and inform them that if they do not take action then we will have no option but to rangeblock them, I strongly suspect that the adverse PR which would attach to that would be sufficient even for them, but I guess it depends on which Verizon business unit we're dealing with and at what level. I had the devil's own job getting a major outage sorted, but our man in the States called the VP of Verizon global customer services on his cell (at his barbecue at home) and there was an engineer on site 15 minutes later. Maybe Jimbo can make the call if I get him cell number :-)

Anyway, it's not clear to me what change ArbCom can make here, irritating though this vandal undoubtedly is. Guy (Help!) 23:43, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by SirFozzie

I mostly agree with Guy. On Wiki activity such as rangeblocks will be of limited use, he already recruits folks to do his dirty work on various messageboards and the like. Any action to be taken can be STARTED with rangeblocks at the EN-Wiki level, but probably either ArbCom or various OFFICE members will have to recommend to the Foundation that certain actions be taken at the Foundation level to minimize the disruption of this persistent troll. SirFozzie (talk) 00:18, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Jéské Couriano

Didn't it mention on Jarlaxle's LTA page and at WP:BANNED that Jarlaxle was banned Wikimedia-wide before? In any case, I think this may have to go to the Foundation level or directly to his (apparently largely-clueless) ISP; Jarlaxle's been using SUL to impersonate and harass other users. I don't think a rangeblock will work too well; he's been using open proxies, as far as I am aware. -Jéské Couriano ^{(v^_^v)} 23:10, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

ADDENDUM) Is Verizon a member of the BBB in Jarlaxle's area? If they are, we can put pressure on the BBB to cut off Jarlaxle, as happened with Mmbabies. -Jéské Couriano ^{(v^_^v)} 23:14, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Durova

WP:DENY occasionally fails as a solution strategy. This is one of those times. Recommend ArbCom consider a formal complaint to the user's ISP, since the behavior obviously exceeds the boundaries of any normal terms of service. Persistent disruption has become a drain on volunteer morale. If ArbCom determines such action is outside its remit, then a formal recommendation of similar action to WMF would be in order. Respectfully, Durova^Charge! 21:42, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by other user

Clerk notes

Arbitrator views and discussion

The Arbitration Committee is aware of this problem. Obviously, in terms of traditional arbitration or community remedies, we are maxed out here—JarlaxleArtemis a/k/a Grawp is clearly as banned as a user can be. There has been some internal discussion of possible steps that could be taken beyond that, which I am sure will continue, and we will report to the community if at any point we have anything useful to add. Newyorkbrad (talk) 00:31, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Confirming that ArbCom is aware of the problem and we have discussed whether ArbCom should be involved in taking further steps, and if not us, who if anyone should. FloNight ♥♥♥ 14:04, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There is, at this time, very little that ArbCom could be doing directly in this matter. We are, nonetheless, examining ways ArbCom or the Foundation could help alleviate the problem. — Coren ^(talk) 15:47, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Nothing more to add, but noting here that I've been following the wiki-en-l mailing list discussion and participating in the internal ArbCom discussions. Some co-ordinated approach is needed for these types of problems, and hopefully something will emerge from the discussions. Carcharoth (talk) 04:46, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Decline - Grawp's a bit outside the scope of a finding at arbitration, don't you think? Such action as exists will happen whether or not a formal RFAR existed, and a formal RFAR would add nothing to it. A reasonable request, but Grawp is the kind of user that further RFAR's are not going to add anything. Discussion will happen regardless. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 03:54, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Decline - The Arbitration Committee is aware of the issues, as is the WMF. It is outside this committee's remit to contact service providers. It's clear that the community has easily reached a conclusion that Grawp and his socks are not welcome here, rendering any RFAR moot. Risker (talk) 00:22, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

References

[Angell-1] Angell M, Kassirer JP (1998). "Alternative medicine--the risks of untested and unregulated remedies" (PDF). N. Engl. J. Med. 339 (12): 839–41. doi:10.1056/NEJM199809173391210. PMID 9738094. Retrieved 2007-12-28.

[csicop_outstanding_skeptics-2] Skeptical Inquirer Magazine Names the Ten Outstanding Skeptics of the Century.

[signers_SRAM-3] Signers of the statement "In Defence of Scientific Medicine" Signers of the statement "In Defence of Scientific Medicine", welcoming the founding of the Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine. It is a long list of notable individuals, including five Nobel laureates, all of whom are thus signalling their critical attitudes towards alternative medicine.

[Fontanarosa-4] Fontanarosa P.B., and Lundberg G.D. Alternative medicine meets science. JAMA. 1998; 280: 1618-1619.

[Dawkins-5] Richard Dawkins Dawkins, Richard (2003). A Devil's Chaplain. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. {{cite book}}: More than one of |author= and |last= specified (help)

[wary-6] Stephen Barrett. Be Wary of "Alternative" Health Methods

[quackery_defined-7] Stephen Barrett Quackery: How Should It Be Defined?

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 :#It seems pointless to delay the inevitable. --[[User:Roger Davies|<font color="maroon">'''R<small>OGER</small>&nbsp;D<small>AVIES'''</small></font>]]&nbsp;<sup>[[User talk:Roger Davies|'''talk''']]</sup> 06:45, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
 :# Per Kirill. Communication and responsiveness are required of administrators by community norms and this has been upheld in previous ArbCom decisions. [[User:Vassyana|Vassyana]] ([[User talk:Vassyana|talk]]) 19:46, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
-:# Given new evidence of sockpuppetry and continued edit warring, his behaviour is inconsistent with the standards expected of administrators, whether or not he is using administrative tools in an improper manner. Propose that the temporary emergency desysop be made permanent.  [[User:Risker|Risker]] ([[User talk:Risker|talk]]) 20:49, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
+:# Given new evidence of sockpuppetry and continued edit warring, his behaviour is inconsistent with the standards expected of administrators, whether or not he is using administrative tools in an improper manner. Propose that the temporary emergency desysop be made permanent.  [[User:Risker|Risker]] ([[User talk:Risker|talk]]) 20:49, 3 January 2009 (UTC)  As an aside, I don't see the need for the temporary desysop, as no administrative tools were being used abusively; however, it is my considered opinion that the behaviour of administrators outside of the use of tools may be sufficient for desysopping, as is the case here.  [[User:Risker|Risker]] ([[User talk:Risker|talk]]) 21:05, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
 :# Yeah, socking is a no-go; conduct now incompatible with being an admin. Cheers, [[User:Casliber|Casliber]] ([[User talk:Casliber|talk]] '''·''' [[Special:Contributions/Casliber|contribs]]) 20:57, 3 January 2009 (UTC)